I'm new to this forum, but I'm definitely not new to Capitalism. For years it's been one of my favourite games, and ever since I found Capitalism Lab I'm even more addicted to it. Being such a huge fan of the game I do feel like a modern implementation of this kind of business management simulation game is missing. Especially with the internet nowadays to support a truly living city that actually develops in real time around your business, this could create an incredibly rich new experience in the genre.
That's why I decided to try and create a new game, heavily inspired by Capitalism 2 and by games such as SimCity (4 and earlier, not the new ones) and even Rollercoaster Tycoon (again, the classic ones).
Some of the features:
(Copied from the Indiegogo campaign that I'm currently setting up)
A large collection of different buildings: Don't just choose between a "small office building" and a "large office building" - Each building will have a different ratio of storage space, office space, and will have a number of other unique factors that will influence things like running costs, employee happiness and pollution. It's no longer only about the number of buildings you own.
Lots of different resources and products: Build mines to produce the "classic" metals copper, iron and gold, but also silicon, aluminium and many more. Smelt the ores to create metal alloys and transport them to your factories to make everything from watches and lamps to microchips and entire supercomputers. Pump oil to make fuel and plastic, or build woodcutters and produce furniture or even paper, or maybe you'd rather just buy the highest quality wood and metal alloys to build the best electric guitars in the world? Everything is possible.
Design your own factories: Once you have built one of the many buildings available, you buy the machines you need and place them in your factory to produce the products you want. Each factory can accommodate a certain number of machines, so think wisely before you build, because expanding your machine capacity can get very expensive very quickly.
Supply & Demand: Profit isn't achieved by merely producing as many products as possible (this may seem obvious, but I've seen a lot of so-called 'business simulations' make this mistake), or by making the highest quality products on the market. There is a certain demand, determined by the number of citizens, the number of houses and the housing quality (pollution, public service access, ...) and each citizen class has their own budget and quality requirements. Expensive diamond jewellery will not be demanded by the lower class, while high class citizens won't enjoy eating cheap low-quality canned food. The offered products have a direct impact on the number of citizens in the city.
Contracts: Apart from the market demand, you can also cater to your fellow CEO's needs in a business-to-business or wholesale context. Maybe someone has opened up a supermarket in the middle of the neighbouring town, and your factory has room for some extra production of milk cartons? Offer them a contract to deliver a certain amount of milk cartons to their supermarket each week, and see the profits roll in while you can stop worrying about finding buyers for your products.
Multiple cities & shipping: If your factory is located in one city, that doesn't mean only citizens in that city can get their hands on your great products. If you have a buyer, a retail store or a warehouse in another city you can transport your goods there to expand your market. Be aware though, because shipping goods can get quite expensive if you don't keep an eye on your logistics at all times. This of course opens the way to independent logistics companies, who do nothing but transport goods from A to B.
Persistent online world: The game will be situated in a series of huge online maps ("countries"), each spanning a number of cities and empty areas with resources that vary from country to country. You'll be able to directly see and interact with the other player's buildings and every action you or another player does will have effect on the worldwide markets and economy.
There are much more features to it but since this is still just a concept I don't really have a manual or anything to follow, I'm just writing down what I can think of at this moment. I'm trying to set this up and create a whole concept that works, but for that I need your input. One the one hand, what do you guys think of this idea, are there things you'd want to see differently or that you'd improve upon? And on the other hand, are there features I hadn't thought of at all but that you'd love to see?
I'm still looking for developers (so if anyone out there happens to be a game developer I wouldn't mind you saying hi) but I do have someone for the graphics part, and I want to (again) create an isometric pixel art look, similar to Capitalism 2 with influences from SimCity 2K and 3K. So no fancy 3D graphics or anything, because this game really doesn't need 'em and it would needlessly complicate things. I would however improve the interface drastically, because let's be honest, the screens in Capitalism 2 can be a bit of a mess.
I've been working on this idea for a few weeks, and I'm convinced the idea is viable as a game, and could potentially become something great with the support of the Capitalism 2 fanbase. Now I want to hear your thoughts, ideas, comments and suggestions - the good ánd the bad, so that we can make the concept (and eventually the game) even better
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif)