Ideas for synekism

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aht...@hotmail.com

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Jul 30, 2011, 11:38:04 AM7/30/11
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If you guys do begin to use some ideas, here is some:

Road Thikness: a option on the road menu of how thik the road can be.
Thin asfalt can be cheap, but can be ''destroyed'' after a while. Thik
asfalt can be expensive, but can hold out much longer. I was thinking
that it can have 6 options of how thik the player can have it like.
and one last thing, if you guys get sommer session, winter ETC. and
the player make a thin road in the winter (or a little bit before too)
it can be ''destroyed'' really fast.

Synekism

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Jul 31, 2011, 9:00:06 PM7/31/11
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This is a unique feature you are proposing. We will definitively add
it to our idea map and think about it more once we are at that level.

However, this feature will likely be very much optional and invisible
by default as it is a rather specific and deep level of control. In
addition, I think having a cost control associated to road building
closer resembles real life than having control over thickness. So, be
able to control to some degree how much money to spend on a fixed
length/style/size of a section of road, above or below the default
costs. Lower budgets will result in lower quality roads (also thinner
roads) which will degrade quicker. What do you think?

aht...@hotmail.com

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Aug 5, 2011, 3:39:04 PM8/5/11
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Thank you for replying and sorry for the late answer.

I agree with your opinion and i think that will make good variations
on the game.

Adam Bartman

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Mar 19, 2012, 4:17:08 PM3/19/12
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This sounds like a great idea to me. It may be a bit deep for the average player, but I think there are probably ways to handle it simply. It could be done similarly to the street vs. road thing in SC4.

Roads can be made of various materials, and the choice depends mostly on: expected volume and vehicle types, and climate. For instance, dirt is OK for rural residential - but not rural commercial - because of the greater proportion of heavy vehicles. Likewise, dirt would not be appropriate in an urban setting due to sheer volume. As for climate, in general, the less flexible the pavement, the more susceptible it is to damage from water infiltration and frost heaving. You can build roads with concrete in a dry climate, and it may be more cost effective.

You could develop a 'condition index' based on several factors acting over time, and then when the player clicks on the road segment, the game might tell them something like "this road is wearing prematurely due to excessive heavy vehicle traffic, consider changing the surface material to _____ ."

Again, maybe a bit complex, but there's no reason a city building game can't teach people about the real complexities of cities in an accessible way.

Synekism

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Mar 19, 2012, 7:27:28 PM3/19/12
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This will definitely make it into Synekism at some point. Thanks for
the added detail.

Adam Bartman

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Mar 20, 2012, 2:48:18 PM3/20/12
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Thanks for taking it into consideration, haha. I was going to mention different types of wear, too, and say something about changing the road texture accordingly, but that may be a little overboard. Anyway, I grew up on SimCity and all kinds of other city builders and tycoon games, and now I work at a regional planning agency, so - nerdy as it may be - I've given this stuff a lot of thought.

baron...@gmail.com

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Mar 30, 2012, 5:53:25 PM3/30/12
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This is a bit of an extreme level of detail.  I assume my road engineers select the correct thickness.  I think it's important to focus on the game's core city-building gameplay.  Many small indie projects end up taking on every single niche fan sugestion and the game starts to loose focus.  One person wants intensely detailed road building customization,  someone else wants to see a impossibly detail economic simulation, another person wants to be able to drive around in the city and solve crimes, someone else wants the ability to adjust the air conditioning on civic buildings.  Despite being cool or interesting ideas, they often don't have a place within the balance of the game.

I'd love to see a ridiculously detailed railway and transit system where I could define schedules, manage exact trainsets, carefully select motive power, but I know that's way too detailed a focus for what is part of a much larger game.

Synekism

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Mar 30, 2012, 6:02:05 PM3/30/12
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Oh, you don't have to worry. We are going to spend the next long while
just on our core game design since its pretty, uh, bad right now. You
certainly bring up a good point and we'll be careful once we reach a
stage where such details are even possible to implement (which they
are far from at the moment).

As for railways and transit, did you hear about A-Train 9? It's kinda
difficult to get a hold of outside of Japan and very pricy but it's a
"city" sim with almost exclusive focus on railways. Worth a look.

Jarren Butterworth

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Apr 2, 2012, 7:21:13 PM4/2/12
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Funny you mention it, I just bought that last night.  I loved a-train as it was fairly simple and it wasn't that hard to get your city growing, but when I played "CEO" I noticed suddenly it was very hard to get any growth.  The same problem exists in A9.  There's very limited documentation and the entire community for it is japanese.  Why are my corner stores losing money?  Why did this neighbourhood stop growing?  What are the actual game-mechanic impacts of building a factory or office building?  Who's knows.  Terrible interface too.  I want to like it, but ohhh god...

Synekism

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Apr 2, 2012, 7:52:01 PM4/2/12
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I was just impressed by their rail building system, with curves and
all. I was pretty close to buying it myself but the price is a bit
ridiculous.

One thing I can related to is god-awful interfaces. We're trying to
make Synekism's relatively self-explanatory. I personally don't think
we're there yet - being management for the moment only because it maps
a trivial set of abilities. But we have some things we'll try and see.

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