"Atlas Shrugged" a new computer game?
Posted by terrycan 10 years, 9 months ago to Entertainment
This is just an idea of mine. I am not a gamer. Sim City was interesting. An "Atlas Shrugged" computer game would serve two or more purposes. Generate money for the movie and expose young people to Objectivism. My question to my friends at The Gulch. Would you play?
However... on the drive to work today I though about what kind of game I WOULD like to play. Here's what I came up with: --OH! and there are plot SPOILERS below. just saying.
*GENRE - Action/adventure decision-based role playing game (RPG), (decision structure similar to "Mass Effect", action/adventure modeled after "L.A. Noir")
*STORY - You create a custom character (male or female) who has just graduated college. You major was Engineering, Business, or Politics. You have a job interview set up at Taggart Transcontinental. You choose to work under Dagny (with Engineering or Business major) or Jim (with Business or Politics major). Work for Dagny includes building new branch lines, obtaining supplies, and keeping trains running. Work for Jim includes getting directives passed and eliminating competition.
At some point Dagny or Jim will assign you the job of investigating the disappearances of producers. Working for Dagny will lead you to Galt (I guess technically he will find you, as he found Quentin Daniels!) and if you're working for Jim your investigation will lead to a dead end, but you will be introduced to Dr. Stadler. You will either go to the Gulch or the State Science Institute (SSI), where you can interact with other characters from the book and have discussions on philosophy. Also you will get upgrades to your technology and increase your skills (still thinking about what exactly those might be).
From either the Gulch or the SSI you will be assigned missions.
Gulch missions - general disruption of government plans, planting the seeds of "going Galt" in remaining producers, and putting in place equipment for the broadcast of Galt's speech.
SSI missions - distribute propaganda, silence any media or remaining producers who speak/act out against the government.
GALT'S SPEECH - alright here's the part where all you die hard fans can go crazy. Include the entire speech. Why not? This is a decision-based game. At any point the player can choose to continue listening to the speech, or save and come back later, or bypass it. The game, just like the book, will already include examples of Objectivism, so the speech will just supplement that. Once unlocked, speech will be available in "bonus material" section of game. Player can read/listen to it at any time.
But wait- there's more! After the speech you either return to the Gulch to wait for the world to destroy itself, or (if you're working for Jim) you are assigned to tail Dagny which will eventually lead you to Galt. Final leg of the game involves either joining Hank, Dagny and Francisco in rescuing Galt, or interrogating him and fighting off H, D, and F (but you will lose, probably get knocked out by Hank or something. or punch to the face from Dagny. That could be fun.) Game ends with cinematic of H, D, F, and G flying over NYC, into the sunrise.
*EXPERIENCE SYSTEM - the player would have a "Philosophy Bar" that filled according to their in-game decisions. Decisions would add to either Objectivism or Collectivism side. Bonuses would be unlocked when you reach certain amounts of either philosophy (this is necessary for gameplay, can't just reward Objectivism). Player would essentially be punished if he/she straddles the fence. (same thing happens in Mass Effect - no bonus for being half good/ half evil)
*FINANCING: To be done right, should be produced as a game in itself, not just a supplement to the films. The Strike Productions could partner with independent game developers, plus crowd-funding (through kickstarter or some other site).
That's about it. I'd be interested to know your thoughts. Oh and for visual learners, here's a link to the plot structure in flowchart form:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zfgkzz4ay0mx8d...
I'm thinking more along the lines of something Civilization-esque than than (I guess) World-of-Warcraft-esque first person perspective. Getting the artwork for a WoW-type interface is probably unrealistic.
Have 3 "sides", each with their own victory conditions:
Strikers: collapse of the collectivist government, with minimal casualties.
Capitalists: Produce the collectivist government into irrelevancy (nanotech or AI singularity), or replace the collectivist government with a capitalist one from within.
Collectivists: Achieve a 1984 or Brave New World-style steady state.
Allow "defections" from one side to another. AS itself featured late-in-the-game defections from capitalist to striker, but the others should be possible.
Have a more free-form starting state where you can choose paths that mirror many AS heroes and villains. I suspect Francisco's start state isn't going to be possible from a game balance perspective, though.
Decisions you make earn you experience and resources of various types that you can use to expand your empire (different for the three sides)
Rearden: determination+financing->industry+idea->invention
Dagny: determination+job at existing company->rise through the ranks(operational)+idea->profits for self+company
Orren Boyle: government loan->industry->political influence
James: bootlicking->rise through the ranks(managment or lobbying)->political influence:
Mouch: like James, but ends in strategic betrayal->More political influence
Galt: idea+determination->recruitment,bootstrap the (initially non-existent) Gulch economy
In addition to the player (maybe allow multiplayer??), create a bunch of NPCs with their own aims for the player(s) to interact with. NPC's actions affect the game state which the player has to deal with.
If you want to go the route of a turn-based strategy, like Civ, then what you're essentially creating is a board game for the pc. Still interesting, but won't have as much mass appeal and will only be good for teaching broad concepts (like capitalism). Also I'm not exactly clear on what gameplay would be like if you chose to be a Striker, since their motive is destruction of the government through passivity. Is this explained in the board game thread? (I only glanced through it.)
In my game model I didn't mention defections from collectivist to striker because I didn't think it would work with the storyline. Nonabsolute was the only collectivist defector in the book, right? And things didn't turn out too well for him.... but it would be fun to figure out how to make it work.
I do like strategy games, and a Civ type game could be offered as a supplement, just like Halo Wars was made during the popularity of the Halo series.
Finally, I am absolutely, certainly, most definitely not proposing anything whatsoever like WoW. It is a third-person sandbox-style thing (I won't even call it a game) created solely for the purpose of sucking money out of people and making them forget how much time they're wasting. I'm not fond of it, can you tell? ;)
I want to make a game worth playing, that offers real-world value for the person playing it.
Looters could gain points/ wealth and power by how much stuff they break and take unjustly. Hey that is why we call them looters.
Imagine the game could go something like this. When a looter reaches a threshold he gets a call from Wesley Mooch, Mr Thompson or James Taggert. He is invited into a corrupt organization AKA Level 2.
When a producer reaches a threshold he is visited by Akinson, Francisco, or Galt.
The producers goal to get into the Gulch AKA Level 2.
If this works what does Level 2 look like?
Yes, app is short for application, and it is most commonly used to refer to software downloads for your phone or mobile device (iPad, Kindle, etc.)
It does not necessarily refer to games (could be a weather app, music app, etc.)
Game apps can be simple like tic-tac-toe, or very complex like a first-person shooter. The kind of game khalling and dave42 mention above would work as an app. It could be an online game with many producers and looters playing against each other, and your phone or mobile device would alert you when it's your turn to play. An app would be much simpler to develop than a full-scale computer game, and could generate interest in and revenue for the AS films.
Example of decision wheel in Mass Effect (player's character giving speech):
http://youtu.be/auLSXw-h0M0
L.A. Noire trailer - shows character emotion achieved through actor motion capture:
http://youtu.be/tYNhs0roxT0
Example of L.A. Noire gameplay (action/ fight):
http://youtu.be/ptbkHu0lZVU
John Galt is being held prisoner in a NYC hotel. You/players are members of the Gulch. Your mission free John Galt and return to the Gulch. JG hass been moved to a lab. He is being tortured until he submits to the moochers and looters. Dagney Taggert kills a man. Henry Rearden is wounded. Francisco D'Conia crashes through a window!
Winning requires freeing JG and flying out of NYC. You look behind you and see the lights of NYC going out. The producers win. Game over.
It is good to see some interest and I appreciate the input from dave42 and also EitherOr's work. I downloaded the flowchart.
I prefer what he calls a "sandbox" game, open-ended. Even if the Strike is successful, rebuilding must commence!
And why would the Strike NOT be successful?
As I said, I am not a big gamer, but one day in the store where we played D&D, I spent a couple of hours with every "railroad" game in the shelves. All could be played in 90 minutes to 3 hours. I like a game like Risk (or D&D) that can go on all night and into the morning and then the next afternoon.
That said, the preference here is for a computerized game. Does that mean you play by yourself with or against software modules as other players? What about an online game that is Multi-player?
Given Atlas Shrugged and given us here, who would want to be a looter?
Do you know the BIOSHOCK first person shooter games with Atlas Shrugged as the backstory?
When I played Monopoly with libertarians, they got rid of the Income Tax, of course. Probably many people here have that experience.
Finally, we have to consider the intellectual property problems here before we get too far down the road.
However, I'd definitely be willing to be the first beta tester if Scott or the team did decide to make a game. Even a small Flash game (could be put on the website or something.)
But: it is hard to not win a game where the ultimate goal is to 'give up'.
All you would have to do is go on 'strike' on the first role.... ;-)
If an Occupier lands on an empty Park Place, does he/she get to place a tent token piece on the square? And when a property owning player lands on the square, he has to contribute to the Occupy Park Place food bank... ;-)
Would John Galt ever fail to convince a producer to strike, say by not having enough experience points or whatever?
How would the gaming work? I am not a big gamer, but everyone knows D&D. When our daughter was a kid, we all used to play Moria and Rogue on the computers. Last year, to get to know people after moving here to Austin, my wife and I played "D&D Encounters" almost every week for almost six months. Just to say, I have some idea of what a "game" is. I am not sure that I see this for Atlas Shrugged, but you might perceive something that I do not.
You could make it a "Civilization" kind of game where you rebuild the world, after the Strike. Clearing away wreckage would be more costly but be more rewarding perhaps from scrap salvage and recovered machineries, etc. All the looters did not just up an evaporate, either, so some of them will still be around trying to organize trouble for you. That all might make an interesting game universe.