It's been a while since I posted something, roughly a year in fact. Since my last blog, regarding working on an ambitious RPG solo, I've gone back and forth over whether I wanted to continue down the path of game development. I finally landed on the conclusion that I do.
That in mind, I'm putting the RPG project on hold for a while, not like I haven't done that already, and am instead going to work on some simulators. Lately I've seen too many games where the game world is just a lifeless shell with players running around, to me, that's not how a game should be, not certain games anyway. Certain games should have life to their world, animals should behave as animals and not just walk back and forth on a predetermined path. Economies should exist within the world and should function without the input of player characters.
I'm not claiming to be an expert on anything I'm working on, in fact, I'd say I barely have the most basic knowledge of the subjects I'm going to tackle, so I'm most certainly going to get some things wrong. That's the point of case studies and simulations, though, right? To learn as you create and study.
The first sim I'm going to work on is an ecology sim. I'm going to look at how the animals behave, whether they actually stick to their expected patterns, etc. This sim is going to have multiple stages to it.
Stage 1 is going to be a single animal moving around on a map and going through its life cycle. I'm primarily doing this to make sure the the stages of life are correct and that I've accounted for the right conditions.
Stage 2 is going to be adding a set number of animals to a map that face no threat.
Stage 3 I'm going to add in weather patterns and regional climates.
Stage 3 I'm going to introduce mating patterns.
Stage 4 I'm going to add predators.
Stage 5 I'm going to add humans.
The attached project is pretty much the shell and start of stage 1.
