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I've built an ecosystem - what's the game?

Discussion in 'Game Design' started by Shack_Man, Mar 6, 2020.

  1. Shack_Man

    Shack_Man

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    I've made a very simple ecosystem in Unity: 3 species that eat each other, and a bit of mutation when breeding to see which traits are fittest for survival. I think it's interesting in itself, but the players might disagree. So now I'm brainstorming on what the actual gameplay could be. While it would be nice to use DOTS and have 100 species and 10000 units with bodies/meshes that slowly adapt to the environment like real evolution etc., I'm aiming for something very simple. I want to finish the game within a few weeks and it should run smoothly in WebGL.





    Some ideas:

    1. The player has to try to keep the ecosystem in balance by simply killing creatures that are too strong/weak. Would be simple and I could call the game "Darwin with a shotgun", which sounds cool.

    Downside is that it is kinda hard to see which creature should be killed when you have more than 10 running around and eating and loving each other. Might also be very boring.





    2. The player creates the species first, e.g. have 3 creatures and assign each special abilities, see how it plays out. That would make it a sandbox game, and it is my favorite so far. Would also save me quite a bit of work because I don't have to try to balance things beforehand too much. It would also be easy to add new abilities and keep the game fresh.

    I think for that idea I'd need something for the player to do, just watching is boring.





    3. I could add a layer on top of it, maybe the ecosystem is just a breeding ground and the real goal is to sell creatures, buy new ones etc. Could be lots of extra work though and might need iterations.





    4. The environment could be changing, and once again it's the player's goal to keep the ecosystem alive. Maybe with some moves that have more influence than just selectively killing a few.





    Any thoughts on that? Better ideas?
     
  2. Antypodish

    Antypodish

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    Have you any video, or screenshots?
    Make sure you test DOTS with WebGL, so you wont face surprises, if that what you target at.
     
  3. JoeStrout

    JoeStrout

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    Sounds a bit like SimLife, or a reduced version of SimEarth. Neither were huge sellers, because of the problem you mentioned: just sitting there watching gets dull pretty quick, and if your game was going well, that's all there was to do.

    So I think your ideas are all good. Another one might be to throw the player in as an apex predator, running around eating the other predators. Animals (including the predators) should have the ability to evolve things like fleeing behaviors, hiding, coloration changes that make them hard to see, etc. Still would take some iterations to find the fun, though.
     
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  4. Antypodish

    Antypodish

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    @JoeStrout yep, unfortunately there isn't many big games in this category.
    Or I would rather say, not as popular as other types.
    Even tho, I try to venture there myself.

    Indeed, finding a fun part is biggest challenge I think.

    I believe also, as in OP discussion, giving some concept of god hand, to allow influence of the world, is quite substantial for gameplay.
    But that stil puts the type of such games under sandbox category, rather than giving greater purpose to play.

    I played multiple games with evolutions of creatures. Some pure data based. I even made own simple, using excel in past :) Other with some simplified graphics representations. Some very sandboxy. Some with some interesting concepts. Other very in prototype stage.

    All lacking however, of longer purpose. Most often do to experimental features and some limitations by design.
     
  5. Shack_Man

    Shack_Man

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    Thanks guys!
    I think I'm turning this into an idle game as it fits the minimal interaction gameplay. The player can define traits of each species and see how it plays out. The longer each species survives, the more points he gets. That will unlock new traits. I think having rather short but wild scenarios will be much more interesting than a long, functioning ecosystem where nothing really happens.
     
    JoeStrout likes this.
  6. Antypodish

    Antypodish

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    You could make idle, with some nice visuals.
     
  7. Joe-Censored

    Joe-Censored

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    I like #2, but include a feature where the player can at any time add a new species. This would add a SimCity create disaster aspect to the game, where the player can have fun building a balanced ecosystem and then purposely throw a wrench into it and see what happens. Also include a system where the player can modify environmental parameters throughout game play. Like creating a drought, or scarcity of food, etc.
     
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  8. Shack_Man

    Shack_Man

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    Those are some really good points! Disasters are always high on the fun list in simulations. It would be somewhat easy to tie that into gameplay as well, you get bonus points for every disaster your eco-system survives. Maybe "humanity" would be the ultimate challenge, I just read a book that talked about how humans have been crushing ecosystems as far as 15.000 years ago.
     
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