Developers Corner

Game: Singularity

Based on the Technological Singularity Theory

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

A Humanoid species much like our own allows their development of "AI" and technology to begin developing themselves, which eventually goes out of control.  The AI becomes superintelligent and develops its own will, fueled by relentless logic the AI has classified humanity to be an disease that threatens to infect the universe.  Now advanced robotic factories taken by the AI, (otherwise known as the "singularity") are producing a mass of unforgiving robots.  Players take on the roles of everyday people who are survivors of the initial massacre.  Now engineers and computer hackers try to unravel the singularity, and are able to effect it to a degree, others take on the role of a mech pilot, to deal with the robots.  All information networks have been seized and normal military tactics and intelligence are nullififed, forcing the people to fend for themselves and work together in small groups.  The robots adapt to technologies until new ones are extracted from the singularity.  The robots are the early day threat, as the game progresses there are far more advanved 'problems' to deal with.

I would imagine this would fall under the category of a sci-fi mmo.  anyway just an idea I thought I'd share.

Sounds like something from last seasons terminator tv show.

Why would humans be a disease?

Just as much as a disease as any other animal, really. In a cosmic sense, we aren't really destroying anything but ourselves by screwing up the planet's atmosphere, because in the end, all the matter of the universe is exactly what it was so many billions of years ago.

So what if you kill off all the humans... well, that was a massive waste of evolutionary effort. Now the pigs will take our places in line as the next sentient life-form, but only after the "evil AI" we made kills itself in some strange loop of logic caused by a heisenberg in a single atom of a vital microchip.

Technophobia is 80's stuff. Let's try for... oh I dunno, something a little more realistic and close to home without being present-day.

It's a fun idea to get into issues that bother people here and now. Issues such as abortion, gay marriage, religion, and scientific theory. Also, politics and corporations.

Take those issues and apply them to a future or fantasy time-line in a different way. For example, as a sort of analogy to abortion, can an android's owner legally shut it down if it has developed sentience?

Should androids be permitted to reproduce?

Your answers to any such questions could easily form the basis of a relationship between sentient synthetic life forms and humans, be it war or peace. If that's even your ideal setting. Just from that, you can form other races that fit in the picture one way or another.

Doesn't always have to be "we created a monster, oh noes, what has science done?" or "first contact went bad, sucks that the aliens have lousy tempers and want to kill us now "

Truly, those sci-fi themes have been done to death. We need more interesting i-robot kinds of things.

For a game based around the idea of Technological Singularity I'd expect a more transhumanist approach, something like Orion's Arm (www.orionsarm.com/; no, it's not a game!).

Plasuma you are right, but still a game needs some sort of conflict, and the ole' hollywood type scenarios tend to work to that end.  What most people want to do when they log on a game is go face some danger, or blow something up,  not debate ethics.

Humanity being a disease was just an idea I threw out, doesnt mean that has to be the plot.  It comes from Agent Smith in The Matrix

"You humans can only survive by spreading to a new area until every natural resource is consumed. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern.  A virus.  You are a disease and we are the cure." I love that line :)

I think the key is to be original. Start with something you love, and build a backstory. Great game design comes from within, not by mixing and matching pieces of movies or tv shows. Not to say they have nothing to offer, but your core design and lore should be made for, and by, you. Building the game you would love is good enough, commitee thinking and reshuffling of rehashed ideas is what has the mmo industry in the state its in, all entertainment media for that matter it seems. The greatest games are usually the expression of one person's innermost desires, dreams and ideas, and because we're all human, doing so will strike a chord with others that will appreciate it.