Post by HISCI on Oct 17, 2003 12:38:24 GMT -5
OK, here's the basic premise. All Players start off as single-celled organisms. The world in which the game transpires is divided into several natural habitats. A few ideas I've got are the Deep Sea (where everyone starts out), shallow sea, wetlands, jungle, mountains, desert, grasslands, subterranean, and air. Each habitat has a certain nature number that is adjusted as the game goes on according to how the players treat it. The planet has a certain temperature. As the game progresses, the temperature changes. As the climate changes, the players are able to inhabit different places with different effectiveness.
At the beginning of the game, each player is assigned a natural predator and a natural prey. Everyone starts off with a set number for population and a set number for energy intake. The energy intake is the amount of energy needed to sustain the next generation. Each turn that a player takes is the lifespan of a generation of their species. Every player will have a certain hunting aptitude and a certain protection aptitude. Everyone can evolve these skills and increase your numbers. Dice rolls should determine the amount of energy that you intake each turn based on your hunting and your prey's protection. If the number that you roll is greater than what you need you can either eat it all and get fat, or you can let it rot and the nature quotient can increase. If the number is less than what you rolled, you can go hungry (eventually you could starve to death ), or you could scavenge from other people.
Each player should accumulate a varying amount of points during each generation (like experience points in Final Fantasy). These points can be "turned in" for certain features or increases in aptitude. Say you want to increase your protection abilities, you can cash your points in early for an exterior skeleton so you are harder to eat. Or, you could wait longer and cash your points in for speed or flight or thought or greater size. Once you choose the exterior skeleton, you are set on that course for eternity.
The first choices the players will have to make are to evolve into multi-celled organisms or stay as single-celled. There would be benefits to both. As a single-celled organism, you could evolve into a parasite and screw your natural predator, or you could stay in the sea like algae. As a multi-celled organism, you can try to master your environment and bend it to your will like humans do.
Certain events happen to different players that will force them to make their choices of evolution. For instance, you're probably gonna have to follow your prey until you figure out how to survive on different food sources.
June 23...OK, I'm gonna write some more...I've come up with a list of things that players will need to keep of track of each generation. This includes POPULATION, NATURAL GROWTH (Change in Population each turn), ENERGY INTAKE (Amount of energy needed to sustain the population), SIZE (The size of the player's body, ie, the larger the creature, the more it needs to eat, but the more difficult it is to eat), SPEED (Useful in hunting prey and evading predators), ATTACK (Ability of player to hunt prey), DEFEND (Ability to ward off predators).
I don't feel that keeping track of these things each turn will be as cumbersome as it seems. Each player just keeps a sheet of paper with the numbers on it in a column, each time that number changes, they cross it out and write in the new one.
Some notes on what these categories mean...
POPULATION - obvious. the size of the species population on the planet. The size of the population will affect the energy intake required each turn.
NATURAL GROWTH - The change in population per turn (who woulda thought I might actually try to be remembering what I was supposed to learn in Differential Equations?). This number is probably positive, but can be negative.
ENERGY INTAKE - This number is determined by the species population and the size of the species body. Check out the Sabre Tooth Tiger and the Wooly Mammoth, or even the Ebola virus. They overeat and then they couldn't spread the population.
SIZE - Physical size of the species body. Check out the note above.
SPEED - Speed is helpful for both attack
At the beginning of the game, each player is assigned a natural predator and a natural prey. Everyone starts off with a set number for population and a set number for energy intake. The energy intake is the amount of energy needed to sustain the next generation. Each turn that a player takes is the lifespan of a generation of their species. Every player will have a certain hunting aptitude and a certain protection aptitude. Everyone can evolve these skills and increase your numbers. Dice rolls should determine the amount of energy that you intake each turn based on your hunting and your prey's protection. If the number that you roll is greater than what you need you can either eat it all and get fat, or you can let it rot and the nature quotient can increase. If the number is less than what you rolled, you can go hungry (eventually you could starve to death ), or you could scavenge from other people.
Each player should accumulate a varying amount of points during each generation (like experience points in Final Fantasy). These points can be "turned in" for certain features or increases in aptitude. Say you want to increase your protection abilities, you can cash your points in early for an exterior skeleton so you are harder to eat. Or, you could wait longer and cash your points in for speed or flight or thought or greater size. Once you choose the exterior skeleton, you are set on that course for eternity.
The first choices the players will have to make are to evolve into multi-celled organisms or stay as single-celled. There would be benefits to both. As a single-celled organism, you could evolve into a parasite and screw your natural predator, or you could stay in the sea like algae. As a multi-celled organism, you can try to master your environment and bend it to your will like humans do.
Certain events happen to different players that will force them to make their choices of evolution. For instance, you're probably gonna have to follow your prey until you figure out how to survive on different food sources.
June 23...OK, I'm gonna write some more...I've come up with a list of things that players will need to keep of track of each generation. This includes POPULATION, NATURAL GROWTH (Change in Population each turn), ENERGY INTAKE (Amount of energy needed to sustain the population), SIZE (The size of the player's body, ie, the larger the creature, the more it needs to eat, but the more difficult it is to eat), SPEED (Useful in hunting prey and evading predators), ATTACK (Ability of player to hunt prey), DEFEND (Ability to ward off predators).
I don't feel that keeping track of these things each turn will be as cumbersome as it seems. Each player just keeps a sheet of paper with the numbers on it in a column, each time that number changes, they cross it out and write in the new one.
Some notes on what these categories mean...
POPULATION - obvious. the size of the species population on the planet. The size of the population will affect the energy intake required each turn.
NATURAL GROWTH - The change in population per turn (who woulda thought I might actually try to be remembering what I was supposed to learn in Differential Equations?). This number is probably positive, but can be negative.
ENERGY INTAKE - This number is determined by the species population and the size of the species body. Check out the Sabre Tooth Tiger and the Wooly Mammoth, or even the Ebola virus. They overeat and then they couldn't spread the population.
SIZE - Physical size of the species body. Check out the note above.
SPEED - Speed is helpful for both attack