Looking for help/info for a mine managing game I am making

[Legolas GreenChief]

Hello everyone, I have started making a small design document for a game based on different types of mining. Mainly I'll be looking at gold mining, but I'm struggling to find any kinds of lists for different equipment used and stuff like that or it's well hidden.

I'm basically just looking for any information anyone could give on the different things that might happen on/in mines, equipment used, day to day things that might go wrong and things like that, I plan of having random events happening like equipment breaking, what else could happen in a mine?

I have been trying to watch mining shows and reading about it taking notes but obviously none of this would compare to people who have first hand experience and people who are really interested in it

What are the different kinds of excavators, what are the proper names for equipment used? Could anyone tell me the different types of heavy equipment?

My aim is to have a kind of city building type game with a tycoon feel, you start an independent miner with your shovel, metal detector, pan and just go looking for gold eventually you get enough money to rent land, rent equipment, buy your own equipment start a company buy your own land, what are the stages?

If there is anyone interested, I would really like to have pretty in-depth conversations about this stuff, I have posted on /r/mining on reddit are there any other sites similar to this one I could check out?

 

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[kcm]

Tnet has a prospecting section:
Gold Prospecting Forum

Can also check out BC GOLD CLAIMS FOR SALE - GPEX PLACER GOLD CLAIMS FOR SALE - Gold Claims Sale and ICMJ's Prospecting and Mining Journal as well. Both are very good sites with lots of info.

 

[HobbyHuntress]

I have no advice, I just have a game tester should you need one. My 10 yr old son would love this type of game. Even if you don't need a tester, he'd still be a customer.

 

[ClaimStake]

what engine is this game going to be built in?

are you the programmer?

I know level design, modeling, texturing, debugging, game mechanics. if you need any help. I mod games

as advice on how to go about doing a mining game, and it be fun, straightforward, cool and sell well. well..

that's a little hard to do... are you trying to create a simulator? or something like minecraft?

also ideas don't come cheap. you would need to include those that gave you those idea's in the credits as concept artists.

 

[ClaimStake]

they would also be entitled to earnings if the game sells.

 

[Alex Burke]

I always thought an open world environment would be best for a gold mining related game. I like learning about and watching things on placer mining but I don't think placer mining itself translates very well to a entertaining game for the masses as you are limited in things that would make it entertaining. If the goal is running a wash plant in a fixed location it could be a little hard to make it exciting so here is what I think would be better

I think it would be great to essentially have most the cool aspects of the game Red Dead Redemption and add mining and exploration to an old west game theme. For this to make sense here is a trailer of the game. After viewing the trailer you can probably see how mining could be incorporated into an open world game like this, in fact this game is almost obviously missing the mining that happened at the time this game was set in




Some random ideas that I could see being cool built into an old west open world type game:

You start out as a cowboy and start out dry-washing or panning with the goal to work your way up to a successful mine owner.

Maybe to start you have to use money earned from hunting animals or bounty hunting criminals to finance your gold hunting.

Play poker for claims and go check out the claims you won.

Use money earned to hire help, buy supplies, build ditches for water and build Long Tom sluice boxes. Or buy mules, ore carts and build track and a crusher if it's a lode.

Upon finding a good strike you could ride to town and send a telegram to the USGS requesting geological help they used to help a mining brother out a hundred years ago.

Fight off claim jumpers old west style and reclaim your gold rich areas from the criminal gangs.

Find and talk to old time miners to help you decide on the best spots to mine or to get local info on an area or tips on areas to search.

I had a couple of other ideas but they escape me at the moment but I'll come back and edit this if I remember them.

 

[ClaimStake]

creating a mining simulator is a whole different ball game than a simple first person shooter, technologically.

most terrains in most game engines use non deformable meshes.

a mesh is the wireframe polygon structure that defines the geometry of an object using xyz points.

also most objects are statically placed in the game world. unles you script them or run them with a physics system. they can't be moved during play.

so imagine trying to make all the rock, sand, dirt, plants, trees,. all movable and interactable, and the terrain deformable.

even the most high end computers couldn't handle this kind of physics computation. that's a lot of points to keep track of. 30+ times a second.