Project GROW TYCOON

So, you all thought I had forgotten about my original idea for a PBBG, didn't you? Well, I have not forgotten. This page is reserved for notes and a description about my next project, code-named GROW TYCOON.

GROW TYCOON is a web-based strategic city-building game based around establishing and building an illegal marijuana-growing operation in a fictional county in North California. At this point my main inspiration and template for the GROW TYCOON is Tilted Mill's PBBG Nile Online. That is what I envision the end product to be most similar to.

Plans to work on GROW TYCOON have currently been shelved. I don't have the time at the moment. However, hopefully some day in the future I will be able to start work on this game.

INITIAL CONCEPTS

A turn-based settlement-building game, where players can control in-door grow illegal cannabis-growing operations. Zones of players will be divided up into streets making up the town, with a thick layer of rural/forestland on the edges. So, in a blatant rip-off of Nile Online (which I say tongue-in-cheek, so don't sue me) the street will be at the center with player settlements, or houses on city block as they will be, on either side with a back yard of semi-wilderness.

There will be two levels of settlements to own and build: the afore-mentioned "indoor op" and a rural outdoor operation which will provide bigger yields but introduce some form of PVP. Both types of settlements will be subject to "attack" by game-controlled bots, i.e. the Police.

The outdoor farms will exist in the semi-wilderness behind the player houses and be settlements in their own right, being in fact more complex and difficult to manage than the house-based indoor ops. Much of this will come from the fact that they will be open for PVP gameplay and be able to produce much larger yields. However, at their later stages the houses will be able to become highly specialized and produce low yields of extremely high quality marijuana. So at the highest levels of play, there will be an element of choice of quality vs. quantity.

I have no plans to make houses available for PVP, as I want to encourage PVE as well, and creating this dichotomy will allow players with both preferences to have a good time.

Each game turn will last seven minutes (do the math to find the joke) and will be a CRON world-event, as is typical.

I am planning that all equipment to start and upgrade the grow operations will come from NPC stores, however there will be a (hopefully) vibrant player-driven economy in the form of the seed auction house. The main impetus of the game will derive from the hybridizing of strains of cannabis. All settlement growth will be shaped by what strains are available and it will be driven by the desire for newer and better strains. I haven't decided yet on whether to create a player economy for the end product of marijuana, as it I foresee it having no benefit to the settlement other than generating revenue.

Strains will be given preference by players based on game constraints; some strains may be favored for being more weather tolerant, some may produce bigger cannabis buds, some better for hash or even some strains could be favored for specific therapeutic (i.e. medicinal) properties. The list will continue to grow and shrink until I come up with a core set of game mechanics.

I have enabled comments on this page, so if you have an idea for the game you would like share, please do so!