Game Concepts - Resources - Updated 28th June 07

Updates 28th June 07

Since actually making the game (not any more! Yep, we're finally getting into it!) is still off-limits for everyone, thoughts are rife in conversation between us developers. Of course, there are basic ideas that need to be considered and we are only considering these at the moment. Here is some information on first-thoughts for resources.

Catagorising the Resources
We are trying to make this game mirror real-world economy as much as possible, while eliminating the complexity of it. We also, of course, want the game to become unique and separated from the real-world in many aspects, otherwise what would be the point of making the game? In the real-world, resources or 'products' can be broken down into primary, secondary, tertiary and quanternary sections that each deal with distinctive resources. We used this as a starting point and discussed from there.

We have decided on calling the very basic resources raw materials which include wood, fossil fuels, animals and metal ores. As of designing the resource tree, we have decided not to allow anybody (except us developers; omniscient remember) to see how to acquire certain resources, or to allow you to see some of the resources. We can reveal, however, that there are 100 resources that each have their own importance in the resource tree. We're leaving you to find out everything about this game on your own, which hopefully will make this game stand out from the rest, which are often heavily documented; who wants to read a huge rule-book anyway? One of the main aims of this game is to make it intuitive and easy to play.

These would normally constitute as primary products in the real-world (actually, in the real-world, raw materials and primary products are the same thing, but we are ignoring this, because we are developers and are allowed) but to make the game simpler to play and design, we have put them into their own class. These can then be refined or can undergo some sort of process to create more valuable (usually) products (we are currently in the process of assigning resources prices and properties).

The resource tree is non-linear which means that resources do not necessarily go directly from one 'state' to another ie. some raw materials may turn into refined materials while others may be used directly for manufactured goods.

Refined materials are, as the name suggests, purer versions of the raw material they are often derived from. They can also represent an intermediate stage between raw material and manufactured good. We've also created a special category for electronics because, well, let's face it, where would we be without electronics? You certainly wouldn't be reading this!

In conclusion, these are the categories for resources:
-Raw Materials
-Refined Materials
-Manufactured Goods
-Electronics
These categories are in the usual order of manufacture although there may be an option to reverse-manufacture products to receive all or a percentage of the original resources used.

We could go even further but industries start to diverge massively at this point, so for simplicities sake, we are leaving it there. Services will also be available to the player but will include non-playable industries that will be essential to industry development:

Services include:-
-Banks (for loans)
-Power stations (costs based on industry size and type)
-Transport (buy different types of transport [see separate Game Concepts - Transport])
-Private investigator (effectively a spy)

Note on fossil fuels
Fossil fuels are mined using a type of factory, the mine. As mines have no raw material needs, they require more workers in order to balance out the pros and cons of running that type of factory (Players are charged a certain amount per week [this used to be per month but we decided it would be easier to update every week because a week has a definate value but a month varies in length] based on the amount of workers they have in their factories.)