Would you play an ERE computer game? (GREENLIT)
Would you play an ERE computer game? (GREENLIT)
FINAL EDIT: It turns out the answer to every question I asked in the title was "Yes." Thank you so much for all the support, but if you want to help one last time, here's the Steam page:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/349500/
OLDER LINKS:
Kickstarter Campaign
Game's page
Game's forum
ORIGINAL POST:
Would anyone be interested in playing a game based on ERE principles? Based on the composition of this forum, I doubt it will be many people’s cup of tea, but I enjoy this kind of creative project for its own sake from time to time. If anyone is interested, I’d welcome feedback.
The game is called Cubicle Quest and I previously mentioned it in this thread. Since then I've gotten the majority of the work done. Now that I have free time at work again, I intend to finish it over the coming few months.
Meet Bob. He graduated a few years ago and is stuck in a dead end job with mounting credit card debt. Broken down and on the verge of depression, he reimagines his life in a fantasy framework to try to regain control.
The Kingdom of Bob is under siege! The Debt Alliance, a vicious horde of college debt monsters and credit card undead, has conquered Free Time Mountain and driven to the gates of Castle Sanity. Bob needs to do everything in his power to fight them back and destroy their master, somewhere within the Fortress of Discontent...
You get the idea, I think. This is a light-hearted game about finances that has a lot to do with this forum. I'm hoping to make a legitimately fun game, not repackaged financial advice. Making the equivalent of good life decisions will help you win, but it's not going to browbeat you with advice - you're going to be fighting monsters that represent Bob's mental and financial weaknesses.
Many people here have written about how slow the road to financial independence is, because so much life happens in between paychecks. With this game, I tried to capture the fun side of the process, going from a financial wreck to stable or FI in hours instead of years. The core game mechanics beneath the surface reflect plausible finances, so you can view it as a financial simulator if you want, or you can ignore those and just focus on the fantasy quests.
Here are a bunch of examples of how the game works:
- The Kingdom of Bob's army has soldiers equal to Bob's salary (dollars = workers, after all).
- Most of your soldiers are busy fighting the Expense Monsters that plague your kingdom. Bob can defeat them himself, permanently freeing up soldiers, but only if he has the frugality muscle to beat the bosses involved.
- You can increase your salary by clearing new floors at the Dungeon of Work.
- You can set up mining operations at the Financial Mine. Based on how many soldiers you commit, you get monthly interest based on real savings account or investment numbers.
- A cast of characters is available to enter into a Roommate Alliance - or later on, a Marriage Alliance, if you want.
- Your friends and family fight in battle with you, but they bring different strengths to the table. One character might be strong against emotional enemies like depression, but less useful when you're challenging work or financial enemies.
- After you acquire a ship to sail the Sea of Ambition, you can do things like start a business.
- Instead of swords and shields, you equip ideas. You attack with your current goals and are shielded by your support communities. You can also equip books, virtues, and other items to provide other benefits.
I'm wrapping up work on the game now. The basic mechanics are solid and I've finished almost all the dialogue and graphics. I still need to fine tune the enemies to create the right level of difficulty, and there's a page filled with minor things to be finished up. Once I've created a playable experience, I'll need some beta testers to help root out bugs and the like.
I'm having fun with this and I'd welcome any feedback. If people are interested, I'll keep you updated on my progress. If not, I’ll only mention the game again once it’s done.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/349500/
OLDER LINKS:
Kickstarter Campaign
Game's page
Game's forum
ORIGINAL POST:
Would anyone be interested in playing a game based on ERE principles? Based on the composition of this forum, I doubt it will be many people’s cup of tea, but I enjoy this kind of creative project for its own sake from time to time. If anyone is interested, I’d welcome feedback.
The game is called Cubicle Quest and I previously mentioned it in this thread. Since then I've gotten the majority of the work done. Now that I have free time at work again, I intend to finish it over the coming few months.
Meet Bob. He graduated a few years ago and is stuck in a dead end job with mounting credit card debt. Broken down and on the verge of depression, he reimagines his life in a fantasy framework to try to regain control.
The Kingdom of Bob is under siege! The Debt Alliance, a vicious horde of college debt monsters and credit card undead, has conquered Free Time Mountain and driven to the gates of Castle Sanity. Bob needs to do everything in his power to fight them back and destroy their master, somewhere within the Fortress of Discontent...
You get the idea, I think. This is a light-hearted game about finances that has a lot to do with this forum. I'm hoping to make a legitimately fun game, not repackaged financial advice. Making the equivalent of good life decisions will help you win, but it's not going to browbeat you with advice - you're going to be fighting monsters that represent Bob's mental and financial weaknesses.
Many people here have written about how slow the road to financial independence is, because so much life happens in between paychecks. With this game, I tried to capture the fun side of the process, going from a financial wreck to stable or FI in hours instead of years. The core game mechanics beneath the surface reflect plausible finances, so you can view it as a financial simulator if you want, or you can ignore those and just focus on the fantasy quests.
Here are a bunch of examples of how the game works:
- The Kingdom of Bob's army has soldiers equal to Bob's salary (dollars = workers, after all).
- Most of your soldiers are busy fighting the Expense Monsters that plague your kingdom. Bob can defeat them himself, permanently freeing up soldiers, but only if he has the frugality muscle to beat the bosses involved.
- You can increase your salary by clearing new floors at the Dungeon of Work.
- You can set up mining operations at the Financial Mine. Based on how many soldiers you commit, you get monthly interest based on real savings account or investment numbers.
- A cast of characters is available to enter into a Roommate Alliance - or later on, a Marriage Alliance, if you want.
- Your friends and family fight in battle with you, but they bring different strengths to the table. One character might be strong against emotional enemies like depression, but less useful when you're challenging work or financial enemies.
- After you acquire a ship to sail the Sea of Ambition, you can do things like start a business.
- Instead of swords and shields, you equip ideas. You attack with your current goals and are shielded by your support communities. You can also equip books, virtues, and other items to provide other benefits.
I'm wrapping up work on the game now. The basic mechanics are solid and I've finished almost all the dialogue and graphics. I still need to fine tune the enemies to create the right level of difficulty, and there's a page filled with minor things to be finished up. Once I've created a playable experience, I'll need some beta testers to help root out bugs and the like.
I'm having fun with this and I'd welcome any feedback. If people are interested, I'll keep you updated on my progress. If not, I’ll only mention the game again once it’s done.
Last edited by Ian on Wed Feb 25, 2015 5:51 pm, edited 6 times in total.
Re: Would you play an ERE computer game?
I don't play video games normally, but this might change that!
Re: Would you play an ERE computer game?
Wow, that looks great!
Re: Would you play an ERE computer game?
Thanks, guys! I'll give some occasional updates and meanwhile I'm open to feedback or questions.
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Re: Would you play an ERE computer game?
Hah! That's pretty funny. I liked "Dungeon of Work" in particular. Looks like you're using RPG Maker, or is that a custom engine? What kind of beta testing are you looking for? I'd be happy to play through it and offer some honest feedback, but not sure I'd have the time/patience to run specific test scenarios or anything like that. Either way, sounds cool. Definitely keep us posted!
Re: Would you play an ERE computer game?
Adventure game studio?... Either way, I'd definitely play.
Re: Would you play an ERE computer game?
Count me in as well!
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Re: Would you play an ERE computer game?
Well I have time now (as I retired yesterday) and I am open to trying things that I would not have time for before. This looks like a great idea and I would be happy to test it. May also be able to offer a non-ERE 17 year old. Could change his thinking? Looks fun for us and some talented work on your part.
Re: Would you play an ERE computer game?
That's a great idea. I loved playing Cashflow and I think games are a great way to build financial skills. Perhaps you could sell this as an App at the iTunes store.
Re: Would you play an ERE computer game?
I'd like to play that
Re: Would you play an ERE computer game?
Yes! Let us know when and where to buy it.
- jennypenny
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Re: Would you play an ERE computer game?
This is cool. I'd play. My kids would be willing to try it out, too.
Last edited by jennypenny on Wed Apr 02, 2014 3:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Would you play an ERE computer game?
Thanks for the continued interest. I'll review all my files and get some kind of progress indicator up by the weekend.
For beta testing, all I need is a playthrough and feedback. I hope to get the game functioning almost perfectly on my own, I just need people to give tweaking advice since they have different playstyles and I'm coming to the game with intimate knowledge of the mechanics.
VX Ace, yeah. There are enough custom scripts that it isn't vanilla RPG Maker (I had to learn a little Ruby to make some of the more advanced features work properly) but you know what to expect.Spartan_Warrior wrote:Hah! That's pretty funny. I liked "Dungeon of Work" in particular. Looks like you're using RPG Maker, or is that a custom engine? What kind of beta testing are you looking for? I'd be happy to play through it and offer some honest feedback, but not sure I'd have the time/patience to run specific test scenarios or anything like that. Either way, sounds cool. Definitely keep us posted!
For beta testing, all I need is a playthrough and feedback. I hope to get the game functioning almost perfectly on my own, I just need people to give tweaking advice since they have different playstyles and I'm coming to the game with intimate knowledge of the mechanics.
Haven't gotten a chance to play with that one yet, actually. Thanks.JohnnyH wrote:Adventure game studio?... Either way, I'd definitely play.
Congratulations on your new freedom. I don't know how much impact a game can have on thinking, but it's possible that desire to optimize the game could lead to thinking through some things more carefully. I designed with the idea that good financial decisions in real life should be rewarding in the game.saving-10-years wrote:Well I have time now (as I retired yesterday) and I am open to trying things that I would not have time for before. This looks like a great idea and I would be happy to test it. May also be able to offer a non-ERE 17 year old. Could change his thinking? Looks fun for us and some talented work on your part.
Apple is probably a little out of my league right now, but I'd be happy if anyone likes it enough to buy it.pooablo wrote:That's a great idea. I loved playing Cashflow and I think games are a great way to build financial skills. Perhaps you could sell this as an App at the iTunes store.
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Re: Would you play an ERE computer game?
Just commenting to say that I too noticed the use of RPG Maker.
Re: Would you play an ERE computer game?
Looks great! I love the premise
he reimagines his life in a fantasy framework to try to regain control.
Re: Would you play an ERE computer game?
Alright, I’ve organized enough to give you guys a meaningful progress indicator. Most of these are approximations, but they give a decent sense of how much work is done vs yet to be completed. I’ll update it periodically as I finish large segments.
Current Progress
Scripts: 95%
Equipment: 98%
Characters: 99%
Maps: 75%
Enemies: 27%
Music: 5%
Fully Tested: 5%
You can see that most of the game is done, but the work is out of order. There are late areas entirely complete, middle areas not started, and lots of small gaps throughout. Some parts of the game can’t be tested piece by piece – the global variables that change throughout, stat progression, etc.
Now that the core financial mechanics are in place, I can start going through the game in a linear fashion, testing everything as players would encounter it. That means I need to fill in all the small gaps, and is a pretty good indicator of overall progress. The biggest part of the work will be setting up the enemies: they have graphics and unique attacks, but I’ll need to give them stats as I play so that they won’t be too hard or easy. How much of the game I’ve played this way is the “Fully Tested” counter, so that’s the bottom line if you’re not interested in the rest.
Of course this doesn’t account for the ever-changing list of things to do. It ranges from chunks of the game not begun (like getting a mortgage) to characters that need more dialogue or areas I think are boring. Right now I’m not going to bother representing this list, but if I finish the play-through, that will be the final countdown to game completion.
Current Progress
Scripts: 95%
Equipment: 98%
Characters: 99%
Maps: 75%
Enemies: 27%
Music: 5%
Fully Tested: 5%
You can see that most of the game is done, but the work is out of order. There are late areas entirely complete, middle areas not started, and lots of small gaps throughout. Some parts of the game can’t be tested piece by piece – the global variables that change throughout, stat progression, etc.
Now that the core financial mechanics are in place, I can start going through the game in a linear fashion, testing everything as players would encounter it. That means I need to fill in all the small gaps, and is a pretty good indicator of overall progress. The biggest part of the work will be setting up the enemies: they have graphics and unique attacks, but I’ll need to give them stats as I play so that they won’t be too hard or easy. How much of the game I’ve played this way is the “Fully Tested” counter, so that’s the bottom line if you’re not interested in the rest.
Of course this doesn’t account for the ever-changing list of things to do. It ranges from chunks of the game not begun (like getting a mortgage) to characters that need more dialogue or areas I think are boring. Right now I’m not going to bother representing this list, but if I finish the play-through, that will be the final countdown to game completion.
My drinking mechanic isn't very elaborate, but I do have one.Toska wrote:Yes I would play.
<daydream scenario sequence>
*get stressed at work*
*start drinking at work*
*morale improves*
*???*
Do you have a feeling about that, or just wanted to comment? I'm not skilled enough yet to make a game that obscures the engine.BeyondtheWrap wrote:Just commenting to say that I too noticed the use of RPG Maker.
Thanks! Hoping it can make things fun even for people who don't find finances intrinsically fun.JamesR wrote:Looks great! I love the premise
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Re: Would you play an ERE computer game?
Just wanted to comment. I used to make games with RPG Maker 2000 & 2003, so it brings back memories for me and makes me want to play your game more.Ian wrote:BeyondtheWrap wrote:
Just commenting to say that I too noticed the use of RPG Maker.
Do you have a feeling about that, or just wanted to comment? I'm not skilled enough yet to make a game that obscures the engine.
Re: Would you play an ERE computer game?
oo, yes please!
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Re: Would you play an ERE computer game?
x2, except for me it was RPG Maker 95. I remember trying 2000 and not liking it as much.BeyondtheWrap wrote:I used to make games with RPG Maker 2000 & 2003, so it brings back memories for me and makes me want to play your game more.
Re: Would you play an ERE computer game?
I've gotten to play around with several previous versions, mostly owned by friends. They took things in a slightly different direction with 2000, but 2003 on, they've adopted a house style that matches 95 or 2003 more. XP and VX are right along the same vein as 2003, except overall slicker to use. What made the difference for me was the new flexibility: there's a pretty good scripting system and the option to use Ruby to do whatever you can program.