Alien/UFO game-design ideas

[MikeRozak]

Sorry, I decided to delete my post.

[jpoag]

The E-Book is a 2500 page compilation of the material from the website. 23.6 MB

The humor is highly subjective. Maybe my eyes are tired, but I'm not seeing any memes.

I suppose this work could be used for world building, but there's not much in the way of game-design material.

I'm not sure that this forum is the appropriate audience. Like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. My opinion is that you might be able to find another forum of like-minded individuals who would enjoy this material more.

[electronicStar]

You mean aliens are going to plunder our ressources and install puppet presidents in our countries?

[BantamCityGames]

going to??

[MikeRozak]

I suppose this work could be used for world building, but there's not much in the way of game-design material.

How about a conversation game? Some conversation games are described.

How about a hyperdimensional first-person shooter?

How about a hyperdimensional space-combat game?

How about an "Illuminati"-;like game of political influence? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminati_(game) )

Or a game of "chess" with simple basic rules, but hundreds of combinations of add-on rules. The add-on rules are randomly selected every time a new game is begun.

Or a card game (as described in the Horse card game) where the seen-only-once backs of the cards are as important as the fronts of the card?

Or note described: A choose-your-own adventure world where the choices you make in book #1 (The cave of time), affect what choices you can make in book #3.

Or a mytery story-telling game where you can only follow one character around at a time.

Or an adventure game where puzzles DON'T get harder over time, but stay roughly the same difficulty. And if they're too difficult for a player, the game gives enough hints that players don't have to revert to a cheet sheet.

Or how about the create-your-own-story children's game described in "Tyrannosaurs are peeping-Toms... and pranksters too"

Or how about an evolution game where to the selection of species on the world affects evolution? For an animal-species to evolve into an intelligent race, the animal-species needs a reason to be intelligent. Often this is in the form of a competing animal-species/race, beginning with hunting and leading to trade. And the idea that each potential race needs a "safe" biome so that it won't be genocided by its competitors.

[jpoag]

How about a conversation game? Some conversation games are described.

How about a hyperdimensional first-person shooter?

How about a hyperdimensional space-combat game?

Don't get me wrong, World building and story are good elements for a game. What you're doing now is conjecturing games that could be built around the material you've provided, and I agree with you. However, this is not game-design material, this is world-building material.

How about an "Illuminati"-;like game of political influence? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminati_(game) )

Illuminati! is a card game. You could strip out or replace the Illuminati with any other story/conspiracy and the game would still work.

If you stripped out the UFO stuff from your site you wouldn't have anything left. I.e. there's no game-design related material. >This< is a game-design website. If you took away the game-design related material, then you wouldn't have anything left.

Or a game of "chess" with simple basic rules, but hundreds of combinations of add-on rules. The add-on rules are randomly selected every time a new game is begun.

Or a card game (as described in the Horse card game) where the seen-only-once backs of the cards are as important as the fronts of the card?

These are just more mechanics. If they are described in your 2500 page document, then they are well hidden.

Maybe that is the game you are describing: Hidden somewhere in my collective works are ideas for games. Seek and Find them! Like a hidden object game for game designers!

Or note described: A choose-your-own adventure world where the choices you make in book #1 (The cave of time), affect what choices you can make in book #3.

This is the closest to a game I've seen in your (considerable) collection of works. Choose your own adventures have a problem with geometric expansion. It's hard to write games with 2^n different endings (even if you tie 2^n-1 endings together).

Or a mytery story-telling game where you can only follow one character around at a time.

Story-telling game? Follow a character? That's not really a game.

Or an adventure game where puzzles DON'T get harder over time, but stay roughly the same difficulty. And if they're too difficult for a player, the game gives enough hints that players don't have to revert to a cheet sheet.

Listen, I can understand that you've spent very little time learning how to design games. 'An adventure games that [DOESN'T] get harder over time' underscores that deficiency.

Without getting into the psychology or research on the subject, let's just say that players who aren't challenged become bored.

Or how about the create-your-own-story children's game described in "Tyrannosaurs are peeping-Toms... and pranksters too"

Or how about an evolution game where to the selection of species on the world affects evolution? For an animal-species to evolve into an intelligent race, the animal-species needs a reason to be intelligent. Often this is in the form of a competing animal-species/race, beginning with hunting and leading to trade. And the idea that each potential race needs a "safe" biome so that it won't be genocided by its competitors.

Please, please listen to me carefully. I'm not saying that you can't make a game that uses your body of work. What I'm saying is that the majority of your material is what most people would consider material for World Building. That is, to build the story that supplements a game.

If Patrick Rothfuss, Stephen King, Dean Koontz or Stephenie Meyer dropped by and said that their collective works were suitable as "game-design ideas" I would tell them the same thing. They aren't 'game-design' material. There's no mechanic. There's no meta-mechanic. There's no feedback loops; no carrot and no stick.

Which brings me back to my original opinion: you're trying to shoe-horn your collective works into this forum. If you want conflict and turmoil then you're on the right track. If you want more people to discuss your material (and even speculate games that could be built around it) then you need to find another forum. The internet is full of niches, go find one that this fits into.

You'll be happier. Even the arguments will be more satisfying.

[Grey Alien]

Very true James. Quite often I hear people say they have a great game design idea, and then proceed to tell me a world design with no mechanics, or extremely vague ones. It's a common misconception about what game design really is.

[jpoag]

Thanks, Jake. I still know some game developers who think game design is nothing more than level design.

[MikeRozak]

Don't get me wrong, World building and story are good elements for a game. What you're doing now is conjecturing games that could be built around the material you've provided, and I agree with you. However, this is not game-design material, this is world-building material.

Agreed that most of the material is more world content than design.

But game designs... as in new game-mechanics concepts... do occur. Yes, they are interspersed throughout. I haven't separated the document elements out into their own document, titled "these mechanics would make for a nice basis for a game".

This is the closest to a game I've seen in your (considerable) collection of works. Choose your own adventures have a problem with geometric expansion. It's hard to write games with 2^n different endings (even if you tie 2^n-1 endings together).

Yes, that's a fundamental problem with CYOAs. The trick is to work around the 2^n endings. One of the ways is to create a large CYOA world where you do NOT limit the player to playing one character. Instead, they play one character for 10 minutes (a typical CYOA play-time), and then a different character. The different character's choices and outcomes are moderately affected by the first character's choices.

Is that not gameplay design? (Yes, I know that CYOAs are either very-simple games, or not games at all.)

Story-telling game? Follow a character? That's not really a game.

"Story-telling game" - This leads children through the process of writing a story. Think Eliza on steroids, which ultimately outputs a story.

Child: "Jack [as in the beanstalk guy] killed a giant."

Story-editor game: "How did jack kill the giant?"

Child: "I don't know. Any ideas?"

Story-editor game: "Jack could have used a gatlin-gun, or run the giant over with a truck. Which do you want?"

Etc.

End result: "One fine morning, Jack got pissed off that some giant was playing his stereo in a cloud above.... Jack fired his gatlin gun into the cloud, and the giant fell down off the cloud."


"That's not really a game." Yes and no. Independent "game developers" are not just in the business of creating "games". They are in the business of creating computer entertainment. Second Life is not a game, for example, but someone could reasonably discuss create an "entertainment" software-package like Second Life here?

Listen, I can understand that you've spent very little time learning how to design games. 'An adventure games that [DOESN'T] get harder over time' underscores that deficiency.

Without getting into the psychology or research on the subject, let's just say that players who aren't challenged become bored.

Actually, I have spent quite a lot of time.

And I have spent more-than-enough time giving up on adventure games because half-way through, game-designers decide they need more-difficult puzzles.

Likewise, I gave up on World of Warcraft at level 28, becaus game-designers decided that I had to kill 5 things to advance from level 1 to level 2, but 89 things to advance from level 28 to level 29.

Please, please listen to me carefully. I'm not saying that you can't make a game that uses your body of work. What I'm saying is that the majority of your material is what most people would consider material for World Building. That is, to build the story that supplements a game.

More random game-design ideas from "my body of work":

- A real-time strategy game in space with not just spaceships fighting it out, but planet moving, and impaling planets with planetoids and/or meteors. (Like Earth's dinosaur extinction-event 50-million years ago.) This would twist the RTS genre slightly.

- Your reply to "a "chess" with simpler basic rules, but "house" rules that are randomly selected per game", was "These are just more mechanics." - They're mechanics that change the nature of the game. Chess is problematical because chess-players become experts in one set of rules that NEVER change. Archon (years ago) was Chess with one set of unchanging-rules combined with twitch. Changing rules would twist the game of Chess in a different direction.

- Person following game - Rather than controlling a human character 100% completely, barring physical limtations, perhaps you as a player can only manipulate the character's thoughts and movements in subtle ways. Overt and obvious maniupulation/control would cause the character to suspect that he/she is being controlled, and resist control.

- Search for "Grey-ball", which is a variant on baseball. Baseball is an incredibly boring game. But as you recall growing up, when your older sibling taught you a game, he'd say, "The rules are simple. Hit the ball with a bat, and then run." Fifteen minutes later, when you thought you had one, your older sibling would say, "No, I forgot to tell you about the other rule about fouls." Ten minutes later, your older sibling adds a new rule. What about a baseball game where some of the rules change every fifteen minutes, and as a player, you aren't informed which rules change. You have to figure out which rules change as play progresses. "You ran the wrong way! Four minutes ago, the rule that you run counter-clockwise around the baseball diamond, was switched so that you now run clockwise."

[chaosavy]

Questions:

What types of games do aliens play (if any)?
Since they are seemingly androgynous would they get offended/turned off/find unappealing the sometimes over sexualized game characters in modern games? or would that be still ok?


Any heads up on the eventual market opportunities would be appreciated.

[jpoag]

I haven't separated the document elements out into their own document, titled "these mechanics would make for a nice basis for a game".

Try installing wordpress and filing your articles as posts (or Joomla as articles). Then, tag your posts so that we can browse a tag cloud.

Yes, that's a fundamental problem with CYOAs. The trick is to work around the 2^n endings. One of the ways is to create a large CYOA world where you do NOT limit the player to playing one character. Instead, they play one character for 10 minutes (a typical CYOA play-time), and then a different character. The different character's choices and outcomes are moderately affected by the first character's choices.

Is that not gameplay design? (Yes, I know that CYOAs are either very-simple games, or not games at all.)

I'd like to see an entire article based on just that last paragraph. Do the research, show the math and the clever trick you've come up with. That would be a game design article that would draw some traffic.

Make sure you do your research. Games like Fable and Fable 2 have interesting approaches to cyoa.

Actually, I have spent quite a lot of time.

And I have spent more-than-enough time giving up on adventure games because half-way through, game-designers decide they need more-difficult puzzles.

Likewise, I gave up on World of Warcraft at level 28, becaus game-designers decided that I had to kill 5 things to advance from level 1 to level 2, but 89 things to advance from level 28 to level 29.

Yeah, that's based empirical evidence. Everyone knows about conditioning due to Pavlov's work, but Thanks to B.F. Skinner, we get things like Contingencies and Schedules (which you're describing above).

The people who level-up to 29 feel a greater reward than those who went from 1 to 2. Knowing how hard it is to get to that level makes them feel superior over lower level players.

More random game-design ideas from "my body of work":

Lack of content is certainly not your problem. I'm having trouble drawing a line from what I'm seeing to what you're claiming. Perhaps it really is a organizational issue.

Consider a CMS (as mentioned before).

[papillon]

Yes, that's a fundamental problem with CYOAs.

Actually, it's a pretty rare problem with CYOA-style video games, if you actually look into the major body of work.

Sorry, I know it's off-topic, but I had to jump in when the subject comes up. Even with books, there's a vast difference between things like the early Choose Your Own Adventure books where the plot had zero consistency from choice to choice and every decision led somewhere new, and books like the Falcon series where you are exploring a single story from different angles, attempting to analyse your current situation and make intelligent choices.

The key to controlling the branching explosion is state variables, so that the paths can constantly rejoin / reach "shared text" while still maintaining the effects of different choices made previously. Even books eventually picked up on this and made you write down codes as you played along - so you might reach the Back Door Of The Evil Castle from any number of paths, but depending on how you got there, you might be carrying the key, or you might know the secret passphrase, or you might be empty-handed and out of luck.

Obviously it's much easier to maintain state variables in a computer game!

For a simple example, look at something like Knights of the Old Republic. Strip out the combat and puzzles and look simply at the decision-making aspects. You can choose what order to tackle challenges in, but you'll get to the same place in the end. You can choose to get close to your companions, or not - you'll still move towards the same goal whether you have good relationships or not. You can choose good or evil solutions to most of the challenges you encounter, and the plot will still move forward in about the same way, with the biggest alteration being your character's karma meter... until much later on when you make a very small number of big plot-forking decisions.

That choice-making isn't terribly good gameplay, because in terms of choices you're very much being railroaded towards the end climax, but it demonstrates how easy it is to have lots of choices and no exponential explosion.

The 'gameplay' of a better branching game is intellectual, it's the puzzle of being able to interpret clues and remember details from all over the place and put them together to see the bigger picture.

[MikeRozak]

What types of games do aliens play (if any)?

I'm trying to stay on subject, with cool game-design ideas, so I'll try to bend my replies in that direction. If you search through my document for "game", you'll find more information.

Conversation games are very popular - Here's a simple one. Player A is sequestered in the kitchen. Player B is sequestered in the bedroom, far away from the kitchen. Player A writes player B a note on a piece of paper. Player C always rewrites player A's message in their own handwriting. Player C can also change one or two words of the message. Player C then passes the modified message to player B. Player B reads the message, and then writes a message back to A, intercepted by player C. The game is for player A to comminicate something for player B to do, like find a specific object in the bedroom. This could be translated to a computer game.

Another conversation game is one where player A and player B can see one-another, through a hacked video source. Player C can muddle the message, in text or video. Player A and B can arrange conversation-modifiers, such as "If my left hand is raised, then negate the statement." Player A and player B might be able to establish a few pre-rules like the "left hand raised" one without player C's initial knowledge of them. Player C's goal is to guess the "left hand is raised" queues, and counteract them.

Again, search the document for "conversation" game.

Another game, which is played, which isn't quite a game, is the "Person following game" that I described above. This will sound very rude: You can add a wireless camera to a real-life pet dog. You can train the pet dog to repsond to sound-signals (or electic shocks) also attached to a wireless device on the pet dog. Can you get the pet dog to accomplish a task? If your pet-dog controls are at the subconscious level, or in line with the pet-dog's goals, then the task is easy. If you push the pet-dog too hard, they will just ignore all of the sound signals. And how do you take control of a second pet, a pet cat, to get the subborn pet dog to do what you want? Replace "pet dog" with "person", and the game is even ruder.

Since they are seemingly androgynous would they get offended/turned off/find unappealing the sometimes over sexualized game characters in modern games? or would that be still ok?

Aliens are not andogynous. They have sexualized game characters also, just like MMOs targeted at 13-year-old males do.

Any heads up on the eventual market opportunities would be appreciated.

That depends on the alien race. Most aliens do not play computer games. Most aliens do not read stories. We are story-consumers. A 2-hour movie is typical for us. Most aliens get bored after a 30-minute movie. Having said that, our typical conversation lasts 5 minutes. Aliens will have 2-hour-long conversations.

Part of my conjecture is that Hominids from other planets are living here, secretly. Just as you (not necessarily you the individual) don't believe me when I say I was abducted, no-one here will believe off-planet Hominids if they say they are from another planet. This "I can't say that I'm from another planet because you won't believe me" is compounded by laws preventing them from saying so, and the fact that very-few of them are allowed to import non-terrestrial technology.

Therefore, our computers (tens-of-thousands) and our games, are shipped off the planet to Hominids. Being story-centric Hominids, we have unique movies, and to a lesser-extent, computer games. Just like Japanese anime sells in the U.S. US animators cannot make their own Japanese anime, nor do they try to.

[MikeRozak]

What types of games do aliens play (if any)?

I'm trying to stay on subject, with cool game-design ideas, so I'll try to bend my replies in that direction. If you search through my document for "game", you'll find more information.

Conversation games are very popular - Here's a simple one. Player A is sequestered in the kitchen. Player B is sequestered in the bedroom, far away from the kitchen. Player A writes player B a note on a piece of paper. Player C always rewrites player A's message in their own handwriting. Player C can also change one or two words of the message. Player C then passes the modified message to player B. Player B reads the message, and then writes a message back to A, intercepted by player C. The game is for player A to comminicate something for player B to do, like find a specific object in the bedroom. This could be translated to a computer game.

Another conversation game is one where player A and player B can see one-another, through a hacked video source. Player C can muddle the message, in text or video. Player A and B can arrange conversation-modifiers, such as "If my left hand is raised, then negate the statement." Player A and player B might be able to establish a few pre-rules like the "left hand raised" one without player C's initial knowledge of them. Player C's goal is to guess the "left hand is raised" queues, and counteract them.

Again, search the document for "conversation" game.

Another game, which is played, which isn't quite a game, is the "Person following game" that I described above. This will sound very rude: You can add a wireless camera to a real-life pet dog. You can train the pet dog to repsond to sound-signals (or electic shocks) also attached to a wireless device on the pet dog. Can you get the pet dog to accomplish a task? If your pet-dog controls are at the subconscious level, or in line with the pet-dog's goals, then the task is easy. If you push the pet-dog too hard, they will just ignore all of the sound signals. And how do you take control of a second pet, a pet cat, to get the subborn pet dog to do what you want? Replace "pet dog" with "person", and the game is even ruder.

Since they are seemingly androgynous would they get offended/turned off/find unappealing the sometimes over sexualized game characters in modern games? or would that be still ok?

Aliens are not andogynous. They have sexualized game characters also, just like MMOs targeted at 13-year-old males do.

Any heads up on the eventual market opportunities would be appreciated.

That depends on the alien race. Most aliens do not play computer games. Most aliens do not read stories. We are story-consumers. A 2-hour movie is typical for us. Most aliens get bored after a 30-minute movie. Having said that, our typical conversation lasts 5 minutes. Aliens will have 2-hour-long conversations.

Part of my conjecture is that Hominids from other planets are living here, secretly. Just as you (not necessarily you the individual) don't believe me when I say I was abducted, no-one here will believe off-planet Hominids if they say they are from another planet. This "I can't say that I'm from another planet because you won't believe me" is compounded by laws preventing them from saying so, and the fact that very-few of them are allowed to import non-terrestrial technology.

Therefore, our computers (tens-of-thousands) and our games, are shipped off the planet to Hominids. Being story-centric Hominids, we have unique movies, and to a lesser-extent, computer games. Just like Japanese anime sells in the U.S. US animators cannot make their own Japanese anime, nor do they try to.

[MikeRozak]

Try installing wordpress and filing your articles as posts (or Joomla as articles). Then, tag your posts so that we can browse a tag cloud.

I don't like wordpress because, realistically, .pdfs will be readable for at least 20 years. Wordpress databases fade-away quickly.

Actually, I briefly-thought about writing a computer-program that asked readers a series of questions to produce a "personality profile". This would then slice-down the document to bits that should only interest them. This won't happen due to the exploding number of OS's.

A side note: With the advent of tablets, there are 8(?) operating-systems to write software for: Windows 7, Window phone, iPad/iPhone, Google android, Kindle(?), Wii tablet, Sony PSP tablet, other E-books. .pdf's work across all platforms.

I'd like to see an entire article based on just that last paragraph. Do the research, show the math and the clever trick you've come up with. That would be a game design article that would draw some traffic.

Unfortunately, I don't have the research. I'm just doing a brain-dump.

The people who level-up to 29 feel a greater reward than those who went from 1 to 2. Knowing how hard it is to get to that level makes them feel superior over lower level players.

Agreed. And level 100 players spend $500+ on game subscriptions to get there.

Lack of content is certainly not your problem. I'm having trouble drawing a line from what I'm seeing to what you're claiming. Perhaps it really is a organizational issue.

Organization is certainly a problem. I don't have time to organize things at the moment, but I'll bear that in mind.

[MikeRozak]

Another game, which is played, which isn't quite a game, is the "Person following game" that I described above. This will sound very rude: You can add a wireless camera to a real-life pet dog. You can train the pet dog to repsond to sound-signals (or electic shocks) also attached to a wireless device on the pet dog. Can you get the pet dog to accomplish a task? If your pet-dog controls are at the subconscious level, or in line with the pet-dog's goals, then the task is easy. If you push the pet-dog too hard, they will just ignore all of the sound signals. And how do you take control of a second pet, a pet cat, to get the subborn pet dog to do what you want? Replace "pet dog" with "person", and the game is even ruder.

By the way, I am the pet cat.

[Artinum]

Aliens are not andogynous. They have sexualized game characters also, just like MMOs targeted at 13-year-old males do.

(Androgynous...)
Depends on the aliens, I'd say. Once you've developed genetic modification to a sufficient degree, sex becomes pretty pointless for reproduction. It's the difference between building a car to design specifications and assembling one from random junkyard parts.

That depends on the alien race. Most aliens do not play computer games. Most aliens do not read stories. We are story-consumers. A 2-hour movie is typical for us. Most aliens get bored after a 30-minute movie. Having said that, our typical conversation lasts 5 minutes. Aliens will have 2-hour-long conversations.

That's strange. I'm aware of at least a couple of alien races that build narratives into almost everything. Putting a story to something is very effective at making it memorable. Humans have been doing this for thousands of years - what do you think fairy tales are? They're parables to teach children how to be good.

I can understand aliens being bored by our 2-hour movies. Once you've seen one, you've seen them all. Hollywood is incredibly risk-averse.

Part of my conjecture is that Hominids from other planets are living here, secretly.

Interestingly, I once toyed with the idea I was one. Humans were (still are!) stupid and irrational. They didn't make sense and didn't understand me. Turned out I wasn't an alien, just autistic, which is simpler in some ways but disappointing in others.

Just as you (not necessarily you the individual) don't believe me when I say I was abducted, ...

Just want to raise an interesting semantic point here. Why do you say "abducted"? This implies you were taken by force, against your will. A lot of UFO cultists prefer the term "taken" - they have no control over it, but they are willing to go. Being taken implies a benevolent reason; being adbucted implies malicious intent.

...no-one here will believe off-planet Hominids if they say they are from another planet. This "I can't say that I'm from another planet because you won't believe me" is compounded by laws preventing them from saying so, and the fact that very-few of them are allowed to import non-terrestrial technology.

A common aspect of such a belief structure is that the lack of evidence is itself the evidence. The same thing happens with religious entities - God won't reveal himself to the world, because he chooses not to. It's also true of conspiracy theories - the government are listening, but you won't find the bugs because they've hidden them so well.

The paradox here is that, if they're trying to remain hidden, your knowledge of them is a problem. If you've detected them, they aren't remaining hidden; if you're picking up on a false positive, your belief system is wrong and everything you believe is based on this error.

This is a fascinating area in terms of philosophy, psychology and xenoanthropology combined, but alas I fear we are wandering away from the topic. Games, then...

Therefore, our computers (tens-of-thousands) and our games, are shipped off the planet to Hominids. Being story-centric Hominids, we have unique movies, and to a lesser-extent, computer games. Just like Japanese anime sells in the U.S. US animators cannot make their own Japanese anime, nor do they try to.

I don't see why they'd have to ship them. Games and movies are just data, after all; a simple transmitter would do the job far more efficiently, and if they were to link into the internet they could easily torrent most of it without needing anyone on the planet at all.

But again, digression. As for the thread itself, I'm not entirely clear what you're driving at. Are you delevoping games based on aliens, writing them for aliens or simply exploring alien notions of game mechanics?

[jpoag]

I don't like wordpress because, realistically, .pdfs will be readable for at least 20 years. Wordpress databases fade-away quickly.

Wordpress uses a MySQL database. SQL has been around since the late 1970's. PDF has been around since 1993 and the format specification wasn't opened up until 2008. MySQL has been around since 1995 (on par with PDF).

The cPanel of your website will allow you to install wordpress automatically, or you can install your own with these directions from your host.

Wordpress dynamically generates HTML pages using php running on the server and queries to your MySQL database. Any device that can access the internet can display HTML files.

There's nothing stopping you from maintaining your content in MSWord/PDF and copying/pasting it into Wordpress.

In any event, it's OK to have a bias for or against a technology, but you can't use an excuse that one tech is better than another based on ignorance.

Personally, I hate Wordpress. That doesn't stop me from recommending it. It's a very useful piece of software.

Actually, I briefly-thought about writing a computer-program that asked readers a series of questions to produce a "personality profile". This would then slice-down the document to bits that should only interest them.

A Tag cloud would be a short cut to this process. When I think of writing a 'personality profile' I think of not only the programming requirements, but the psychology and categorizing involved. I'm not saying that you need a Ph.D. in psychology to write the profile, but you will need to do a lot of research into the field to get accurate results. (Lol, unless you used recommendation engines.) Then, you have to go and tag the content with markers that allow you to sort based on the pysch profiles.

Tag Clouds are a shortcut that allow you to categorize the articles with simple tags and let the user look at documents that interest them (without all the barriers of taking a survey). You can even use online tools to generate tag clouds (with embeddable HTML): http://www.tagcrowd.com

Then, you don't need Wordpress, just add another column to your index page's table and paste the html code generated by tagcrowd.

abductees aliens brain com don earth en extradimensional homo implants intelligent nations off-planet org people planet race sapiens sol species technology thought ufo used years

Keep in mind that clicking on a Tag in a Wordpress install will bring up all the documents that are related to that tag.

This won't happen due to the exploding number of OS's.

A side note: With the advent of tablets, there are 8(?) operating-systems to write software for: Windows 7, Window phone, iPad/iPhone, Google android, Kindle(?), Wii tablet, Sony PSP tablet, other E-books. .pdf's work across all platforms.

Lol, flame bait.

Agreed. And level 100 players spend $500+ on game subscriptions to get there.

Who's to say whether or not someone should spend their disposable income on WoW or Burgers and Fries?

[lightassassin]

Is this all serious or some kind of really bad troll with counter trolling?

I'm so confused... to me it all just looks batshit crazy o_0

[MikeRozak]

Just want to raise an interesting semantic point here. Why do you say "abducted"? This implies you were taken by force, against your will. A lot of UFO cultists prefer the term "taken" - they have no control over it, but they are willing to go. Being taken implies a benevolent reason; being adbucted implies malicious intent.

Willingly - So in some ways "taken" would be better, but then again, "taken" is a more-overloaded term than "abducted".

I don't see why they'd have to ship them. Games and movies are just data, after all; a simple transmitter would do the job far more efficiently, and if they were to link into the internet they could easily torrent most of it without needing anyone on the planet at all.

But again, digression. As for the thread itself, I'm not entirely clear what you're driving at. Are you delevoping games based on aliens, writing them for aliens or simply exploring alien notions of game mechanics?

If an alien logged onto Second Life from space, and told people they were an alien, would anyone in Second Life believe them? (If a tree falls in a forest, and no-on hears it, does it make a sound?)

I wrote an online graphical MUD/adventure-game, www.circumreality.com. (The source-code is freely available now, by the way. Including text-to-speech and multicore renderer.) The content was to be about aliens influencing terrestrial life. I thought that if aliens were hacking into the internet, they would be playing online games, so they could more-easily talk to us Earthlings. An online game about aliens might attract aliens.

[chaosavy]

Very interesting, I never had the thought that aliens would use the game software beyond a "baah too primitize" brief look.

This raises an interesting question: do they buy these games or are they software pirates?

[MikeRozak]

Very interesting, I never had the thought that aliens would use the game software beyond a "baah too primitize" brief look.

Lots of Homo Sapiens play Bejwelled (and ilk), which you have to admit, is an Atari-2600 technology-level game (technology from 25 years ago).

Not all aliens are technological either. There are different gradations of technology levels within a race. This occurs on Earth, unfortunately. Some Africans and South-American "Indians" live very-low-tech lives (other than their mobile phones). They have no toilets, refrigerators, or power, technology that his the US 100-ish years ago. They also have no long-lasting homes, technology that hit Europe 3000-ish years ago, long-before the greeks.

There are also different versions of races, begun off the same genetic root. We are separated from animal-chimpanzees by 5M-10M years. Their IQ is roughly 30-50(?) - they can open doors, turn on lights, put on clothes, and speak two-word sentences. Our IQ is 100. If we were trying to "evolve" chimpanzee-animals to our intelligence, we could provide them Atari-2600's because they might get some of those games, but a game like Fallout or Mass Effect would be too intellectual for them.

This raises an interesting question: do they buy these games or are they software pirates?

Software piracy exists in all cultures. :-) So does televion/movie piracy.

[chaosavy]

Hey, so I skimmed your document a week or so before.

I don't recall that I saw any sort of aquatic mamalian based races, would think this is a no brainer since: doliphins/whales are considered very intelligent. Being in water (weightless or what not) would mean that they'd be natural at piloting space craft (or so I imagine).


Also the low tech aliens, how do they even appear on the radar (forgive me for the phrase). What I mean is would these guys appear on our Earth? Travel through the stars? How so? And why?

[MikeRozak]

Hey, so I skimmed your document a week or so before.

I don't recall that I saw any sort of aquatic mamalian based races, would think this is a no brainer since: doliphins/whales are considered very intelligent. Being in water (weightless or what not) would mean that they'd be natural at piloting space craft (or so I imagine).

Perhaps Dolphins are more-closely related to sharks? There are dolphin-evolved people with limbs, of course, branching-off 20-plus million years ago. I drew an illustration of a shark-evolved person. Some shark-evolved people look more-like shark-skinned werewolves, with semi-shark-like tails.

We do tend to think two-dimensional, and can try to think three-dimensionally. Thinking four-dimensionally or five-dimensionally (necessary for space combat) is beyond our abilities.

Also the low tech aliens, how do they even appear on the radar (forgive me for the phrase). What I mean is would these guys appear on our Earth? Travel through the stars? How so? And why?

You could use low-tech aliens in an Iraq-style peacekeeping / quelling-force game. What if the US Marines and airforce were invited to another planet by aliens (or by the Star Trek Federation) to partake in peacekeeping. How soon would terrorist attacks begin against US forces on the other planet? Would those eventuate in direct attacks against Earth? Or can the peacekeeping force be kept to food distribution and good-will efforts alone while achieving its goals? And how would the aliens' personalities affect their reactions to US troops? (See my short stories for examples of different alien personalities.)

[chaosavy]

Why is thinking in 4/5 dimensions necessary for space combat? I'm making a space sim so this is of particular interest.

That makes sense (low tech soliders), but I don't know about the peacekeeping aspect, more like the send in the grunts to test out the defenses, soften the enemy up a bit before the more valuable units are sent in.

[Artinum]

Perhaps Dolphins are more-closely related to sharks?

That's a common misconception. Though they are outwardly similar in appearance, dolphins and sharks are very different in terms of lineage - sharks are fish, while dolphins are mammals. This is an example of convergent evolution - where nature uses the same solution to the same problem.

[MikeRozak]

Why is thinking in 4/5 dimensions necessary for space combat? I'm making a space sim so this is of particular interest.

Stars aren't just distributed around three-dimensional space. They're distributed around a four or five-dimensional space (time is NOT a fourth dimension).

Stars are spherical in five-plus dimensions, so rotating around, outside of the normal three-dimensional plane, will still reveal stars.

Planets are more three-dimensional.

There is no reason that spacecraft cannot be offset off our orindary three-dimensional plane... so to fight other spacecraft, you need to rotate off ordinary three dimensions, and/or have radar/weapons that work there.

Which makes space combat much-more challenging... perhaps too difficult. Three-dimensional space combat is already difficult enough for us.

That makes sense (low tech soliders), but I don't know about the peacekeeping aspect, more like the send in the grunts to test out the defenses, soften the enemy up a bit before the more valuable units are sent in.

Put it this way, it is politically incorrect to create a peacekeeping game (first-person shooter or diplomacy-game) based on the real-world Iraq of Afghanistan. A peacekeeping game could be created where US soldiers partake in peacekeeping on an alien planet, with real-life peacekeeping issues.

[MikeRozak]

For those of you interested in a story-based description of space-combat, I uploaded a new short-story, Pantherized.It might provide you with some game-design ideas.

[vibhavram]

You are right Jake. Introducing more interesting levels is really a deadly job.