First thing to think about though, how would the player be able to edit muscle/bones/organs after the outer layer is placed.
For making a new organ maybe we could use a sort of pull down menu? Like selecting organ material then stomach type then resist acid function. That could probably help, also this way we could also colour code it as well. And for those that are color blind, we make a dot or outline with the color that color blind people would correlate with those that aren’t color bind with the cell types that we’re using to build with.
For behavior we could make it so if your species gets killed so many times then the species becomes afraid of that species. Maybe.
I kinda thought my idea in terms of each tile has to be filled using points, like you said. But also we make it so that each tile shows what it would look like in editor, but in the game it doesn’t show. This is because the tile is being made or filled in over time while playing. Kind of like a plant growing.
PS: I don’t mind long posts as long as there isn’t any double posting.
Now that we have collected some ideas and some possible features, we should see if a developer is interesting or make a prototype to see if this is even possible.
Sounds like the type of program y’all are talking about would be similar to solidworks. Solidworks is a 3D modeling program for things like cars, tools, you know? Industrial stuff. But you can make almost anything. And it works in layers. So perhaps you could start first with building the skeleton which would determine your creatures size and shape and then advance to the muscles and organs which would add abilities/functions. Then the skin layer and depending on what type of skin you give your creature would determine how it can survive in its environment–a thicker skin would aid against predators but would make it bulky and slower, while a thinner skin would make it faster but more vulnerable. Then of course you can add hair and fur which would help in certain climates. This is where you could select colors and patterns for your creature. Also: for realism I think a sex selection would be nice–like maybe females have things like breasts to feed their young while males dont? Or females are slightly smaller like with humans. So you can switch and edit males and females or make your species all male or all female–as with a certain lizard species that reproduce asexually and are all female. But back to how you build you creature, by working in layers you could at anytime go back down to the skeleton layer to make changes or the organ layer or whatever and the skin layer could automatically adjust to the changes made in those layers.
I think that the best way to get this to work is to look at Spore and how it set things up in its creator. Just add more tabs that would make outer layers transparent and uneditable but still seen so you don’t have any hanging organs or things like that.
Also I think that the hyper customizable options would be great for people like you and me but you have to take into account those who don’t have that technical mindset and skills. We will need to have preset parts or else our targeted audience would be only those who grew up with Spore and have prior experience with creator tools.
I don’t think premade models would work in a game like this, think about it a leg wouldn’t just pop out fully developed like in spore it needs to be slowly developed over time. Although i think it could be beneficial to have models for the primitive form for organs and limbs like a hole for their first mouth and allow it to be highly customizable.
As for the complexity of the editor it should be able to stratify people who like to tinker every little part, and those who don’t know how to make every mussels in the leg work properly . I can think of two ways of doing this
have an option in the beginning of a new game asking the complexity wanted.
Low could make it so complex chores like setting up organ system, mussels, and fine tuning is mostly done by the computer. Of course the player will still have to place organs and main mussels but will simplify them. Along with lots of tool tips and tutorials this mode is for beginners
Medium is the recommended setting you have much more control over your organism while some more tedious tasks are still done by the computer.
High would be all about fine tuning and tinkering nothing is simplified you can control every little thing. This is for the people who want make every little detail in their organism the just the way they want (Hergotzer i’m looking at you).
This could also be integrated with difficulty.
when in the editor having primitive premade parts (like i said before) and having the ability to ether evolve them in a simple way by making them longer, shorter or adding joints and then playing with that, but be less efficient or editing the simple arm with bigger mussels at certain points and making bones thicker or thinner making it more efficient at its job.
Great idea, but maybe the complexity level should be changeable throughout the game? For example, if you at first think “Huh I can probably design an entire creature cell by cell” and later realize that you can’t, you should be able to change it. Also, maybe it would be useful for creating objects with different complexities (I.E. setting the complexity level to low when only making a bodypart bigger and setting it to higher when you want to design a new organ or something)
Ya that’s probably a good idea so you don’t have to restart a game when you reach aware stage because you where over confident. And that last part is kind of what #2 was saying but i’m bad at explaining lol. Maybe a mix of the two would be better.
Thats where Primitive models would come in. this way someone couldn’t just spawn in a hoof they have to slowly make one, but i see what your saying a reference sheet isn’t a bad idea.
I agree that’s kind of like what the primitive models are, the basics . For instance a mouths primitive model is a hole that would be placed on an early organism like a worm or something similar and you can evolve the mouth as the organism dose. A worm wont need a jaw and you wouldn’t put all your points in just upgrade your mouth in the editor but you could if you needed to and have an advanced jaw but the points would be better spent else where. And maybe a more complicated organism would be able to evolve parts they already have faster sense the genes are already there, Like eyes and arms or something.
I was originally thinking that the layout of my idea would make it easier to navigate and/or use. This way no background of 3d modeling would be required. But yes I do understand, maybe there should be a option to choose presets and what you said about voting as well but also a option to open a advanced creator mode to make their own presets. Or another program entirely made to make presets that could be placed into a file in thrive to access said presets, like a mod folder but for preset parts only.
Yes I do agree, also we need to make it so when they use the preset it doesn’t just poof into existence. Maybe it could gradually form/grow from the body through generations?
He deleted all his posts then left. The way Discourse works though, admins (and probably all staff) can still see them and their edit history. So they’re not completely gone.
Biologicah
(Only occasionally interested in Thrive)
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