Solidusspriggan
Smash Journeyman
I think the Pidgeon game has alot of potential! I have alot of ideas, after the first 4 points on development, you read on to see gameplay ideas.
1. Develop the game for Steam or alternatively Android (and port to iOS). This allows you to avoid Sony & Nintendo's barriers to store entry as well as their very high development kit costs. (Android/iOS kits are free)
2. It will be nigh impossible to upkeep any kind of landmark system without frequent downloads and updates, which will require a server and some high upkeep costs. Some kind of P2P solution could be reached.
3. Sure you can play online, but you could also use GPS to find which city you are near and choose it first if it has a map, otherwise you can pick your starting location, the entire map should be linked, even if cities need to load seperately, leaving one should lead to a national overworld. The GPS will more importantly allow you to locate other people nearby that have the game installed, and connect to them just like you would with like a DS. (fallback on IP Geolocation if you want to play on a laptop or tablet). Now you can do co-op missions with people you find in the area, preferably in the city level that you are in.
4. I can't imagine many expansive ability sets for the pigeon to upgrade, so I see item collection primarily as something that has 2 functions.
A. You get points (for the leaderboards of course)
B. You can take the items back to your nest, which you will build whever you like. If you complete a co-op mission with a friend, his or her nest will be synced to your world. Of course you can't take their items, since you didn't earn them, but this would be a motivation for users to collect alot of cool items and make really impressive nests that would then encourage them to play multiplayer so they could sync their awesome nests across many player files to show off their things. Of course players could also delete nests in unsightly places if they didn't like them, perhaps in the form of pecking minigame.
Mission structures would have to be thought out, but perhaps should center around exploration and navigation, poop target bombing, & puzzle solving. Beyond finding things and getting places, when you weren't on a mission you could alter the environment by pooping on stuff (which might cause new items to become available or disappear) for instance if you pooped on a hot dog stand too much, while it would be great fun to see people freaking out because of poop on their hot dogs, and give you some high scores in a poop bombing run mission, might also cause the hot dog vendor to move out of the area to a different level or disappear all together, this would keep you from getting the colorful umbrella item: like this: http://alloveralbany.com/images/nippers_hot_dog_stand.jpg
Pooping on a barking dog to make him leave could allow a cat to appear nearby that could give you missions that would get you yarn bits, or if you poop on a statue to make a cleaner come could allow you to get access to some polish that he left behind that you can use to make your nest sparkle.
Beyond missions, multiplayer elements could come in 2 flavors, passive and active. active modes would be your normal co-op and include cooperative missions that required some navigational puzzle solving and cooperation., whereas passive types would allow players to share elements of each others game worlds without playing with the other person. There is also potential for some competitive elements.
Hide & Seek: A passive game mode that augments a players world by providing a new item to find. In this mode, the host player hides one of their items to be found by a client player that locates the host in the area or online, this would be a simple download that would put the item in your world, and be coupled with a clue set by the host.
Scavenger Hunt: An active team-based competitive game mode in which players are given a list of clues and race to find the items! Scavenger hunts will be pre-loaded into the game, but players can craft their own and share them in a passive way.
Poop: a pretty straightforward poop bombing score attack. Solo, Co-Op, & competitive available. minigame seperate from your mainworld savefile.
Puzzle: Use poop to alter the environment to solve puzzles, minigame seperate from your mainworld savefile.
1. Develop the game for Steam or alternatively Android (and port to iOS). This allows you to avoid Sony & Nintendo's barriers to store entry as well as their very high development kit costs. (Android/iOS kits are free)
2. It will be nigh impossible to upkeep any kind of landmark system without frequent downloads and updates, which will require a server and some high upkeep costs. Some kind of P2P solution could be reached.
3. Sure you can play online, but you could also use GPS to find which city you are near and choose it first if it has a map, otherwise you can pick your starting location, the entire map should be linked, even if cities need to load seperately, leaving one should lead to a national overworld. The GPS will more importantly allow you to locate other people nearby that have the game installed, and connect to them just like you would with like a DS. (fallback on IP Geolocation if you want to play on a laptop or tablet). Now you can do co-op missions with people you find in the area, preferably in the city level that you are in.
4. I can't imagine many expansive ability sets for the pigeon to upgrade, so I see item collection primarily as something that has 2 functions.
A. You get points (for the leaderboards of course)
B. You can take the items back to your nest, which you will build whever you like. If you complete a co-op mission with a friend, his or her nest will be synced to your world. Of course you can't take their items, since you didn't earn them, but this would be a motivation for users to collect alot of cool items and make really impressive nests that would then encourage them to play multiplayer so they could sync their awesome nests across many player files to show off their things. Of course players could also delete nests in unsightly places if they didn't like them, perhaps in the form of pecking minigame.
Mission structures would have to be thought out, but perhaps should center around exploration and navigation, poop target bombing, & puzzle solving. Beyond finding things and getting places, when you weren't on a mission you could alter the environment by pooping on stuff (which might cause new items to become available or disappear) for instance if you pooped on a hot dog stand too much, while it would be great fun to see people freaking out because of poop on their hot dogs, and give you some high scores in a poop bombing run mission, might also cause the hot dog vendor to move out of the area to a different level or disappear all together, this would keep you from getting the colorful umbrella item: like this: http://alloveralbany.com/images/nippers_hot_dog_stand.jpg
Pooping on a barking dog to make him leave could allow a cat to appear nearby that could give you missions that would get you yarn bits, or if you poop on a statue to make a cleaner come could allow you to get access to some polish that he left behind that you can use to make your nest sparkle.
Beyond missions, multiplayer elements could come in 2 flavors, passive and active. active modes would be your normal co-op and include cooperative missions that required some navigational puzzle solving and cooperation., whereas passive types would allow players to share elements of each others game worlds without playing with the other person. There is also potential for some competitive elements.
Hide & Seek: A passive game mode that augments a players world by providing a new item to find. In this mode, the host player hides one of their items to be found by a client player that locates the host in the area or online, this would be a simple download that would put the item in your world, and be coupled with a clue set by the host.
Scavenger Hunt: An active team-based competitive game mode in which players are given a list of clues and race to find the items! Scavenger hunts will be pre-loaded into the game, but players can craft their own and share them in a passive way.
Poop: a pretty straightforward poop bombing score attack. Solo, Co-Op, & competitive available. minigame seperate from your mainworld savefile.
Puzzle: Use poop to alter the environment to solve puzzles, minigame seperate from your mainworld savefile.
