Storm Chasing Video Game

Difficulty levels, consisting of real-world situations:

Beginner: Unlimited funding/time
Novice: Unlimited funding/limited time frame
Advanced: Limited funding/time frame
Veteran: $3000/60 days for the entire YEAR
Expert: $1000/10 days for the entire YEAR


The idea is that the less time/money you have to work with, the better your forecasts and chases have to be; you'd better make everyone count when you've got 20% of the resources as many other chasers. This would force players to use more scrutiny when deciding whether to chase or stay home on a given day, depending on the situation.

Basically, if you suck, you need all the chase days you can get. If you're a badass, you can be thrown a handful of opportunities and come home with lots of trophies :wink:

Also, the game must contain a ton of memory because several different scenarios have to be a part of the program; there must be a virtually endless conbination of scenarios that can play out wx-wise to prevent players from "mastering the game" and essentially "beating" it. It must be realistic in the sense that, even the most experienced, most successful chasers still bust some days and don't know why.

A 3000 CAPE with a breakable cap in good supercell winds and ideal surface conditions cannot yield the same wx everytime, and so on.
 
Re: Some games have tornado options

and try to get through the game without smashing into any of those evil "yahoo" chasers that block the road and drive like maniacs! :lol:

Would we get points for hitting "so called chasers" on the road? :twisted:

You can do the same thing in a SIM City game too. I even had Lincoln, NE go thru a bad earthquake one time. Didn't look too pretty...

SimCity 4 has an awesome new disaster... a wicked CG strike. It is funny watching all the little Sims run away screaming LOL.
 
List of video/pinball games with 'storm', 'chaser', or 'tornado' in the name.
From Killer List of Video Games

Alien Storm
Avengers In Galactic Storm
Blazing Tornado
BloodStorm
Cyberstorm
Galactic Storm
Geo Storm
Grid Seeker: Project Storm Hammer
Grind Stormer
Gulf Storm
Hotdog Storm
LED Storm
Progear Storm Of Progia
Ray Storm
Space Chaser
Storm
Storm Blade
Storming Party
Stormy
Tornado
Tornado Baseball
Varth: Operation Thunderstorm
Violent Storm[/b]
 
Boy, this thing is starting to snowball.

We also should remember that the less WX-savvy should be able to enjoy the game as well. A difficulty where sounding data is not necessary would be good, though I don't know how that could be done. There could be a training level that basically instructs what to look for as far as sounding data goes. However high CAPE/low shear and low CAPE/high shear situations would need to be included.

Different game modes would be cool too.

Lightning: Go to high lightning areas like FL, and SW monsoon and get pictures.

Hurricane chasing: A CAT 5 storm named "Fluffy" :lol: :wink: is striking, get footage of it tearing sh*t up!
 
This isn't QUITE a video game, but at the casino at exit 200 off I-40 in Oklahoma (the Mystic Winds Casino) they have a casino machine titled Storm Chaser. It is similar to all their other machines, but the symbols include a tornado, a storm chaser in a jeep, a video camera, a GPS navigator, etc. You win by getting a storm chaser and a tornado symbol on the screen at the same time (or several tornadoes). It is a really good looking machine, but they won't let you take pictures in there, so I can't post a pic. If you gamble and chase, this is definately the machine to play.

On the subject of the video game, if you got a good concept and presented it to major companies, I'm sure they'd go for it because it's a unique concept. There is little innovation in the video game market, and new concepts are usually appreciated. Or, of course, one could release it without going through a studio, but the audience would be somewhat more limited. Did you know, by the way, that it costs something in the millions now for a major game studio to package and release a new video game???
 
This isn't QUITE a video game, but at the casino at exit 200 off I-40 in Oklahoma (the Mystic Winds Casino) they have a casino machine titled Storm Chaser.

They have a couple of them in Casinos in Blackhawk, CO. I've played (and lost) many times! :lol:
 
I saw a Twister pinball machine, once . . . I forget where you got all the points, but I think there was something that lit up with "F5" on it, unsurprisingly . . .
 
I saw a Twister pinball machine, once . . . I forget where you got all the points, but I think there was something that lit up with "F5" on it, unsurprisingly . . .

Sure enough! Search for 'twister' gave:
http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter...=&game_id=10240
http://hippie.net/pinball/twister/
http://www.planetkc.com/maven/MyGames.htm
http://www.perfectamusements.com/Pinball/p.../p90twister.htm

I need one of these!!!
One sold on Ebay for $1600:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...item=6109282257
 
I'd be cool if there was a multiplayer chaser game. Though, I wonder how many people would be blocking roads, parking under overpasses and punching the core all the time. It would be funny to see 5 or 6 online chasers punch the core of a storm at the same time.

The main thing i'd be concerned about, is if a kid (who knows nothing about weather, let alone driving) runs through a string of us in his bullet proof Hummer.
 
A chase game is actually closer to reality than we think. Well... the idea for it at least. The technology is out there... we would just need some hard core programmers.

As I see it... there are several components to the game engine.

#1 the Landscape/Terrain Engine (3d). With technology out now, we would probably be best off using some sort of flight simulator engine such as Microsoft Flight Sim 2004. A generic terrain file for the Plains could be made including towns etc.

#2 The convection engine. There are many smaller scale storm models that have been used to model supercells... any of these will suffice.

#3 The Initiation engine. Many of the storm scale models simply start with a warm bubble. The initation engine would use randomness/environmental variables to figure out where bubbles would be introduced into the model. Several scenarios could be imput into the model.... warm front days... dryline days... etc. Using randomness... no 2 setups should be alike. In addition, I would think some days could result in squalllines/multicells while others would be more descrete.

#4 (and probably the haderst part) Is drawing the storms. Many of the models output a reflectivity output. Using this and lots of (if this is going on do this) it would be possible. For example.. set a storm base height based off the environmental variables. If vorticity exceeds XXX number at lowest grid of model... create wall cloud. If vorticity gets even higher near the surface... drop a tube. If reflectivity is greater than 50dbz then the occurance of hail is a higher probability etc...

And here is the coolest thing. Stick a good UI and driving sim on top of all of this. Setup gas stations etc.... you can do all the financial stuff like Shane suggested...... You could even mimic internet data connections!!! and since we are already running a model in the background... you could "connect" to get the latest reflectivity output from the model quite easily. Awesome!!!

Aaron
 
You could even mimic internet data connections!!! and since we are already running a model in the background... you could "connect" to get the latest reflectivity output from the model quite easily. Awesome!!!
Aaron

That would be great idea. This game idea is very interesting, if a game such as this were to ever be introduced, I would most likely buy it...

Also, I believe MS Flight Simulator has some sort of "weather engine". It can take data from internet sources (METAR) and create live weather conditions based upon the reports - Which is one of the reasons I bought the game...
 
Yeah, with Flight Simulator — at least in the 2002 edition — you can chase microbursts by setting the weather to thunderstorm (complete with CGs) with high wind shear; you can re-enact historical microburst disasters by changing the date and airport to the relevant. WOW!
 
Although this would definately be a niche market project, that hasn't stopped several top-notch 'niche' games from being developed. There's a deer hunter game. There are a couple railroad sim games out there that rock, one being Microsoft's Train Simulator. MS TrainSim was a little on the expensive side but worth it if you're in to that kind of thing.

My problem now is that I never have time to play video games anymore.
 
Not to be pessimistic about this idea, but I don't want to see a storm chasing video game. For anyone who enjoys meteorology, any inaccuracy will just piss you off and make you throw your controller at the TV. For anyone who doesn't know anything about meteorology and plays a chasing game, they will likely want to go chase the next time a storm is near. Therefore, more "yahoo" chasers will be on the road, and more people will complain about and even greater amount a chaser convergence and rude locals on the road.
 
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