"The Western Front" Thread

Greetings to all,

Being the overly ambitious that I am I have come up, and am working on designing, something more akin to a Mod than a Full Game, in its current stage.

There have been a lot of games focusing around War, but there have been very few "Anti-War" Games. The idea of The Western Front is two-fold. Firstly, introduce a new sub-genre to the "Survival" Genre, namely War Survival. The Second is to create an Anti-War Game within, what we might call, a "War Game".

The Idea is as follows:

You are a Soldier on the Western Front, be it on the side of the Allies (mainly French) or the Germans, and your task is to survive the War.

In the current "Smaller" version this would be more like a Mini-Game, than a full-fledged game, since the Story Content would be highly limited, and the focus would be on the Multiplayer, rather than the Singleplayer experience.

Players would start a game on a map, (an area of the Western Front) and tasked with surviving a set amount of time (idealistically, an hour in this concept). They would have to obtain food and water (these should be available from the Mess Kitchen, but it may be destroyed within the hour, or supplies might run out within it), Medicine (illness of different sorts, as well as lighter wounds, need medicine to be "cured"), ammo (you will not walk around with twenty ammo clips) and even equipment (you might lose your helmet along the way, your boots might ware out, your rifle might be damaged).

A player will be able to carry a limited number of items on his person, so no hoarding will be possible. Items may be scavenged from dead foes, or a delivery might arrive from home with some additional provisions.

The idea is a mix of "Individualism" yet "Cooperation". When sitting in the trenches you might guard your belongings fanatically, while out on the No Man's Land you will need to work together with others to survive the engagement.

I see two options, either the game will be all out PvP (sides cannot attack each other until an order is given however) or PvE (where players always strive to work together, but there might be AI artillery and infantry attacks which the players will have the repel.

Individual players might be given tasks, to Scout the No Man's Land, or cut the barbed Wire near the enemy trench (risky tasks that you cannot ignore or you will be court martialed). Other times there might be a random event, such as a Gas Attack, or bombing (which could be a prelude to an enemy attack).

While the basic "Task" is to survive death does not end the game, but it does not allow you to obtain the maximum score. The Scoring system would be rather simple. Players who survive the battle get the maximum number of points (and thus, share "First Place"). Crippling wounds that force a player to be taken off the front takes away some ranking points, but a death will cause a far bigger drop. You can regain some ranking by helping out crippled allies make it back to the home trench (by carrying them back).

In its current form there is no real difference whether the player could be playing an officer, a machine gunner or simple rifleman, these would be chosen randomly at the start of the game's "generation" (random name, random profession). In the end everybody shares the same task, "Survive", but their equipment and responsibilities (thus tasks) could differ slightly.

It's slightly more ambitious than maybe "Just a Mod", but since it has no in-depth story the main focus would be a hard-boiled Multiplayer experience of "Survive or Die".

Consider this a sort of semi-advertisement, as I am still hammering the Design Document, to reflect the entire system, as best I can, so any tips or hints regarding this idea would be welcome but at the same time I would be looking for a Modding Group (or looking to form one) once I know exactly how all of this would function.

Cheers,

WriterX

P.S. I know some of you might had checked out my previous Idea/Concept for Biohazard. That idea has changed slightly but I am not actively looking to complete it, just yet.

Very interesting. I suppose if it were an anti-war game, you'd also lose points for shooting(, etc.) others?

In the far more expansive version, that I hope to make in the future, I want to add a Story to the entire conflict, where the Hero (Player) would have "adventures" similar to what we could find in "All Quiet on the Western Front".

In this version however, you can shoot people, sure, but there is no benefit or loss to it, because, in fact, you cannot evade conflict or disregard conflict. The idea is that "Killing" is not meant to be the main drive. After all, just moments ago you could be forced to lead a charge on an enemy trench, and just as you are "finished", and about to start resting you could be ordered to scout ahead, or cut barbed wire to the next trench. You cannot "stay back" during an ordered charge, so you could have rot on your feet, and a wounded left hand, and still have to go forward.

The "Anti War" aspect is something the player will develop over time, not something the game will "forbid him" to do. Killing is not, after all, the main objective, it is to try and survive the war (as best you can).

While in this lighter form the "Horrors of War" aspect might be much lighter than intended it is the first step in the entire "Physical" representation of this idea.