[MUD-Dev2] [Design] Design challenge: Bed-time game

[Zach Collins Siege]

On Mon, Jun 16, 2008 at 12:16 AM, Zach Collins (Siege)
<siegemail at gmail.com> wrote:
> To start, let's talk combat. Somehow, I doubt that lots of combat
> would be relaxing, even though I've spent many hours dully
> slaughtering away in Diablo 1 and 2 when I'd nothing better to do.
> Such combat feels to me rather like driving on a long, straight, empty
> stretch of highway: sure, it can be hypnotic, but that's because it's
> nearly mindless.
>
> Excitation can be good, however. Let's leave in some combat. It should
> be relatively easy, to fit the theme of relaxing before bed, but not
> mind-numbing. Super Mario RPG actually comes to mind here, but I don't
> think a separate screen for combat will be helpful.

While my last post covered a lot of things (and I'm tempted to
continue where it left off, shuffling class names and adding more
mechanics), it mostly focused on combat mechanics.

But combat is excitative, at least when it's not numbingly repetitive.
Let's backtrack all the way, and see if an entirely different mechanic
can be found. I want to create something much more meditative in
nature. But not quite like Tetris, which begins in comfortable
meditation, and eventually ramps up to frenzy.

So.

You are a protozoan. You and your team are a protozoan. You live in a
liquid medium with a very gentle downward pull (soft gravity). In this
medium are other protozoans, other individuals and teams. Also in this
liquid float bits of food and enemy (computer-controlled) protozoans.
Your task in this game is to locate the goal object in a level, and
occasionally deal with obstacles and small puzzles. Food heals you and
helps you grow. Enemies harm you, but become food when defeated. All
encounters are by physical contact, followed by attempts to absorb or
run away. When you reach your goal in a level, you may choose to
travel to a new level or remain in this one; the goal never
disappears, though it may move or change location.

Players may join any level once they have completed several solo
training levels; available levels and completed levels should be
marked for them, along with number of human players currently in each
(if using multiplayer). A player whose protozoan dies will have it
reset to a base minimum size, and will be placed back in the level
menu. Levels will not be password protected, though a thumbnail of the
layout should be available; players are allowed to try any challenge.
There should be enough levels available, or enough separate servers,
to keep player numbers to a reasonable amount in any given level;
perhaps some or all levels will have a limit on number of players for
this reason, which can vary by level.

Health is represented by a green bar, and max size by the black
outline of that bar.

You (and all your teammates) choose a direction to travel by clicking
your mouse in the area you'd like to travel toward. The further away
you click, the stronger the force. Holding the button down or clicking
repeatedly has no extra effect, but simply continues to urge toward
that direction. All vectors from teammates are summed. Movement should
be responsive but gentle.

There is also a prismatic color slider, which sets what color you
would like to be. When you change the slider's position on the color
bar, your color gradually shifts in that direction.
All colors from teammates are averaged. This secondary mechanic
becomes important when meeting other protozoans.

When you make contact with food (and as you stay in contact), your
health quickly heals until you reach max, then the health bar (and
your size on screen, to a certain limit) grows very slowly; the food
visibly reduces until it disappears.

When you make contact with protozoans of differing colors, you each
reduce the other's health until someone dies or runs away.

When you make contact with protozoans of similar color (within a
reasonable distance on the scale), however, you are given the option
to join with them (with a pop-up Y/N button which both players/teams
must say yes to), creating a larger team (and a larger protozoan,
since total max health and size are added together, within limits).
Computer-controlled protozoans will rarely want to match colors with
you, and could give up control if you join with them. (Design choice:
should they give up control, or should the AI continue to make its
desires known? Perhaps make it a random event; in any case, only one
AI per team should be allowed, to reduce CPU load, though that AI
could have the strength of the total number of mobs one has joined
with.) Human-controlled protozoans of course choose their color (by
team average), and human players do not give up their controls. If
similarly-colored protozoans do not both agree to join, then continued
physical contact has no further effect (aside from blocking each
others' movement in that direction) until they separate for a short
period.

If a player leaves the team, either by clicking a button marked
"leave" or "split", or by leaving the game, then the team's max size
is reduced by 1/x, where x is the total of players in the team. The
team's health does not reduce proportionally, but will reduce to match
max size if health was a higher value; the team's color shifts toward
its new average, just as if someone had changed their slider. However,
the individual who has split off will have a max size and health of
(1/x * current team health). The individual's color also shifts from
the averaged team color over to their personal choice. If one splits
away from an AI, it will resume mob status.

Team communication is left as an exercise for the reader; there are
several options, including having no means of direct communication
except vector and color, which leaves team behavior almost as an
exercise in Zen.

In-game obstacles may include cliffs/land surfaces, the surface of the
liquid, wave generators, spikes, bombs, and other things to be
imagined.

Overall, that sounds to me like something more relaxing than your
typical dungeon hack, though it will definitely have moments of
intensity and excitement, as well as occasional frustration.

-- 
Zach Collins (Siege)