Video game with relativity
___I had an idea going recently about creating a video game, be it for console or for pc online, that displayed the concept of relativity, both as for education and entertainment.
___For example; On a console if you are play multiplayer games, sometimes you have up to 4 people all playing on the same tv screen. On this screen we a cross section that devides the screen into 4 squares, one designated for each player.
Now, if we used this setup and created a game that included special relativity effects, players could see the various dilations from various locations, of various frames!
___Yet, on an online pc game there could be thousands of players connected to the same world in a relativistic enviroment.
___The games purpose would be to teach science in one of the funnest ways possible for kids. Relativity scares average people out the room when they start seeing math equations and the strange concepts in it. Also to experience it for ourselves beyond a boring thought experiment!
Game Concept:
___The game concept would need to include space travel of course, but as for the games genre its open field. You could remain on earth all you wanted in the game, however with the opportunity to jump in a rocket that goes to space, not many players would stick around
. The game would be designed around the idea of having a life in space where you could do many things, but be capable to travel the universe.
My own thoughts were to create a multi person selective game. That is First person view, outside first person, and other views of choice.
___The game would start you on the earth, in year ####. You start out as a character who needs to accomplish a few goals to gain the points/credits to become worthy to get into the main game. You would have choices like, to build your own customized spaceship capable of near the speed of light travel, to save up money to buy your own small ship. To save up money with friends and clans to buy a larger ship. Or to meet friends and join crews of already existing ships and crews that run it. and so forth.
___If you wanted to take on the task of building your own ship then it woudl go something liek this.
Eventually you get rewarded for you newbie efforts by doing some test launches into space. You being the Houstin control center, and having control of the rockets destiny
aim it, put it in orbit. You would have to configure a correct weight setup, and power plant. Or if you wanted to take the easier route, you could earn credits to buy a pre-fabbed vehicle and go through a few simulators untill you feel confident to start up your Lightspeeding space ship and head out into the final frontier!!
Hoping to god you dont crash it on your take off.
___Once in space the real point of the game would come into sight. The average player would not know what to expect about relativity effects
. So your goal is to survive. Alot like the game Ultima Online. You need to find a career that you enjoy to gain wealth and success. These would include finding minning operations on mars or the moon. Engineering space stations. Engineering power mirrors that orbit the sun and direct sun energy to stations and other uses. You could go into reasearch to develope and design better ships and sell those parts to other online players.
___Meanwhile, societies amongst the players will form. A software program to build homes, and buildings of your own would be included. Groups of players would form organizations and sociteies on sections of their own planets. Building cities and armies. Or whatever interests them.
___The game would have very little limit of physics research. Players could learn about the equations and maths and use those to design new things. One would have to introduce a dynamic software that could be updated on demand, so players could create their new devices.
___Anyhow, once you get into the game and take your first trip into space, alot of the players might get some extremely confused looks on their face as they see time speeding up and slowing down as they view the many camera angles. An onboardship computer would be keeping track of the dilations:
Time dilation: |Frame # ____ |------|Frame # ____ |------|Frame # ____ |
Length dilation: |Frame # ____ |------|Frame # ____ |------|Frame # ____ |
Mass dilation: |Frame # ____ |------|Frame # ____ |------|Frame # ____ |
etc.
___Ships could include powerful telescopes that zoom in on other ships and planets and what have you. So you could observe relativistic affects all around you as things traveled fast, and as you travelled fast.
All in all I propse the game to be like
Ultima Online except moder times, and the freedom to roam a universe.
___Of course we wouldnt want to wait around for days to get to certain destinations, so one would have to implement an auto pilot deal, that flies your ship to where you want to go, while your character can sleep in a "hi-tech sleep machine" almost like a cryogenic freezer. Or something to at least save the person time. However, if you happen to fly past a player who is hunting for travellers he may engauge you and force you to wake up.
___Some ships might require a crew of players...
Anyhow, this is just an opening thought, and what do you think of this idea?
Please add your own thoughts.
