I’ve been toying with the idea of putting together a crew to put out a role-playing game whose characters are based on Poser. The game would be graphics based and would allow the characters to do a lot of things that, say, the Sims can’t or won’t do. Sex, for example. There would also be some well-developed fighting, both realistic and magical, options. The game would be very open-ended – we’d set up a world and let the users determine what it’s like. The idea would be to let people get their midbrain jollies with fighting and sex in a very graphic way, but without the tedious consequences that often come with fighting and sex.
The question I have, which could probably readily be answered by our Doper gamers is, are there any games out there which fit this description? Or are there any strong technical reasons why it’s not feasible just yet, or why such a game is doomed to fail? It seems such an obvious approach that it would already have been tried, so what’s up?
(Mods, if this question is too open-ended for GQ, I’m cool with moving it to a more appropriate category.)
Are you active in the professional game-development community?
You realize you can’t just “throw together” a crew and make a decent, modern 3D game, don’t you?
It takes thousands of man-hours and development resources, and then there’s the whole thing about paying the people who are working on the game long before it ever turns a profit, if it ever does.
The Sims is probably the closest (though censored), to your concept.
Poser doesn’t look like it is interactive. It’s a huge leap from making CG movies to making a interactive game. Just look at the relatively small number of 3d-game engines out there: They are based on UT2004, Quake3, or now, ‘Crytech’. Even the Halflife engine is a wickedly modified Quake 2 engine, and that takes massive amounts of work.
Do a ‘Total Conversion’ mod for your favorite FPS. That alone is a mammoth task that is often started and rarely finished. So many people talk about starting a TC for this game or that, put up a website with a model or two, and then the enormity of the task dawns on them. Not saying it can’t be done, but it is work, and tons of it. And coding. Tons of that stuff.
No. Yes. I know it’s a lot of work. I have a clever scheme for getting the funds I need.
I’ve just been kicking this idea around in my head. The very first thing that I think I should do, which I am doing with this very thread, is ask the question: “Has this already been done and if so, what was the result?” I’m not assuming my idea is so unique or original that no one has already had it. If someone has done a halfway successful version of it, I think most game geeks would know offhand about it. I know for example there’s an OLRPG that involves not-very-lifelike personal icons that can interact sexually already. I’m thinking though that the physical appeal and customizability of Poser-type figures could make a game of that sort much more widely successful. So I’m asking the folks who would know offhand.
I’m not sure what you mean by interactive. You can do animation with Poser, in fact, there’s a whole cartoon series in Asia based on Poser animations, and I’ve seen 'em pop up here and there. If you can make Posers do pre-programmed movements, it seems possible they could respond to user input with pre-programmed movements, like “Kick” and “jump right” etc.
I’ll grant you, tons of work. That’s why I’m approaching things cautiously. Asking around and so forth.