Alien Sandbox Survival

I am planning a sandbox crafting survival game similar to rust, planet explorers, etc
but with a little twist.

The player will take a role of an alien who has crash landed on Earth, and tries to survive by hunting animals(possibly humans) while avoiding being killed or captured by humans, and craft human tools/technology by finding blue prints in urban areas.

I am thinking that this can do well as both single player or multiplayer
or possible option for both.

Not much is planned so far, but just from the idea of it, do you think the concept is interesting?

 

That's actually interesting to me. The first thing that came to mind was Destroy All Humans but with a survival aspect to it. Are you planning on it being 2D or 3D?

 

It could be interesting, and a nice twist on the genre. What would it be like thematically? Tense horror like Alien: Isolation or The Forest? Comical like Destroy All Humans? A sandbox toy like GTA?

 

How about NOT destroying all the humans? At first, killing the humans seems to be the right thing, except that the more you kill, the harder the game gets. Adding in permadeath, with a few roguelike skill/upgrades that persist between plays could then slowly allow hte player to succeed without killing, so the game slowly shifts to becoming about surviving without killing - the l337 win is without any deaths at all, "Achievement unlocked - Win game without any deaths." It's a thought.

Gigi

 

First of all, I am planning this game to focus on survival.
Killing humans will give players very nice loots, but with danger of getting caught and hunted by the mass. At no point will the players have ability to wipe out the humans as a whole.

Themetically, it will have hint of horror but mostly tension that comes from being hunted, all wrapped in a sandbox-like gameplay of Rust or GTA series.

As I mentioned above, this will be a SURVIVAL game. More than players killing humans, it will be running away and hiding from them, only to hunt those without guns or other kinds of weapons that players do not have access to yet.
Players will find blueprints for weapons and tools in human houses, and use them to build weapons, allowing higher chance of survival.

 

I wonder how this would work if it were like The Thing but from the alien's perspective. So rather than trying to do everything the human way (e.g., build human weapons, use human tools), the player could do things in a more alien way, just in a human environment.

I think this would tie into the horror theme, too, since it differentiates the player from humans as opposed to "fitting in" by doing humanlike things. Human NPCs would be more repulsed by the player in this case.

 

I too like this idea. For example, the ALIEN way might be entirely organic, in which case looking for blueprints might not even make sense. Maybe the alien starts out with simple gather abilities, to build simple alien organic devices. And over time, the devices become more elaborate, allowing them to consume human items, and weapons for the minerals, which they use to build other things, maybe even units or protection for their home. Sounds more fun than looking for gun blueprints in a house. Also allows LOTS of resource harvesting, which opens worlds of replay. To create some sense of plausability, you could be locked away on an island, like Lost. Or, on the moon, or in a far-away location, like the desert or jungle or siberia. Anywhere that makes it more plausible that you have room and concealment to begin building an Alien foothold. You might also could play with time - Maybe the Alien works in and out of time, so what they do isn't always apparent, or so that humans are evolving around you, in wierd ways - first cave people, which you easily dominate, and then later, more advanced cultures - which creates new problems.

PS - Always keep scope in mind. My ideas are crazy pie-in-the-sky dreams that have little value themselves - the ability to execute is what matters.

Gigi

 

I did consider that when I first thought of this. But seeing how this is a gathering/crafting survival game, I think it makes more sense to create human tools with resources on Earth. Especially since this gives really good reason for blueprint system that crafting survival games use.

 

That, indeed, is an interesting idea. I will take time to consider them. Thank you for your suggestions.

 

There's no reason why the blueprints couldn't use human tool parts to create alien items, like how E.T. built an alien device to phone home using electronic children's toys. Perhaps the alien has an AI module that can "devise" new blueprints as the game progresses (i.e., unlocking blueprints).

 

All this talk about alien devices got me wondering;
What if the normal items in the game were human technologies, but you can "upgrade" it with touch of alien technology to create an item that does similar things but either better, or with additional function.
That would give players sense of what they are building so it's not complete unknown to them, and also provide curiosity like "What would an axe turn into if i combine it with alein technology of.. idk, laser?"

While players feel at home and comfortable with the world and technology they know, they can fiddle with it and create something that is completely new to them.

 

"The Silence", from Dr Who comes to mind. A subculture that has existed beside humanity for eons, that goes unnoticed, because they make it so.

Gigi

 

it would be interesting how you would go about having people run in fear vs staying and fighting you.

 

Humans with weapon will generally attack while harmless humans will try to run away; only turning back and fighting if desperate(health gets low)
Police/military will go on a little hunt for the player if many humans are killed.