Which game should I work on now ?

cyberwan · Post by **cyberwan** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 8:26 pm

That's a point ! If I understand you well, viruses are not able to build buildings, but just to "convert" them ? That solves a lot of my interrogations, the need for viruses to attack constantly, the rythm of the game, ... But how can the viruses be limited once they have converted some buildings ? They will then keep growing and can't be started as the defensive force keep decreasing ... Or maybe the buildings have some time once they're infected before they just die ? That would make the viruses keep attacking as fast as possible so they can reach the vital organs, and the defense just has to contain this attack long enough before the viruses die from themselves.

Dark_Kilauea · Post by **Dark_Kilauea** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 9:44 pm

Take an idea from Left 4 Dead. Instead of basing the game off whether or not you can survive, base it off how long you can survive. Have the overall game split into a series of rounds where each player (either AI or human) will play one side for a round, then the other. This allows you to then shift the balance of power into the virus's hands, knowing that eventually the virus team should be able to win. However, a good player will be able to keep a virus team busy for much longer, thus winning the overall game by surviving the longest.

This allows you to copy nature and allow the viruses to infect and take over cells to produce more units. The human "team" can have a finite number of cells to protect, so with each one lost, the virus team gets closer to winning. The human team can have units that go out and destroy the virus units or the infected cells that are producing them. Either you could allow an event where the human team is able to kill off the last virus, thus ending the round prematurely and giving a bonus for survival, or allow the virus team to always come back in a new position.

The virus team's strategy is simple, infect as many cells as possible and overwhelm the other players' (whether human or AI) ability to defend. Once enough cells have been infected, the other player will be forced into a position to hold out as long as possible, since winning by killing all the virus units isn't possible anymore.

psychophoniac · Post by **psychophoniac** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 9:50 pm

well as he said, copy nature, a virus is detected by the immunity system that needs a little time to build specific erm.. "things"

to defend them, the longer a virus is inside, the better the defending forces know how to fight it, unless it changes tactics (other virus units, f.e. some attack those helper cells, and use them to reproduce, others just kill everything or steal ressources in the bodies veins or so...).
for the idea of "being outside" the body, i'd just put some "scout" virus forces into the game that act like a settler unit, they can create new "bases" but are for no other use and lost in every fight.
i remembered another thing i liked on this idea btw, since you have a limit of units in most games and a unit is mostly just one "actor" (or like in lord of the rings a "battalion" of 5 or so), you may have thousands of little bacterias fighting, since the 2 opponent forces in your body aren't just 200 or so ^^
(well what i mean is that you can control thousands of units that turn a healthy person into a very dead one, muahahaha

).

did you already start with this? i'd really like to see some screenies

Dorth · Post by **Dorth** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 10:10 pm

Heh, when I suggested that, I indeed had in mind the fact that a cell degrade once infected (basically, viruses multiply until the cell *pop*, then they are released in the blood flow.) Now I'm getting lots of idea to the point of wanting to do a game out of this

Lucky for you, I'm too busy for that

Anyhow, you can have lot's of things "polluting" the bloodstream, being "unknown" and such. With analysis, your white cells get to learn what it is and if needed, produce an antibody. The antibody should be brought to the place where white cells are made and then all the white cells made from there can fight this virus. And that's just one nice gameplay feature you can copy right off real life. Seriously, pile up a dozen big medical book, learn through and through the process and take a lot of notes then compare those with games you wish to have a similar gameplay to. Make parallels, try and make fun what isn't, etc. Get a big heavy design doc then just fulfill it (if it's detailed enough, it might even not be that hard

)

cyberwan · Post by **cyberwan** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 10:15 pm

I like the "scout" idea, I was thinking about viruses who could either attack or infect defensive cells, but this is better, as the player controlling the viruses should have an army of both attack and infective units if he wants to do something relevant. And outside the body, there is just a need for one building which can build these infective units.
The "things" you talk about are antibodies. I once thought that every type of defensive unit could damage only one type of virus unit, so that the player should adapt his defensive force at each new attack, as in reality. But this is not very RTS-like, and I dropped this. The point is, it may be needed now because of the "scouts". I mean, if some scouts enter the body, there is a chance that they get killed very fast without being able to infect anything. So maybe the virus units should be "tagged" with something, a color or letter, and only the defensive units having the same tag could really hurt them, so that they have some time to infect cells before the player builds/converts his own units to the given tag. That's a realistic and useful idea, but I think it would not be pleasant for the defensive player to convert his units at each new attack...
If it's not that, I have to find something to ensure the scouts can get some time once in the body to infect some cells.

psychophoniac wrote:you may have thousands of little bacterias fighting

Although this would be very real and pleasant, I'm not sure my GPU would appreciate

Dark_Kilauea wrote:Take an idea from Left 4 Dead

I didn't understand the gaming you describe very well. Each round you can choose the side you will fight on ?

cyberwan · Post by **cyberwan** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 10:24 pm

Dorth wrote:Seriously, pile up a dozen big medical book, learn through and through the process and take a lot of notes then compare those with games you wish to have a similar gameplay to.

Well, I just wanted to make some fun and simple game, it's not supposed to be a life simulation

of course there are things I can take from real life, but some others are difficult to translate to something pleasant !

Dorth wrote:Get a big heavy design doc then just fulfill it

I'll do that when it will be my main job

psychophoniac wrote:did you already start with this? i'd really like to see some screenies

Actually yes, I've done some units designs and coding. I have requested the project opening on Sourceforge, so I will upload the screenshots as soon as the wiki is working !

Dorth · Post by **Dorth** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 10:24 pm

Actually, white cells can "learn" and can recognize more than one type of virus. But this could be tailored by tagging said viruses

Dark_Kilauea · Post by **Dark_Kilauea** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 7:51 am

I didn't understand the gaming you describe very well. Each round you can choose the side you will fight on ?

No, the player may be able to choose the team they start on, but the next round forces the players to the opposite team so everyone has a chance to play both sides.

psychophoniac · Post by **psychophoniac** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 8:14 am

to the comment of dorth:
i don't think making the game very realistic is good, because this makes it too complicated and gets boring at least... i'd rather put some unrealistic things in, like super-technologies etc.

Strong99 · Post by **Strong99** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 8:43 am

Could still be realistic psychophoniac, think about those nanobots they're creating or microscopic camera's

cyberwan · Post by **cyberwan** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 9:03 am

Of course the game must have the most realistic things as possible, because when a game seems realistic, the player has the feeling he controls something real, and it gives a lot of fun (or is it just me ?). But life is really complicated, and eveything can't be included.
About the nanobots, if I'm right, this idea was developped during a Microsoft gaming development cup, so this is not new ! Moreover, I don't want to have an other robot RTS with just an organic battleground.

Dark_Kilauea wrote:No, the player may be able to choose the team they start on, but the next round forces the players to the opposite team so everyone has a chance to play both sides.

So what's the goal of the player ? He has to focus on one specific side to make this one win ? Or it's just to make the infected live as long as possible to have more fun ?

Dark_Kilauea · Post by **Dark_Kilauea** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 1:08 am

So what's the goal of the player ? He has to focus on one specific side to make this one win ? Or it's just to make the infected live as long as possible to have more fun ?

The goal of the player on the "human team" is to survive as long as possible. His score should probably be related to the number of seconds he has survived.

The goal of the player on the "virus team" is to kill the other team as fast as possible, preventing them from scoring higher.

cyberwan · Post by **cyberwan** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 8:35 pm

Dark_Kilauea wrote:The goal of the player on the "human team" is to survive as long as possible

Hmm, that's what I would like to avoid. If the player skills are not equal, the human player may have to just wait for a better attack, which is not very interesting. I think he has to have a final goal, even if it is not very realistic.

By the way, the Metabolsim Sourceforge project is now open. I'm installing the Wiki but it's harder as I thought

so it should be available in a few days !

cyberwan · Post by **cyberwan** » Mon Feb 02, 2009 8:32 pm

Hi again !
The Metabolsim Wiki is now up and running ! There are not many articles, but at least some basic screenshots and a wallpaper

It will grow as I develop the game, I miss time but I hope I will find some to work on it !
Feel free to visit it !

roelor · Post by **roelor** » Mon Feb 02, 2009 9:30 pm

Hah! and when the bacterias have conquered most of the body the body goes to the hospital. and gets injected with antibodies. If it continues more badly you can get medicine amputations radiations (radiation both teams lose some bacteria more then humanbacteria) and eventually nanobots. On the other side it gets filled up by wounds that infect junk food. that kind of stuff. so if the bacteria is almost extingt the body will feel better so the person in control will do more recless things.