Another of my older game ideas...Multiplayer in a perpetual game world...sort of a RPG...but not like anyother... Basic concept was inspired by the Galopagos island...basicly there are a number of islands filled with fantastical wild life...and in the veign of the game ''Black & White'' players have input on how the islands and creatures there in, evolve... At the start of the game, players must chose to be either a demon or angel...they start off at level one...players can fly around anywhere and freely comunicate with each other (you could call this ''out of charactor'' (OOC) mode)...and useing a bit of "Joust" gameplay influence angles and demons can fly/hop onto each other...this doesn''t cause damage...but it would ''knock-down'' the angel/demon being hopped on for a second or two...In OOC mode players can see everything...all the creatures and each other as they fly around ''In Charactor''(IC) mode occurs when players "posses" a animal...only one player can ''take over'' a animal at a time, and can''t be kicked out (he/she must ''pop'' out on thier own)...while In Character the player can no longer see the angels/demons around them...further they cannot communicate or tell which other animals are possesed by demons/angels or the game AI...they are limited to the actions/movement that the animal can perform...the level of the players angel/demon limits them to which animals they can posses (level 1 would allow a player to control a mouse...while level 50 may allow them to control a lion for example)...playuers gain levels through the actions they take while in posession of a animal...doing something ''good'' allows angels to increase thier level...while doing something ''bad'' increases a demons level...if the player is still in possesion of a animal when it dies...then the player must start over at level 1...additionaly if a high level angel/demon posseses a low level animal (level 50 demon in a mouse for example) then the player gains additional powers to effect the game world (but only while in possesion of said animal)...as players are in control of each animal thier actions help shape the AI used for that animal when free...example demons can help encourage mice to be evil...thus effecting how they look and act. As the game is played over time the island will evolve (what starts off as mice may become giant evil cratures, depending on how the demons/angels interact with them) As players increase levels thier angel/demon in OOC mode will look more powerfull (altho it has no effect other then graphic in this mode)...and as OOC mode character cannot effect the In characters or even the rest of the game...this mode can be used to develop stratigies and such between the players...and the ''joust'' aspect allows players to "psudo-fight" in a race to take control of some animal...additionaly the stronger demons/angels would be encouraged to take control of smaller/weaker animals because of the extra powers they would gain...so the demons/angels who can see that some powerfull creature is sneaking up to attack, can "psudo-fight" to take possesion of this creature so they can help/harm the powerfull angel/demon in control of the weak animal... What do you think?...

So if you''re playing a the demon, when you ''pop'' out of an animal, there''s a bit of residual evil left beind, and over time, enough demons corrupting the animals will make it evil? Okay.. so what bad stuff can you do when you''re in a lion to corrupt the lion? Run over and kill another animal? That''s just the way nature works, it''s not evil.

Will you be able to talk to the other animals of the same type? Have like a little mouse village, where all of the mice have little quests for you to do or something? Without making the animals something like human, I''m not sure how you could make them do anything evil (or good). Only humans can be inhuman.

Is there a goal to the game, where one side (good/evil) can win? For example, once the island reaches a certain state of evil (which might take months to happen), the game is over and evil wins?

Jesse

quote:Original post by Jesse Chounard
So if you''re playing a the demon, when you ''pop'' out of an animal, there''s a bit of residual evil left beind, and over time, enough demons corrupting the animals will make it evil? Okay.. so what bad stuff can you do when you''re in a lion to corrupt the lion? Run over and kill another animal? That''s just the way nature works, it''s not evil.

Will you be able to talk to the other animals of the same type? Have like a little mouse village, where all of the mice have little quests for you to do or something? Without making the animals something like human, I''m not sure how you could make them do anything evil (or good). Only humans can be inhuman.

Is there a goal to the game, where one side (good/evil) can win? For example, once the island reaches a certain state of evil (which might take months to happen), the game is over and evil wins?

Jesse

The lion can kill to feed itelf...thats not evil...but going around and killing everything it can would be considered evil...
Idealy the island would be set-up as balanced as possable..and without player intervention it would stay that way (evolveing slowly...some animals may become naturaly extinct...but the good/evil balance would still be nutral)...but as the players start interacting...natural evolution goes out the window...

Take the lion for example...at game start, it may go and kill a deer to feed on...then a demon posseses it...and goes around killing as many deer as it can...demon pops out...and the lion has been ''tainted'' into killing for pleasure and does so when it can (this is now how the lion acts naturaly)...another demon pops into it and continues the killing spree on deer...it pops out...but the lion isn''t effected as it now acts that way naturaly (the previos demon wouldn''t get any levels because he/she didn''t have any effect on how the lion behaves....just a example

Idealy the game would allow for a simulation level of detail in how the AI controled animals behave...with the player acting as god/devil in deturmineing ultimately how things evolve.

Goal of the game? er...could be lots of things...the player could try to see how far thier angel/demon can level up...how corrupted the island can become...the challange of takeing a heavily demon corrupted island and corrupting it the angel way...the challange of defending said island...I think this would be more of a ''sand-box'' type game (like Sim City, the Sims, etc..) then a game with a direct goal and such...