iSanGuo

Much of the game specs are in Chinese language so this page is just a brief outline of what the game is about. For details please check out the GDD.

In Tales of the Three Kingdom (WiKi), historical events occur chronologically but also spatially distributed across a variety of geo-locations in China, such as Cities, Mountains, Rivers, and Ancient Relics. The game maps the story to real geographical places and put players in it by allowing them to trigger those events via location check-in.

In iSanGuo, player assume the role of an out-of-power lord and need to work his way up to establish a new kingdom. While travelling in China, player can explore historical relics, check in to a city and find out its SanGuo history, or discover some of the famous hero character NPCs during the three kingdom war.

The game’s social system is Foursquare-alike, allowing players to compete for a city ruler and will rank players against each other based on their in-game activity. Player will receive quest which requires them to complete certain tasks that are usually location relevant.

On a high-level scope, the game consists a network of city nodes interconnecting with roads and sub-divided into geographical regions. This represents a collective influence of different players in game. Assuming the role of a city ruler will spread that player’s influence across the city region and therefore changing the influence boundary against other players.

There exists an artificial economic model in each city that governs what benefits a city ruler will receive and how other player’s activity can collectively affect it. In general, this produces a micro system that allows players to play either co-operatively or competitively in the game.

Background

I started working on the game in 2012, following my previous adventure (Btwxt Games) on location-based game (WhereWars!). Though not a graphic or game designer myself, I find that potential still exist in location-based game and that much need to be done to realize the goal. I worked collaboratively with friends and various teams in China on the game. So watch this space :-)