[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Why are you cloning Civ II? (was Re: Migration)

["Brandon J. Van Every" <vanevery@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Alan Schmitt wrote:
> Brandon J. Van Every (vanevery@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) wrote:
> >
> > Ocean Mars is certainly not a clone of anything.
>
> First of all, I would not have asked if I was not interested.

That wouldn't be my default assumption.  Usually when people pursue this
kind of line of questioning, they're looking to bust chops.

> So I did
> some googling, and there is some scattered data about Ocean
> Mars which I
> found very interesting. Is it collected somewhere (in one particular
> email message, or in a web page) ?

I'm afraid it isn't.  I Am Not A Webmaster, so I've generally hated
working on my website.  As I get deeper into ProtoCiv that will change
though.  I'll start making webpages when there's a need to communicate
about the project.  Or when I start jobhunting again in January.

The greatest bulk and depth of Ocean Mars design issues would be on
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gamedesign-l/

> If you think Ocean Mars can be more fun (for the gamers who like
> Civ-like games) than Freeciv, then I'll definitely try it.

Yes I plan to be very very rich because of that someday.  :-)  But it
won't be soon.  I think it'll be at least a year before I do a public
beta.  If I even do one: I have to weigh the desire to shake things out
vs. the liability of inspiring anyone else to do 3D spherical
icosahedron hexmap games.  That's going to be one of my main sources of
competitive advantage, and I don't want anyone to say "Hey! That's a
good idea, look how we could do it!" until I'm making money.  Also there
are code piracy issues when you're using languages like Python and C#.

ProtoCiv is completely disposable.  That's part of the plan.

Anyways, the MAIN POINTS of Ocean Mars are:
- it is a 4X TBS in the SMAC mold
- it is about colonizing Mars, were it habitable (hence *Ocean* Mars)
- it is played on a spherical hexified icosahedron
- games will be finishable in 5 hours (no micromanagement)


Cheers,                     www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every           Seattle, WA

Taking risk where others will not.