Due to the size of the document it was becoming too unwieldy for actual posting. Follow the link below for the full post. Hack.TW[Edited by - -JetSirus- on September 29, 2006 1:43:08 AM]

I read briefly over the both sketches and have one question. What makes this game fun to play, watch, and listen to? If Im not mistaken (and I could be) the user is basically doing things (clicking, typing, etc) within a windows type scheme. Is the fun part solving the puzzles? What makes the puzzles fun if there is no abstraction?

Forgive me if this sounds harsh, but it sounds like making a game about accounting. 'Accounting: Number Crunch' in where you keep your boss' financial data in order, but you can embezzle it or do a number of other things related to accounting. Why is that fun?

Maybe I just dont get it.

Quote:

Original post by NoPancakeMix I read briefly over the both sketches and have one question. What makes this game fun to play, watch, and listen to? If Im not mistaken (and I could be) the user is basically doing things (clicking, typing, etc) within a windows type scheme. Is the fun part solving the puzzles? What makes the puzzles fun if there is no abstraction? Forgive me if this sounds harsh, but it sounds like making a game about accounting. 'Accounting: Number Crunch' in where you keep your boss' financial data in order, but you can embezzle it or do a number of other things related to accounting. Why is that fun? Maybe I just dont get it.

Not a harsh question at all. There are a couple of possiblities here.

1. You might just not like this type of game.
   
2. You may have skipped over certain important details in the full document.
   
3. Or, it may be the fact that I have not fully fleshed out the document.

The game will be a twitchy puzzle solving game. Most things will need to be done very expediantly or you risk getting caught and loosing. To really understand the draw of this game, you need to play Uplink. Also, I do fully agree that this game will be niche at first. Where I think it will differ is in the fact that we are trying to make it more 'mainstream', while actually adding more content for the niche players (IE in-game scripting language).

If you wish you can check back near the end of the week and this document should go from a sketch to an actual design doc.

Update: The design doc has been moved to my web space and had several changes and additions to it.