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Creature Taming, Battling, and Care Game

Discussion in 'Game Design' started by ezjm427, Jun 18, 2016.

  1. ezjm427

    ezjm427

    Joined:
    May 17, 2014
    Posts:
    100
    Story:
    Around the year 2300, humans have developed technology to reach far into space. An explorer mission leads them stranded on a new planet Creit. Creit has life with an enhanced form of DNA, CDNA, which gives its life radical powers and metamorphosis. Humans must survive by adapting to life on Creit, and taming its Creitures.

    Creit Life Forms:
    Creitures - Tameable forms of life on Creit
    Uticils - Creitures that do not battle, but have other unique powers to stay alive such as gathering energy from the air/sun.
    Rootai - the plant/fungus life of Creit that cannot be tamed but still has power
    Feral - powerful Creitures that are destructive and cannot be tamed
    Sentia - Creitures that are too intelligent to be tamed and often impose their own desires onto the world, ex: Faeria are fairy like Creitures that maintain order in the world


    Revikks - primitive humanoid aliens that are native to Creit and have a special bond with the planet and Creitures, also evolved from CDNA.
    Vericha - aliens not native to Creit with powerful technology, want to capture and control the Creitures to be used as weapons

    Capturing/Taming/Habitats
    Creitures can be tamed by interacting with tamed Creitures, feeding, and eventually Capture Devices (CDs). Capture Devices allow Creitures to be teleported between an artificial habitat and the handler. Once a Creiture is tamed enough to be controlled by the handler, it will still not be 'fully' tamed until being accustomed to the handler after some time. It will not be able to use its full potential and may misbehave until fully tamed. Creating a nice artificial habitat will also increase its tameability. Creitures must be fed if they are in the active party, once every 50 battles or so. Feeding will be somewhat automated to not become tedious.

    Combat:
    Creiture parties can grow up to 6 Creitures, with a maximum of 2 'active' Creitures at once.
    Creitures can gain up to 6 active skills, and uses 1-2 of the 9 elements: Fire, Nature, Mental, Fighting, Electric, Water, Metal, Earth, Neutral

    Creitures gain stats through combat depending on skills used and skills used against the Creiture. A certain number of stats gained increases combat level. Each combat level allows the creiture to develop 1 elemental passive skill in a skill tree that passively boosts combat in someway.

    Creitures develop 3 passive traits that affect the Creiture passively and become stronger as leveled
    Creitures gain 1 unique ability per species that are similar to traits but more powerful and defining the Creiture species

    Handler:
    The handler gains experience as the Creitures do, and will gain bonuses that help the party and the handler as they explore the world.

    Professions:
    Elementalist - harvest raw elemental energy from Creit to be used for other purposes
    Rootai Cook - cook rootai to be consumed by humans or Creitures
    Rootai Herbalism - collect rootai herbs to create special mixes and medicines
    Engineer - modify and create devices
    Prospecting - mining and gathering raw materials
    Creit Biologist - expert at taming,breeding, and habitats
    Creit Geneticist - expert at studying and enhancing CDNA
    .. more to come

    Gameplay:
    Single player for now, if it is successful it may be redeveloped as multiplayer.
    Most battles occur in the open, but organized battles will usually be located inside buildings or arenas. The different aliens Revikks and Vericha both have different technologies and tools that aid in Creiture taming/battling. Revikks and Vericha will be available as a starting character after a person reaches a certain point in the game with the human character. The handler must use different technologies and techniques to survive out in the wild among Creitures, because certain Creitures will target the handler first before the tamed Creitures. Hoping to add minor horror aspect to game, the feeling that you are out in the wild with these powerful Creitures in their natural habitats that could kill you at any time. A huge aspect of the game will be nonbattling, such as creating artifical habitats and other hobby activities with the Creitures. Most of the world will be open, but also with lots of instances around.

    Feedback:

    I'd like to see any criticism as well as any new ideas you think would make this type of game more fun and add more replay value. I want to focus just as much on combat as noncombat.

    Progress:
    Prototype with simple Catching, party management, combat, and simple Creiture AI for wild and party. Hope to update weekly with progress
     
    Last edited: Jun 18, 2016
    Teila and tedthebug like this.
  2. JoeStrout

    JoeStrout

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    Jan 14, 2011
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    9,859
    Sounds neat. Personally I would like to see a learning AI that lets you actually train your Creitures. This could apply both to combat and those noncombat activities you mentioned.

    Reminds me a bit of Creatures, though that wasn't nearly as good as it should have been. (Mainly because they used neural networks for the brain, which was a bad choice, as NNs just learn too slowly, unless perhaps you use the scaled conjugate gradient algorithm, which hadn't been invented yet.)
     
    ezjm427 likes this.
  3. DroidifyDevs

    DroidifyDevs

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    Sounds like you should hop over to the WIP thread and give us something to pick on... so far sounds very unique.
     
    Billy4184 likes this.
  4. ezjm427

    ezjm427

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    May 17, 2014
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    Good ideas, I hope to make the catching, taming, and training a very interactive experience instead of just grinding. As well as getting the Creitures involved in professions. I'm taking a bit of inspiration from the game Black & White where the god's Creature responds to your input and behavior/skills develops accordingly. I think a feeling of attachment to the Creiture and pseudorealism is important
     
    JoeStrout likes this.
  5. ZakCollins

    ZakCollins

    Joined:
    Jun 11, 2014
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    52
    Sounds pretty fun. I'm wondering what your intention is with making Creitures have to eat every so often. Unless there is some mechanic like certain food will make them stronger in a certain way, it sounds like it would just be kind of annoying and not really add much to the game.

    I'm curious how this will work: "Creitures gain stats through combat depending on skills used and skills used against the Creiture". If, for example, your Creiture gets 0.05 of a certain stat whenever they are hit with a certain attack, that encourages the player to just have their Creiture sit there and get attacked for a while to increase that stat. It reminds me of how in Oblivion I sat and let a bandit hit me while I had my shield up for about an hour in order to get my blocking and armor skill up. Not very fun. Something to think about.

    As for "Creitures", my first impression was that you just misspelled "creatures" and after I realized it was a play on words, I thought it was kind of silly, which is perfectly fine unless you are going for a very serious tone for your game (which it sounds like you might be if you are considering horror elements). I look forward to seeing your game in action.
     
  6. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

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    Dec 5, 2013
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    16,860
    So Pokemon? Sounds good. I'm really struggling to see what makes this game unique. Perhaps sharing what makes this game different from Pokemon would help?

    In terms of story, why would humans, with space faring technology, need to revert back to domesticating animals?
     
  7. sunandshadow

    sunandshadow

    Joined:
    Jun 22, 2016
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    Hmm, I'm torn. On the one hand, I generally like pet breeding and battling games, and aliens are cool. On the other hand I strongly dislike the Pokemon combat system, don't like horror, I'm not really enthused by the names, and I question whether having some non-tamable monsters will work for your audience.

    Well, either way, I'd like to recommend that you play or watch a Let's Play of Fish Tycoon, Petz: Horse Club, and Riding Club Championships - all games which have fun and underused examples of gameplay where an owner breeds or interacts with pets.
     
  8. ezjm427

    ezjm427

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    The food can be gathered automatically when the creitures are out and about training, there will only be certain instances you would actually need to get food such as travelling across a desert when all your Creitures need food that is not present there. Still working out how this would benefit them but it's something that really bothered me about Pokemon how you could travel for weeks/years and not feed them once.

    The stats gained would be calculated over the instance of one 'battle' that is the combination of skills a Creiture A uses against your Creiture B and skills used against A by B, then as the Creiture A is defeated, stats are gained by the interaction with a maximum amount, so you cannot gain extra stats by sitting there taking tons of damage over time, it will be capped per interaction. I'm strongly focused on making sure this cannot be abused

    Professions, taming methods, and habitat creation are the major differences. Plus the combat would not be that similar as it's not going to be turn based. I really don't see a lot in common with Pokemon except monster catching and the elements, obviously inspired by Pokemon but that's it.

    Limited supplies, crash landing, and the powerful nature of the creatures with modified/alternate DNA is why they need to be tamed to survive. The Creitures will mostly be far more powerful than advanced weapons would be. The plant life also evolved from this CDNA and so trees/other plant supplies are also much more difficult to gather.


    The horror would be one of the most minor aspects, mainly being that certain Creitures are more aggressive than others and target the handler, as well as some Creitures that only appear at night to ambush, and the names are not set just placeholders for now.

    Some of the nontameable Creitures, except the more sentient ones, can still be tamed later on for specific purposes/ temporarily. Mainly there will be 'feral battles' where you can use a feral creiture for 1v1 or 2v2 but there's a chance the feral creitures would turn and attack the handlers
     
    Last edited: Jun 24, 2016
  9. sunandshadow

    sunandshadow

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    Oh the combat's not going to be turn-based? What will it be like then?
     
  10. ezjm427

    ezjm427

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    You can have 2 Creitures 'out' at one time, so it will be out in the open real time combat against any number of Creitures in the wild. Some battles will be organized like a set 2v2 arena or things like that, but most of it will be open world. Each Creiture has up to 6 active skills and a few passive abilities. The handler will also have some minor abilities/auras that affect your Creitures.

    In the wild, certain Creitures will team up against you as herds if you attack them, others may flee, others may wait until you are low health to prey, the combat is one of the most boring things about Pokemon so I'm not taking much from their ideas. When you are fighting other alien handlers there may be multiple parties of 2 attacking you at once, depending on the situation.

    I considered having 3 Creitures out at a time, but the battle may be too confusing, still considering it though.
     
    Last edited: Jun 24, 2016
    j_spencer93 likes this.
  11. j_spencer93

    j_spencer93

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    Hey ezjm427 i tried sending you a messaged but could not. I am working on a Monster Raising game and would love your assistance.
    Your game idea looks sounds, although there are a few areas that I think are really vague. Still, it would be something i would def pick up and try. I rather like the idea of some creatures not being able to be used in battle, but providing benefits to your creatures. Its an idea i have had in my own game i am working on as well.
     
    Last edited: Sep 27, 2018
  12. Teila

    Teila

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    Love this idea! It is different! We very little different and unique out there so go for it! Rarely do I see games I would want to try and this one would fit the bill. Not only does it look fun, but also it incorporates non-combat activities with the combat. As for the feeding and eating, not everyone finds these things annoying. It adds a bit of purpose to the player's actions and again, gives players a non-combat choice. Multiplayer would we awesome! I think my son would love this as well!
     
    JoeStrout likes this.
  13. BIGTIMEMASTER

    BIGTIMEMASTER

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    I think what is most important here is that the creatures are very cute looking.
     
    Habitablaba likes this.
  14. Joe-Censored

    Joe-Censored

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    Any progress in the past couple years?
     
  15. BIGTIMEMASTER

    BIGTIMEMASTER

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    Gah!

    @j-spencer93 led us right off a cliff.
     
    Teila likes this.
  16. j_spencer93

    j_spencer93

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    I apologize, I actually didn't notice the date of this. Completely my fault. Although I am working on something similar, hence why I posted on here to begin with.
     
    BIGTIMEMASTER likes this.
  17. ezjm427

    ezjm427

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    May 17, 2014
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    I stopped working on this for quite some time due to finishing my second round of college,work, and another project but i am working on it again now. i hope to have something for people to try out as a demo in about 2 months. i had a working prototype from when i originally worked on it but it is completely redesigned. The coding is almost entirely complete but I am not as skilled at modeling so it takes me longer to make anything decent in Blender

    It's funny that you guys posted because I have been working on this a lot just recently picked up where I left off.
     
    Last edited: Sep 29, 2018