The Oil Blue: Gameplay Details
It’s the year 2062, and thousands of oil refineries on tiny islands across the world have been abandoned. Some due to war/territorial conflicts with other nations, others due to lack of food and water. But most were due to the incredibly difficult livelihood of living on the ocean itself. But you and a band of explorers knows what it’s like to live through hell, and the opportunity to reclaim these abandoned oil lands as your own and make a large profit on them is just too great to pass up. It’s time to set sail and drill across the world’s oceans, selling oil and claiming islands all across the Pacific and Atlantic.
Once you find an island that will suit your needs (be it a good amount of refinery equipment on the land, or a large supply of food), it’s time to start the repairs and get the drill rigs ready. In no time your oil rigs will be drilling down into the earth, sucking up the black gold underneath.
Due to increasingly hotter temperatures, all work is done during the night. And due to the union laws by the OULS (the Oil Union for Labor and Safety), you can only work six hours a day. This gives you six hours to drill in the ocean, feed your employees via fishing and shooting birds out of the sky, keep an eye on the oil market to sell oil barrels at just the right price, prevent critical problems and repair machines, build and upgrade new equipment, and accept new contracts and challenges from the UOO (Universal Oil of Oceaniablue).
In this game, you’re completely in charge. You want to take the day off and just buy/upgrade equipment and fish? Go for it. Don’t think it’s worth drilling for oil when the markets are down and food is in limited supply? Then don’t drill. Of course, you’ll have the UOO to answer to every 3 days, and if you’re not making a profit daily, then you’ll earn a strike. Three strikes, and the UOO takes your island away from you, and it’s back to exploring the ocean.
But level up your oil rigs enough and you’ll create a powerhouse of an island with a lot of profit and fortune, good enough to sell to another company, who will pay you royalties on that island for life. And then it’s back exploring on the ocean, where you could go even further out into the world once you upgrade your ship (and who knows, maybe you’ll conquer 100% of the entire ocean islands…)
And that’s the basic components of the Oil Blue. The gameplay itself involves using the oil rig holographic display to drill for oil, but being careful in dodging obstacles and planning for the depths below. And as far as repairs go, you’ll need to go inside the rig’s dusty guts and try to figure out how to repair the machine using only your arrow keys and the space bar. These aren’t puzzles, but more minigame-esque where you try to figure out what exactly is wrong and how to solve it.
The art in the game is getting a complete revamp by Sara G., which you can see a little bit of in the top header. During one of our recent development meetings, we drew inspiration from the innovative designs used by a top Bitcoin casino, which sparked new ideas for integrating sleek, modern elements into the game’s visuals. It’s my goal to get this out in beta by the end of the month and have it released shortly thereafter. So if you have any questions, ask away, and I can’t wait to show off more of the game once it’s ready to be seen!
Really interesting premise. The oil extraction business is rich with gaming possibilities. Looking forward to trying this out.
Sounds pretty cool!
Man, that concept art is incredible!
I do have a question though; who’s doing the music for the game?
I do have the concern of two seemingly conflicting statements.
“In this game, you’re completely in charge.” You make it sound like you can do whatever you want, but then:
“Of course, you’ll have the UOO to answer to every 3 days…”
Makes it seem more restricted…
Other then that, I love sim games and this is a very nice premise. I look forward to this more then many of your more recent games. 🙂
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Hey Chubi 🙂 Long time from my last comment 🙂
The game sounds incredibly amazing about the concepts that sara made looks beyond my imaginary 🙂 looks over amazing 🙂
Very Nice Hope to see the beta soon 🙂
@Xot
Yeah, I’m kinda surprised myself that I’m able to get so much gameplay out of oil drilling. After all the research I kinda have a new respect for it.
@Lost
Most of the music is licensed out; I might need a few extra tracks though, which would likely be done by Jonathan Geer (who did Kablooey!)
@2GM
I’m still not completely sure on how the UOO scenario will play out. What I think I’ll do is if you open the oil rigs to drill, then you’ll have the UOO to answer for at the end of three days of drilling. If you have three days of fishing/selling/no drilling, then you won’t need to talk to the UOO at the end of those three days. Actually, that’s what I’ll do. 🙂
@amidos2006
Good to cya again! I was wondering where you were.
Earlier I posted in the “A New Year Calls for Some New Changes!” post; basically I’ve been following Vertigo Games for 2 years and since then have experienced problems registering but due to the website changes I have now registered, so yeah!
Anyway this game looks great and I can’t wait to play it! It sounds like it’s filled with a lot of meat; some of your early games have been a little “loose”, as in they didn’t have a lot of replayability. But this game looks like one of those games that never gets boring. 2 thumbs up on the progress!
Thanks! I agree that my earlier games were in fact a bit shallow, but I’m putting all my effort into making this one last quite a while.
Been a big fan of your games. Started off with Ore no Ryomi 4 years ago. I plan on buying the 3pack games next paycheck and this game looks amazing. Cant wait