   Ideas for a Drill Mini-game?
  I'm brainstorming how I might add a minigame to the player action of collecting minerals on the surface of a planet. I envision something "flash game" simple that maybe trades off damaging the drill against a larger mineral sample size.The most simple thing I can think of is like one of those swing meters in a golfing game-- click the mouse when the moving indicator is in the right zone. Too soon and the mineral sample is reduced, too late and the drill head is damaged. But that's pretty mundane.Any thoughts on how I might jazz this up?   
Quote:Original post by WavinatorI'm brainstorming how I might add a minigame to the player action of collecting minerals on the surface of a planet. I envision something "flash game" simple that maybe trades off damaging the drill against a larger mineral sample size.The most simple thing I can think of is like one of those swing meters in a golfing game-- click the mouse when the moving indicator is in the right zone. Too soon and the mineral sample is reduced, too late and the drill head is damaged. But that's pretty mundane.Any thoughts on how I might jazz this up?Ever seen the movie "Armageddon"? I remember it as an introspective art-house affair starring some relative unknowns like that bald guy from "Moonlighting". They threw in a completely gratuitous drilling-on-an-asteroid sequence which ruined it for the critics and probably lost them the Cannes Palme d'Or, but It suggests some possible dynamics.The player needs to balance location, drilling speed, capital and maintenance costs and availability of equipment. Add in the usual Dilbertian management problems, Nigerian pirates and so on to make it more fun and you should be laughing.;  You could try incorporating aspects from old games like DigDig or Oils Well. Both games are relatively simplistic with an emphasis on mining.   ;  Two ideas come to mind:1)Blast  and  Collect.You first have to blast the rock creating a path between your ship and the minerals you are interested in.  Blasting consisting of holding down the mouse button to fill a charge bar and then releasing it firing a beam in the direction you the mouse is currently pointing in. The bigger the charge the bigger the blast, different rocks have different densities.  Rocks have 4 states normal, cracked, broken, and vaporized.  The idea is leave the valuable minerals as intact as possible while vaporizing as much of the cheap minerals as you can.Collect consists of firing a tractor beam at minerals to tractor them aboard your ship.  The tractor beam can only lift so much weight at once. The more you tractor at once the more likely it will overload dropping everything you are currently trying to lift. But the longer you take the more energy is used which is one of limiters, the other being cargo space.2)DiggerSimilar to the above but you have a little robot that digs through a mostly concealed level.  To collect minerals you just dig through them.  Same limiters apply but now you’ve also got to ensure that your robot returns to the surface as well.  But you can add more customization options.  For example extended batteries, cargo pods, more powerful drills.Throw in rare items like fossils, and alien artifacts, as well as hazards like explosive minerals and you’ve got yourself a mini game.;  I don't remember the name but there was some sort of oil tycoon game for the C64 where they had a drilling aspect to it.  There were two views I think, one was basicly the layers you were to drill through and the depth of the bit and the other was a view of the bit.  In the view of the bit you essentially had a square with a dot in it and you had to keep the dot as centered as possible as the drilling occures.  When the bit hit harder layers of material the dot would move around more wildly.  If the dot goes outside of the square the drill bit "breaks" and you'd end up paying to try again.   