How could I make this simulator idea, not a simulator?

Help and Feedback Game Design Support
#1

Introduction

Hello developer forum! How’s it going? I would like to ask you guys a question today, since I know that most people dislike simulators because of the repetitive idea, and how some of them are only cash-grabs,(I’m not calling any game out or anything, I’m just saying that I’ve seen a few, and I’ve heard from people that some simulator games are just quick money earners!) how could I make a simulator idea into a non-simulator? Let me elaborate, right now, I have an amazing game idea, but the thing is, it’s a simulator idea. How could I rethink the game so it would not be a simulator? For example, let’s say someone made a dungeon simulator, and then they as well realized that most simulators have a lot of hate, so they turned the game into dungeon quest (just an example). How could I do something like this? I’ve been trying to think of a way to implement the same game idea in a non-simulator game idea, and I really couldn’t, honestly, so that’s why I have came here and created the thread to ask you guys! So, let me tell you what the game idea is!

Game Idea

The game is going to be called “Trickshot Simulator” well maybe “Trickshot” since I’m trying not to make the game a simulator. The game is your normal simulator, but the buyable items are different, you start off doing a bottle flip, then bottle flip landing on the cap, then doing a backflip all the way up to, 360 no-scope! And you can buy skill levels with coins, (which is earned on clicks and stuff) which lets you to unlock different type of skills, like skill level 3, you could now unlock triple backflip, or, 720 kick flip! And max skill level you could unlock a 720 spin dunk or something. After that, then you could battle players or bots with trickshots, sounds weird, right? So basically let’s say you do a kick flip, that does 10 damage and has a 3 second cool down! But then your opponent uses a 1080 bike trick, that does 90 damage but had a 10 second cool down, and then you can alternate between all of your tricks and stuff! Sound cool, right? Well, that’s basically the game! I’ve just been having a hard time trying to figure out how to not make this into a simulator. I was thinking maybe I could make it like a quest game? Like your in a dojo, then there is this master person, that trains you the art of “Trickshots” or something, and then you can level up by going on quest and things.

Conclusion

But I also would like to know your ideas on this! Any help would be appreciated! Thank you for reading, and have a great day! :grin:

3 Likes
#4

I honesty don’t know how to help with this but some ideas.

  • Try not naming it simulator.
  • Try Making like a season out of it.
  • Make events
  • Have a update every week or month.
  • Try making it into like adventure game.
  • Or a roleplay game.
    That’s really all.
3 Likes
Feedback on CUBE Simulator
#5

wasn’t easy to read, indeed.

“Simulator” in roblox isn’t specifically hated, it’s just a lambda way of putting fast-cycle, pay2win & click gameplay into it’s own category, as long your game involves more than Unlockables and Farming/Progress methods, you’ll easy get off the category.

1 Like
Feedback on CUBE Simulator
#6

ah, okay, yeah it was hard to explain too, lol.

That’s the thing, I would probably earn some stuff, and get popular in the simulator catagory, (maybe?) but I know people may not respect me as a developer for that.

#7

ever heard of indenting your text to make it easier to read?

I think I read it all correctly and I don’t think that you can not make a sim out of it. All of this screams simulation to me.

#8

okay, one second.

Yeah, I know what you mean, it was hard for me aswell, but a few people gave me some good tips so far.

edit: fixed, should be easier to read now.

1 Like
#9

Think about it in terms of the gameplay loop of simulators:

  1. Click to earn currency
  2. Buy upgrade with currency which earns more currency
  3. Rinse and repeat.

You could change any part of this loop to make it no longer a simulator:

  • You can replace “click” with an entirely different activity. Broken bones, for an example, has you jumping off cliffs for currency.
  • You can replace upgrades that just increase your currency storage/gain with a lateral upgrade system instead, where you unlock entirely different activities with the promise of higher currency outputs for creating a combination of things that work best for you.
  • You can add extra steps into the loop to break things up. Imagine a “miner simulator” where you initially generate energy instead of currency, and this energy powers a machine you use to mine for currency, and you spend that on upgrading either energy generation or mining.
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#10

The only reason skilled developers will dislike a simulator… would be how the creator set their contents so that they manage to get popularity and :robux_gold: in a easy and relaxed way.

Quality isn’t quite the issue, it’s just the fact you’ll pretend being a “developer” while all they can do is staying on their safezone & comfort, and you can’t really call that a passion.

However, you shouldn’t feel scared of having a bad reputation, everyone understand that most first game is just a way to prove if you’re capable of completing a game and getting results.

I believe you should move on to complex and ambitious projects when you have either the skills of the funds for it.

Simulators have a bigger chance of being popular globally, due to it’s Simple gameplay, it is easy to understand and supports mobile users to a good extent, considering it’s all about clicking.

1 Like
#11

Ah, okay, so really simulators aren’t all that bad, and if I do make one it’ll probably be my first game, all my other games were just random stuff. So do you think I should go for it?

#12

I don’t think you should mind minor details such as what “pros” thinks of you…

Getting back to the original definition of “Game”, it’s purpose is to have fun, so the only thing you should truly care about, Simulator or not, is that your game is enjoyable by the majority.

2 Likes
#13

I’d probably contest the truth behind this. A lot of devs who dislike simulators dislike them because they’re skinner boxes, i.e they’re designed to push people to keep playing longer after the fun has stopped. You could argue that there’s an ethical motivation behind railing against simulators.

That being said, you are correct that starting simple and working up is a good methodology for learning.

1 Like
#14

not quite sure why “contesting” my point, what you said is partially one of the potential concepts of “having it in a easy and relaxed way”,

One of the known way of pushing the lifespan is providing a rather large amount of content,
and what’s easy about it is that the Game have a low standard to begin with, so the difficulty of providing updates that would satisfy the community is literally inexistent.

1 Like
#21

Not to mention the fact that most of these games usually don’t have sweeping updates with huge changes in the same way others might. Add a new tier of items here, a new area there, and you have yourself a new update.

That being said, I don’t think simulators are inherently terrible - just the new style of them. Mining simulator stands out as one of the better ones.

In short, to answer OP’s question, I would say this: Try to push for ACTIVE gameplay. This means actually having to complete actions (moving somewhere, jumping, etc.) rather than PASSIVE gameplay (standing in one place, clicking or holding down the mouse button), and push for a little more depth.

3 Likes
#22

I see I think not naming simulator could really help because most of them are boring and repetitive.
Changing the name to trickshots instead of trickshots simulators will make no difference if your game has the simulator style:buy,unlock,buy,unlock,upgrade…
In your case I will add more fun things to do so you don’t make the game like a simulator like quest and other PVP rounds or something like this.
Hope this is helpful!