This is a game idea I came up with the other day after visiting neopets.com

The idea takes elements from pokemon, neopets.com, spore, the sims and the somewhat obscure Phantom Crash. I know this is a ‘hardcore’ gamerz nightmare, so feel free to close the window.

When I was younger I had a neopets account and enjoyed it on my slow 56k internet. The gf informed me she used to be a top tier neopets player as a young lass and we managed to log into her old account. She still had a connection with her 3 little neopets that are nothing more than some old 2D art. There is some mysterious bond there. I never had much of a connection with my pokemon as I ultimately had way to many and there was never any interaction or feedback from the tormented imprisoned horrid little beast slaves.

So that brings us to Robot Laboratory. The aim of this project would be to try and build a personable connection with the users small robots. These are just some methods to do this

• Creation and customization. RPGs connect us with our character as we customize them and make them our own, a game like the sims or the up coming spore show how successful this is.
• Online setting, being able to share and compare your character with others, creates ownership.
• Character interaction is another important method, nintendogs and black and white did this well.

THE GAME
Robot Laboratory (working title) would be an online social game where players create small interactive AI robots which can compete in robot competitions and be sent to work to earn in game currency.

The player starts the game with a very basic workshop (a workbench)
A trip to the local scrap yard gives the player a bunch of old rusty scrap metals and wires which are used to build the players first robot. Building the robot would be done through picking parts then playing little mini games to attach and wire them. Simple parts have simple mini games where advanced parts will be harder. Depending on how the robot is built will effect it’s stats, so legs affect mobility, arms can affect strength and sensory parts affect social abilities. Stats are not that vital though, so the user isn’t pigeon holed into creating a robot based on stats over aesthetics, so the creation process could be similar to spores creature editor. Depending on how the robot is built, it will be fitted for better tasks and jobs, ie. a strong robot for labour work and a social robot for customer work.

The most important part of each robot will be it’s learning capable AI chip. Initially this ai will be very basic and robotic, but through time will eventually become sophisticated and maybe even reach the holy grail of becoming sentient. The ai chips should have a number personality traits and quirks, which the user should be able to have some small level of control over. This will create a uniqueness to each AI and could create some interesting social interaction. So a low level basic ai might say “d0gs + mE = terror” where that same AI but higher level would say “I find dogs terrifying”. The robots should also have some degree of mood so that the way in which you treat them will effect their performance and perhaps even stats. Though you could create a robot that has had most personality conditioned out of it and create the “Ivan Drago” of the robot world.

The players will be limited to 3 or so robots at low level so that the ‘pokemon effect’ of having too many robots doesn’t detract from the personal connection.
The player uses their robots to compete in robotic challenges and events to gain currency and robot parts. The player will not have control over their robots in these events. These challenges will be primarily non violent, like intelligence tests (puzzles and quizes), strength (lifting etc), social (interaction tests) and mobility (obsticle courses and races). The user will also be able to send his robots to work to earn cash. A level of feedback on how your robot did at work could be both humorous and engaging (ala the sims job choices) The job performance will rely on how they are built but not limited too, a social robot would be better fitted for nurses aid and receptionist but you could still send your labour robot to teach at a school to a comical result. “RobotX stacked all the children into a neat pile, the principle was not amused.”

As a robots AI grows it can be physically changed with updated parts. A low level robot will look like it has been constructed from scrap metal, where as a sophisticated robot will seem sleek and refined. Though it would be great to still be able to have an old junky looking robot be able to compete with a sophisticated robot to create the ‘millenium falcon’ effect (old and junky but loved and powerful).
The player will advance and gain new workshops which will enable better tools and building options. Eventually even having a facility comparable to the robot workshop in I, Robot.

The game will be very community driven and clubs and guilds will be supported and encouraged.
I could ramble on about this idea and flesh it out for a long time but I will leave it now as just a (long) idea and not a design doc. It could be really great though! So some big game company, feel free to hire me.

ROOOOOBOTS!

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Unrelated radical things
Oblivion in cryengine2
Iron Mic Rap Battle

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