New to the thread but I really like the idea of an IRC based strategy game about running a megacorp. I've spent a few hours thinking about it and I'd be happy to help with coding. Organisation wise we all need to get on the same page. Right now we all kinda have our own idea of what this game should look like and they're probably quite different so we just need to throw our ideas at the wall and see what sticks. Here goes.
Games like this live or die on their depth of strategy and balance and having both is difficult for obvious reasons. It's often best to start with something simple and then slowly add and tweak elements while constantly testing in order to deepen your knowledge of the game as you go. This has the nice upside that it's actually legitimately the best idea for us to sit around and play the prototype of our game.
As for core concept, money seems appropriate for megacorps and I think there's a lot of room for good strategic play within a simulated economy. We've all seen from MMOs that it's possible to exploit these systems and break the market and having that be part of the goal of the game could be quite fun. However, I also think a game like this needs to be reset every so often. Eventually one group is going to take over and nobody else (especially not a newcomer) is going to be able to challenge them. I think it's better if there's just a win condition at which point we start again. It gets rid of the bad feeling of an arbitrary reset and means that all of the economic trickery has a purpose past inflating your bank account and messing with other peoples bank accounts.
I like the idea of there being multiple win conditions along the lines of successfully merging with Helios or other world dominating actions. The multiple win conditions leaves a lot of room for interesting play. It means there's doubt as to what players are aiming for so there's room for bluffing. Also when you have this first past the post kind of system players will gang up on clear leaders meaning you have to work to hide your power level and that diplomacy is often the deciding factor. Unfortunately this often leads to stalemates where nobody can get ahead without being shot down. In order to prevent this there should be some mechanic via which you can slowly and expensively make an untouchable investment into somehow winning the game. The fact that it's so slow means that doing nothing else is unlikely to actually win you the game but it me
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