Subway game - need help making it fun

[clofresh]

Hey guys,

I had an idea for a subway game where you have to move as many passengers as you can through your subway station. You control when to open and close the train doors by clicking, and you can launch the train out of the station by dragging it to the right.

I was picturing the end result to have a frenetic feel to it, where there's ton of passengers trying to rush the doors when they open, panhandlers clogging the cars, people getting squished by the closing doors, drunks puking in a car and clearing it of passengers, etc.

So I finally created a prototype of the basic mechanic and I'm having a hard time seeing how I could make it fun. It feels like the player might not have enough control in getting the passengers in and will feel bored of just waiting for the passengers to enter. I've attached what I have so far. Do you guys have any suggestions?

[pelicano_o]

Hi, you could probably attach a happiness meter to each passenger. If the passenger waits at the platform or inside the train, the happiness meter will drop. You could also give the player money based on the happiness levels of the passengers transported away. And player could use the money to buy auto-selling machines to distract the passengers so that they will spend less time waiting at the platform ( lesser happiness level decrease )

[jjmafiae]

I think it's a bit buggy (passangers try to run into the train while it's driving? dafuq), also some textures could improve it alot

[BozoDel]

Ok, think about this. You make points every time a passenger enters the station. If passengers get mad, they get red, and start to push other passengers more. You lose points every second for the amount of mad passengers in the station. If a passenger gets pushed too much, he gets mad too, and chaos ensues. So you'd probably make trains come and go to avoid the chaos. But sending off a train has a cost in points, so basically the player has to find balance between chaos in the station and the cost of trains.

I also think it's of major importance to make passengers come from both upper sides of the screen, and that the train has two doors that open indepently, so that the player can manage the flow. The volume of passengers could vary, like in real life, but faster.

It would be cool if each generated player had randomized values of:
- likelihood of getting mad
- how far they push other people (when mad and when normal)
- how fast they move
- their tendency of picking a door (do they always pick the closest one, or only the closest open door? do they stand still when no door is open?)
- if they try to force their way or if they try to keep a distance

And maybe the door could push people when it closes, and maybe there could be a blue VIP passenger, that doesn't get mad, but makes you lose points every time he is pushed.

Of course, it's up to you to implement and balance all that.

[DaedalusYoung]

An additional challenge could be also dealing with passengers leaving the train and platform. Toggle the direction of the turnstiles, so you can let more in than out, or the other way round. Have more passengers come on the platform in the morning and having more arriving by train and leaving in the evening.

[Germanunkol]

You can also add local multiplayer where passengers not getting into your train (top half of the screen) in time will get into the opponent's trains instead (bottom half of the screen). Similar to the way the fun map line-tower-wars in Warcraft3 did it.
If you split the screen vertically (top half and bottom half) then you can make one player control the trains coming in from the right and one player control the trains coming in from the left. Change the drag and pull mechanic to some keys and you're good.

I really like the game idea, I think you should try to make this happen! Of course it doesn't feel right yet - you need better crowd flow (fun to program!), more action (pushing passengers, different types of passengers, kids running around, sound effects) - but I think the idea really has a lot of potential!

Another idea - the stations could have names which are randomly generated. Maybe use the PCs name as a seed or something, so they're mostly unique. Then you can have an online highscore list with the name of the player and the name of the station...? It would look almost like a full rail-network.

[clofresh]

That's some really great ideas, thanks guys! I think the toggling of the directions of turnstiles would add the extra bit of player interaction I was looking for, I think I'll try that, as well as improving the crowd ai.