Just a simple gameplay feature to be added as a little detail.
[size=150]Concept[/size]
Watch the Roads would be an option to watch a highway/street/intersection etc. and see how many cars on the road are yours. I’m sure there will be a graph somewhere in the tycoon game that tells you “X out of every Y luxury car is a Company Name Z”, which is good for data collecting. The numbers there will let you know when you’re absolutely dominating the market, but numbers can feel cold. A statistic makes you feel good when X and Y are 1 to 1. But you can’t see that result physically in game. So, Watch the Roads lets you see it.
[size=150]How would it work?[/size]
Companies you’re competing against in game will have their own models on the roads, so the game would generate their body style and put them on the viewer. At the start of the game, it’d be your first car against all of theirs. Your stat would say like, 1 out of every 100 luxury cars is a CN-Z LC. You click ‘Watch the Roads’ and you see that highway/street/intersection/what-have-you, and you see all the other cars on the road, going about a normal day. Not a lot there, really, you see loads of cars go by, and you can’t really find yours. So, you select the option “Highlight my cars”. This dims the window Watch the Roads is pulled up in, except for your cars (maybe you could get even more specific, and say “Highlight CN-Z LC” or whatever car you want be highlighted.) Then it’s far easier to spot that 1 car in the sea of 100, and watch it drive past the street cam. Then as time goes on, your car starts to be highlighted to the point where one in every two cars that go by are yours, or if you’re really good and successful, every car is yours.
[size=150]Why put any time into it?[/size]
I believe that doing this would give another sense of accomplishment, similar to that of Roller Coaster Tycoon; You start small, and on day one of that game, only had 100 guests. But by the final month, you were watching them stand in line, every guest was happy, you could see the results of your work. And when that scenario was complete, you would go back and smile at yourself as you saw that successful park, knowing where you started from. There were datasheets that told you the same thing. Your economics graph told you the park was doing well, but it just wasn’t the same as watching the pixel people wander around. It’s that sense of accomplishment that makes you want to start over, and the bigger and warmer that sense is, the more you want to start the game over and play again. I don’t really remember my parks economic chart from nearly 15 years ago, but I do have fond memories of that final product when the walkways were crowded.
[size=150]When to put anytime into it?[/size]
Much later. It’d probably pop up in the last three major updates in the game, as it’s not a core mechanic, and is simply a visual enhancement to show your company’s growth.
[size=150]Conclusion[/size]
So, any thoughts on this suggestion?