I'm not too sure I'll have the time/motivation to participate this year. I really wanted to, but I went back to college to get a philosophy degree, and I'm really wanting to devote myself to it and not get distracted by other large projects. That said, I did have an idea, and in the off chance that it might inspire some thoughts for someone struggling for an idea of their own, I thought I'd post it. Yeah, yeah, I know; everyone has their own ideas already. But it seems like the elements are throwing some people off. The overall idea was for the game to be a management/strategy type game, bring in the subject of accounting where the player has to sort of act as an accountant. The player's specific role is to be an illegal arms manufacturer, specifically explosives. The explosives that the player specializes in are made from crystals that have to be mined, and then processed/refined and whatnot. So part of the management deals will operating the mines and factories, defending them, avoiding the authorities, and so forth. Further, the player needs to seek out buyers. Now these buyers are obviously buying these explosives for a reason, and the player can attempt to be picky about who to sell to, if he wishes. News reports covering various attacks by various people will be available, and the player can try to figure out, based on the nature and timing of the attacks, whether they were done with his own explosives, which buyer they came from, and so forth. The player can then try to choose whether or not to continue selling to certain people. Perhaps a player wants to support "terrorists"/"freedom fighters" in a certain region, or help out "rogue" nations, or assist covert ops by industrialized nations, and so forth. Or maybe the player wants to aid in a particular person's assassination, not caring who accomplishes it. Now one problem with this selling of explosives and buying of defensive equipment is that the authorities will obviously notice this trading of monies. It must look innocent somehow. Thus, it will be laundered through rigged pony shows and horse races. Now rigging a pony show costs some money, and the more money being exchanged through prizes and betting, the more it costs to rig it. However, if the ponies entered are actually good, then it will cost less to rig it, because the owner of the good ponies has more power over the process (can win easily if ponies are entered, can not enter if money needs to transfer differently, blah, whatever, I'm no money laundering expert; just imagine it works [smile]). So the player can choose to have some ranches and stuff to, try to raise good ponies, manage breeding, and all that. This costs money, but with care can perhaps cost less money that straight up rigging the contests. But it takes more management. It does help make the operations look more legitimate a well, however, possibly cutting down on costs elsewhere related to avoiding the authorities. As for end goals of the game, I wasn't sure if it should remain open-ended, never ending, or if there should be a number of game-ending events (a particularly high-profile assassination, overthrow of some government, and so forth). Once one of these events occurs, the game is over, and if it was an event that the player wanted to occur, then the player could be seen to have won. If not, then the player will have lost. Note that the game doesn't say, "You win!" or "You lost!" It's just a matter of whether or not, and to what degree, the player was satisfied with the ending. A few more supplemental thoughts regards the manufacturing of the explosives. You can choose to make them with certain features: more pure, making them stronger per size/weight; more "invisible" or whatever, eluding detection more easily, and thus capable of being used in more high-profile situations; posessing a "signature", something that can be used to identify that it was yours after being used, letting you learn more easily who is using your explosives; making it toxic or something, similar to a dirty bomb, where not all of the harm is done just by the explosion. Or perhaps some other modifications as well. So them's my thoughts thus far. Anyone can run with any of it if they wish.