ATM my dream game would be...

... The Three Musketeers...

... open world...

... action RPG...

... by Spiders.

Playing through AC Unity and then Greedfall really got me to wanting a good game interpretation of The Three Musketeers...

... or...

... a game of...

... The Ring of the Niebelung.

Yes, there was a Ring game awhile back, but that was far, far from the source material! Yet playing Valkyrie Elysium and God of War (2018) makes me think a more conservative translation of the story could be great in game form!

Flaws of Chess:
* There are a few rules that aren't easy to understand (en passant capture, castleing)
* It's possible for the game to get into a state where neither player can win; in fact, it's even possible to reach a point where a player has no legal move, but isn't in check (and therefore the game-ending condition doesn't trigger)
* There's not enough variety. Each game always has the same 16 pieces per side, and there are only 64 squares, of which there's nothing distinguishing them. There are games with far more variety.

Unless the game allows you to restore an older save instead of accepting the death, I would actually consider this to be a dealbreaker.

(On the other hand, one approach is to allow this, but make it so that character death isn't entirely bad; make death part of progression in some way, so that players will want to accept deaths in at least some situations.)

None of your "complaints" about chess are valid. I use double quiotes because I doubt you've been serious in the first place with these "complaints".


Its definitely a singleplayer game. Maybe I should have explicitly mentioned that. There is no limitation on how much stuff you can acquire, thus there cant be a multiplayer component.

So yes, of course you can revert to earlier saves.

As I mentioned, after a while you should have enough stuff that actually dying should be nigh impossible though. Because you can have bases everywhere, with people in every base, and theres no limit to how many people, bases and space ships you can have.

And if it helps we could also have a clone mechanism like in EVE.

I'm pretty sure chess players don't see any of these as flaws.

Once a player has invested enough time, s/he knows the rules and how they apply.
Having to learn these rules, is not different from learning the rules to, say: "tic-tac-toe" or "Minesweeper".
Draws are common in many games.
And if a player truly can't make any move (I'm not into chess, so I don't know whether that is actually possible) he has to concede defeat - thus the other player wins.
That's true.
There ARE games with more variety...but does that make these games better?
Or does that make these games simply different games?
Again: "tic-tac-toe"...or "connect four"...both games with even less variety than chess...and yet: kids (and adults) play them all over the world.
Why do they do that?
Because they are enjoyable.
And I dare say, after ~ 1400 years in existence, Chess has proven to be a good and entertaining game - for the people interested in it.

"Perfect" is obviously a subjective qualifier ;)

The only improvement I can think of for Alpha Centauri is not a technical one: it would deserve a libre / open-source engine. But this could be said of all games that do not already have one.

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If I get back to technical improvements, there might still be one: the original native Linux engine has no support the game music. I can not even remember the music (I have not played the Windows build in the last 10~15 years), but the game would most probably be better with it.

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To anyone here who played Alpha Centauri, I would be more than happy to have this perfection pretence challenged.

That's not actually the rule.

There's another rule, which is sometimes a bit tricky, called "check", which affects what happens. If, at the start of a player's turn, an opposing piece is in a position that would allow it to capture the player's king, then the player is in check.

This rule does matter in this situation:
* If a player is in check and has no legal moves, then the player has lost.
* If a player is *not* in check, however, then the player has not lost; instead, the game is a draw (I believe sometimes called a "stalemate").
* Moving into check (in other words, making a move that would allow your opponent to capture your king on their turn) is actually illegal. One consequence of this is that, in a situation where the only legal move would otherwise be to expose your king, causing it to be captured next turn, and one where someone might expect a loss, in reality it's a "no legal moves, but not in check" situation and therefore the game is a draw.

Rules-wise, tic-tac-toe and minesweeper are much simpler than chess, and therefore learning their rules is *much* easier.

Also, Minesweeper is a computer game, so you have a computer to enforce the rules. This means that the player does not need to actually know the rules to attempt to play the game. This is in contrast to chess, which (ignoring computer implementations) relies on the *players* to enforce the rules. For example, if on my first time, I move my pawn to your king's square and capture your king, there's no computer to say "no"; the only thing that keeps me from doing so is for you to say that's not allowed, which, in turn, relies on you actually knowing that the rules do not allow that move.

This, of course, becomes more of a burden on players, particularly new and inexperienced players, the more complex a game gets.
I actually can think of one flaw from watching the game being played: If you play on a large map, science progress is much slower. This is a problem since I may want to play on a large map (so more exploration and more time before encountering another civilization), but still want to see the later parts of the tech tree sooner rather than later.


Flaw with these games is that they have been solved. Tic-Tac-Toe is not entertaining for adults, as the solution is too simple, and every game will end in a draw if both players use the winning strategy. Connect Four may be complex enough for adults to still enjoy it, but you can still program in a perfect AI that will always win if it goes first. (Tic-Tac-Toe's perfect AI isn't guaranteed to win, but it can't lose, even if it goes second.)

A game being "good and entertaining" does not make the game perfect. A game can be good and entertaining and still have flaws.

(Obvious example: Bethesda games. They're entertaining, but they're also plagued with bugs that can, for example, cause your character to fall through the floor. Then again, sometimes the bugs themselves can be entertaining.)

I guess for me would be a combination of both Death Stranding and Hunt: Showdown with a vast world to explore where our task is to deliver various goods from different people spread across the world map, with no weapons no nothing. The only thing you'll be carrying with you are just your cargo, supplies (for consumption and healing), and some retractable lightweight retractable equipment to help you survive (no weapons still tho). And since the game Hunt: Showdown was mentioned, meaning the game will be played in first person, and there will be monsters in the world. So the only way to deal with them is by getting around them through stealth. The player will also have a pair of binoculars to help them scout and see whether there are monsters ahead of the path they're trying to take. Ofc, there will also be a map that encompass the whole world, but it won't have the same function as that of a radar where the positions of the enemies will be revealed to you to help you navigate. Only the position of the player will appear in the map as it becomes its center, but for the rest (like the monsters and other NPCs whom you get your delivery orders from) you will have to mark them yourself on your map and update them from time to time.

Lastly, I want the world of the game to contain beautiful sceneries accompanied by breathtaking landscapes that won't just act as backgrounds, but ones that you can actually travel to, and pretty clouds. I will also have the game have a cumulonimbus cloud that would reappear from time to time on different parts of the world. And I want the game to be endless with no ending. I want it to be relaxing, but at the same time kinda serious as you get the feel the urgency from the time required for your delivery orders or tasks to be performed. I also want it to rely 100% on stealth since I just like the feeling of suspense you get when you have to navigate your way around enemies without killing them, and so the only way forward is to stealth your way through them.

And the clothing in this game will revolve around cloaks, robes, and ponchos. Why? Because they're badass.

I usually like to play my strategy games on big maps but dislike quick research, especially if it is so quick that I spend the late game with nothing to research at all (or only repeatable generic technologies like in Stellaris). I especially hate when some technology is obsoleted by a new one before you even had time to play with what it unlocked.

I like when a game ends before the technology tree completion, unless I am playing a civilization with heavy focus on science. It makes these late-game technologies feel more valuable when they are not something all players have access to.

So what you quoted is an upside to me. A surprising upside, because I never noticed a slower paced research on bigger maps (probably because I almost never play on small maps).

Thing is, the Civilization games (at least 2 and 3) allow you to play on huge maps without research being slowed to a crawl, but Alpha Centauri does not, and it doesn't tell you that.

(And that's even *with* there being a "tech quotient" option that can be used to tweak the speed of technological advancement.)

Also, why I tend not to play myself (it's mainly my mother playing this sort of game, though she just plays Civ 3), if I do I would prefer not having a game end condition. (Well, maybe have it end on "conquest defeat", but perhaps allow cheating to get out of that end.) It's annoying when a game ends when you're just getting into it, and haven't quite seen the later stages. (This issue can arise, for example, with Civ 3's Cultural Victory. It also arises in a degenerate manner if you try playing Civ 3 with no other civilizations, and forget to disable Conquest Victory.)

I'll repeat myself: "I'm not into chess, so I don't know whether that is actually possible".

Besides: your exact initial comment was (quote):
No rules were mentioned - only "a point where a player has no legal move"...that's what I replied to.

Also: "playing to a draw (or "stalemate")" counts as a "game-ending condition" in Chess.
And I repeat myself again: Draws are common in many games.

And I say, if a Chess player manages to evade defeat up to a point where the only possible outcome is a draw ("stalemate") - that player knows his game and executed it to near perfection.
Perfection, of course, would have been to win the game.

What has simplicity to do with anything?
I'll repeat myself once again: Once a player has invested enough time, s/he knows the rules and how they apply.
and
For people interested in [Chess], learning the rules of Chess is not different (or harder), than learning the rules to "tic-tac-toe" and "Minesweeper" is, for people interested in those two games.

Sorry, but no!?
Why should we ignore the "computer implementations", if they exist and are for many people probably the most used variant of the game?
When did the argument "only human v. human counts, but computer v. human doesn't" enter this discussion?
Wow! This must actually be the most stupid example you ever gave here.
A new low.

So has Chess.
Grandmasters are so good at the game, they only ever lose to their opponent, if their opponent makes a careless mistake.
Or is called "Deep Blue". ;)

And how is this different from Chess?

Says you. And yet - some adults still play these games.
And also: out of a sudden, we allow "computer implementations" to enter the chat?
Hm, interesting.
Where did I claim Chess to be "perfect"?

Do you know of a place where this is described, including the underlying rules? I played many games on huge maps through completion, usually with a science victory, so "slowed to a crawl" does not relate with my experience. But maybe my experience is biased in some way.

I would need to check again, but I think all game victory conditions can be enabled/disabled individually. An extra rule can allow defeated players to be given a new start with a single colony pod, actually preventing any player to be fully wiped out.

A choice-driven adventure in the style of the Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson fighting fantasy books, set in the Perryverse – that's the most daunting project I can think of. The Perry Rhodan universe is almost 60 years old and offers an almost infinite amount of content for a single story, starting with Operation Stardust. It's maddening to think of all the possibilities! I would love to see it become a reality.

(First, please don't call people "stupid". It's rather offputting, and rather offensive.)

You misunderstood me. By "solved", I mean that it's been determined that there is a perfect strategy (and what that perfect strategy is), and that, if both players use it, then the result of every game will be the same. Depending on the game, it could be either:
* First player always wins (Connect Four)
* Game always ends in a draw (Tic-Tac-Toe)
* Second player always wins (not the case with these games, but for some types of games, of which Tic-Tac-Toe is an example (I believe any game where an opponent's move doesn't give you new options and can't put you closer to winning), this can be ruled out without having to solve the game. (Note that Chess is not such a game; one can't easily elimiinate the "second player always wins" result through this sort of reasoning.)

Also, keep in mind that not all chess players are grandmasters, and the game has a learning curve that is significantly steeper than the other two games I mentioned.

Pretty simple, though the game is advanced:

Starsector space sim--> Add planetary landing(crashing?) to change into RimWorld--> Which can morph into large scale large scale Civilization elements, with optional Langrisser style skirmishes. That would keep battles simple. But if I had my way, I would look at Kenshi battles. Space battles with ship boarding and space station/asteroid station take over. Planetary bombardments and even event risks of the planet the player character is on can get scrubbed. Fairs fair!