next »

[sorensilk]

I really like the visual style of this game. It's kind of between pixel and cartoon if that makes sense. Really nice.  I'm interested to see where this goes.

[Prodigga]

Hey thanks guys.

I spent a lot of time over the last few days going over mechanics in my head. It is definitely going to be a slow paced game, a 'stop and smell the flowers' kind of game as said by Phil.  

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this (Problems, suggestions, anything   )

Every organism is going to be described by 3 features - size, maneuverability and intelligence. When you "craft" your seed mixture, you will be able to add points towards each of these features (like assigning points to stats in an RPG). So, for example, you could add 25 to size, 25 to maneuverability and 50 to intelligence to create a seed mixture that will spawn humans. Your work is not done there. You need to figure out the right conditions to seed in order to trigger the organism to spawn.

In your lab, you can expose the seed mixture to various conditions - you can wet it, dry it out, keep it warm or cold. The seed mixture (which'll just look like a small clump of powder on a petri dish) will "react" to the different conditions (the grains will jump around like pop corn if it is in favorable conditions). By figuring out what type of conditions trigger a reaction, you can generate a planet that meets the criteria.

You then create your planet, seed it with your new seed mixture (and whatever else you would like to add in) to see what you get!

I am fairly set about what happens in the game up until this point. Now I am trying to work out a fun "end game". When you get your seed mixture to spawn some organisms, what then? I am still weighing up options but I am thinking that maybe you still need to create an environment with the right balance of organisms for your study subject to thrive. (ie: you've already discovered apple trees, now you want to study Humans, so you figure out how to spawn humans and you make sure you also add the "apple tree seed" along with the human seed when you generate your planet to ensure the humans have something to eat.). Maybe then the objective is to get the organism to reproduce until it hits a certain population (at which point, you "master" that species). Herbivores would be the easiest to grow, where as carnivores require you to maintain a population of at least 2 creatures (The carnivores you are studying, and the other creature that they need to eat to thrive).

That's what I've got so far!

[kikai]

Have to follow this wonderful game.
Keep up the good work dude 

[lucasblucas]

Hearing more about the mechanics, I really like the lab theme of your game. It drives home the idea of experimentation. I wanted to send my reactions to your first draft of the mechanics but please take them with a grain of salt! Apologies for my verbosity!

When you "craft" your seed mixture, you will be able to add points towards each of these features (like assigning points to stats in an RPG). So, for example, you could add 25 to size, 25 to maneuverability and 50 to intelligence to create a seed mixture that will spawn humans. Your work is not done there. You need to figure out the right conditions to seed in order to trigger the organism to spawn.

I like the simplicity of that system, but wonder how it extends to all the organisms you plan on creating. For example, if you're doing plants and animals only, won't most plants be 0 INT, 0 MAN, and 0-100 SIZE? I can see there being fun in trying to reverse engineer Earth's organisms, for ex. making an elephant would be high size, high int, low man.

Actually I like the simplicity of your mechanics in general. I bet there's a sweet spot for variables players can tweak where it's either uninteresting (too few) or overwhelming (too many). It seems like this game could get overly complex really quick, especially in terms of asset creation. Scribblenauts comes to mind with how many different objects they created, but being smart about reusing behaviors between them. As a side note, that game also has the same fun of discovery that I think you're tapping into here.

I don't want to get ahead of your design, but one question I have after reading is if there are any resource constraints of any kind? Can players experiment with any combination of points for a seed? Can players use any variables they want once the petri dishes have seeds in them? Once the seeds are on a planet, can the planet be manipulated freely?

I like your idea of creating balanced ecosystems as ways of "winning". I bet it will be interesting as you develop your game to see how the ecosystems behave. Maybe it will be very very hard to reach an equilibrium without one population destroying another (humans eating all the apples), but like you said, reaching a certain population might be enough.

This may be getting away from your Zen feel for the game but I think there could be room for specific goals to meet with each experiment as a win condition too. That might give players more direction if you feel a need for it. For example, "Create a planet with 3 plant forms" or "Create a planet with an animal that feeds on clams". Maybe I'm drawing too much inspiration from Scribblenauts there, but personally I think the puzzle aspect of that game pairs nicely with its open-ended experimentation feel. Maybe you're going for a different feel for the game.

[Prodigga]

Hey man thanks so much for your reply. I have not updated here for a little while because I have been in a bit of a slump about the overall concept. I love the general direction I am heading in but I am having trouble pinning down solid ideas. So I really appreciate the time you took to write up that post!

Ok so, let's see here..

I like the simplicity of that system, but wonder how it extends to all the organisms you plan on creating. For example, if you're doing plants and animals only, won't most plants be 0 INT, 0 MAN, and 0-100 SIZE?

I also realized this problem when I came up with the 3 categories. I spent half a day trying to figure out "characteristics" that can describe an organism that is shared between all organisms. Initially I thought the INT and MAN could apply to plants too - maybe you can create a seed for giant sentient venus fly traps? _awesome But I really wanted to stick to "realism".

Another idea is that you use the seed-creator to create seeds for only living/breathing creatures. The seeds for plants are pre-packaged and readily available. This idea allows me to keep INT/MAN/SIZE but I feel it detracts a lot from the initial idea..

The final idea is to scrap INT/MAN/SIZE and come up with something that does apply to all organisms. So in short, I am still a little stuck on this part.

It seems like this game could get overly complex really quick, especially in terms of asset creation.

I agree, but personally I don't mind. This game is my "for fun" project - I have no deadlines and I am learning lots of techniques with modeling/animating/texturing. (I am a programmer afterall, and this is really helping me a lot). I think completely unique assets for every organism would be a nice "selling point" of the game. When you discover something new in the lab, you know it'll be a new asset, not a rehashed one, so you are excited to create a new planet and grow it to see what you get!

I think if I develop this in a way that allows me to just "slot in" new organisms into the game over time, it could work. I already have an idea for a system like this. That way, I can just add as many as I desire. At the very least I will be reusing animations and base meshes (ie: I could use the base mesh for the deer along with its walk/idle/eat animations to create an antelope. Just remodel the antlers and create a new run animation)

I don't want to get ahead of your design, but one question I have after reading is if there are any resource constraints of any kind? Can players experiment with any combination of points for a seed? Can players use any variables they want once the petri dishes have seeds in them? Once the seeds are on a planet, can the planet be manipulated freely?

I was initially leaning towards normalizing the value (INT/MAN/SIZE must add up to 100) but it could be restrictive - For example, it'd be nice to define a Cheetah as 10 INT/100 MAN/30 SIZE ) so I will probably let the player set each of the values to whatever they like between 0-100.

The planet can be manipulated any time the player wishes. In fact when it is initially seeded/created, the planet is a flat grass plain. The player needs to terraform it to the right conditions.

Right now, the planet has 3 properties that define the climate (these are just the ones I thought of first, they are not refined): the temperature (Cold/Normal/Hot), precipitation (None, Rain, Snow) and the precipitation amount (None/Light/Heavy). The player effects these by spawning clouds that snow/rain, and spawning "god rays" that heat the planet. If the player wants light rain, he spawns a couple of rain clouds, if he wants heavy rain he spawns lots of rain clouds. Oh the player can also deform the terrain but I imagine that'd only be "for fun" so that the player can make it "his planet". Clouds/"god rays" can be added and removed whenever the player likes to alter the climate.

Can players use any variables they want once the petri dishes have seeds in them?

Unsure what you mean by 'variables'?  Maybe I should explain the petri dish a little better. The only purpose of the petri dish is to figure out what conditions the organism corresponding to the seed your testing requires to spawn. This saves you from having to seed your planet with your newly discovered seed and run through every possible condition to try and spawn it. That would be tedious. So in the petri dish, you could shine a "warm light" onto it to see if it jiggles around - if it does, then hey presto! This seed likes a hot planet. Now with some more testing you could pinpoint the exact climate you need for this seed to spawn... Hot rainforest, hot desert, etc, you'll work it out once you run all the test.

This may be getting away from your Zen feel for the game but I think there could be room for specific goals to meet with each experiment as a win condition too. That might give players more direction if you feel a need for it. For example, "Create a planet with 3 plant forms" or "Create a planet with an animal that feeds on clams". Maybe I'm drawing too much inspiration from Scribblenauts there, but personally I think the puzzle aspect of that game pairs nicely with its open-ended experimentation feel. Maybe you're going for a different feel for the game.

I really like this idea. I don't think it detracts too much from the "Zen feel" of the game by giving the player some objectives. I am a little concerned with the "end game" at the moment - getting your new organism to reach a certain population can get very repetitive. This could be a nice way to mix it up.

Here is a gif of the planet cycling through some conditions I am playing around with. I've got a basic system that describes the "climate" of the planet so I can read this value to determine whether a seed should spawn an organism and I can also use it to texture planet appropriately.