Gauging Interest in a Mixology Game

General The Pub
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I wasn’t sure where exactly to put this, but The Pub seemed most appropriate. If not, feel free to move this.

Warning: This is probably going to be long as hell :wink: You’ve been warned!

So as some of you may know (Well really, probably not, since I don’t really advertise it), but over the last few months, I’ve started to do a 180 degree shift in my career path, and life in general. All my life (Literally, at 4 I sat at my father’s side reading off assembler to him while he wrote programs on out Commadore 64 :smiley: ), I’ve been surrounded by computers, and yet somehow got trapped in the dead end cycle of retail work. So back in July I enrolled in an online program to learn both front end design and back end coding. As a side note, the front end design has been going quite well, and I actually landed a part time contract based gig doing conversions of documents to HTML and CSS which looks to be leading to a full time position by years end, far ahead of my expectations.

On a lark, I signed up to a different class to learn game programming and development in Unity and C#, and I’m finding I’m having a blast with it. So the other day, I’m looking at all the silly programs that my daughter plays on the tablet that mimic the stuff normal people do in real life, and a really random thought entered my head. Wouldn’t it be neat if there was a game to mimic DIY mixing? This makes me wonder if anyone here would actually play something like this, and if so, what would you like to see in it.

I’ve got a really nebulous concept of the game play, you start out with a very basic mix kit (VG, PG, Nic and say 5 flavors {if we keep it true to real life, variations of strawberry and custard! :smiley: }), you’d then need to complete mini-games to earn money for more flavors and earn more recipes. The final goal would be to open up your own e-liquid company.

Here’s where my problems crop up. I’m not much of a creative person, you give me a problem and I can find a solution, but coming up with a problem that needs a solution isn’t quite my forte.

So what does the collective think? Would you download a game like this? And if so, what would you like to see in it? Am I just nuts (That one is rhetorical, of course I’m nuts!).

Let me know what you all think!

Pat

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It sounds fun! We’d need enemies too. Most good games have monsters to fight. FDA agents? Maybe an animated steep fairy and juice gremlins that sneak in and sour a mix for no apparent reason?

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Not a gamer myself but a name popped into my head.

Vape Tycoon

:laughing:

Or “screw u fda”

I have been involved with a couple of projects over the last few years both c# and java (for android) and it is funny but you will find a lot of people will try to say it will never work - don’t listen to them soldier on and do it. You never know what will take off and what will not but you can be 100% sure that if you don’t try it you won’t suceed.

I wish you luck developing your idea it can be both crushing and immensly satisfying (sometimes within minutes of each other)

Cheers

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Those bastards are at my house regularly.

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I like! Definitely FDA agents busting up the “moonshine”. Maybe a RNG that occasionally nails you with a batch of bad nic (Not too much, I’ve always hated games where the RNG kills you and there’s nothing you can do about it). Keep the ideas coming!

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As satisfying as “Screw You FDA” sounds (and has such a great ring to it!) I don’t want the black helicopters circling my house, it keeps the kids up! This is definitely something I want to do, I couldn’t care less if it takes off or not. I started the course to learn C# (and it was a whole $11), and to make some games for my kids to play. That and it’s a nice break from learning PHP (yeah, I’m certifiable: Self, what to I want to do to take a break from website coding, oh, I know C# :scream_cat: ).

Maybe for a mini game try to create an e-liquid from a recipe and you have to click on the right ingredients as they drop down, tetris style in a certain time frame. I might just try and build the mini games first and have folks try them out, and build out from there.

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You don’t have to call them FDA. They could be like MIB or Repltilians or some sinister fantasy looking thing but we mixers will know…

We…will know. :imp:

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could TPA Maraschino Cherry and TPA Raisin be monsters?

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Yeah. (Knock wood) They’ve only gotten a few of my test batches.

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Or they could be the FDA… the Federation for the Destruction of Autonomy (any resemblance to any government entity past or present is strictly coincidental)! OK, I should be heading to be. Be back in the morning for more brainstorming!

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Sounds fun! You could have different steep times for recipes so like a Strawberry & Cream takes 1 minute but pays out low whereas a custard takes a day to steep but pays out more?

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Sounds like a great idea to me. Perhaps one of your little mini games could be a slot machine?! I’d play that.

You could add hardware into the mix later too. I can see MANY supporters and, if it was any good at all, MUCHO backing $$$'s. Sponsors, sponsors, sponsors!

Seriously, just get on it and delete this thread before someone beats you to it. :stuck_out_tongue:

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that would suck if someone took this thread and rolled with it to create something

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Sounds like fun!

C++, C# has always been something ive dabbled in but I could never find the same love / hate I have for web coding.

Good luck to you!

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I like the idea I think it’s cute as can be. One game came to mind that’s really a simple game it’s the challenge that’s the motivator of the game. We all need one right.

Look at sky burger where you need to stack a burger in the given order it is requested it gets harder as it goes.

Well in the same situation the " goal " can be the customer requests a SB Cheesecake Custard Cupcake and all the ingredients start falling but BUT you Only need to stack what the customer has requested the challenge will have other ingredients falling BUT you’re supposed to ignore them and not stack them if you do it’s game over…Custard LOL

How’s that sound ! I’d play it
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=sky%20burger%20app

I want half of the profits hee hee Good Luck thou and keep us posted :smile:

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Actually that’s pretty close to what I was visualizing for the mini game I mentioned above. I’m thinking of designing a couple of mini games with limited levels to start, and maybe combining them in to a larger game.

I’ll have to do a lot more digging in to the Android API’s to figure out how to implement the gyros built in to most phones/tablets, but it shouldn’t be too hard to implement an onclick event to allow clicking/tapping the components to add to the mix.

You guy’s really rock and are helping me greatly in brainstorming this idea! Don’t worry everyone will get a mention in the game when it’s published!

As a side note, it’s been a really rough day. My eldest was diagnosed with walking pneumonia, and I think I’m getting it. Focusing on my studies has been a huge challenge today, and there’s been a couple of times where I contemplated chucking my laptop out the window (foreach loops in PHP are just kicking my butt for some reason!). So it’s nice to have something fun to think about to take my mind off it.

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Quick question, would this be Ad based? Some games I play will constantly have a video pop up etc. Ugh lol

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I haven’t thought that far ahead yet. In reality that’s the “easiest” way to profit off of the development. But i really hate those pop up ads in the middle of a game. I could probably do micro transactions to speed advancement in the game if desired. At least that’s far less intrusive.

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Cool. I’m sure it helps.

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That sounds awful - speedy recovery to your eldest and fingers crossed you haven’t got it :open_mouth: