Reading about this game* made me want to spit out some bits I've had in my mind for some time, and I'm not sure if this is the right forum to write this but if not, I don't know where. I've been fantasizing (you can also call it having filled a complete medium notebook with detailed design documentation on game mechanics and some background) about one such game, some of which I'd like to share now to hear what you think.
It's based on our planet and you get to be the first and the original international counter-alien organization in the world following an international crisis involving aliens in the beginning, with limited funds and practically non-existant political power. You can't (legally) monitor the whole world for alien activity nor all the world is (legally) accessable for acting on alien activity (even if legally monitored) from the beginning. Doing so may lead to getting busted which lowers your favour with regions and speed up certain processes (competition) or future blackmail. You research, buy, sell, hire, fire, build etc. do the same old activities, but depending on how you manage situations and on your general progress (expenses at the base or of carrying out missions which are found unnecessary or too much; who you sell stuff to or who you buy stuff from; organisational or civillian casualties in missions; mission completion time/turns; "how much of the truth" was exposed -or was it still possible to cover the truth and call it islamic terror, or Al-Qaide- etc.), your funds may get limited, you may have to endure regional military interference (meaning no access to alien intelligence) and moreover other similar organisations may surface to compete in the long term, which may screw your economy, your ability to intercept or interfere with alien activitiy on certain regions, and ultimately your game.
With enough resources or political connections, you can attempt to conduct secret illegal monitoring and operations or make political trades (remove embargo from a certain country for instance, or allow development of specific technologies), provide financial support, sell high-tech (T or ET) weapons, share high-tec intelligence or even sell alien-intelligence for regions you can't legally monitor or legally act on from the beginning or later in the game or simply for more political connections/power. Better and more you progress, more autonomous you become, less you answer and more dependant on you the others become. Such exchanges do however shift your political standings with other regions/powers as well as your (organisation's) own integrity (corruption rate), which again might cause competition when you are thought of as undependable, lead to attempts at shutting you down or make it easier to leak into the ranks of your organisation for a "deep command" out of your reach and order within your organisation due to its corruptness.
As for how/when the story originates; the said crisis takes place on our planet in near future, as an (alien) aircraft crashes down on a safe-zone in a middle-east region occupied by western coalition forces, making big news due to casualties and the nature of the crash site (with extraterrestrial nature not identified at that point). US attempts to pull a "US figter shot down by insurgents" and take control of the crash site but since many western nations have military presence on the same area where they "claim" to have seen that it wasn't a known US fighter even if a US fighter at all, it leads to an authority crisis and ends up with a joint commission to investigate the site.
Commission's findings, US' general attitude (with UK's support for it) as well as a well-timed leak from some US authorities indicating limited intelligence on extraterrestrial nature of the crash, leads to foundation of this international organisation with you (as a fucking nobody
) commanding it, and 1st world nations constantly forcing US into obligatory contribution by sharing "new found and critical" intelligence (if you would believe that of course) following the failed cover up attempt and the decades old myth surrounding area 51. All hidden from the public, of course.
Equipment and technology available from the beginning would be more or less what we have today and what is expected to be standard in next 20 years and advance from there on.
Story could build up towards, not a complete military alien invasion, but more of a conspiracy thing, a civillian invasion (would that be the right term?). I'm definitely thinking about themes from Invasion of The Body Snatchers at this area, but that wouldn't be all that interesting either. I mentioned a "how much truth exposed" factor. I thought of that as a modifier for procedural missions to occur as well as a modifier for other factors I mentioned there, so as more truth reaches the public (after certain key moments in story), more straight-out, violent and rapid the alien attacks may occur, or something like that.
I also think more of competing organisations that may appear than to provide just a challenge of management. Competing organisations could just as well be alien or collaborator controlled if not downright corrupted. I also mentioned your organisation being compromised. I planned this part to be a little trickier. I came up with several types of base units (e.g. hangar, hospital, lab, etc.), and the upmost types of these become available only when you become autonomous and/or extensively resourceful to certain degrees. Necessarily these units are what makes you able to touch on certain subjects prohibited to you (and supposedly supervised) by the founders of your organisation. Building and operating these units bring certain risks like having a higher likeliness to reach a fast corruption rate and thus losing your autonomy to competitors or aliens beside other things some of what I mentioned above for other activities.
Combat would be real-time with stats present but NOT applying to the particular unit you are not in control of for a more visceral and adrenaline packed combat, and first person perspective for immersion and a emotional cinematic experience where you could switch between characters on the fly, give orders or talk about rumours and spacecrabs
Turn-based, but not exactly as traditionally and more like in a plan-and-fire method, with interrupts and reactions , eg. you determine what to do with each character, where to walk, where or when to shoot etc. and when you are done with each, you click to end your turn and see how it plays out, with calculated pauses to carry out interrupt/reaction opportunities when possible.
Say, you send your soldier to open this door and advance for 3 more squares, as well as do whatever you do with the rest of your team and end your turn: your soldier opens the door and faces an enemy. Check rolls are made to determine who reacts first based on the situation (if the enemy was waiting for someone to come in through the door down the sights, odds are most probably in his favour), whether your soldier panicked or maintained his control, whether he could think of several ways of reacting (ie. whether the game would pause mid-turn for a selection of action options for you to choose) and several similar checks for your other soldiers as well (were they close enough to notice and act upon that situation, could they act at all so that you could alter their preplanned actions in a mid-turn pause, would they be as fast etc.). If I wasn't clear enough, no, it's not anything like RTwP. Plays out similarly but is entirely stat driven, however I must admit that I also have the traditional system in my mind.
I'm not sure what the final point/ending of story could be for the game to end, but I certainly don't want a lame Independance Day scenario. Again, something like the ending of Invasion of The Body Snatchers might be fine, with several other variables to depend on how you played.
There is a lot more in specific but no point in delving more into it. So much so that if I (or someone close who I could manipulate) had excellent programming knowledge and a good base with 3D API to pass on the hardwork, I could start implementing the base rules right out. I think I'll do just that someday afterall. What do you think? Be harsh and don't flinch to criticise (or rape).
*: This and following two posts originally posted in TCancer UFO:ET thread.
It's based on our planet and you get to be the first and the original international counter-alien organization in the world following an international crisis involving aliens in the beginning, with limited funds and practically non-existant political power. You can't (legally) monitor the whole world for alien activity nor all the world is (legally) accessable for acting on alien activity (even if legally monitored) from the beginning. Doing so may lead to getting busted which lowers your favour with regions and speed up certain processes (competition) or future blackmail. You research, buy, sell, hire, fire, build etc. do the same old activities, but depending on how you manage situations and on your general progress (expenses at the base or of carrying out missions which are found unnecessary or too much; who you sell stuff to or who you buy stuff from; organisational or civillian casualties in missions; mission completion time/turns; "how much of the truth" was exposed -or was it still possible to cover the truth and call it islamic terror, or Al-Qaide- etc.), your funds may get limited, you may have to endure regional military interference (meaning no access to alien intelligence) and moreover other similar organisations may surface to compete in the long term, which may screw your economy, your ability to intercept or interfere with alien activitiy on certain regions, and ultimately your game.
With enough resources or political connections, you can attempt to conduct secret illegal monitoring and operations or make political trades (remove embargo from a certain country for instance, or allow development of specific technologies), provide financial support, sell high-tech (T or ET) weapons, share high-tec intelligence or even sell alien-intelligence for regions you can't legally monitor or legally act on from the beginning or later in the game or simply for more political connections/power. Better and more you progress, more autonomous you become, less you answer and more dependant on you the others become. Such exchanges do however shift your political standings with other regions/powers as well as your (organisation's) own integrity (corruption rate), which again might cause competition when you are thought of as undependable, lead to attempts at shutting you down or make it easier to leak into the ranks of your organisation for a "deep command" out of your reach and order within your organisation due to its corruptness.
As for how/when the story originates; the said crisis takes place on our planet in near future, as an (alien) aircraft crashes down on a safe-zone in a middle-east region occupied by western coalition forces, making big news due to casualties and the nature of the crash site (with extraterrestrial nature not identified at that point). US attempts to pull a "US figter shot down by insurgents" and take control of the crash site but since many western nations have military presence on the same area where they "claim" to have seen that it wasn't a known US fighter even if a US fighter at all, it leads to an authority crisis and ends up with a joint commission to investigate the site.
Commission's findings, US' general attitude (with UK's support for it) as well as a well-timed leak from some US authorities indicating limited intelligence on extraterrestrial nature of the crash, leads to foundation of this international organisation with you (as a fucking nobody
) commanding it, and 1st world nations constantly forcing US into obligatory contribution by sharing "new found and critical" intelligence (if you would believe that of course) following the failed cover up attempt and the decades old myth surrounding area 51. All hidden from the public, of course.Equipment and technology available from the beginning would be more or less what we have today and what is expected to be standard in next 20 years and advance from there on.
Story could build up towards, not a complete military alien invasion, but more of a conspiracy thing, a civillian invasion (would that be the right term?). I'm definitely thinking about themes from Invasion of The Body Snatchers at this area, but that wouldn't be all that interesting either. I mentioned a "how much truth exposed" factor. I thought of that as a modifier for procedural missions to occur as well as a modifier for other factors I mentioned there, so as more truth reaches the public (after certain key moments in story), more straight-out, violent and rapid the alien attacks may occur, or something like that.
I also think more of competing organisations that may appear than to provide just a challenge of management. Competing organisations could just as well be alien or collaborator controlled if not downright corrupted. I also mentioned your organisation being compromised. I planned this part to be a little trickier. I came up with several types of base units (e.g. hangar, hospital, lab, etc.), and the upmost types of these become available only when you become autonomous and/or extensively resourceful to certain degrees. Necessarily these units are what makes you able to touch on certain subjects prohibited to you (and supposedly supervised) by the founders of your organisation. Building and operating these units bring certain risks like having a higher likeliness to reach a fast corruption rate and thus losing your autonomy to competitors or aliens beside other things some of what I mentioned above for other activities.
Combat would be real-time with stats present but NOT applying to the particular unit you are not in control of for a more visceral and adrenaline packed combat, and first person perspective for immersion and a emotional cinematic experience where you could switch between characters on the fly, give orders or talk about rumours and spacecrabs
Turn-based, but not exactly as traditionally and more like in a plan-and-fire method, with interrupts and reactions , eg. you determine what to do with each character, where to walk, where or when to shoot etc. and when you are done with each, you click to end your turn and see how it plays out, with calculated pauses to carry out interrupt/reaction opportunities when possible.
Say, you send your soldier to open this door and advance for 3 more squares, as well as do whatever you do with the rest of your team and end your turn: your soldier opens the door and faces an enemy. Check rolls are made to determine who reacts first based on the situation (if the enemy was waiting for someone to come in through the door down the sights, odds are most probably in his favour), whether your soldier panicked or maintained his control, whether he could think of several ways of reacting (ie. whether the game would pause mid-turn for a selection of action options for you to choose) and several similar checks for your other soldiers as well (were they close enough to notice and act upon that situation, could they act at all so that you could alter their preplanned actions in a mid-turn pause, would they be as fast etc.). If I wasn't clear enough, no, it's not anything like RTwP. Plays out similarly but is entirely stat driven, however I must admit that I also have the traditional system in my mind.
I'm not sure what the final point/ending of story could be for the game to end, but I certainly don't want a lame Independance Day scenario. Again, something like the ending of Invasion of The Body Snatchers might be fine, with several other variables to depend on how you played.
There is a lot more in specific but no point in delving more into it. So much so that if I (or someone close who I could manipulate) had excellent programming knowledge and a good base with 3D API to pass on the hardwork, I could start implementing the base rules right out. I think I'll do just that someday afterall. What do you think? Be harsh and don't flinch to criticise (or rape).
*: This and following two posts originally posted in TCancer UFO:ET thread.
