The first thing you need to know about this idea is that it came from a segment on Last Week Tonight, and they called it World of Peacecraft. So I can hardly take credit for the idea. Even after this, it was my friend chronoso who said he actually would want to play a full game of this. So what you're about to read is really my own spin on it, and my own suggestions for individual levels, as well as some lower-level ideas about gameplay. Because ho boy is there a lot of text in a game like this. Huge walls of text. Because if you're realistically negotiating a treaty, a settlement, a charter, or a nonbinding resolution of intent, even just your character's dialogue options are going to each be a paragraph. And the whole point of exploring this as an idea for an actual game, the express purpose of this, is to not cut down on the drudgery of real diplomacy.
So I figure, what better way to make this game simultaneously drudge and entertaining, than to set the diplomacy talks in ridiculous situations? Let's add some comedy, motherfuckers.
Level 1: Territory settlement between Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals, 43000 BCE, somewhere in Europe. Play as the Homo Sapiens and secure resources and space for your people, or play as the Neanderthals and preserve your way of life. Hard mode: All dialogue is written as "Uggh," with varying numbers of Gs and Hs.
Level 2: Climate conference, 10000 BCE (end of Ice Age) to discuss global warming. North Africa. Optional objective: Convince the representative from the Asian peoples to stop their planned migration into the Americas.
Level 3: Meeting of the rulers of the Mesopotamian city-states, 3400 BCE, the city of Eridu. Their purpose is to decide whether to accept or resist this new invention called "writing". Discussions would include all the usual arguments about technology as progress, over-reliance on technology making people dumber, and how kids these days have no respect for tradition.
Now at this point, having arrived at the end of pre-history, there are lots of actual historical events from which levels could be created. The alliance of Athens and Sparta to fight Persia in 481 BCE, the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah (a major part of the foundation of Islam), the reforms of the imperial examination system during the Song dynasty in China, the drafting of Magna Carta, any of the hundreds of treaties ending the hundreds of wars fought in Europe during the middle ages, and all of that is before we even get to the American Revolution. Basically, go nuts imagining negotiating any historical document you like, and making a game as serious or as funny as you like. I'm going to jump ahead. Not to the 20th century, not to the present day. I'm jumping ~~into the future~~
Level 4: The Beijing Treaty of Alliance Between Humans and Silicon Intelligences of 2087, aka the post-robot-revolution treaty. As one of the few surviving humans with diplomatic training, try to make sure humanity has enough, you know, food and water. Hard mode: conduct negotiations in binary.
Level 5: Mediation between the Khralassens and the L'Quni-i regarding terraforming practices, 2533. With humanity and the silicon intelligences (band name!) leading the Great Galactic Alliance, your job is to try to stop these two races from igniting an interstellar war.
Level 6: Great Galactic Alliance Post-Corporeal Intelligence Summit, 4142. Debate the merits of physical existence vs. intangible consciousness, draft and ratify a policy for whether transitioning to a post-corporeal existence is disallowed, discouraged, optional, recommended, or mandatory. Hard Mode: select your answers by telekinesis.
Well this got long. That's enough from me. One last thing, from chronoso: the game over screen, if you fail in your diplomacy, is a Call of Duty order form.
NEXT TIME: The return of Samus, sort of.
x-posted to spatialwarp.kinja.com
So I figure, what better way to make this game simultaneously drudge and entertaining, than to set the diplomacy talks in ridiculous situations? Let's add some comedy, motherfuckers.
Level 1: Territory settlement between Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals, 43000 BCE, somewhere in Europe. Play as the Homo Sapiens and secure resources and space for your people, or play as the Neanderthals and preserve your way of life. Hard mode: All dialogue is written as "Uggh," with varying numbers of Gs and Hs.
Level 2: Climate conference, 10000 BCE (end of Ice Age) to discuss global warming. North Africa. Optional objective: Convince the representative from the Asian peoples to stop their planned migration into the Americas.
Level 3: Meeting of the rulers of the Mesopotamian city-states, 3400 BCE, the city of Eridu. Their purpose is to decide whether to accept or resist this new invention called "writing". Discussions would include all the usual arguments about technology as progress, over-reliance on technology making people dumber, and how kids these days have no respect for tradition.
Now at this point, having arrived at the end of pre-history, there are lots of actual historical events from which levels could be created. The alliance of Athens and Sparta to fight Persia in 481 BCE, the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah (a major part of the foundation of Islam), the reforms of the imperial examination system during the Song dynasty in China, the drafting of Magna Carta, any of the hundreds of treaties ending the hundreds of wars fought in Europe during the middle ages, and all of that is before we even get to the American Revolution. Basically, go nuts imagining negotiating any historical document you like, and making a game as serious or as funny as you like. I'm going to jump ahead. Not to the 20th century, not to the present day. I'm jumping ~~into the future~~
Level 4: The Beijing Treaty of Alliance Between Humans and Silicon Intelligences of 2087, aka the post-robot-revolution treaty. As one of the few surviving humans with diplomatic training, try to make sure humanity has enough, you know, food and water. Hard mode: conduct negotiations in binary.
Level 5: Mediation between the Khralassens and the L'Quni-i regarding terraforming practices, 2533. With humanity and the silicon intelligences (band name!) leading the Great Galactic Alliance, your job is to try to stop these two races from igniting an interstellar war.
Level 6: Great Galactic Alliance Post-Corporeal Intelligence Summit, 4142. Debate the merits of physical existence vs. intangible consciousness, draft and ratify a policy for whether transitioning to a post-corporeal existence is disallowed, discouraged, optional, recommended, or mandatory. Hard Mode: select your answers by telekinesis.
Well this got long. That's enough from me. One last thing, from chronoso: the game over screen, if you fail in your diplomacy, is a Call of Duty order form.
NEXT TIME: The return of Samus, sort of.
x-posted to spatialwarp.kinja.com