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[s0]

This thread comes from a discussion in the dream game thread in General. Basically one of my dream games is what I thought Spore was going to be when I saw the first previews. What the game actually turned out to be was disappointing to say the least. Ive been thinking for a long time about how to turn Spore into my dream game. Here's a rough outline of what I have in mind, copypasted from the thread.

the first thing i would do is eliminate the separation into phases.
 
the second thing (related to this) would be to preserve the game's "micro to macro" progression but make it dynamic and keep all the micro aspects up and running as macro stuff gets added, so the game would not necessarily have to be played as a "god game".

the third thing i would do is make it nonlinear. for instance, you could have a game where your species never leaves the "animal phase" as others evolve, you could have multiple sentient species on one planet, you could never leave the "cell phase" but still build a civilization (yay for civilized amoebas!) etc etc

theres a bunch of other stuff too (less direct control over creature evolution, creatures bodies would make more of a gameplay difference etc)

basically i would want to make it an actual life sim/sandbox (tho not necessarily realistic), rather than a few neat editors strung together by a boring minigame collection.

one of my game ideas ive had on the backburner forever is to make a semi-realistic bee colony simulator that would implement some of these concepts. ive also always wanted to make a game starring non-anthropomorphic, non-"cute" animals.

so, uh, discuss!

[ProgramGamer]

Commenting for notifying, cause just pressing "notify" feels creepy.

[JWK5]

Another thing that would be cool is a setup for modding to add in user-made objects for the creatures to interact with. New plants that have certain nutrients and toxins (ideal for some creatures avoided by or lethal to others), various building materials with varying utility and vulnerabilities (perhaps the creature uses scraps to build a nest, some of which are susceptible to fire or burrowing creatures), etc.

As long as there was a consistent structure and rule sets it'd be fairly easy to create editors to facilitate user-made content.

[Mittens]

I too wish that all the lower/smaller phases were kept in tact as you unlock a more macro level of gameplay.

I think what disappointed me most about Spore was the way it had a clear linear story/progressing that it really wanted you to follow and most importantly, it would never let you fail.

The main improvement I can think to make to spore is just to add right and wrong choice. If you build your species to have stubby legs and no arms, then just like real natural selection, that creature should have an extreme disadvantage in surviving. The game should let your race go extinct and say "game over"

The RTS phase in particular was so pointless, all the effort you might put into building your tanks and units only nudges zero-sum attribute sliders. Even when you are dumping all your points into a single attribute (trolling) the game still seems to make it possible to win.

[s0]

The main improvement I can think to make to spore is just to add right and wrong choice.

actually just adding real choice would be fine. 99% of the choices you make are purely cosmetic and it never feels like anything you do has any real gameplay effect. its a real misunderstanding of "sandbox" game design imo, which is weird because will wright/maxis already got it so right so many times.

imo spore's biggest problem is that it tries to be too much of a "game".

[Mittens]

imo spore's biggest problem is that it tries to be too much of a "game".

Yeah exactly, in more of a simulation context all of the spore themes and mechanics would make a whole lot more sense and be a whole lot more fun.

It's like someone high up thought that people would regret their purchase if the game didn't make sure every player made it through every "stage" and get to the end of the game.
I really enjoyed the 2nd and 3rd stages, I would have been happy to just keep influencing the world in that level of detail for as long as I like.

[JWK5]

All I wanted from Spore was to have a world in which my mighty Phallusaurus must fight for survival to become the one-eyed apex predator. That stage in the game was barebones, brief, and virtually pointless. After that the only part of Spore that appealed to me was the creature creator.

[gimymblert]

Warning - while you were typing 6 new replies have been posted. You may wish to review your post.


In fact a lot of design thread I had was directly or indirectly about it. Notably the recent one about generating persistent travelling character procedurally.

The main things I found was to find and break progression and gameplay loop so they can intersect, parrallelize and nest without problem. Scale itself isn't a problem as documentation about how to do it (see no man sky) is amply available. The problem is how do you balance a massively detailed world, even if it is generated procedurally. Well looking at skyrim, gta or minecraft you just might not need, if you have enough detail, making everything in the same threat level might be enough even if it isn't difficult (especially if it's not difficult as the buffet effect kicked in). Also aping existing game structure and nesting them is enough.

So basically I define 4 progressions axis with their nested gameplay loop.

1. survival axis (rpg, craft, mining)
2. social axis (npc and faction affinity)
3. political axis (trade, merchant, diplomatic, war)
4. narration (karma, choice, roleplay)

The main thing is that the more you nest element the simpler and low frequency high level elements should be, unless you switch to a hi level interface (for example having a mayor house provide an god like interface and maybe acceleration of time). Simple elements of management are kinda implemented in some open world game like the homestead in ass3 or "ghetto" in gta3, but the best example to ape are social games as they implement gameplay that simplify management and exist over time.

Regrouping gameplay function (items too) around gameplay loop is important especially in nesting them, for example your hunting loop nest combat mechanics and "mining" (gathering resource), the yield of each loop is important as they feed each other (that's why you need to class them into hierarchical loop, for example your farming, hunt, mining, fishing, are all under the resource "gathering" loop which itself feed into the "trade", "sustain yourself" or "npc affinity" loop (and npc obviously feed into faction that feed diplomatie, etc ...).

Of course it's all obvious, but laying it rigorously is important to make a project that is too big in theory manageable.

Now in term of design there is handling evolution, it's a policy choice, let's say we want to keep some agency to the player to influence the design without downright having (to be continued, sleepy)

[oahda]

bees are cute what are you talking about

[s0]

i agree but theyre not traditionally considered cute the way kittens or puppies or watever are (anthropomorphic cartoon depictions dont count)

btw the reason i wanna make a bee sim to test these concepts is because it pretty much has the "micro to macro" progression (as well as new game+ cycles ) built in via founding new colonies. ive actually considered making it about wasps or bumblebees rather than honeybees because their colonies are founded by solitary queens rather than swarms so the micro to macro thing would be even more pronounced. it wouldn't be a beekeeping simulation btw, you would actually control a beehive in the wild.

[oahda]

ya, i didn't think it was beekeeping

[DifferentName]

I think the main problem with spore is that, with all it's depth of worlds and possibilities, it doesn't have much depth of gameplay. This is most clear in the phase with the funnest creator. The creature creator is so fun to play around with, but the game you get to play with that creature has so little going on. Especially if you want your species to be a peaceful one, where the game is to just dance near other creatures. A mini game that requires no skill or decision making. Something more challenging like recent survival games would be perfect in this.

I've also thought about a smooth micro to macro transition in games. I've had a few game ideas where you would control one character with the ability to issue commands to other characters. So you would have the fast responsive controls over yourself, and a more abstracted control system for your army. I think this would be great for is a smooth transition from an individual, to a tribe, to an empire. You would simply be able to issue commands to bigger and bigger groups, and get new command abilities.

[Photon]

I've also thought about a smooth micro to macro transition in games. I've had a few game ideas where you would control one character with the ability to issue commands to other characters. So you would have the fast responsive controls over yourself, and a more abstracted control system for your army. I think this would be great for is a smooth transition from an individual, to a tribe, to an empire. You would simply be able to issue commands to bigger and bigger groups, and get new command abilities.

*cough* Pikmin *cough*

Even though that's not exactly what you are talking about, the on-field commander aspect I think is one of the core reasons the franchise excels. You not only manage your troops but yourself; its not so much about twitch macro management like you would see in traditional top-down RTS's, for instance, but how well you physically position yourself and plan your routes to command and conquer. Not being properly prepared for a scenario in Pikmin can mean backtracking or improvisation as opposed to scrolling your screen and arbitrarily walking some units to your position.

[gimymblert]

SO I was talking about evolution's policy.

Spore is basically a rpg, the way it handle evolution in game term is basically a generalization of equipment where you shop and sell at each level gained. This policy seems a bit too relax and unrepresentative of evolution for some gamer.

How would handle evolution?

There is both a constrain that
- in creature phase you have single perspective,
- it has gameplay need and
- representational need.

- Single perspective is important because it's not how evolution work, basically evolution work by spreading variation across multiple characters and killing the unfit variation.
- Also evolution build on previous "skill" either by recessing them or evolving them, spore fail because you can basically totally shift your creature at each evolution.
- Final point is gameplay should give the player some agency, a margin of freedom to express himself.

- To represent evolution and the multiple character variations we can simply let the player play until he can mate (I think that's how spore work I foget), with mating being the leveling up.
- Skill is easier because that's how RPG work, with a skill tree, we can either go with a basic branching skill tree, or a skill base evolution like skyrim where you gain more point for a given skill tree with limited respec (you can remove only a bunch of point from a given skill tree to recess that branch), and we can also base evolution using similar to pokemon EV ie a kind of resource that favor certain skills chains based on "encounter" (foods and environment impacts).

Now about phases
The thing with spore is that there is already game that cross boundaries of phases already, even if there isn't an all encompassing game.
Basically there is

- a survival phase (cell/creature) define by a single creature perspective, this is something we have already plenty game and genre to directly copy, ie survival game in general, rogue like, minecraft's survival mode, etc ... we just need to copy the gameplay by layering access to gameplay loop based on evolution (ie you can only craft once you are intelligent enough). The next social aspect is covered by game like mount and blade, skyrim, typical rpg at large with character affinities and factions.

- the next step is the civlisation (tribal/civilization) where you are at the head of a group of individual, in fact it's a seamless evolution frm acquiring crafting and having character affinity. Mount and blade offer the proper starter to evolve from companion to a troupe, crafting can gain the ability to build houses which work like in terraria, build them and they will come to offer service a la mysims on wii (first build a bonfire (hall/forum in evolve version) to attract npc then build house for those you want to stay). In order to simplify construction and ensure gameplay coherence and tightness you can only build house from a center building that link them all (which would define the "local" and give its name), which would allow to build multiple "local" (ie village, town, etc...).  Town can be link hierarchically in a chain of command  (capital > city > district > etc) all is handle by entering the central building to interface or just talking to npc directly by using your character ranks earn by founding a local, npc having rank of their own that give them function. By then the culture/civilization skill tree is already open and open cultural advancement (basically new building, tools and policy ala civilization). In fact this phase is more like the ultimate spore phase where single perspective meet diplomacy, you can be notified of event hapening even while traveling the world, delegate task to npc, gain ranks by doing quest, etc ... Space is just building a spacecraft and doing the same at planetary level, so there isn't much a distinction ( see no man sky and elite)

As seen we can just mesh game that already overlap to build all the spore phases. There is no major innovation to create nor major fixing to do.

The last point would be shift in scale from cell to creature, the possibility of rhizome (aka cell civilization), and the interaction between different scale.

[Alec S.]

In addition to wanting the creature design actually have more of an impact on how the game plays, I also think the way you progress from generation to generation should be different.  If I recall correctly, you add points to your pool by eating food, and then you can spend those points on parts and such, and alter your creature in any way your point pool allows.

I think that instead of having a point pool that you can use to potentially completely re-create your creature every generation, you should have "change points."  Any change you make, adding parts, removing parts, changing something's size or shape, ect... costs change points.  On top of that, your creature would have a certain upkeep of how much food they needed to consume each day to survive.  Bigger creatures with more parts would need to consume more/larger creatures than simpler creatures, meaning that there's an incentive to sometimes spend your change points on simplifying your creature.

[oahda]

Richard Dawkins already made Spore (BIOMORPHS) in 1987 in

.

[rek]

The creature creator was by far the most fun part of the game, but what I wanted from Spore was more of an evolution/ecosystem simulator than the slapping-together-Frankenstein's-parts it was. I'd happily sacrifice the civilization and interplanetary stages of the game (the latter I really didn't enjoy) for a tighter and deeper focus on the cell-to-sentient evolutionary stages.

Ideally you'd start as a simple organism and progress through the game through the descendent generations, your success tied to their ability to adapt to the environment and define their niche in an ecosystem.

[Mittens]

^ This,

The early stages of the game where full of technical inovation and novel mechanics
the later stages of the game were simplified clones of well established existing games.
If they wanted people to enjoy those macro phases then they needed to design and build them with the same vision as the start.

an RTS or galactic expansion game could be really interesting if it was centered on the themes of evolution and growth instead of tired old game systems

[gimymblert]

Which ironically is every rts, management and 4X games are about, growth and "evolution" literally

What were the novel mechanics in the early game? As I said in my essay, they were also simplified version of established gameplay. Cell phase is literally open world pacman (or also flow from that game company), that also may be seen as snake expended, a kind of simplified rpg (money is dna, part is equipment) etc ...

[oahda]

I have to say anything like the RTS stuff is entirely uninteresting to me in this. Not because I dislike RTS (and it doesn't have to be RTS either), but because technology just doesn't fit something like this IMO. I want to follow evolution in a non-man-made environment (man here = whatever they evolve into so that they can build things like man) up to a certain point, but beyond that isn't interesting nor fitting to me at all.