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Utopia Unlimited - With Screenshots - Game Maker Community
-UTOPIA UNLIMITED-
In Brief:
Utopia Unlimited, I'm hoping, will become a fully dynamic simulator of city building and management.
Unlike Sim City however, you will be able to have much more power over the way you run your city and your citizens.
You can specify a type of government and then manage your city around your ideals.
The graphics are in full 3D, as you can see from the above screen shot.
D3D lighting, shading, shadows and culling will be used to their full potential.
General Features:
I've been planning this project for some time now, and I started production a couple of months ago.
So far, I have implemented a very accessible build system.
This includes automatic road and building alignment during city construction.
Traffic and Pedestrians populate the streets and everything will change appearance depending on how you play the game.
There will be an ability to freeze and speed up the simulation if you need to build things quickly or let things fly past.
What do you do?
A typical new game starts you off on a flat, sparsely featured chunk of land with a coastal area to begin developing nearby.
The first thing the player has to do is select an ideology.
These range from moderate-left to moderate-right, from Socialism to Neo-Liberalism.
You wont need to be an expert on politics to play the game as everything will be explained to you as you play along with optional help too.
After building vital infrastructure, such as Power Stations and Water Pumps, you then have to begin planning your city according to the needs of the people and so that you can generate a large enough profit to keep expanding and funding city services.
Depending on your ideology, you will find that funding certain areas and taxing others will benefit your society.
A Socialist method will benefit from keeping everyone employed, paying fair taxes and boosting healthcare and education.
A Conservative method would concentrate on lower taxes to create an elite class and boosting individual freedoms.
While the simulation never ends, a successful player should end up with a sprawling utopian metropolis with a happy population, large profit and policies that fit their chosen ideology.
Politics:
The five starting ideologies from left to right are Socialism, Progressivism, Capitalism, Conservatism and Neo Liberalism.
Throughout the game, the citizens of your city are going to approach you with different issues.
For example, the minimum wage of workers may be disputed.
A right wing government would benefit from a lower minimum wage as it would mean more revenue generated from businesses.
However, an already right leaning society may select policies that move it into an extreme bracket.
You may deliberately or accidentally become Nationalist or Totalitarian.
A left leaning government may slide into Communism or even Anarchy.
On the other hand, choosing policies that end up keeping the majority happy and benefit your city will develop your government into an even more prosperous one.
Socialists may become successful Social Democrats, helping develop a fair society with free speech.
A Conservative government may reach it's ultimate target and become a Libertarian Republic, or a Corporate Utopia.
Governments staying close to the middle may want to focus on Democracy and keeping as many people happy as possible, forming Centrism.
The Plan:
I've built the majority of the construction engine, and am modelling and texturing the rest of the buildings.
I've already got a large stockpile of city structures from the Total Anarchy project.
The music is mostly done and the sounds are ready to be installed.
The city simulation engine is in separate development to avoid confusion, but shall be integrated as soon as possible.
I've already programmed in the infrastructure needs and the management of Residential, Commercial and Industrial balance.
Once everything is integrated, I'll begin adding the government modifiers, interrupt events and even disasters.
Fun times:
It wont all be complex political jargon and tax management.
I'm adding in a disaster generator, so you can watch your cities burn to the ground, get flooded, ripped apart by asteroids and tornadoes, and blasted into oblivion by aliens.
I'd appreciate any feedback, ideas, criticism and wish lists you have to offer.
This game is designed to be a combination of Sim City and Jennifer Nation States, does this sound like an attractive idea?
What kind of bonus features would you like to see in this game, like rewards?
Any ideas for interesting problems?
Would you play this game, and would you keep playing this game even though it might be hard work?
If there were difficulty setting what would they entail?
Any general thoughts?
Pre-Release Screenshots:
These are early production screen shots showing daytime and night time modes.
This post has been edited by Speedmaster : Jul 22 2009, 04:41 PM
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Wow this game looks alot like sim city 4 which is good because i like that game
Graphics look good - almost identical to sim city I would say.
The region map in sim city is a nice feature too so it would be good if you include that too taking it a step further maybe?
Add things like tourism - in the world it is taking a major role in the economies of cities worldwide so it would be good to see it included which will help add realism to the game.
For example, a city could build landmarks, national parks, theme parks, beaches etc which would attract visiters from other cities.
They would spend money in the shops and restaurants helping the retail areas expand in your city and stay in hotels around your city.
However they would also bring several problems such as litter, pollution and more traffic.
There needs to be more kinds of buildings than in sim city and the ability to construct canals would be good so you could have a city like Venice!
Riers could flow through the cities that could be dammed to provide hydroelectric power.
Coastal cities would have to construct defences against flooding.
This is alot to add but would help add more realism to the game.
Good luck!
I'm definately downloading this game!
This post has been edited by Player_2 : Jul 13 2009, 01:24 PM
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WOW!
That game looks really professional!
Still a big problem is that rendering that in Game Maker is very very slow.
Anyway, the only thing i would have to say is that the night time should be much darker.
Just wait to see it published!
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Quote: WOW!
That game looks really professional!
Still a big problem is that rendering that in Game Maker is very very slow.
Anyway, the only thing i would have to say is that the night time should be much darker.
Just wait to see it published!
I'm taking care to optimise the game as much as Game Maker will allow.
I'm currently able to fill the entire map with buildings without lag, but it is a rather high spec PC.
However, there is much more I can do later, such as options to remove shadows and smoothing.
There may also be options to decrease the density of the traffic and peds, and to reduce draw distance and the range of the fog.
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Those lights and buildings remind me a lot of this train simulator i have its looking pretty good, althought some sides of a 3d object are higher resolution than others
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Quote: those lights and buildings remind me a lot of this train simulator i have its looking pretty good, althought some sides of a 3d object are higher resolution than others
Yeah, don't worry I'm going to polish all the textures later on in the project.
Some models are currently being used as place holders to represent the final instance.
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Looks cool. Keep up the good work.
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So far, much of this topic seems like people are responding to an advertisement for an upcoming game.
Is that the point of this?
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I'd personally be a bit careful with the disasters, as seeing all your hard work being ruined could really annoy players, and alienate them.
Also, governments change naturally over time, as might the player's idea of what they want to do in the game, e.g.
They might start off wanting to implement their left-wing leanings, but end up realising that being a Totalitarian is more fun, in the context of the game.
Punishing the player for playing how they want doesn't seem a brilliant idea.
So might a system of choosing what kind of government you are aiming for, then starting of Centrist and moving towards that as a long-term goal be good?
Another option would be for percentages (random, at first) of your citizens to be put in each of the ideological groups.
Then, if you do policies for them, they are happy.
Perhaps the player can alter the starting stats slightly to aid what they want.
Also, opinions can change over time, eg: an older, upper class person might go against a party ideology that introduces higher inheritance tax, and thus the percentages will change.
I think that this might produce a better system.
I like the sound of the combination, but you might have to be careful to make them interact, so you aren't playing SimCity and NationStates simultaneously, you are playing one unified game.
If you want ideas for Nation States-esque issues, I've probably got some somewhere that I tried to submit to Nation States 2 when they were asking for ideas.
As that was such a flop, if I can find them, I don't see why you can't have them.
As for others, I think that looking at a list of UK Cabinet Minister positions can be a good starting point.
I think that I would play it if it were hard, but only if the gameplay was intrinsically hard, and there were good rewards for the effort I put in.
As for difficulty settings, that really depends on what gameplay systems you have, and what the aims of the game are that you can make harder to reach.
Also, are you going to be playing solo, or in an interactive world with AI, against real-life players, or what?
Hope that helps!
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KC brings up a good point.
I'm sure you're not the kind of user that would want an advertisement (which is against rules), but this is what the topic is receiving.
In order to reduce the risk of meaningless posts, I suggest moving those screenshots to the bottom or removing them;
They're just not needed.
The same is true for the in-depth specifics;
Comments such as these have no relevance to the question you're asking.
Quote: complex road layouts can be built from only one tool and a few clicks of the mouse
Quote: I've also professionally produced an extensive library of sound and music for this game which suit the theme well.
As for dealing with your questions:
Quote: What kind of bonus features would you like to see in this game, like rewards?
Disaster mode: flatten large cities with disasters;
Unlockable buildings;
Concept artwork; behind the scenes: how you created the game;
Being able to change more of the game (i.e.
Day and night).
Will add more and respond to all questions later (going for food).
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Quote: Above Post.
I've taken your advice and trimmed the post a little.
I've also pushed the screen shots to the bottom.
I do like the idea of concept art available as an unlockable bonus or a behind the scenes feature.
Day and Night modes are included, I'm wondering whether I should add a dynamic time feature, with sunsets and sunrises or whether that's just unnecessary and make it optionally one or the other.
robertusrex:
You've made a valid point there, this is a game which I hope will be open ended to the point where the player can naturally choose what kind of shift they want to run without the game penalising them for it.
Choosing to adopt a totalitarian regime should be possible, although it will have to take some pretty controversial policy making beforehand, which during the transition period may alienate your population and cause scores of people to leave your nation.
However, once you have complete control over the people, you could theoretically limit their transit and imprison them in their homes.
If you so choose.
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As your above posts refers the city as a "nation" shouldn't there be a military?
That was one thing in Sim City i hated, the pure lack of ANY military.
Not that there was no war, but most cities have like an army station or air force base...
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Hey, this seems pretty cool!
I wish I could make somthing like this.
You are amazing! If you make have some sort of disaster mode or something that would be awsome!
What I meen by disaster mode is you click a button then a menu pops up with all sorts of disasters to use to destroy your city!
This post has been edited by commander of games : Jul 25 2009, 11:43 PM
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@commander of games - Already suggested (by moi), sorry.
Speedmaster, is the player going to be able to combine policies from the different wings of politics?
A modern example (which you can appreciate) is the UK;
If when a conservative government takes power they will be administering the NHS, which is a liberal and leftist health policy.
That sort of thing might give the player a bit more freedom, but have you had any thoughts on it so far?
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Quote: @commander of games - Already suggested (by moi), sorry.
Oh, sorry.
I just didn't notice, but that would be pretty cool.
It would also be intresting if you could use terroforming tools like in simcity 4, that way before you start your city you could make it look just the way you want.
You could also have landscaping tools, also in simcity, but it would cost money to do, wich would encorage the player to use the terraforming tools, so that way they would get the full experiance.
Quote: As your above posts refers the city as a "nation" shouldn't there be a military?
That was one thing in Sim City i hated, the pure lack of ANY military.
Not that there was no war, but most cities have like an army station or air force base...
In simcity 4 there is an army base, but you need to unlock it.
That would be cool though, and if want, you could make it so you could drive a tank, and blow up your city!
You can do that in simcity 4 rush hour and delux edition.
If you shoot it will destroy a building, if you shoot at it.
Once I was driving a tank in simcity 4, and I accidentally blew up the army base!
Maybe don't make it so you blow up buildings.
But driving viecles would so cool, you could explore your city, in a car, helicopter, bus...
And anything you wanted to put in!
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Quote: @commander of games - Already suggested (by moi), sorry.
Speedmaster, is the player going to be able to combine policies from the different wings of politics?
A modern example (which you can appreciate) is the UK;
If when a conservative government takes power they will be administering the NHS, which is a liberal and leftist health policy.
That sort of thing might give the player a bit more freedom, but have you had any thoughts on it so far?
Well, the idea is that policy making is dynamic.
You can be a right wing government and still implement some more liberal policies such as universal healthcare or certain welfare systems, but these policies will nudge your overall ranking a little to the left.
Also, radical policies may become locked if your style of government is completely incompatible with them, although you can unlock them later by further policy making that can make the radical seem not quite so radical.
Hope that makes sense.
Working with Game Maker is going to mean that extensive Terra-forming features are probably not going to become available.
I'd imagine it'd be possible to implement basic tree planting and water placement features, just not forming mountains like in Sim City 4.
Besides, it's so much easier to build on a flat surface anyway.
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Quote: Working with Game Maker is going to mean that extensive Terra-forming features are probably not going to become available.
I'd imagine it'd be possible to implement basic tree planting and water placement features, just not forming mountains like in Sim City 4.
Besides, it's so much easier to build on a flat surface anyway.
It is probobly pretty hard to make advanced terraforming with GM, but there are a few tutoials and examples for it.
Tree planting and water placement are pretty cool, in simcity 4, I use them to make islands.
Your right, it is easier to build on a flat surface, it also allows you to make your city bigger.
One more question, will you beable to build highways, elevated railways and subways?
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I do like the idea of driving around your city in a 3rd/1st person view.
Like a helicopter or a car.
Just to get a feel for it.
EDIT: Also, I must add that elevated items are essential.
You should play the original SNES sim city and see that roads, buildings, etc are on the ground and power lines, trains, etc are elevated so you can place them over your city.
(Offtopic: the SNES sim city was the only good one)
This post has been edited by reigalius : Jul 26 2009, 10:42 PM
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One feature I would like to see, is having to prevent traffic jams and such, so to do that you would build bus stops, so instead of thousands of cars, you could just have hundreds of busses!
It would be pretty cool to see special rewards, like a capitol building (assuming that it is a nation simulator) or a mayor's house (like in simcity 4).
Even if you don't put that in, it will still be a good game.
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