Palace Simulator

[NoSoAna]

Hi everyone,

I am new to this board, and maybe I should begin with outlining what I am working on:

Short description

OK, so now you are the king. Unfortunately you need to make some nobles to officials, to get any kind of stuff done: collecting taxes, rasing armies, etc. Which would not be so bad if said nobles were reliable ... which only few of them are...

The game has a working title of "palace simulator" as the palace is where you will be all the time: reading reports, talking to nobles, giving orders, seeing how everything comes apart if the appointed officials are stealing, or dozing off on the job. Or just rebelling because they have enough of your orders.

A few technical details

The game is going to be character driven, but not story driven. Story is what will happen out of the gameplay naturally...

To get some replay value I will make the nobles random: A random portrait, a random name, random stats, you get. it. Therefore in any game the nobles will be different. And the stats will be hidden, no convinient char sheet for the player.

How could this be possibly be fun?

Well, the player will have to find out which noble can be used in which position. Maybe a minister or a governor of a quiet province can afford to be cowardly, but the general of your main army should better not retreat at earliest opportunity. Or which noble should not be in any office at all (there will be more nobles then slots to fill - unless the player starts to behead nobles by the number).

Since the stats will be different from game to game, the player needs some hints on which noble is what. This will be crucial: Too easy, and there will be no challenge in guessing the stats; and too difficult the player will just assign nobles randomly, and then be mad if everything comes apart.

Why am I posting here?

Right now I am at a very early stage of creating the game, and the current challenges are more like "how does renpy work" rather than finetuning the gameplay or so. So I wanted to outline the game ... and should I need to ask a technical question on this board where the details of the game matters, I can easily point to this post. Nevertheless, if you have already advice I will be glad to read it. Thanks for reading this far.

[Katta]

I think making the nobles random won't add replay value, if the events (like new tasks and how they'll affect your kingdom, problems and the ways to solve them) are the same. Different events - that's what'll add replay value. And not random nobles will be more likeable, also you'll know more about their stats when you play again. Also what do you mean by character driven and not story driven game?
Have you played Long Live the Queen? Probably that's not exactly what you are aiming to do, but I liked the game very much and would like to play more games like that)

[NoSoAna]

I think making the nobles random won't add replay value, if the events (like new tasks and how they'll affect your kingdom, problems and the ways to solve them) are the same.

The game revolves about choosing the correct noble for a given task. For this the king (=player) will need to play detective, find out who is lying, cheating,... If the player knows which noble is what, the game is basically dead.

Different events - that's what'll add replay value.

Different events is a good idea, and will enhance the game. But in this setting it is not enough for forming the core.

And not random nobles will be more likeable, also you'll know more about their stats when you play again.

The "likeable" part is a definite issue. I will have to think about how to engage the player despite this. But "not knowing the stats" is the core of the game. What is the point of playing detective, if you can read a wiki instead?

[Katta]

Most people wouldn't look up the walkthrough, unless they are stuck.
But if you want to concentrate on guessing the stats then you should probably start with some small tasks to see how the nobles fare, it'll also be nice if you can change their stats through rewards and punishments (like critisizing the noble for managing his task badly, some nobles may want to become better and increase their stats because of that and some will be offended and plot against you) or courses or events (like finding him a good wife to increase loyalty or a bad one to increase combat skills:)), but you won't know the outcome of such measures on different nobles (or it'll turn into a raising sim)
And it would be more interesting if there are different possible solutions to the task depending on the noble's stats (not only fail and success, but like kill everyone or talk the problem through).