Is this game too ambitious...?

So I was thinking of a game with these features. There will be sliders for zooming in and out. And one for going back and forward in time.

• Zoom out many times until you can see the whole Universe and galaxies flying apart
• Zoom in until you can see atoms and subatomic particles
  
• Go back in time to the moment of the big bang.
• It will have a natural language parser to parse the history of the world from encyclopedias and recreate all known events in history including the dinosaurs, Ancient Rome and evolution.
• It will scan Google images to recreate all lifeforms in 3D from photographs.
  
• It will have artificial intelligences which interact with the environment.

My second idea was a game with a monkey climbing trees.

I'm trying to think which one to do. I think the first one might be a bit too ambitious??? (Also what would the objective be??) What do you think?

 

Nice ideas, why not doing both ?

 

From time to time I have gotten the weird idea of trying to create a very rough simulation of particle physics. I just don't know if it could be made into anything remotely fun to play.

 

The first idea sounds very interesting, but if you are not some genius, it is impossible to achieve that properly, right now. Especially the part in which you want to recreate all of history from encyclopedias and recreate all lifeforms from Google images. That requires advanced AI which humanity is still trying to develop (it is starting to become feasible to recreate 3D models from images and AIs are starting to gain *some* understanding of natural language, but what you would need for your game is not feasible, yet).

I believe you could create a kind of similar game if you created a rough representation of some places on earth including various stages of their history, our solar system, our galaxy and a part of the observable universe by hand,so you could zoom from looking at the milky way to some place on earth in various stages. Maybe take a look at Microsoft's recently released Galaxy Explorer Project for hololens (I believe you can zoom into different solar systems and into single planets there).

The second idea is vague, but generally definitely feasible and if you execute it well, it might be pretty fun

Edit:
Here is the link to the Galaxy Explorer source code.
https://github.com/Microsoft/GalaxyExplorer

 

is it gonna be a MMO?
if not then go for it sounds easy

put the monkey in the first idea

 

Feh. Enough of these silly threads. Can we talk about serious development for a minute? I mean, come on, switching LOD from the quantum view to the relativistic view means you're gonna need at least 6 or 8 months of hard development and you're still going to have clipping issues dealing with entangled particles.

Look, Unity just wasn't made for this kind of project, there's no way you could represent all those atoms and all those stars in a garbage collected environment. Maybe you could do it with Unreal or something, but no way in Unity.

You should probably start with Quantum Pong first dude.

 

What kind of monkey.

 

Yeah, first idea is just too ambitious.
Here's my reasoning to why:
1. Zooming will bring problems while not giving anything useful or fun. You will have to generate/regenerate each layer as storing them is too much making them incosistent, also it'll be too hayware from user's perspective because there's nothing that links atoms with universes. It's doable, but I don't see how that'll work out. Even if you make a game that has both animal and planet, you encounter problem: planet requires months to years to move while animal requres seconds to hours to move. Or atom which requires nanoseconds to move. How would you synchronize them for user so user doesn't consume a lot of time to learn something or have fun(whichever you want user to do)?
2. Sure you can go back and forth in time... But how exactly do you remember state of universe?
3. Wait, you can create language parser that will understand what's written and visualize it properly? That's no less than top-grade science work in computer linguistics and artificial intelligence already! You can get a lot of science titles just for that one. Not to mention you'll have to filter inconsistent and wrong information.
4. Recreate how exactly? 3D model recreation will be another top-grade science work in image recognition+some epic search engine which would require you to find corresponding pictures of same creature from different angles. Recreating their behaviour? Well, then you'd have to describe all animals behaviour as single A.I. which can adapt to act like that animal which is top-grade science work too. Or you'd leave their description? For that one see point 3.
5. "Artificial intelligence that interacts with world" - too ambiguous. Can't comment on what I don't understand. I just have feeling it's something overly complex too.

Second idea:
Well, where's gameplay in monkey climbing tree? Evading predators and collecting bananas maybe? That might work...

 

Or a whole bunch of still images to fake it.

 

The monkey game will involve a monkey in a 3D forrest where you can climb trees and swing from branches and so on, maybe swing accross ravines. It might be like a 3D maze sort of thing. Not sure if this has been done all ready??? Instead of a monkey it might be a flying squirrel or a caveman.

A bit easier than the first idea but maybe its too simple! These days if your game doesn't have a quintillion planets in it nobodies interested.

 

Being that right now you're one of the most successful indie developers on this board, I'd say just go with your gut. If you think you can make it fun, run with it!

If you're going to go with vine swinging and stuff, you need to throw a pitfall reference in. At least one.

 

Of course by the time such a game finally ships they may have already lost interest in it.

 

Oh, I had another idea where a randomly generated town is created and a murder is committed. And you have to ask the townsfolk questions like Colombo in order to find out what happened. The townsfolk might tell the truth or lie depending on who they are protecting and what they are trying to hide (like secret affairs and so on). It might have some sort of natural language processing too. Also, that's just a vague idea. Hmm.. I suppose that's a bit like Cluedo.... but mixed with the Sims.

I'm trying to find the line between something doable yet something that pushes the boundaries a bit. I think I have something to prove in that area!

(Also, maybe I shouldn't be telling you all my best ideas! )

 

I don't think you need all those planets 100% fleshed out and working for it to work. Often just skybox/sphere with textures is more than enough.

P.S. where is quintillion of planets in factorio for example? Or any other quite good selling game.

 

Reminds me of my first game design.

 

While that would really be good, I'm not really sure you'll make natural language processing at good enough level; and while that game is all about talking/clues, any bugs in it will be very bad.
To understand how bad it is, try making something very very primitive. Just some crappy chat bot that has several facts or clues generated and he tries to tell you those clues (of course, clues are procedural).

 

Fixed that for you.

 

sounds good.

 

Id buy the hell out of a columbo game you could even do it episodic

 

Do you think they'd sue me if I made the detective say "and just one more thing..."?

 

I'm not sure if this is a joke or if you just missed this game:

Not sure what you could do with it beyond what's done here, but who knows. It's a pretty unique idea so there's gotta be a ton of other stuff you could experiment with.

 

Oh well. I can cross it off my list of "games to make".
But I can add it to my list of "games to play".

 

Thats more like clumbo. Thats a million dollar idea, annoy the murderer until he confesses

 

I want so badly to BE Columbo, but alas I am too tall and young.

 

That Murder at the Masquerade Manor seems kind of like what I was thinking of!
I think there would be lots of ways to improve it. It could even be a two person game. With one person doing a murder and uploading the game-state online for other people to solve.
I was thinking of adding lots of relationships like secret affairs and illigitimate children, blackmailers and so on for more motives to decieve. Or it needn't be a murder it could be a theft where you have to track down the stolen crown jewels.
It could be like one of those logic problems.

Also... how is there no Columbo video game?!

 

It sounds like you're limiting your scope to three spatial dimensions. Bosonic string theory has 26 spatial dimensions and superstring has 10 or 11 I think. I mean, if you're just doing a casual mobile game I guess three dimensions is enough.

 

Seriously why even ask this question here? The odds are incredibly high that had you posted about a game called Wild Animal Racing and asked for feedback on it a lot of people would say it is a bad idea, would never sell on Steam and so forth.

So, I think (just my opinion of course) you'd be much better off to just do what you think is right. Follow your instincts! They seem to be leading you to a good place.

 

Erm... http://www.shatters.net/celestia/

You need a supercomputer and few years of research.

25..70 years of research.

Against google eula. You'll need to acquire google first.

Multiple supercomputers in addition to all the above.

Good luck.

 

Hmm.. whole universe, or monkey.

So hard to choose!

 

This sounds like such a massive idea. Quit now.

 

A beneficial side-effect of simulating the entire universe is that you also automatically produce every conceivable game.

Go for it!

 

If that universe also contained the game that simulated the entire universe that also contained that game, and so on... HOW FAR DOWN DOES THE RABBIT HOLE GO?

 

How bout make the first idea the opening cinematic for the second idea.
A cinematic of the earth forming - show whatever you want, molten ball of lava, forming into a planetoid, forming water, and then the little amoeba crawls out of the sludge, forming into something else eventually forming the dinosaur, meteor hits, kills most life, then amoeba eventually evolves into a monkey.
The player plays as the monkey for 30-40 years of life - has to survive while evolving his brain, so s/he can produce offspring that is evolved beyond the previous generations intelligence.
It could be perma-death, either survive and slowly evolve long enough to produce offspring that is smarter than the previous generation, or die out as sabertooth/giant vampire ostrich food.
Eventually evolving into humans - or even beyond.

And in 100 years we can play it after its finished!

 

That's not actully a bad idea... if it was multiplayer and each time a player respawned they have to play as the offspring of two surviving players in the game. Each offspring would have genetic mutations. It would mean that some players had unfair genetic advantage just like in real life. But it would mean that in time the creatures in the game would evolve by natural selection. On second thoughts thats a terrible idea! :/

 

It actually could work out (at least it could become extreme fun where you laugh uncontrollably because something went reeeeaaaally wrong). Just not MMORPG, that would kill the idea at the root.

 

It seems cool

 

You wouldn't necessarily need multiple supercomputers if you approached it in the same way as Spore. A very limited particle environment to play with and arrange followed by more complex environments. Wouldn't quite be the same thing as what the OP is thinking of though.

Additionally I don't see why it would have to be the Standard Model. An overly simplified model would be sufficient.

 

Get started.

 

Something like this?

 

Man, how did they do that in 1977?!

 

My money is on "plenty of (airbrush) paintings, photos and clever use of analog image compositing techniques".

 

In a way, don't most games employ quantum mechanics, as in the many-worlds parallel universe idea? That is depending on your choices you create alternate realities?

For example, a lot of games you play through until you die. Then you replay the same game a different way. This can be thought of as different parrallel universes, some where you live and some where you die.

If you have infinite lives is this not similar to the concept of "quantum imortality"?

One way you could incorporate QM I suppose is this:

• You have to play level one to completion several times each time you might collect different pickups which are put in a box.
  
• While you are on the next level, you can open the box to see what pickups you have collected.
• The contents of the box will be one from of the randomly selected "histories". (Or pehaps you the user can choose which "history" to use).
• Level two can also be played to completion several times and so on.

Kind of like Schrodingers cat, you don't know what's in the box until you open it. But take out the random element and isn't this just the same as "save points" in a game? :/ So haven't we been using quantum mechanics all along???

---

Yeah, I have seen that powers of 10 video. I think it would be interesting if a game had that level of zooming!

 

The many worlds idea is cool, but it's not what quantum mechanics is about. It's currently unfalsifiable, which makes it pseudo science.

Quantum is about particles being relatively imprecise.

Quantum mechanics might be better represented by putting the smallest particles at the level of floating point inaccuracies and letting them randomly jump around.

Film special effects have been around a lot longer then forty years, and there is nothing special it this video. The whole thing could have been done with a series of stills or short animated pieces and slowly zooming a physical camera in and out.

 

Ehh... spore is nowhere close to what Op described. He pretty much wants dwarf fortress on galactic scale, but with a twist! Where it is actually based on history lessons learned by AI.

I played spore. Its complexity level is very low.

Code (csharp):

1.  
2.       For galaxy, let the seed be X:
3.             For the system player is visiting, calculate System_Seed.
4.             Using System_Seed, determine system layout.
5.             Using System_Seed, select dominate rate from list of presets,
6.                   select their type of vehicles and architecture.
7.             Using System_Seed, determine types of planets from list of predefined variants.
8.             For the planet player visits, Calculate Planet_Seed, using System_Seed:
9.                    Using Planet_Seed, determine locations of cities (if any), and shape of the continents.
10.  

That's entire spore. Ai was dumb, and was not interacting with environment much.

 

Damn Spore... Will Wright made the most awesome and promising presentation ever in 2005

Then it turned out to be The Sims... with planets.

 

Believe it or not, sims have a lot more depth.

EA just dumbed down the game too much, and result was 3 minigames with a awfully low difficulty. Well, space stage was sorta fun, but it wasn't exactly complex either.

Of course, the game had its moments.

Spoiler

Then galactic adventures got released, and things got... weird.

Spoiler

 

Lol @ Cat Tank! (3rd pic)

 

World complexity and gameplay complexity aren't necessarily the same though. Dwarf Fortress has complex gameplay mechanics but the actual world itself is very simplistic. It's not even particularly demanding on modern systems despite being restricted to a single core for processing and it barely uses system memory.

 

Have you actually played it? It is the other way around. Gameplay is fairly simple, but the world is very complex. (Also google "Boatmurdered")

Spoiler

If you think it isn't demanding, try to flood the level with lava, see what happens. The damn thing even tracks temperature of individual tiles.

 

Yes, I have played it. No, the world really isn't as complex as it seems. Tracking temperature, having a very simplistic approach to water pressure (which is utterly awesome by the way), etc are really nothing particularly complex.

It's essentially a voxel world in the style of Minecraft but with some additional variables for each block. At the same time though each block is treated as being larger than Minecraft (a dwarf is one block in size, but in Minecraft the player is two).

My understanding is that a modern Intel processor pretty much eliminates performance problems. At least for reasonably sized fortress maps. I'm assuming the largest size may still have some problems. Still it isn't often that the problem is the world itself but rather the sheer number of dwarves (and "invading" entities) you're controlling during gameplay.