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Suggestions for something to do with 4 smart programmers

Supposing that me and 2-4 friends, all programmers / smart people / skilled gamers, had the time to take on some project or job full time. Any ideas?

The following properties would all be valuable:

* Interesting
* Pays well
* Improves world
* Allows autonomy
* Makes use of our particular skills (critical thinking, programming, understanding of games and therefore some handle on probability, economics, etc)

I'm looking for brainstorming at this point, so any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated.
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Per the thread in the Civ General forum, a 4X game which isn't based on world history, medieval fantasy, or space conquest.


What about one set in a cyberpunky world where players take the roles of megacorps & compete to best exploit the earth's public & resources, while sabotaging each other with varying degrees of subtlety?
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(April 20th, 2016, 18:32)SevenSpirits Wrote: * Pays well
* Improves world

Probably exclude standard game development, though I'm guessing you were already aware.

The first thing that comes to mind is some sort of gamification of a concept that it would be beneficial for people to have ingrained in themselves. Something like Habitica (Formerly HabitRPG), which aims to help people develop and keep up good habits through a game-like reward system.
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Thanks, those are the kinds of ideas I'm looking for. smile

And while I am aware that game dev work has some issues I am not ruling it out. Those four things are nice to have but at this point I'm casting a broad net - I don't have anything yet that seems like a great idea.
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I think my kids benefited from educational games. The lesson can be in the background, like the value of friendship and cooperation, or just general problem solving technique.

Touch typing is still a useful skill, and I was never happy with the typing trainers we tried. I think both my kids ended up learning to type in high school. An app that trained geezers like me to use my thumbs on an iPhone keyboard would be helpful for me,.
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is this an after-work hobby or are you looking for employment advice to pay the bills?

anyway, many are still playing civ4 and an open-source implementation of civ4 would be awesome.
if it will be in C++ I will participate. dancing

(April 20th, 2016, 21:29)Bobchillingworth Wrote: What about one set in a cyberpunky world where players take the roles of megacorps & compete to best exploit the earth's public & resources, while sabotaging each other with varying degrees of subtlety?
reminds of Offworld Trading Company.
me on civfanatics.com
An ideal strategy game would tone down efficiency challenges, while promoting choices and conflicts
No gods or kings. Only Man.
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(April 20th, 2016, 18:32)SevenSpirits Wrote: * Interesting
* Pays well
* Improves world
* Allows autonomy
* Makes use of our particular skills (critical thinking, programming, understanding of games and therefore some handle on probability, economics, etc)

There has to be a fantastic Venn diagram to illustrate the overlap of subsets of these. smile

You could make a Venn diagram generator to answer questions like these. Which itself would fit all those criteria except "Pays well" and thus occupy a certain space in its own Venn diagram. So meta. crazyeye
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(April 21st, 2016, 10:08)Hail Wrote: is this an after-work hobby or are looking for employment advice to pay the bills?

The latter. Though returns need not necessarily be immediate.
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(April 21st, 2016, 04:43)Jkaen Wrote: Can anybody recommend an app that does the following:

- Runs on IOS
- Allows scanning of physical books I own via barcode
- Allows scanning of physical books I have read but dont own via barcode
- Pulls the list of ebooks I own off Amazon
- Alerts me when certain authors chosen by me publish a new book / ebook
- Groups together books indifferent format, so it will record I own book X, then will show what format, rather than treating different format books as different books
- Allow me to search by author to see which of their books I don't own/haven't read
- Stores data on the book such as author, genre etc etc

If this doesn't already exist it could be popular. I'd like an android version too...
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(April 22nd, 2016, 17:58)Old Harry Wrote:
(April 21st, 2016, 04:43)Jkaen Wrote: Can anybody recommend an app that does the following:

- Runs on IOS
- Allows scanning of physical books I own via barcode
- Allows scanning of physical books I have read but dont own via barcode
- Pulls the list of ebooks I own off Amazon
- Alerts me when certain authors chosen by me publish a new book / ebook
- Groups together books indifferent format, so it will record I own book X, then will show what format, rather than treating different format books as different books
- Allow me to search by author to see which of their books I don't own/haven't read
- Stores data on the book such as author, genre etc etc

If this doesn't already exist it could be popular. I'd like an android version too...

I'm pretty sure this hypothetical app violates at least three copyright laws.
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