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It took two days of intense thinking, but I did come up with an idea I like for a wine-based game. I had to read through a lot of documentation (Wikipedia has a surprising amount of info about wine). I thought about a bunch of weird ideas, from a wine trivia quiz to a tradeable wine game (”I attack with my Bordeaux and deal 5 damage to your cheese!”). Nothing worked, until I remembered an idea for a gardening game I had a few years ago. Here it is, adapted to wine-making.

Virtual Wine-Making
The slow, meticulous and old-fashioned work of producing wine is a haven of calm for many over-stressed workers. A lot of people dream of owning a vineyard — that’s the experience this Nintendo DS game will give them.

It’s not a tycoon game. It’s closer to a pet game where you create the perfect bottle of wine rather than raise a puppy. You have to manage your vineyard — get rid of pests, irrigate the grapes, make sure fermentation progresses well, etc. — a little bit every day. Even while the game is off, the vineyard keeps evolving so you must return regularly to make sure everything is perfect.

Gameplay Basics

Your first task is to choose where to set your first vineyard. Do you choose the traditional approach with a location in France or Italy? Or do you prefer the New World, creating a Californian or Australian wine? As you get more successful you’ll be able to get more than one vineyard, but your first choice determines what kind of wine you’ll start with.

Then you’ll have to decide which kind of wine to create. Between red and white, of course, but also rosé, champagne, ice wine or many others. This choice affects the location you choose (doing ice wine in Spain wouldn’t work), the equipment you’ll need and the approach you take to make the wine. An in-game help system will help you with all these choices if you desire.

As you return to your virtual vineyard each day, you’ll have many tasks to take care of.

• Buy new equipment and land
• Improve the quality of the terroir (the characteristics of the location of the vineyard that impact the quality of the wine, such as the characteristics of the ground)
• Cultivate grapes and make sure everything goes smoothly (get rid of problematic bugs and sickness, for example)
• Take care of fermentation to get the best possible wine
• Age the wine properly

Your approach to wine-making is your own choice. You can go the traditional way — pressing grapes barefoot and using natural methods of growing grapes — or use the ultra-modern approach — use high tech wine-presses and the best chemicals science invented. Each has its advantages and drawbacks.

Once the wine is ready, it’s time to bottle it up. You’ll be able to design your own bottle and create your own labels. It’s then sent to stores, where the quality of your creation determines how much money you get to expand your vineyard or buy new ones.

Wine Tasting and Other Features

What does virtual wine taste like? Pocket Vineyard will tell you. By analyzing the way you created the wine, it’ll determine its characteristics and give you a detailed description. You’ll know if it’s “intense, spicy, supple and deep” or “fresh, dry, honeyed and lively”.

Still, that’s no substitute for the real thing. To let you experience the closest thing to your real wine, the game will recommend a few real wines close to your creation based on its attributes and its terroir. It will have a database of wines and their characteristics (and if place is tight, the database will be available by connecting online).
What’s more, each virtual year the game will feature a wine competition in which your wine will earn prizes if you did a good job. Getting the first prize in a category will greatly increase the sales of your wine, giving you more money to improve and extend your vineyard.

But what’s drinking wine without your friends? By connecting online with the DS’ wifi connection, you’ll be able to send a virtual wine bottle or postcard from your vineyard by email.

Conclusion

This game idea is very casual, it’s more a toy than a game (for those fluent in design vernacular). I don’t think it would be popular with hardcore gamers, but it may be able to reach the “gray gamers” Nintendo is marketing the DS to with Brain Age. In any case, it’s quite different from other games on the market.

Tomorrow I’ll go into more details about the intricacies of the gameplay — don’t miss it!

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