I’m working on a pretty big project right now that primarily revolves around a crime & law mechanic, however I’m not trying to make a typical game where everybody is either a criminal or a cop. I am looking for ideas for in-game jobs that would be interactive and immersive, to the point that only a handful of people would choose to be criminals.
There are significant risks associated with crime in this project, but also significant rewards. The problem arises in that I want there to be legal means to succeed in this game, that are also fun and immersive. I want there to be a shock factor to crime and if everybody is committing crimes then it destroys that shock. Any ideas for civilian jobs? I have a few ideas already including:
EMT, Firefighter, Taxi Driver, Doctor, and potentially Welder, Construction Worker, and Lineman.
I’m trying to avoid unnecessary complexity as well.
I get what you are trying to do, and I have thought about it myself. I suggest not having any jobs that are completely unrelated to the central game mechanics, as that would just draw away from the base game-play. I recommend any jobs that are related to what the criminals are doing, such as a taxi driver (which is a good one that you already thought of), a bank teller, private security, or a shop owner. Besides that, there is only so much you can do to make it so not everyone wants to be one, besides making it so that citizens get many of their own buffs. Games in the past that I have seen attempt to do this have ended up not having that feature used much, but I’m sure tampering with the mechanics enough will get you the right results. Hope this helps, and good luck!
Well I guess I’m going more for an overall life sim/rp now that I think about it. I am personally more interested in the crime mechanic, however I’m looking to make each job/career have it’s own progression. Money and the progression would be the overall mechanic actually, and that money and progression could be obtained in various ways. The goal is to make everything appealing in an attempt to diversify the players’ choice of careers and create a more interactive experience for everybody.
In that case I would recommend checking out the game “Urbis” by ZolarKeth. I feel like you are trying to accomplish something like that, since that game has a ton of different roles. The only difference would be that you would include police and criminals as part of the different roles you could choose. The point is, if you make your game focused on these different jobs and not just focused on cops and robbers, then you could very easily make this work (i.e. life simulator game).
I thought that the role as a rat-catcher would make a lovely concept for an in-game occupation. Of course, you’d need to infest your game with a multitude of scampering rats but I can imagine that it might be good fun trying to click on a moving target or to chase after an infestation. If your game is gritty or urban-based, the addition of rats wouldn’t look out of place in that environment. Your character could be allocated a range of different cages, in which to store the collection of rodents. The bigger the cage, the more rats that can be collected. Your rat collector could also be allocated a tool: a simple stick might catch static rodents, a larger net might be necessary for faster rats and, as for a treat for players, something elaborate might be essential for catching those rats that are infested with toxic poisoning! The mind boggles!
It’s something that I had considered for the Victorian game that cyberpiper and I are working on (1867) but I never got around to it, due to the sheer workload of other tasks in the game.
If this seems interesting and you are looking for more ideas for other street-based occupations that might complement the rat-catcher, you ought to Google ‘London Labour and London Poor’ by Henry Mayhew. (1851) You could populate an entire city environment with a range of interesting Victorian occupations. A tosher (hunts about in the sewage network), a mud lark (searches in muddy riverbanks), a dog seller (steals and sells dogs) …. all these seem really game-friendly occupations that might work well together, in a Victorian setting.
