I've had an itch lately, one that re-surfaces every couple years. It's been two/three years since my last game project failed (it was a group project, fyi), and I feel like getting started on a new project, hopefully one that I'd be able to finish, something not too ambitious. Between Kupid, school, work, reading, and other.... activities, I suppose I could find time to work on a game for RPGM XP.

I'm thinking of something simple, that isn't going to require a lot of Ruby scripting (none, ideally ), and that uses my "talents" in Photoshop to serve as the bulk of the creativity in the game rather than in gameplay, scripting, or other areas where I am weaker.

The story is inspired by a bunch of movies I've been watching these past couple weeks, and documentaries, which feature computers in the 50s & 60s.

The story, which is far from finalized, (no spoilers):
So, obviously influenced by Half Life, and pretty much every movie ever made about a new, military, computer - but I hope to still make it entertaining, interesting, and not entirely formulaic. Actually, if I can just manage that last part, then I'd be happy.

I want puzzles to be a major game-play component, with battles being secondary. I'm thinking of using the architecture & design of real-world, early, computers as inspiration for some of the puzzles (like testing & replacing vacuum tubes in a wall-panel to open a door, doing some binary math to overload a circuit, rewiring a terminal to allow access to restricted data, using the consoles and punch cards in the weapons lab to upgrade your equipment, etc.). I like realism, so most things in the game would be realistic (to a point; don't want to sacrifice gameplay or fun) or inspired by real things.

Also, the XP RTP doesn't have hardly any sprites that I'd be able to use, so I'll have to make pretty much everything from scratch. Making the sprites, tiles, animations, and other graphical resources, will be one of the most time consuming parts of making the game (if not the most). But it would be good news for anyone who uses XP, as I'd be releasing my graphic resources for others to use in their games too, helping to make up for the obvious lacking of tech stuff in the RTP.

I don't know what kind of game length I'd be shooting for; I still have to figure out the rest of the story, plot, and so on. But I want it to be nice and short, if only to ensure that I finish it (there have been far too many unfinished RPGM games, and I don't want to contribute to making that number higher).

Well, I'm still in the early planning stages, now. So.... what do you think? Questions, suggestions... criticisms?

Nice to see a game idea with some actual research on the era it takes place in. I've come up with a few ideas that were meant to take place in real-world settings, and I've dropped those ideas because I didn't have the knowledge to make the setting accurate enough.

Yeah. I have lots of books about early computers, and other technologies, including detailed schematics, diagrams, photos, code, and so on. If possible, I'd like to make the graphic resources as realistic as I reasonably can (I'm not a spectacular artist, and there are limits to what you can do in only a few hundred pixels ).

I hope to base it on actual work that was going on at the time, with a little sci-fi thrown in to make it interesting; so it won't be entirely realistic. Also am thinking about adding little technical and factual tidbits to enhance the ambiance, and give the game a little something extra in terms of depth (like actual or realistic wiring diagrams, circuit schematics, code segments, et cetera from\inspired-by the time period).

It's going to require that I make a boat-load of custom graphics, though. Going to be pretty challenging, but it will be a great learning experience.

Plus it will give me an excuse to spend more time reading.