Ask HN: Would You Play This Mobile Game? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Would You Play This Mobile Game?

1 pointmead54322 comments

I've been kicking around an idea for a mobile game but am getting outside feedback before digging in too much.

Here is the gist: --- An immersive, story-driven mobile game where you are the main character and the real world is the game world. The game will bring together media such as video and voice with the technology on the smart phone to bring the story to life and make you feel as if it is really occurring. The game will be somewhat localized, requiring you to visit areas of your city (for example, if in Denver: Union Station but if in SF: Chinatown).

Throughout the game the you will make choices that will impact how the rest of the game will play out. Choose X and you are all of a sudden working with the bad guys but choose Y and you save the world. It is like a choose-your-own-adventure book but plays out in the world you live in and facilitated by your phone, not just in the pages of a book. ---

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

There's not a lot to say because you don't have a lot mechanically going on. It's a choose your own adventure but with an augmented reality backdrop? There doesn't seem to be room for player agency. It sounds like the players can only choose from a number of options, but you have to physically go places to make those choices.

The worst part of the idea, in my opinion, is required visits to specific locations, in my opinion. If they were something like "your office" or "any coffee shop", it would be easier to manage and destinations that more players would visit. By specifying that the game is localized around landmarks, you create so many problems. Now you have to define what the landmarks are yourself and manually place them. You have to do that for lots of cities if you want to facilitate a large userbase. You have to define choices and actions that make sense there. You have to test those locations and test that the actions there are possible. Then players need to go out of their way to visit those locations or remember to use your app while there. What about cities without specified locations? Can I play your game in Podunk, Idaho? That's more work for minimal, if any, gain.

I think you don't actually have an idea here. You need to think about this further. Would you really want to have to visit each of these places if you were a player? Would it be possible for you to become invested in someone else's story if it requires you go out of your way to participate? Can you explain the game to someone in less than 10 words? How do the decisions the player makes drive them to play further? What motivation does a player have to continue playing?

Thank you for the feedback. You are right that it's a rough idea at the moment; I wanted to get some thoughts on it before investing too much time and energy into it. A little bit more effort wouldn't hurt though.

My intention was to keep it reasonably close so you'd start at one spot and then would be directed to more generic spots in the areas like "a coffee shop". However, I see your point about going out of their way to participate which would definitely kill the game especially in locales where getting to the place is difficult (parking, mass transit, etc...).

To make the game successful, it needs a good, engaging story. I think that answers to your final two questions are answered by "the story" which I recognize is a pretty big assumption but not insurmountable.

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