Life: The Game
- Thread starter RobotoWorks
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One of the McSweeney's guys just published a book about this:
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2008/10/29monks.html
Good stuff, it's just a long series of game design ideas applied to real life. Here's an excerpt:
Notice My Mustache
This mini-game is something of a double-edged sword, or, better put, a double-edged razor. Should you choose to let that peach fuzz above your lips accumulate, you'll earn a Life Point every time somebody other than your parents notices or comments on your mustache. However, after a game-year or so has passed and you see a photograph or home video of yourself with the mustache, you'll be mortified and lose a Life Point.
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2008/10/29monks.html
Good stuff, it's just a long series of game design ideas applied to real life. Here's an excerpt:
Notice My Mustache
This mini-game is something of a double-edged sword, or, better put, a double-edged razor. Should you choose to let that peach fuzz above your lips accumulate, you'll earn a Life Point every time somebody other than your parents notices or comments on your mustache. However, after a game-year or so has passed and you see a photograph or home video of yourself with the mustache, you'll be mortified and lose a Life Point.
The nice thing about such a game, unlike real life, is that it allows you to try out new things, and it's much faster. If I want to hang out with friends they have to be avaviable. If I want to try taking drugs, killing my parents and throw my lover off a huge tower, I'd have a hell of a life ahead of me. If I had a game, I could do it there instead, to vent frustration, to wreck someone else's life, to live vicariously through someone smoother than me in social situations, or whatever.
I think it could be fun, if done well. Of course, it wouldn't be too popular, and making a fully graphic involving game would take years of constant work, and it wouldn't pay off in the end, unless you made it some sort of open-source project and found people willing to work a lot. If it's not a completely exhausting, fully graphical game you're after, Kudos and Alter Ego fills the void quite nicely. The Sims might be worth mentioning to some, but to really get a life out of it, you have to buy like 30 games, and they're really not worth it, plus they add too many silly things, like robots and magic. I'd love to have it in real life, yes, but not in a life-simulation, then I just get jealous of the silly, poorly animated cast, which is kind of sad.
I think it could be fun, if done well. Of course, it wouldn't be too popular, and making a fully graphic involving game would take years of constant work, and it wouldn't pay off in the end, unless you made it some sort of open-source project and found people willing to work a lot. If it's not a completely exhausting, fully graphical game you're after, Kudos and Alter Ego fills the void quite nicely. The Sims might be worth mentioning to some, but to really get a life out of it, you have to buy like 30 games, and they're really not worth it, plus they add too many silly things, like robots and magic. I'd love to have it in real life, yes, but not in a life-simulation, then I just get jealous of the silly, poorly animated cast, which is kind of sad.
Eh, it actually wouldn't resemble the game of Life, or the Sims, because unlike those games, it would be a free for all. You wouldn't have to roll a certain number to get a certain item, and you wouldn't be limited by a grid, or anything like that.
The game could be as boring or as exciting as YOU make it. It's hard to explain exactly what the game would be like, but as far as boundaries go, there wouldn't be any.
The game could be as boring or as exciting as YOU make it. It's hard to explain exactly what the game would be like, but as far as boundaries go, there wouldn't be any.
Aye, well excuse me for sharing what I thought would be a very fun game.
You made me realize that this game would suck worse than Paris Hilton's acting career.
Thank you for showing me the truth.
You made me realize that this game would suck worse than Paris Hilton's acting career.
Thank you for showing me the truth.
Well I would try to do that in a game like what he descibed.Shiuz91 said:
It's like the child of the sims and GTA, except the sims may have cheated on GTA with Saints Row(Randomly thrown in Soap Opera drama!).
Games are usually made so we can get away from life and for a few hours become the savior of the world with 20 guns on his back. There would also be a problem with doing anything you want, I mean... it would take decades for the developers to create every single possible action that would come to our dirty little perverted minds. You see the glory of the Sims is that it skips all the shitty parts of life. Your job simply becomes a walk to the car and then you come back with money, even divorce is turned into a one button click thing, no papers, no cutting the kids in half and sharing them. Your game idea basically implies adding the shitty part of the life along with a far more complex good life.
