Further Game Development

After more brain storming in order to grasp a solid idea on the narrative behind my game, I had another idea which could be considered, which was influenced by playing The Sims 2 excessively . My idea was to have the main character as the owner of the shopping centre, with this there comes certain responsibilities for example, you have to hire and fire staff, make sure stock is in order, check wages and income from each shop, etc, with this game the main character would also have to watch the security cameras not only for shop lifters but to make sure the staff are acting accordingly and not stealing from him or her. Each stop would have to be maintained, the shopping centre would have to entice new stores to make them want to open a shop within their centre, they would have to organise entertainment for kids, i.e. small shows and educational shows while the parents shop. Music entertainment and promotions, and finally and most importantly they would need to make an profit each day to remain open.

The shopping centre would initially be quite small with limited shops, then after reading news papers and looking on the internet you would need to attract new shops and then from there expand on the centre, the player would have the ability to mould the shopping centre themselves to how they would want, and they can chose which shops, from their research, they want in the centre. Your character would become more important depending on how successful they become, their profit would also increase or decrease accordingly. This would allow the player to nurture their character and become invested in them, thus hopefully increasing the immersion with the game play.

This structure also includes all of my initial game concepts I wanted to involve, consumerism, capitalism, interaction, and surveillance, my only concern is that this is too similar to The Sims concept? It is easy to see that The Sims 2 is shaping my mind and altering my perception of what makes a successful, immersive game, and what I have come to realise is that people relate better to a character they have to mould and nurture because there is a certain amount of investment involved which generates commitment and the determination to succeed. This is what I want my game to achieve because then does it not only evoke both genders but people of all ages.