Visualization of the five senses

[Lanata (Lana)]

Quote of message by user «Lan»

@Lan

The cellular stage

Consider cell sense: contact, photosensitivity, chemical sense

Introducing fog. The player’s field of view is divided into clear areas, foggy areas, and black areas.

The basic field of view is a range that includes the cells themselves and extends outward for a fixed length, representing contact sense. This fixed length does not increase with the increase of cell size, and small cells are sufficient and require larger cells to obtain further sense.

The clear area is based on the basic field of view, and in addition, you can expand the clear area with other senses. The most effective way is through photosensitive vision, which can provide a high clear area distance in well lit patches; In the dark seabed, bioluminescence can also be used to coordinate. Chemical sense is superior to stability, as it can provide a certain clear area even on the dark seabed. The field of view provided by different types of additional sense cannot be superimposed, and the maximum value is taken.

The foggy area is the transition from the clear area to the dark area. The fog gradually thickens, and only the colors and blurry outlines can be seen (purely visual effect). The length of the foggy area is proportional to the length of the clear area, allowing for viewing information with the mouse. By upgrading the chemoreceptors, you can highlight cell contours or toxins within a certain range of foggy areas. If you have photosensitive organelles, other cells’ bioluminescence will create clear areas within the foggy area.

The black area is beyond the zoom limit of your field of view, and chemical receptors can search for compounds.

I do agree that, because the objectives and overall context of the cellular stages are different than those of the late multicellular, there should be different implementations based on which stage the player is on.
Speaking on the discussion­/example given by «Lan», I want to mention that, if the devs were to implement «mechanics that change how the player experiences the world, based on their organism’s senses», then I think this is like sort of the ‘minimum viable implementation’ (if that makes sense).

It’s obviously important to discuss multiple implementations (even the ‘minimum’ or ‘basic’ ones), and because of that, I think one could elaborate more on this idea. I think view range can definitely be implemented for some or all senses, but I think there is more that can be done with this idea than just view range/fog.

I wanna point towards the thread that «the confused protist» mentioned, and say that you should definitely discuss your ideas about the cellular stage there, because in that thread, you can build on previous discussion. I’m also mentioning this, because I think I’ll also try to experiment around with some concepts in the current game using «reshade» ― if I can get it working in thrive. Getting some discussion revived there could be good, is what I’m saying. I just love the concept of stylising how the player sees the world/game.