I’ve just gotten a thought today after chemistry class, on drug use and thrive and how it should be portrayed in game. Frequently drugs are used a defense mechanisms for organisms to avoid being eaten. So I wonder if we could have organisms that could evolve these toxins that work as drugs in the game. It could also be a way of activating disco mode. Image a toxin that reverses controls, causes hallucinations, or causes the screen to be wavy. This could led to some interesting evolutionary results. Additionally these organisms that produce these toxins could be used in later stages of the game where your organism could intentionally consume them either for recreational or religious purposes. One could also try to cultivate these toxic organisms for these effects.
I suppose actually programming that in would be amongst the later things in the “control an individual” mode of the strategy stages, though perhaps you could also use it to raise your tribe’s morale in the awakening stage.
I was thinking it during the macro and aware stage also
Um yeah I am not sure it would come before aware, but during aware I suppose some effects could appear, albeit the developers would obviously not prioritize that feature.
I was thinking aware was tribal for some reason, but it’s when you just develop a central nervous system.
Indeed. I suppose drug effects would just come from intoxication?
Yes they would occur from intoxication
And overuse would obviously cause death and perhaps neurodegeneration first…
Any realistic representation of drug use needs to be done very carefully because it can have a major impact on game age ratings.
I suppose we’d need to show the player this is a tradeoff thing at best (so for instance eating a drug could temporarily boost some of your organism’s stats in exchange for a permanent neurological damage) in a way that states “don’t do this in real life” at least.
Even that seems it is not a fully safe approach. Any drugs in the main version of Thrive likely needs to avoid any links to specific effects and uses of real life drugs.
Or to be even more safe we might need a different approach. Similarly to having red blood, we might need to just for safety separate all drug features into a separate installable “mod” that adds them. So the main game might need to be fully clean of any too drug-like substances / effects, and a simulation of narcotics and what effects they have on society would only get added by a separately installable module.
Should it be separate from the speculative “18+ mod” or would it be better off as a feature of that mod?
I was thinking of a fictional toxin produced from oxy-toxy which would be thrive’s stand in for drugs with neurological effects. This could also be evolved as a defense mechanism or an attack. Like creature with this oxytoxy toxin will be able to induce confusion in other creatures and if the player is hit with it causes drug like effects representing the confusion it causes . I think that having one fictional toxin that works as a drug won’t affect the age rating that much.
Isn’t oxytoxy already described as a neurotoxin or am I misremembering stuff?
Note: all the times i say belgium here I mean it, i’m not getting censored
We could have it but censor it by putting the flag of belgium🇧🇪 over anything
I think back when the censoring was manual it indeed used the flag instead of the word.
Technically, all the vitamins and regular medicines people take nowadays can absolutely have harmful, or even deadly effects, if people overdose on them. This is why the LD50 (Median Lethal Dose) exists.
Even water can be deadly if too much of it is drunk…
Water intoxication sounds like a terrible way to die.
On the other hand, some toxins need very little amounts to kill a person. I wonder what would be the physical lower limit…