(UPDATED) Toy Car Simulator - Would You Play It?

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#1

Intro
Hi! I’m sepro1144, and I have updated the idea off my new game Toy Car Simulator, which I released a poll about a while back. I have updated the idea of the game in order to get better results in this new poll based on community ideas.

Updated - About The Game
Toy Car Simulator is a simulator on roblox that is scheduled to be alpha released to the public in about 1-2 months, depending on how much we get done in that timeframe. I will be releasing more info 1 week before starting alpha testing. Anyways, you will start with a basic car, and walk around the map “ showing it off” to random NPCs around the map. Each type of npc will be dressed differently based on their value, and each car will have a value multiplier ( starting car-1, going up based on the car). Collected money from NPCs goes into your backpack. When it’s full, you go sell your cash for coins to spend on better cars, backpacks, and eventually pets. New areas to explore will be added every couple updates, and we will release new codes often for rewards. We will begin selling gamepasses during the beta testing stage, which will be used for in-game perks, items, and exclusive areas.

Thanks for reading!!!
-sepro1144

  • Yes, I look forward to playing!
  • No, I won’t be playing it

0 voters

2 Likes
#2

Introduction

Hi there! I’m Kotojo, a game dev but I mostly script. I hope to make a good post about why this may not be a good idea. So let’s get right into it.

People are getting tired of simulators

It’s true, there are SO MANY simulators games out there now, it’s a flood. I see a lot of developers getting very upset over their simulator game doing awful in comparison to other projects they worked on. This later led me to grow frustrated with their frustrations, because it was plainly obvious why it wasn’t doing well. People associate simulators as cash grabs that use ads and sponsorships to grow big rather than making original and interesting content and mechanics. So I did a twitter poll in my frustration which got 33 votes, out of 33 people 76% are tired of simulators so keep this data in mind.

It will likely effect your image for future games

As discussed before, developers are left wondering why players lost interest in them after they made their simulators game, sadly players will assume you’re following trends. People will think you don’t have a creative bone in your body. All because of one game.

The gameplay sounds kinda repetitive

The gameplay loop seems to be

  1. Get car
  2. Drive.
  3. Get money
  4. Get new car
  5. Repeat the process.

Pets and new maps might make progress more appealing, but in the end that doesn’t change the gameplay loop that will be the majority of the time on the game.

Maybe add things like Pizza Delivery where you have to go as fast as you can flashing to everyone your car while also having some kinda “pizza cannon” like at baseball games where they have a “t-shirt cannon” where you shoot pizza at people who ordered pizza, or maybe other players will challenge you to a drag race and they make bets and so on.

Originality

Maybe instead of having pets like so many other games, you could have an NPC “crew” which a group of “cool people” who chill in your car, like YouTubers, famous people, singers, or parody characters like “Darth Memer” which a parody of Darth Vader from Star Wars which is pink and make cheesy jokes. Just an idea to try to add some original concepts.

Twitter Poll

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5 Likes
#3

Hiya!
I consider simulators to be a sort of trend that lots of developers are seeming to follow, like obbies, tycoon, and story-telling games. The original obviously makes lots of money, so people will follow suit and hope they can succeed.
At the time of writing this, I personally feel that simulators are excessively overrated and overused. Sure, there’s a category dedicated to it on the front page, but it’s mainly there for the money. If the intent is to get a younger audience who is just daydreaming about simulators, go right ahead! But if you’re looking long-term, this really isn’t a good idea. Aside from the originals, the only people I know who still play is my younger brother that lacks taste and the YouTubers that end up making him watch the whole 20 minutes of their video. If you’re aiming for a larger and sensible audience, majority of them are already sick of simulators. This might be a huge success that sweeps games off their feet, but people who don’t want to play just actually want more originality put into ROBLOX.

Regards,
Freezenex
its time to rename obbies leaping parkour simulator haha

2 Likes
#4

@Kotojo
@Freezenex

I have talked to one of the 2 people I’m making it with, and they considered keeping the current map, and just altering the game play a bit. I asked him to tell me ideas he thought of when he went to bed so I’d see them in the morning, but idt he’s

#5

I’m not sure what you class as a “toy car”. I thought of remote controlled cars when I read the title. If RC cars is indeed what you’re making, then instead of just showing off your car and getting passive money, there should be challenges, little racecourses, some sort of multiplayer interaction where you race your car against other players, so that it isn’t just 1 person interacting with some NPCs.

That makes more of a purpose to actually want to upgrade your car, so you can do bigger jumps and faster turns, etc. Rather than spending money just to get it straight back with minimal effort.

That’s how you differentiate yourself from the more boring simulator games that are so plentiful there’s no reason for anyone to play yours.

1 Like
#6

I think @Kotojo covered most of what Roblox’s community’s stance on simulators are: it’s repetitive and boring. The poll he conducted obviously reinforces this idea, and I agree for the most part.

However, I personally feel like a simulator is fine as long as its fun. It doesn’t really matter if the community thinks an upcoming game will be boring because if you can design it in a way that is fun, then that’s all that matters.

Of course, you will be fighting an uphill battle as there are already negative stereotypes associated with simulators such as “cash grabs” or “lack of originality”. However, if you can design the game mechanics around these negative connotations, then your game idea will be perfectly fine.

1 Like
#7

I have been talking with the people I’m making it with, and we will be adding tons of other original and unique features to it to make it not as much of a boring simulator but instead a place with a lot of things to do than just collect cash by showing off cars

      -sepro1144
#8

I agree with the premise and point, though I will have to correct you on the poll.
Even though I am sure that if you were to get responses from 1000’s of people, the result would support the topic, the current poll is far from appropriate.

In order to have a valid survey worthy as supporting evidence, the survey must have a response rate comparable (along with a margin of error) to the target population.
In this case, it depends on what population you’re looking at. If you look at simulator players, it would be heavily biased but for argument’s sake, it would be possibly in the 100,000’s. If you look at Roblox in total, it would be around 56,000,000. In order for the poll to be worthy of even consideration, the percentage has to be around 2% in the worst case. I don’t think I need to bring in math to tell you that 33 people does not near that amount.

I support analytics but I would urge people to not use such data when it is clearly invalid for anything other than personal curiosity.

#9

Adding on to what Kotojo said, if you notice and start following a trend it’s probably already dying.

However, I disagree with the notion that people are starting to move away from simulators. The poll has heavily loaded language and would obviously attract voters who have strong (probably negative) feelings towards roblox simulators.

Simulators, tycoons, and roleplay games are pretty much the whole front page. The issue comes from not adding anything new/unique to your simulator.

1 Like
#10
  1. Monetization is pretty important. You shouldn’t tack it on during beta, but should plan it out from the start.
  2. Selling cash for coins? Coins for cash? This sounds extremely contrived and confusing. If you made them something more differentiable (say, muscle and coins or fame and coins) it would be much easier.
  3. What’s the point of pitching the overall game idea? It’s a simulator, there’s nothing new with this type of game. It’s better to show the little innovations, not make an essay about it.
3 Likes