Virtual Nation : The Multi-Games Game
Introduction
Since my early age in the video-games world I structured a fictional world in my head. A world that I started to build long time ago since the first time I discovered the wonderful thing that is imagination. With video-games, I always connected the things that happened in the game with my own fictional world. Making this stories parts of the history of my world. I sometimes had to twist my imagination to mentally adapt it to my world. Like with a Fifa, I don’t really remember which one, I created a soccer league for the planets of my fictional world, which was already a galaxy at this moment. It was a wonderful creative game that evolved from pure imagination, to drawings, to writings, to digital arts, to dice simulatings and then video-games…
The Multi-Games Game
With video-games we can now simulate a lot of human experiences : City Building, Sports, Wars, Diplomacy, Crime, Law Enforcement, Business owning, Farm owning, Fishing, Socialising, Working etc etc…
In fact, all this experiences together could allow an alien from a distant planet to understand how we live and organise.
But all this games are not like puzzle pieces unfortunately. They are not imagined to work together to construct a Macro Narrative (Which in my definition mean : a story that focus on a lot of points of view.)
But can’t we do it ?
I think it’s totally manageable. In my Multi-Games Game concept, I imagine an interface (The MGG) that allow, with the help of some rules, to connect logically and coherently the games to craft a Macro Narrative of a fictional world which is here an alternate version of our planet earth, with a continent not present in our reality.
This unknown continent for us is a not negligible part of this world. He was called « The New Continent », « The New World » or « The Abyss » by different cultures when it appeared in the Atlantic Ocean because of a massive tectonic plates movement which created a new continent in less than 3 years. Now they call it [whatever we will choose together with a vote system].
This earth share the same timeline as us before the apparition of the new continent in the beginning of the middle age.
Cities Skylines : The Fundamental Brick
In my opinion, the Multi-Games Game concept has to evolve around a main piece with the others converging to it.
For my system, we will use Cities Skylines as the base of the game. Every other games are a support to simulate something happening in the cities or between them.
For example, when you build a Soccer Stadium in your city, you unlock the possibility to play in the soccer league of the continent and compete against other players or just begin with friendly games. All of that with PES 2021. The best soccer players of the nation(s) will be invited to defend their colours in the National Team via the game mode that let you control just 1 player in a 11 vs 11 match.
This concept can be replicate for every other aspects of the city.
See the Progression Tree.
Role Play
The Role Play aspect of the game is very important. In the beginnings, we will use only Discord but other supports will be available in the near future. (RP Servers, VR social apps)
For the roleplaying, we will use fictional characters to experience different aspects of our cities. At first, you will have only one character, which is called the Founder. This character is the leader of what could become a huge empire. Later, you will unlock other characters through achievements in Cities Skyline which will let you play as a soccer manager, a soldier, a military commandant, a professional race driver, a business man, a politic figure, a entertainment celebrity etc etc…
For coherence we will all use the same character creator which is amazing to create relatively fast designs for your RP characters. For more customisations you can see if the premium features can satisfy you or you can customise your designs with photoshop or illustrator for example. (I’m not affiliated with this website but it’s amazing !)
You can find here the Alpha Character Sheet which we will use to play our character in the same style that a table top RPG.
WIP
I decided to « launch » this project with a minimum viable product as soon as possible to focus on the development of a shared creation with other people that may be interested in this idea. So a lot of things are very rudimentary for now. Like the crappy logo that I made in 1h, the map that i scribbled quickly, things will get better every day, the discord will be as automated as possible, the wiki will be a true hosted wiki with Mediawiki and a lot of other things.
One Rule to rule them all
Ok, so no, there is not just one rule, but the title sounded cool. But what I mean by this title is that there will be one common rule for all the games. With a system close to what traditional 4X games propose with different ressources for different uses for example.
Exploring and Expanding is a large possibility of the game play, but you can not only conquer by force or by fear, you can conquer politically, diplomatically or even spiritually. You can also not choose the big problems of the powerful peoples and prefer to be a proud Farmer, living in the community only as local field owner who lives from the success of his harvests. Of course, this will happened in Farming Simulator.
Events
For the games that can not really integrate permanently the MGG, there will be frequents events with rewards in ressources or bonus. Achievements badges are also planned to be displayed on the character sheets and some times give bonus.
The Long Term Vision
In the long term, I envision that this idea could became a little bit more. Like a true community driven eco-system of creation, entertainment and even learning contents on social medias. With a Youtube Channel, a frequent live on Twitch. We could do a wide variety of contents, from just time lapses of city buildings, Real world learnings on how cities and nations are built and organised ( like this youtube channel ), Live sports competitions, Virtual Nation’s Elections, Fictional Reality Tv Shows (Like this), Live rules co-writing with the viewers etc etc…
We could even form a collective of Video Creators and Streamers producing contents around Virtual Nation.
Of course this is all just dreams and utopia for now but who knows ?
If you are interested or just curious about this strange idea, you are welcome to join me on this Discord to participate or just discuss the project.
Useful Links
