Paydirt: A mineing tycoon concept. Thread

This idea for a game has been floating around my head for the past few years; I figured it wouldn't hurt to put it out on Indie DB.The game will be a 3D or 3D Isometric strategy tycoon game some simulation elements, and will have the earliest starting date of 1790 and latest ending date of 1940.

Gameplay:
In this game, you will start a business then buy a plot of land. The amount of land you can buy will be bigger or smaller depending on what difficulty you choose. After you've bought your land you must place a mine-head, either vertical or horizontal depending on the terrain, once the mine-head is placed you need to plot a tunnel for your few starting workers to dig, and eventually you should stumble upon some veins of ore, then you can tell your workers to follow that vein until it ends. This will get you money to hire more workers so you can dig more tunnels at once and get some work done faster, and buy more tools and upgrades.

Ore:
Extracting ore is what gives you money in this game, and the selling price of ore will change depending on the market and supply and demand. By default, the most valuable to least valuable ores will be diamond, gold, silver, iron, copper, tin, coal. These ores will also increase in rarity depending on what region you’re in.

Maps:
I'm kind of undecided with the in game maps, whether there will be multiple large maps of certain real life places, or if there's just one big map of Earth that you just zooming onto to pick a specific spot. One thing for sure is both map types will come with a random map generator.

Hazards:
Mining can be very dangerous. Tunnels can collapse and flood, dynamite can explode prematurely, power tools can malfunction, and deadly gasses can be released from the deep. But there will be ways to help keeps these things from happening, like putting more supports in your tunnels, bringing canaries with you miners, installing water pumps, and buying better and safer tools when available. All of this will cost the revenue you make from your business.

Research:
In a sense there is no research because any new tech you'll have to wait for the respective year and month for it to be available. However, I was thinking you could invest in game money into R&D to make a new item or upgrade come out a few months early, giving you a small boost on your competitors.

Thanks for reading - Quin

This is only a concept, and I don't have the ability's or means to really do anything with it. I'm simply posting it here to see what people think, and if anyone is interested in making this into a real game, then be my guest, I only ask to be notified first, and to at least be a consultant on the project.

(Also, I originally had this on Steam Greenlight, witch was really stupid of me to do.)

This is an interesting concept. In regards to the ores , would there be small chances to find gemstones? or stumble upon a gas pocket or oil fields?.

Have you looked at Diggers? Its a game which came bundled with Commodore Amiga CD32.
Taking that basic mining idea and applying modern game design to it could be a hit.

Edited by: Nightshade

Medjay95 wrote: This is an interesting concept. In regards to the ores , would there be small chances to find gemstones? or stumble upon a gas pocket or oil fields?.

Indeed, I hadn't thought of it before, but thanks for the suggestion! I dunno about Oil fields, but maybe.

Niteshade wrote: Have you looked at Diggers? Its a game which came bundled with Commodore Amiga CD32.
Taking that basic mining idea and applying modern game design to it could be a hit.

No, I have never heard of it, and I've done alot of searching for games of this type. But now that I look at it, it's nothing like what I have in mind.

Edited by: SergeantQuin