technobubble.info » Silly idea for an iPhone game

January 30, 2009 on 5:31 pm | In Madness | 4 Comments

So, here is my silly idea for an iphone game. I may get around to making it, but equally don’t mind if others do (just let me have a copy, and some money for coming up with the idea, of course).

I like Turn-Based Strategy (TBS) games like Valkyria Chronicles on the PS3, Advance Wars on the DS, etc. I seem to prefer these to Real Time Strategy (RTS) games because you have more time to think about what you are doing, it’s more like my old tabletop Warhammer 40K gaming with little painted lead models – and because I’m an old git who can’t think / use a mouse fast enough for RTS games.

So I’d love to have a TBS game on my iPod Touch as then I can happily sit on the sofa and play it all evening. So I got to thinking about that – I’m not a games designer, I do write them and their tools / infrastructure but I really don’t design them. That’s a very particular skill that I’ve never really explored / developed.

So anyway – here is my non-game-designer game design. Brace yourself.

Turn Based Strategy
three basic unit types: Rock, Paper, Scissors
You can guess which will win in a fight (Rock beats Scissors, Paper beats Rock, Scissors beats Paper, if you really can’t remember that game).
Rock moves slowly (beacuse it’s heavy) but can move through water (because it’s robust)
Paper can fold up into a plane and fly (moving quickly), can’t move through water because it goes mushy
Scissors can move quickly over land because it has ‘long legs’ but can’t move through water because it rusts
Paper has a special ‘area attack’ where it unfolds and flattens a large area
Scissors has a high speed attack that can hit the same target multiple times
Rock has a smash attack that can break through obstacles
You fight for control of sources of WIN
You can make units from WIN (they are literally made of win)
When you have enough WIN you literally WIN
turn-based should mean its easy to play against someone on a network, or even by email
Graphics would start out fairly simple too — but I could improve them in time

Any feedback so far?

4 Comments »

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I like the idea. I like the idea a lot. Only problem I can see is that I won’t be able to play it as I haven’t got an iPhone/Podtouch :p

Comment by cha0tic — 31 January 2009 #
Maybe I should try making it as a web page using javascript. Then it would work on anything. Hmmm…

Comment by bubb — 31 January 2009 #
Yeah Java is good. Usable on Symbian & Windows mobile. I assume iPhone does that as well.

For TBS games look at the classics. There was a game on the Amiga that stole hours of our life. I’ll have word with my Bro’ to try & find out what it was called. I think it might’ve been called ‘Squad Leader’ or something like that.

Probably the greatest TBS game was the X-Com series. I know I played that single player & Multiplayer. As far as I remember multiplayer involved either a serial cable, or sitting at the same machine and taking it in turns, looking away when your opponent took their turn. There was also a PBM (Play by mail) version. That was one of the best Presents my brother ever got me.

There was another TBS game we played. It involved a hex map of a Galaxy, with Systems in various hexes. There was a resource (I can’t remember what it was) that you used to build ships. The big thing about the game was the time it took to get the various types of ship from one location to the other. You could have the most awesome fleet in the Galaxy, but if you fucked the timing of their arrival (because of transit times) You could get your arse kicked as you’re fleet arrived in dribs & drabs against your opponents massive Armada.

I might’ve rang some bells for you. I’ll be asking my Bro’ & old gaming pals just what those ace games we used to play were called.

Comment by cha0tic — 1 February 2009 #
iPhone does JavaScript but not (I think) Java… that might change in the future. I’m pretty sure you can do most things using Javascript these days if you want to. Might look into that.

X-Com is good, thought ironically as it was on the PC I didn’t play it so much. I’ve spent much more time on the Advance Wars on GBA and later DS. In fact there’s a new Advance Wars out that I might have to pick up second hand…

Comment by bubb — 1 February 2009 #