Stray Thoughts

Can't escape from working all week at the day job, missing out on board game night. It's not worth it, I hope I find something better soon and it fades into a story to tell strangers.

A few thoughts about games have come up. The first is in the board game space, in which I'm currently thinking of creating multiple different games, but each a part of the same world, using the same characters and visual style to tell different stories connected together.

The Silicone Valley and the Reverse Galaxy Truckers come to mind as an example. What if one of the "Neckbeards" you can use in your recruitment agency turns into one of the crew members you can draft for your ship.

The second idea I'm occupied with is inspired by the success of Multiplayer online battle arena games. I never tried playing DOTA or LoL, but I suspect I would suck. I would feel much more comfortable with a turn based strategy game. I think this idea is an extension of older ideas for an online TBS, with the current incarnation involving building a team belonging to a faction (similar to miniature games.)  This team could be broken up and used in several simultaneous asynchronous games.

Space ship design language

Above is an image from Master of Orion 2, showing one color option for the ships which you can choose.
I am currently working on some of my own ships designs, following the long standing tradition of designing such vehicles with a unified design language.
The benefits of using such a system are as clear as figuring out who is friend or foe.

Thing is, when you look at current and past transportation technology things don't quite work out that way.

Fighter jets look quite different from commercial airliners. Different colors and camouflage patterns are used for the same aircraft even when used by the same people.
I think extraterrestrial intelligence may end up working along similar lines: form will fit function, yet we won't mistake it for anything we've built here on earth, just as they won't mistake our vehicles for their own.

I'll continue to design my ships for the human player, but this is food for thought. Maybe I'll stumble onto something.