once you have your coded with all the functions you want, its time to realy get on iwth the level design and playability.

for an ordinary driving game, not racing, just... driving what would you like to see. what i have in mind is small cities through country roads to small sleepy towns then to absolutely nowhere.

what should happen on the way to places like these, what should you bee seeing, hearing.

driving could get a bit boring so other side games would be a nice addition, car chases perhaps. get to such and such a place on the set time.

i think it'd be interesting if you could switch to a passenger in the game and play mini games on something like a psp.

Actually, you should have thought of these things even before you started coding.

Anyway, I don't think playing "mini games on a psp" is that good of a concept. If driving around is so boring, then why should I do that in the first place? I'm playing a game after all, I want to have fun. Why do I have to sit around and wait or play unrelated minigames? That doesn't seem so elegant to me. Either allow me to skip the drivingpart, or try to add something that makes sense (in a loose sense of the word) as far as driving is concerned. Car chases is a good idea. Races would be possible. In GTA, you get points for nice stunts. Why don't you add something like that?

Generally, if you ask yourself "What do I have to add to make Part X fun", then think if you really need the player to go through Part X at all. It might be enough for him to see a panel or a textmessage "After driving five hours through the desert, you're there". Of course, not all games are made to be "just fun", so maybe you're after that (in the sense of a realistic experience). If so, ignore what I've said.


(For some reason I keep thinking of that one game that had you driving a bus through the desert for hours without anything happening inbetween. I tried to find an article about it, but without remembering the name of it, thats hard

EDIT: Found something about it: Link )

Great find on the smoke and mirrors!!!

at first this idea wasnt realy a game for the masses but rather myself, as a first game to learn how to use 3dgs i thought of making a level of where i live and to drive around it, i got fed up of the fact that building the road system around here was a nightmare with convex and non convex blocks so now its just gonna be roads setout by pre defined models that cant go wrong so the areas and cities im building are totaly fictional untill i can get a better solution to real world level making.

the game is more to do with a more realistic experience like error said, im trying to go for graphics and scenery, the envoirnment, and the cars and people round about you. the side games are just a distraction from the mundane. if the game turns out better than i first expected i may focus more on a selling point and use the realistic experience as a sort of free roam that most games are coming out with now.

another idea was the ability for people to create there own towns and use them in the game so to make a huge network like google is trying to do with sketchup and Google Earth, imagine this. in time i create my town and you create yours, somewhere in between they are connected, probably by ferry or euro tunnel, i could drive to your town. big dreams i know but the idea is good.

driving was very fun in mafia (the game), even though the cars were slow the atmosphere of the city of lost heaven and the time feeling was stunning.

i loved that too, just driving where ever you feel like and then driving to side games like the race track with the realy old rocket cars, and trying to unlock new vehicles. im sorry i ever sold that game