posted March 26th, 2006 at 4:18 pm
I have to admit, I was skeptical at forist, but your description sold me. I want to start a sea-shell collection.
posted March 28th, 2006 at 7:10 am
All I said to Patrick was that every little girl pretends she’s a mermaid when she goes swimming — you know, holding your legs together and swimming as long as you can at the bottom of the pool, imagining you’re Daryl Hannah in “Splash.” I didn’t come close to thinking of all the cool things mermaids could do! Build an underwater castle! Create a shell economy! Have friends over for an underwater tea party! Yay! I wish this game would magically turn into real life (instead of, say, the “Stay Alive” movie game).
I just have one question: What is MMO?
posted April 2nd, 2006 at 12:57 am
An “MMO” is a “Massively Multiplayer Online” game. The idea is that instead of sitting alone playing a game, or you playing a game with a handful of people online, that you’re playing a game with hundreds or thousands of other people simultaneously.
Usually MMOs are played on PCs, but I didn’t see any reason to limit this idea to just one platform. Besides, the consoles really need a cool MMO.
posted April 6th, 2006 at 7:30 am
Interesting concept, from what I’ve seen most girls enjoy multipler games. I think this is in part due to working on a team. That being said I think it would be interesting if a group of players could costumize their under water cities together. Not just one person creating a temple or building and their own city, but a team of friends creating the city together. Everyone could build on to everyone else’s art or design. Then the city is no longer just one player’s home it becomes every ones.
Also I’m wondering where the conflict comes into the game. I wonder if there are natural disasters of some sort that a group of players would have to deal with?
The problems I had with animal crossing was that I became bored with going ang getting “Bob” darn game boy every time I talked to the animals. The animals never did anything cool for me. I became their virtual slave, and if I didn’t pick up their garbage they moved.
^^
posted April 6th, 2006 at 7:57 am
I just had an idea, just an add on. What if the emotions of the character affect the environment or the textures applied to the character over time. So for example: say player 1 customizes their mermaid gold fish character, now most of the time when the palyer is playing the character, the player choses the character to be sad. In their options they have different emotions to chose from. Now perhaps everytime they log in they are 75% sad in game. Maybe on the 50th time they log in the mermaids scales start turning a different color, or there is a dark mist around them.
Similar to in “black and white” where your creature starts to change appearance. Your mood changes your character and how they are viewed to everyone else.
^^
posted April 11th, 2006 at 7:35 pm
I agree, building a city together with my friends would be really cool. Do any of the SimCity games allow for that already?
As for the conflict in the game, I think natural disasters are a good way to go for the city-building parts. But I don’t see there being an antagonistic force in the game, like deep-sea fishermen out to get the mermaids. Instead I see the challenges coming from the environment. Some building materials could be so heavy that multiple players have to work together to move them. Or some doors can only be opened when one player holds down a lever, while the other swims inside.
Another challenge could be a big mystery, where all the players are working together (in a relatively low-threat environment) to try to solve a big puzzle. The conflict is the puzzle itself, and the challenge is to get everyone to cooperate to try to solve it. Clues could be gathered from all over the city, and perhaps the solution is actually the blue-prints for a very specific type of building… which you then get to (have to) build!
Switching gears, I think that using color as an indicator of mood is a fantastic idea. Besides just “I’m happy” or “I’m sad,” you could use them as ways to indicate what kind of interactions you’re looking for. Green could be “I’m looking to race” while pink is “I’m looking for love.” A player off in the distance could immediately communicate to you what kind of “play” they’re looking for, which would make “grouping” much easier.
posted April 27th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
hi. i’m 11 years old and i’m interested to find out when people can start playing Oceanopolis and if it’s free. it sounds like fun! please e-mail me back!
joanne
posted April 28th, 2007 at 12:32 am
It’s just an idea right now. Maybe some day it will be a real game. 
posted June 26th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
LOVE the idea! ^_^ My little sister, when the game is finished, will be VERY exited to play it when she’s older! She is mermaid obsessed. Maybe the game will keep her quiet! ^_^