[Game idea] Evolutiontest-- From Africa to Alpha Centauri

[Red_King_Cyclops]

Note: this is a WIP post, but you can post replies

Evolutiontest

The oddyssey of Minetestkind, from Africa to Alpha Centauri
A game about how far we've come and how far we've yet to go
Note: "Evolutiontest" might be a working title

Recently, many users have been calling for a better game, a game with a vision, originality, and a team of developers. I've thought of an idea of considerable grandeur, taking ideas from such media such as 2001: A Space Oddyssy, Spore, Civilization, and Space Engineers.

I've posted this idea here so others can say what they think of it, make suggestions, and state whether they support, oppose, or couldn't care less about this idea. I've posted it outside of the Game Ideas topic, since I feel that this idea is too large for just one reply. If enough people like this idea and see it as feasible, then perhaps a team of programmers, artists, and testers managed by myself could make it. This is a very large idea, so perhaps it could be broken down into smaller ideas for smaller games.

I have made an attempt to show an idea that is not half-baked-- I have broken up my idea into detailed sections and spoilers. If you just want the premise/story, just look inside the spoiler just below. The game is divided up into stages based off of its story.

This game would be made from scratch. Minetest Game would only be a small inspiration. Modified versions of existing mods could be used.

Story

Note: I will be adding more detail to this section.

Spoiler

The game begins 4 millions years ago in an African savanna. The player is a mere ape, and survival is basic but very difficult. That all changes when the player makes contact with a strange object, completely alien to his world. The player is inspired to make his first tool-- a sharpened rock. This milestone sets the player on a course through the whole of human prehistory and history, developing new technology and discovering new things and places. At the end of the game, the player has colonized various locations in space and has invented an alcubierre drive, allowing him to reach interstellar locations. The player detects an anomaly about 10 lightyears from Earth, goes to investigate, and encounters the aliens again. The aliens make the player evolve again.

Note: I might change this story/premise so it is less similar to 2001.

Spoiler

In this stage, the player is an ape and must defend his family and try to survive in a harsh African savannah. The stage concludes with the first encounter described in the story/premise section above.

Main enemies: animals, other apes
Technology to be gained: sharpened stone
Conclusion: alien encounter

Spoiler

The player, now set on the course of history, must start developing more technology and migrate to / explore more parts of the map. Over the course of the stage, the player slowly evolves into a modern human. The player has to survive using hunter and gatherer methods

Main enemies: animals (including Ice Age animals and other awesome creatures), early human-like creatures such as Neanderthals
Technology to be gained: crude stone tools, fire, speech, tribal/clan structures, hunting techniques
Conclusion: completion of migration, completion of evolution

Spoiler

The player is now fully human and can make better technology. The mesolithic stage is a smaller stage and focuses on the player making better stone tools.

Spoiler

The player develops agriculture and domesticates animals in this period, makes better stone tools, and makes the first villages. The player is ready to form a civilization.

Spoiler

The player creates the first metal tools, made out of some copper and mostly string and wood. The player is prepared to make bronze tools.

Spoiler

The player makes bronze tools, and then forms the first civilization. The Ice Age ends and most of the cool animals die (I'm not so sure about this).

Spoiler

The player makes iron tools and further develops his civilization.

Spoiler

The player further develops technology and reaches a kind of golden age.

Spoiler

The player civilization suffers a set back, but the player goes to invent new technologies such as gun powder and guns.

Spoiler

The player further develops the art, culture, and mathematics of his civilization, while making innovations such as better guns.

Spoiler

The player makes an ocean going ship and rediscovers continents last seen in the Paleolithic Age. The player gets to conquer new civilizations and establish an empire where the sun never sets, while improving technology.

Spoiler

The player invents steam-powered technology, such as factories and trains, and discovers electricity / mesecons.

Spoiler

The player reaches a technological level comparable to that during the World Wars and the Cold War. A lot of new technology is discovered, such as nuclear power, cars, and airplanes.

Spoiler

The player invents modern appliances such as fridges and ATMs.

Spoiler

The player invents several futuristic inventions, such as flying cars and simulated reality. However, the player invents spaceships in the next stage.

Spoiler

The player invents spaceships and visits/colonizes several planents and moons. These include the Moon, Mars, Europa, Titan, Proxima Centauri B, and possibly more. In order to visit Proxima Centauri B, the player must invent an alcubierre drive.

Spoiler

Using his alcubierre drive, the player visits an anomaly in space 10 lightyears from Earth, and the end of the game happens (see story/premise above).

Spoiler

At the beginning of the game, the player has a dispute with a fellow ape who starts a separate dynasty and separate civilization from the player. Throughout the game, the player battles this other faction in various historical, prehistorical, and futuristic settings. Just before going to the anomaly in the epilogue, the player infiltrates the massive enemy mothership and defeats the leader and the faction in a boss battle, leaving the solar system in the player's hands. This is just a potential idea and it might not be used.

Celestial Bodies

Note: I will be adding more detail to this section.

Spoiler

I am not sure what planets, moons, and dwarf planets the player should visit. Obviously the player begins on Earth. Not every place in the solar system or the rest of the Milky Way galaxy is particularly worth visiting, so this game would cover the more notable or useful locations.

So far, I want to include the following worlds:

• Earth
• The Moon
• Mars
• Europa
• Titan
• Proxima Centauri B

The asteriod belt could also be visited.

I'm not so sure about including these worlds, but they could be included as well:

• Mercury
• Venus
• Enceladus
• Io
• Pluto
• Sedna
• Barnard's Star B and other exoplanets

Spoiler

Earth in this game would be different from the Earth in Minetest Game. It would be broken up into different continents with different biomes, flora, and fauna. Beneath the surface, Earth would be broken up into different layers such as the crust and the mantle.

Spoiler

It's just a floating rock near the Earth that steals light from the Sun, but we all look up to it.

Spoiler

A reddish, freezing desert planet. Gravity would be lower than that of Earth. This version of Mars would be more similar to marssurvive than planet_mars, but would also have polar ice caps.

Spoiler

An icy moon of Jupiter with more to it than it appears. Europa in this mod would be modeled after my europa_moon mod, but it would take up signifcantly less y-levels. On the surface, there would be an icy landscape with ice spike clusters here and there and red streaks everywhere. Inside the ice crust, there would be small lakes. Beneath the ice crust, there would be a whole, global ocean with a volcanic sea floor. There would be living ocean creatures/monsters in the ocean, as well as waterborne diseases.

Spoiler

A moon of Saturn that is strangely analogous to Earth-- it has an atmosphere, rivers, lakes, and dunes. However, water is practically a stone, the sand dunes are made of hydrocarbon, and the surface liquid is liquid methane/ethane/hydrocarbon. It is possible to use the hydrocarbon as a fuel source like coal and oil. It is possible to fly air planes in Titan's atmosphere and sail boats in the great lakes and rivers.

Spoiler

You've probably never heard of this place before, but it is cool enough to be in this game. It orbits Proxima Centauri, a star in the Alpha Centauri system. It is the closest exoplanet to Earth (only 4 lightyears away), and could be habitable. In this game, there would be alien creatures, water oceans, and biomes on the planet and possibly an alien civilization. Reaching this planet would require an alcubierre drive.

Game Mechanics

Note: I will be adding more detail to this section.

Spoiler

Similarly to Spore, the game play mechanics can change between stages. However, there are some key features and mechanics of this game that would exist all the way from Africa to Alpha Centauri.

Spoiler

Over the course of the game, the player creates new technology, which allows new technology to be crafted. The player can keep track of his progress by looking at a Formspec tech tree, detailing his accomplishments, technology, and available technology to discover.

Spoiler

Throughout the game, the player is a leader looking out for other people. At the beginning of the game it is an ape family, but the player eventually gains more power and controls more people, land, and a civilization that changes over time. The player has to build streets, houses, cities, etc. for his people. Eventually he has to build colonies in space for them.

Spoiler

Space travel would work somewhat differently than in the pandorabox server or Minecraft's galacticraft mod. The player has to construct a rocket to leave Earth's atmosphere and enter space, where he can build a space station. He can construct a lander to return to the planet's surface. When in space, the player can use blocks similar to the jumpdrive in the jumpdrive mod to power interplanetary vehicles (called motherships) and go to different planets and moons. Each planet and moon would have a "local space" region surrounding it (including Earth) that the player can use jumpdrives in. However, the player has to use landers and rockets to go the world's surface and return to the mothership.

Spoiler

The player slowly grows old, but the player can return to their youth by right clicking a reproduction block with enough food. Doing so starts a new generation and the player becomes his descendent. A Formspec would keep track of all the generations.

Spoiler

This game would have a different progression system than Minetest Game. Minetest Game's progression system goes like this:

• Wood
• Stone
• Bronze
• Steel
• Mese
• Diamond

But in this game it would go like this:

• Crude stone
• Refined stone
• Copper+string+wood
• Bronze
• Iron
• Steel
• Damascus steel
• Carbon fiber

Ranged weapons become more important over time. Melee weapons slowly decrease in importance. Diamond and obsidian could be put on the edge of tools to make them sharper, but there would be no tools made entirely out of diamond nor obsidian.

Spoiler

The Alcubierre drive would be a special jumpdrive allowing the player to visit exoplanets. The player would have to go through the following steps to make it:

• Develop advanced boring/drilling technology
• Develop technology to withstand extreme heat and pressure
• Use this technology to drill through the layers of the Earth into the core
• When in the core, mine coremetal. Coremetal can exert a high gravitational pull if powered by large amounts of electricity
• Use the coremetal to craft an artificial gravity device, a negative matter creator, and an alcubierre drive
• The negative matter created would power the alcubierre drive

[texmex]

Very nice GDC! I’ve no time for in-depth response atm but it put joy in my heart that someone takes the time to flesh out a document in this level of detail. This is how community game development should work: enough of a defined idea for others to be inspired by and to start contributing to. Kudos.

[rubenwardy]

I look forward to seeing how this goes

[ShadMOrdre]

This is a well executed game plan. Do you have any suggestions on mods that can fill some of the needs?

A while back, I posted a poll, seeking some game name suggestions, with the Civilization game type being the goal. Someone suggested, IIRC, that I could use the word civilization within a game title, since it's not TMd or otherwise protected.

I've tried to assemble, in the Dev Game map the I recently posted, what I think are the key mods that can make most, if not all of this, possible. I again would encourage you to look at the Dev_Game or the map that I've posted. While a large download, and unfortunately in .zip format, it does contain, IMHO, the elements necessary for Civilization, perhaps AoE, and some other strategy/tech tree based games. I'm not so familiar with the others, but I still find myself playing a good game of Civ from time to time, and I really can't wait to introduce my son to it as well, for its historical content, as well as, the depth of strategy and game play and replayability.

What I am discovering as I plow through the Dev Game code, trying to get it all to work in the way that I think it should, there are simply details that don't exist. Essentially, the data that makes up all the stuff in the game, not just the media, like textures, sounds, and models, but in making things like the tech tree itself, providing the necessary depth of content for say, the various civilizations, the media for proper representation of those civilizations, and all the details of the economy, the machines, the cities, the buildings...... herein lies the bulk of the work, IMHO.

Rubenwardys awards mod provides a way to track certain areas of progress, while the Sys4_Quests mod provides other aspects of character growth. The tech tree does not necessarily need to be compiled, as it really is more the progression of the technologies, the objects that players can make inworld. Most would resort to crafting recipes, but I feel a more appropriate immersive experience would be had simply by making the user build all the glorious little details that are in Civ.

I've hacked at the Settlements mod, and I have most of the mg_villages schematics converted into Lua tables, and loading into villages. While the villages aren't mg_villages, they can still provide alot of the "functionality" simply by including the appropriate buildings within them. I think there will need to be more schematics available to represent upgrading buildings, but not by replacing the building with a new schematic, but allowing the buildings materials to be upgraded. A wood building can be reinforced with stone, and such, showing the natural historical progression.

Sokomines City_Builder mod can be considered here. I dislike upgrading buildings by add new schems, instead preferring to upgrade the materials, but, really, is a black smith shop upgraded to a full industrial steel mill, or maybe, upgrade the blacksmith through a few ages, but the blacksmith is then made moot by the Industial Factory at the appropriate tech upgrade. At that point, the blacksmith shop can be leveled to make room something else. Towns only need so many buildings with so many functions to really make this work well, but it can.

Advanced NPCs, Advanced Guards, and Mobs redo provide a great foundation for Civilization style, or even AoE style "primitive" NPCs. Advanced NPC mod allows "jobs" to be created for the NPCs, who can also be tied to villages via markers and perhaps a town node.

I have many other thoughts and ideas for a game I've actually been trying to recreate across two "game engine" platforms now, Opensim, and now MT. MT so far has gotten me closer to the goal than I could have imagined, but there is lots of work, little time, and well, no collaboration. This can all change for sure. I'm not sure how long you've been around, or if you are indeed a newer player, but please take a peak at the Dev Game map. I'd really appreciate some help in going through the mods or writing new ones, if needed. It's a lot of mods, collected over the last few years, that each in some way, have helped me get closer to...



Shad

[JiCeyCraft]

OMFG
I so like this idea/concept of a MT game.
Be sure I'll pay a particular attention at this thread.
However, you will have a lot of work to do on your shoulders. *crosses fingers*

[texmex]

One way of developing such a game would be to do it in the same stages as the story unfolds.

[Red_King_Cyclops]

Replies to posts above:

Very nice GDC! I’ve no time for in-depth response atm but it put joy in my heart that someone takes the time to flesh out a document in this level of detail. This is how community game development should work: enough of a defined idea for others to be inspired by and to start contributing to. Kudos.

Thanks! I posted this idea to help promote team game development by giving Minetest users something to work (my game idea). I made the idea very detailed so the game would require a team.

I look forward to seeing how this goes

Good to hear.

This is a well executed game plan. Do you have any suggestions on mods that can fill some of the needs?

A while back, I posted a poll, seeking some game name suggestions, with the Civilization game type being the goal. Someone suggested, IIRC, that I could use the word civilization within a game title, since it's not TMd or otherwise protected.

I've tried to assemble, in the Dev Game map the I recently posted, what I think are the key mods that can make most, if not all of this, possible. I again would encourage you to look at the Dev_Game or the map that I've posted. While a large download, and unfortunately in .zip format, it does contain, IMHO, the elements necessary for Civilization, perhaps AoE, and some other strategy/tech tree based games. I'm not so familiar with the others, but I still find myself playing a good game of Civ from time to time, and I really can't wait to introduce my son to it as well, for its historical content, as well as, the depth of strategy and game play and replayability.

What I am discovering as I plow through the Dev Game code, trying to get it all to work in the way that I think it should, there are simply details that don't exist. Essentially, the data that makes up all the stuff in the game, not just the media, like textures, sounds, and models, but in making things like the tech tree itself, providing the necessary depth of content for say, the various civilizations, the media for proper representation of those civilizations, and all the details of the economy, the machines, the cities, the buildings...... herein lies the bulk of the work, IMHO.

Rubenwardys awards mod provides a way to track certain areas of progress, while the Sys4_Quests mod provides other aspects of character growth. The tech tree does not necessarily need to be compiled, as it really is more the progression of the technologies, the objects that players can make inworld. Most would resort to crafting recipes, but I feel a more appropriate immersive experience would be had simply by making the user build all the glorious little details that are in Civ.

I've hacked at the Settlements mod, and I have most of the mg_villages schematics converted into Lua tables, and loading into villages. While the villages aren't mg_villages, they can still provide alot of the "functionality" simply by including the appropriate buildings within them. I think there will need to be more schematics available to represent upgrading buildings, but not by replacing the building with a new schematic, but allowing the buildings materials to be upgraded. A wood building can be reinforced with stone, and such, showing the natural historical progression.

Sokomines City_Builder mod can be considered here. I dislike upgrading buildings by add new schems, instead preferring to upgrade the materials, but, really, is a black smith shop upgraded to a full industrial steel mill, or maybe, upgrade the blacksmith through a few ages, but the blacksmith is then made moot by the Industial Factory at the appropriate tech upgrade. At that point, the blacksmith shop can be leveled to make room something else. Towns only need so many buildings with so many functions to really make this work well, but it can.

Advanced NPCs, Advanced Guards, and Mobs redo provide a great foundation for Civilization style, or even AoE style "primitive" NPCs. Advanced NPC mod allows "jobs" to be created for the NPCs, who can also be tied to villages via markers and perhaps a town node.

I have many other thoughts and ideas for a game I've actually been trying to recreate across two "game engine" platforms now, Opensim, and now MT. MT so far has gotten me closer to the goal than I could have imagined, but there is lots of work, little time, and well, no collaboration. This can all change for sure. I'm not sure how long you've been around, or if you are indeed a newer player, but please take a peak at the Dev Game map. I'd really appreciate some help in going through the mods or writing new ones, if needed. It's a lot of mods, collected over the last few years, that each in some way, have helped me get closer to...



Shad

Evolutiontest (the current working title) would probably use modified versions of existing mods, such as technic. The problem with most mods is that they depend on default, making them work only on MTG. Modified versions of these mods would try to salvage code from the originals while removing or replacing default-dependent code. It is likely that realms would be used for making the planets and moons. Modified versions of technical mods would be useful for the game. Your lib mods and your work on the game dev could be of considerable use for the project. NPC mods would be very useful, since they could provide (or be modified to provide) the player with citizens, allies, enemies, and even aliens. I haven't taken the time to look at your game dev code just yet, but based off of your ideas for it it sounds useful. No offense, but I'm not sure why some of the game dev code is in a map, as opposed to a mod or a game.

I still haven't thought out a lot of the ideas for the civilization aspect of the game. I know that civilization should be a part of the game because of how closely it works with technology, another key aspect of the game. At the beginning of the game, the player's civilization could resemble the real civilizations that developed in the sort of the biome player decided to live in. However, the player could copy a real civilization or make their own fictional one, such as some kind of Atlantis or Wakanda. Over time, the player's civilization becomes more modern and less "regional," reflecting globalization. For example, there cannot be much difference between an American spaceship and a European spaceship. I haven't actually played any civilization game, but I know the premise of them and their features could inspire features in Evolutiontest. It would be cool if Evolutiontest became a sort of 3d civilization that you were looking for.

OMFG
I so like this idea/concept of a MT game.
Be sure I'll pay a particular attention at this thread.
However, you will have a lot of work to do on your shoulders. *crosses fingers*

It's good to hear your enthusiasm for this idea. There would certainly be a lot of work to get through, but that would be were a team would come in.

One way of developing such a game would be to do it in the same stages as the story unfolds.

Exactly what I was thinking. The stage system would be more important as a way to organize game development than a feature in game, since the game would focus more on the tech tree. Perhaps the tech tree should be planned first before the stages are further detailed, since the stages would be based on the tech tree.

New ideas

I have thought of some new ideas, but they are just possibilities I am considering. Nevertheless, they are worth mentioning.

The name "Evolutiontest" might be abbreviated to "Evotest." Based off of ShadMOrdre's reply, I've also thought of another name-- "Civilizationtest." I might just stick with "Evolutiontest."

I have thought of some ideas for Proxima Centauri B. First, the flora on the planet could be gray instead of green because the planet would orbit a red star instead of yellow star (I read about this somewhere). Second, the sky would be red, because the planet would orbit a red star. The player could also see the other two stars in the Alpha Centauri system. Third, the planet could be renamed to "Minerva," the Roman goddess of wisdom and battle, because she had gray eyes and battles are represented by red due to blood. All of these for Proxima Centauri B are just speculation, since we humans don't actually know what's on its surface or it is actually habitable (it is not the best candidate for extrasolar life but it is the closest).

I have even thought of an idea for a fictional exoplanet planet and its moon. The planet would be called "Olympus" and its moon "Atlas." Olympus would be a gas giant and it would orbit around a yellow, white, or blue star. It would be blue or purlble and have a ring. Atlas would be about the size of Mars or Titan and have an atmosphere and liquid water. Atlas would be very mountainous and the landscape would consist mostly of stone and snow. There would also be large highland water lakes scattered around Atlas. The atmosphere would be thick enough to resemble Earth but thin enough to block out the sky and allow the player to breath. Atlas's sky would be light blue and Olympus would loom in it, but it would blend into the sky like how the Moon blends into Earth's sky during the day. Olympus's other moons and even a few stars could be seen in the day as well. Olympus, the other moons, and the stars would all be quite visible in the night. The inspiration for Olympus is from Kerbal Space Program mods, and the inspirations for Atlas are the cold planet in Interstellar and Laythe in Kerbal Space Program.

[Dokimi]

I like the idea in general. Some thoughts.

~~~
The core:

Much of what this game requires doesn't exist yet.
Therefore: Keep it simple.
What is the core? Strip out everything unnecessary from the concept (complications can be added later).

The core appears to be change over time (hence "Evolutiontest").

At this stage focus everything on getting this core right. (the color of planets can be figured out later!)

~~~

Stages:
The current set up is a little Euro-centric, and could be condensed. Again simplicity.
Here's my attempt ;-)

Three big story beats:
A - prehistory
B - Preindustrial/preglobal
C - industrial/global

Further broken into ten stages:

Spoiler

A. 1. Dawn. Character = you're an animal e.g. like a lemur! Tech = hit things with a rock. Climate = tropical. Rough Date = Eocene epoch 50 mya.
A. 2. Dawn of Humanity - Character = early Hominids e.g. Homo erectus. Tech = crude stone tools and fire. Climate = Dry Tropical (Savannah). Rough Date = 1 Mya
A. 3. Dawn of Technology - Character = human. Tech = Pre-agriculture. advance through stone tech. Climate = Ice Age. Rough Date = 100 kya.

Spoiler

B. 4. Dawn of Civilisation - Character = human. Tech = Agriculture, early metal working, megalithic construction (Stonehenge). Climate = Temperate. Rough Date = 10kya (This is where the ice age ended! 10-15kya) to 1000 BC.
B. 5. Dawn of Empire - Character = human. Tech = Bronze age, to Iron Age. Big leap up in tech & social "tech" e.g. money and trade (think Persian, Roman, Chinese Empires). Climate = Temperate. Rough Date = 1000BC - 500AD.
B. 6. Dawn of Belief - Character = human. Tech = medieval, all the world religions now risen up. progress more about cultural/economic shifts (Not a dark age for everyone!!). Climate = Temperate (the Medieval warm period?). Rough Date = 500AD - 1500 AD.

Spoiler

C. 7. Dawn of Globalisation - Character = human. Tech = e.g. Science, exploration, . Early globalisation, Clash of cultures etc. . Climate = Temperate (the little Ice age?). Rough Date = (e.g. 1500AD - 1800 AD)
C. 8. Dawn of Industry - Character = human. Tech = factories, steam, coal use, etc. Climate = begin a fossil feul use Climate change mechanism. Rough Date = 1800 AD -1945 AD
C. 9. Dawn of the Anthropocene - Character = human (gaining crude "augmentations"?). Tech = "the great acceleration", Nukes, early space travel. Climate = possible climate change -> tropical. . Rough Date = 1945AD - 2100 AD
C. 10. Dawn of the Stars - Character = posthuman. Tech = colonize space, robots, ... Climate = Human engineered climate. Rough Date = 2100 AD - ....?

~~~

Names:
avoid: puns, literal labels, Mine or Test. (Why? These titles can be restrictive, or confusing (test what?), or cheesy.
Choose something simple, open ended, an allusion to what you want e.g. Dawn.

~~~

Tech trees vs Tech networks:

Minetest does tech at super-fine scales. Civilisation/Age of Empires etc do tech at super-big scales. You can't import the methods of one into the other.

Civ does tech trees. Minetest does tech networks.

Tech Tree: stick -> metal stick -> carbon fiber stick (poor old stick is now useless)
Tech network: stick -> invention of metal stick allows re-purposing of stick into 5 other uses. -> invention of carbon fiber stick allows re-purposing of stick + metal stick + the five previous combos into 15 new uses. (stick gets more useful)

To control pacing: think of "bottleneck" technologies. Key tech that limit progress to all further tech. e.g. Furnace is a bottleneck to all metal based tech.

For designing the tech: Try putting each node/item and it's crafting inputs and outputs into a network diagram (e.g. in Gephi). You'll see what I mean (I've tried, it gets complicated!)

~~~
Team:

This is definitely way too big for one person. You'll need to figure out some management plan, because that is where this will fall down.

As for me, I'm happy to check you are getting the science/history right (the ice age did not end in the bronze age!!!) :-)

[ShadMOrdre]

I think the tech tree example is the wrong way to look at this.

Currently, upgrades are stick to iron stick. This is tied to the craft grid, where upgrading takes place. This is wrong.

So I have a stick. What can I do with it? Not much. Break it. Hit something/somebody with it. Tie it to a rock. Oh, look what I just discovered.

What can I do with my rock tied to a stick? Not much. Break it. Hit. Sharpen it. Ooh, another advancement.

What can I do with my sharpened stick tied to a rock? Poke something. Not much.

What can I do with a sharpened rock tied to a stick? Holy Sheeppoo batman, I can chop a tree, dig stone,.... oh. not much.

What can I do with the tree?

That will just get tedious. Too tedious.

My rock tied to a stick gives me "Tool" tech. Which enables furnace tech, and thus the furnace item, that I can now build. I think the only way to really pull it off is to simplify the tediousness of MT, reducing it to the simplicity of a larger tech tree. The tech tree can still have the depth of AoE or Civ, while essentially using AoE or Civ styled objects as a guide for creating in MT.

What if the craftitem I just got is a building blueprint, that enables me to place the print on the ground, thus constructing, say a barracks that then produces soldier NPCs, or a farm that produces a farmer NPC, whose output is simply directed into a common inventory, rather than trying to rely on mesecons or pipeworks to transport the output to a particular chest. What if the "city" marker object was a useful item to place, around which buildings could be built, NPCs spawn, and all linked to a central repository of data for that city?

I do believe this is closer to realization that we all might think.

The core.

I point to Sys4_Quests and awards. Both of which work well, and can each be adapted rather easily to assist in various aspects of this game. Formspecs can be reduced to showing the user data, without relying on to much interaction or game play mechanics from the formspecs.

Sokomines City builder mod is a decent start to city management, and I'd like to rework parts of it into the settlements mod for villages.

The rest of the core, the really central and important part. Only that which is essential to create a world, define the player object, and simple libraries to register all items and nodes to the game object, a way to read code from text files, so that it can be registered to the game object as an API or library, and pushing the specifics out the the mods in question. Again, mods are handled in a far different way that currently. Mods would be loaded from text files, via loadfile(), and all APIs and libraries written to be registered to the game object. The core should provide the functionality, but really, nothing more. This is the motivation behind the Dev Game idea.

(Note: The Dev Game project is shared via single .zip, as a world map, only because it seemed a more appropriate place to post a .zip file that might actually get downloaded. I had previously posted to WIP Games, but again as a .zip. The project is large, contains a LOT of mods, and rather than try to fork all the mods, apply all my edits, some from years past and maybe forgotten, and to then package all back up into a downloadable Git project, well,.....)

The content really comes down to particular story or game, and even this can be better handled than the current way of doing things. More like skinning a game, or theming a game, but the game functionality and rules are the same.

As for names......unique......original. Neither derivative, in-use, satirical, real-life, inside-joke, or really any thing other than new, unique and not related to the engine.

Dawn. Good one.

Evolution. Just absolutely love it. Better than Civ. Now you gotta outrun the T-Rex that shouldn't be there, but is chasing you, its next meal. Or, well, that uranium sure did make them ants bif.......

Instead of Sid Meier, maybe we should emulate Will and go full on SimEarthMineTest....)

I am confident that the pieces exist, or are not that far out of reach for a small dedicated, well managed team.

Shad

Shad

[Yvanhoe]

Is this going to be a solo game? If so I recommend having a NPC village that follows the age progression, maybe where you can buy food, trade for far away resources, etc...

If it is a multiplayer game, I think you would like taking a look at One Hour One Life, which is a collaborative multiplayer game at trying to make a civilization survive and strive. The key enemies there are hunger and decay. You fight them more often than bears.

[Dokimi]

Tech trees vs Tech networks:
Not sure I explained this very well. I brought it up because I don't want to see the mistakes of Minetest-game repeated.

Yes, a tree structure is desirable for a sense of progress.

However crafting naturally forms a network (unless you get rid of crafting altogether... which is an option I suppose).

Unless your intended tree matches the network, it will fail. This is why Minetest-game's tools suck.

e.g.
The intended "tree":
wood tools > stone tools > bronze tools > iron tools > mese tools > diamond tools

The actual shortest path through the network:
wood pick > stone pick > iron pick > all diamond tools

Most wood, most stone, most iron, and all bronze, and all mese can just be skipped. Those tools become optional extras rather than stages in a tree. The player leaps from low-tech to high-tech very fast.

The key is to control the "bottlenecks" so it forms a tree. Unlocking technologies in a tech tree would be one way of doing it. However, care must be taken so that the new section of the crafting network unlocked actually lines up with the tech stages you want.

Such a tech progress focused game will need to get this right. Don't want cave men inventing spaceships in the stone age! :-)

[Red_King_Cyclops]

I meant to make this post a few days ago, but there was no WiFi.

TL;DR
I agree with a lot of the suggestions and criticisms made above.

I like the idea in general. Some thoughts.

~~~
The core:

Much of what this game requires doesn't exist yet.
Therefore: Keep it simple.
What is the core? Strip out everything unnecessary from the concept (complications can be added later).

The core appears to be change over time (hence "Evolutiontest").

At this stage focus everything on getting this core right. (the color of planets can be figured out later!)

~~~

Stages:
The current set up is a little Euro-centric, and could be condensed. Again simplicity.
Here's my attempt ;-)

Three big story beats:
A - prehistory
B - Preindustrial/preglobal
C - industrial/global

Further broken into ten stages:

Spoiler

A. 1. Dawn. Character = you're an animal e.g. like a lemur! Tech = hit things with a rock. Climate = tropical. Rough Date = Eocene epoch 50 mya.
A. 2. Dawn of Humanity - Character = early Hominids e.g. Homo erectus. Tech = crude stone tools and fire. Climate = Dry Tropical (Savannah). Rough Date = 1 Mya
A. 3. Dawn of Technology - Character = human. Tech = Pre-agriculture. advance through stone tech. Climate = Ice Age. Rough Date = 100 kya.

Spoiler

B. 4. Dawn of Civilisation - Character = human. Tech = Agriculture, early metal working, megalithic construction (Stonehenge). Climate = Temperate. Rough Date = 10kya (This is where the ice age ended! 10-15kya) to 1000 BC.
B. 5. Dawn of Empire - Character = human. Tech = Bronze age, to Iron Age. Big leap up in tech & social "tech" e.g. money and trade (think Persian, Roman, Chinese Empires). Climate = Temperate. Rough Date = 1000BC - 500AD.
B. 6. Dawn of Belief - Character = human. Tech = medieval, all the world religions now risen up. progress more about cultural/economic shifts (Not a dark age for everyone!!). Climate = Temperate (the Medieval warm period?). Rough Date = 500AD - 1500 AD.

Spoiler

C. 7. Dawn of Globalisation - Character = human. Tech = e.g. Science, exploration, . Early globalisation, Clash of cultures etc. . Climate = Temperate (the little Ice age?). Rough Date = (e.g. 1500AD - 1800 AD)
C. 8. Dawn of Industry - Character = human. Tech = factories, steam, coal use, etc. Climate = begin a fossil feul use Climate change mechanism. Rough Date = 1800 AD -1945 AD
C. 9. Dawn of the Anthropocene - Character = human (gaining crude "augmentations"?). Tech = "the great acceleration", Nukes, early space travel. Climate = possible climate change -> tropical. . Rough Date = 1945AD - 2100 AD
C. 10. Dawn of the Stars - Character = posthuman. Tech = colonize space, robots, ... Climate = Human engineered climate. Rough Date = 2100 AD - ....?

~~~

Names:
avoid: puns, literal labels, Mine or Test. (Why? These titles can be restrictive, or confusing (test what?), or cheesy.
Choose something simple, open ended, an allusion to what you want e.g. Dawn.

~~~

Tech trees vs Tech networks:

Minetest does tech at super-fine scales. Civilisation/Age of Empires etc do tech at super-big scales. You can't import the methods of one into the other.

Civ does tech trees. Minetest does tech networks.

Tech Tree: stick -> metal stick -> carbon fiber stick (poor old stick is now useless)
Tech network: stick -> invention of metal stick allows re-purposing of stick into 5 other uses. -> invention of carbon fiber stick allows re-purposing of stick + metal stick + the five previous combos into 15 new uses. (stick gets more useful)

To control pacing: think of "bottleneck" technologies. Key tech that limit progress to all further tech. e.g. Furnace is a bottleneck to all metal based tech.

For designing the tech: Try putting each node/item and it's crafting inputs and outputs into a network diagram (e.g. in Gephi). You'll see what I mean (I've tried, it gets complicated!)

~~~
Team:

This is definitely way too big for one person. You'll need to figure out some management plan, because that is where this will fall down.

As for me, I'm happy to check you are getting the science/history right (the ice age did not end in the bronze age!!!) :-)

I agree that the core (as in the core features) should be figured out first and should be kept simple. Admittedly, I have been focusing a bit too much on the space age part. This game idea is a very large, so you're right to think that it should start as simple as possible. Your setup is much better than mine, since it's simpler, less Euro-centric, and playing as a lemur could be entertaining. However, the three-age system (stone, bronze, and iron) is absent, but that system only applied to most of the Old World. Also, I would call the "big story beats" "parts" instead.

The tech tree may not be the right approach to technological advancement; tech networks and bottlenecks sound like they would be a better fit for a Minetest game. "Evolutiontest" is a working title, and I'm thinking of changing it to "Dawn" or "Evolution." The game idea was made large because it was intended for a team. I'm not sure if I should manage the team.

In your setup, I noticed that the climate changes over time. Should the world's Earth have only one land biome to make climate change more obvious?

I think the tech tree example is the wrong way to look at this.

Currently, upgrades are stick to iron stick. This is tied to the craft grid, where upgrading takes place. This is wrong.

So I have a stick. What can I do with it? Not much. Break it. Hit something/somebody with it. Tie it to a rock. Oh, look what I just discovered.

What can I do with my rock tied to a stick? Not much. Break it. Hit. Sharpen it. Ooh, another advancement.

What can I do with my sharpened stick tied to a rock? Poke something. Not much.

What can I do with a sharpened rock tied to a stick? Holy Sheeppoo batman, I can chop a tree, dig stone,.... oh. not much.

What can I do with the tree?

That will just get tedious. Too tedious.

My rock tied to a stick gives me "Tool" tech. Which enables furnace tech, and thus the furnace item, that I can now build. I think the only way to really pull it off is to simplify the tediousness of MT, reducing it to the simplicity of a larger tech tree. The tech tree can still have the depth of AoE or Civ, while essentially using AoE or Civ styled objects as a guide for creating in MT.

What if the craftitem I just got is a building blueprint, that enables me to place the print on the ground, thus constructing, say a barracks that then produces soldier NPCs, or a farm that produces a farmer NPC, whose output is simply directed into a common inventory, rather than trying to rely on mesecons or pipeworks to transport the output to a particular chest. What if the "city" marker object was a useful item to place, around which buildings could be built, NPCs spawn, and all linked to a central repository of data for that city?

I do believe this is closer to realization that we all might think.

The core.

I point to Sys4_Quests and awards. Both of which work well, and can each be adapted rather easily to assist in various aspects of this game. Formspecs can be reduced to showing the user data, without relying on to much interaction or game play mechanics from the formspecs.

Sokomines City builder mod is a decent start to city management, and I'd like to rework parts of it into the settlements mod for villages.

The rest of the core, the really central and important part. Only that which is essential to create a world, define the player object, and simple libraries to register all items and nodes to the game object, a way to read code from text files, so that it can be registered to the game object as an API or library, and pushing the specifics out the the mods in question. Again, mods are handled in a far different way that currently. Mods would be loaded from text files, via loadfile(), and all APIs and libraries written to be registered to the game object. The core should provide the functionality, but really, nothing more. This is the motivation behind the Dev Game idea.

(Note: The Dev Game project is shared via single .zip, as a world map, only because it seemed a more appropriate place to post a .zip file that might actually get downloaded. I had previously posted to WIP Games, but again as a .zip. The project is large, contains a LOT of mods, and rather than try to fork all the mods, apply all my edits, some from years past and maybe forgotten, and to then package all back up into a downloadable Git project, well,.....)

The content really comes down to particular story or game, and even this can be better handled than the current way of doing things. More like skinning a game, or theming a game, but the game functionality and rules are the same.

As for names......unique......original. Neither derivative, in-use, satirical, real-life, inside-joke, or really any thing other than new, unique and not related to the engine.

Dawn. Good one.

Evolution. Just absolutely love it. Better than Civ. Now you gotta outrun the T-Rex that shouldn't be there, but is chasing you, its next meal. Or, well, that uranium sure did make them ants bif.......

Instead of Sid Meier, maybe we should emulate Will and go full on SimEarthMineTest....)

I am confident that the pieces exist, or are not that far out of reach for a small dedicated, well managed team.

Shad

Shad

I agree that tech trees should have bottlenecks. My original idea was for players to build cities like the villages in Farlands, but using blueprints and schematics could allow the player to create working cities that could keep up with the changing times and be of actual use to the player. Perhaps the materials of each building could change over time like you described in your first post.

I could see how the quests and awards mods could be used or reworked for this game. The city builder mod and the settlements mod could be useful for the cities. The core (as in the core code) would probably be just the main mods, but the concept you are developing with Game Dev could be more efficient and set this game apart from other games.

"Evolutiontest" is a working title, and I'm thinking of changing it to "Dawn" or "Evolution."

I was originally thinking of a large team, but a smaller team could be assembled more easily and managed more effectively.

Is this going to be a solo game? If so I recommend having a NPC village that follows the age progression, maybe where you can buy food, trade for far away resources, etc...

If it is a multiplayer game, I think you would like taking a look at One Hour One Life, which is a collaborative multiplayer game at trying to make a civilization survive and strive. The key enemies there are hunger and decay. You fight them more often than bears.

So far the game idea is for singleplayer, but a multiplayer version based off of One Hour One Life could be developed at the same time as the singleplayer version. Many of the ideas in the singleplayer idea would not be fit for multiplayer-- for example, if all players began as lemurs and advanced through history by themselves, what would stop a modern-day player from abducting lemur players and putting them in a zoo? NPC villages would a cool addition to the singleplayer game, since they could develop at the same rate as the player and the player could trade with them or conquer them. Trading could unlock new technologies.

Tech trees vs Tech networks:
Not sure I explained this very well. I brought it up because I don't want to see the mistakes of Minetest-game repeated.

Yes, a tree structure is desirable for a sense of progress.

However crafting naturally forms a network (unless you get rid of crafting altogether... which is an option I suppose).

Unless your intended tree matches the network, it will fail. This is why Minetest-game's tools suck.

e.g.
The intended "tree":
wood tools > stone tools > bronze tools > iron tools > mese tools > diamond tools

The actual shortest path through the network:
wood pick > stone pick > iron pick > all diamond tools

Most wood, most stone, most iron, and all bronze, and all mese can just be skipped. Those tools become optional extras rather than stages in a tree. The player leaps from low-tech to high-tech very fast.

The key is to control the "bottlenecks" so it forms a tree. Unlocking technologies in a tech tree would be one way of doing it. However, care must be taken so that the new section of the crafting network unlocked actually lines up with the tech stages you want.

Such a tech progress focused game will need to get this right. Don't want cave men inventing spaceships in the stone age! :-)

I agree that the crafting system and the tech system would have to be coordinated to avoid some serious historical errors. Maybe the player could complete certain tasks like the ones in the awards mod to be able to unlock certain technologies and bottlenecks, making sure they do not skip over certain technologies.

[Mantar]

"Evolutiontest" is a working title, and I'm thinking of changing it to "Dawn" or "Evolution."

Gonna throw out "The Test of Time" as a suggestion. For you non-English speakers, it's a common idiom. Something is said to have "stood the test of time" if it's remained important over the years and not gone away or faded into obscurity.

[Red_King_Cyclops]

"Evolutiontest" is a working title, and I'm thinking of changing it to "Dawn" or "Evolution."

Gonna throw out "The Test of Time" as a suggestion. For you non-English speakers, it's a common idiom. Something is said to have "stood the test of time" if it's remained important over the years and not gone away or faded into obscurity.

Another good idea. Perhaps it could be shortened to "Test of Time," but the "the" makes the game sound grander.

[Red_King_Cyclops]

The Titan realm would look like this mod I made.

[voxelproof]

Game Mechanics

Note: I will be adding more detail to this section.

Spoiler

Similarly to Spore, the game play mechanics can change between stages.

Hint: you might look for some inspiration in C-evo, an open source strategic game based on the theme of rising civilizations.

I don't want to discourage you, but you'd need probably ten full-time developers to achieve the goals you've highlighted in this post, for over two years' time :) Maybe focus on a smaller scope and see, how the project goes ahead and how particular partial objectives are attained -- keep in mind that there's always a long, very long way from a great idea to its playable realization in every game development project.

[MCL]

Great conception, but I'm afraid that you will get demotivated and most contributors will quit.
First make the most basic things and later add the more complicated stuff.
I really like your Idea

[ShadMOrdre]

Red_King,

Just to clarify some valid points of the recent posts, I've got close to three years in on the Dev game concept.

Teamwork, collaboration, and a well thought out plan. Necessary. But not unavailable.

Keep up the ideas, I honestly believe that some of this won't be as difficult as some would think. After my own 3 year effort, I'm close, but still far away. That doesn't stop me or discourage me. But I worry, that by the time I am done, my son will be to old to want to play it.

Shad

[Red_King_Cyclops]

Game Mechanics

Note: I will be adding more detail to this section.

Spoiler

Similarly to Spore, the game play mechanics can change between stages.

Hint: you might look for some inspiration in C-evo, an open source strategic game based on the theme of rising civilizations.

I don't want to discourage you, but you'd need probably ten full-time developers to achieve the goals you've highlighted in this post, for over two years' time :) Maybe focus on a smaller scope and see, how the project goes ahead and how particular partial objectives are attained -- keep in mind that there's always a long, very long way from a great idea to its playable realization in every game development project.

I agree that it would probably take a long time to make this game fully and we need to start with a smaller scope or a smaller game. First, it needs to be planned out a bit more.

Great conception, but I'm afraid that you will get demotivated and most contributors will quit.
First make the most basic things and later add the more complicated stuff.
I really like your Idea

Thanks. I agree with what you are saying.

Red_King,

Just to clarify some valid points of the recent posts, I've got close to three years in on the Dev game concept.

Teamwork, collaboration, and a well thought out plan. Necessary. But not unavailable.

Keep up the ideas, I honestly believe that some of this won't be as difficult as some would think. After my own 3 year effort, I'm close, but still far away. That doesn't stop me or discourage me. But I worry, that by the time I am done, my son will be to old to want to play it.

Shad

Thanks for the encouragement. A well thought out plan is possible if the scope is small, and teamwork and collaboration could be found in experienced users and/or users that want to see a quality game. Good luck with your game dev project.

New Ideas

After reading the last several posts, I realized that I need to focus on the some of the core ideas.

The tech system would use the award mod (based off of ShadMOrdre's suggestions), and technological advancements would become awards. There would be two kinds of technological advancment: inventions and innovations. Inventions are bottlenecks and innovations are upgrades (such as the upgrade from copper to bronze). New inventions allow new innovations to happen. The focus is on inventions and innovations are a smaller focus.

Based off of Dokimi's climate change idea, the map would change over time. The trees would have special blocks beneath them that would replace them with another kind of tree when the time period changed. Generated structures would work in a similar way. Structures and trees that were damaged or destroyed by the player would become ruins and not change again. Voxel manip would be used to change the type of grass during climate changes.

The game would need a new kind of crafting system that prevented the player from making something before his time. Cavemen should not be able to craft spaceships from meteorites they found. Each crafting recipe would require the correct ingredients and a certain technological advancement.

Edit: rubenwardy's crafting mod looks like it could be useful.

[ShadMOrdre]

Red_King,

Consider the picture below, and the underlying mods. To me, they seriously evoke the ideas discussed here, since they also also guide my own design. This is part of my own Game Dev package.

The mod that creates the villages could easily be adapted to allow autoplaced villages, manually placed villages, or manually constructed villages. Villagers, in this case, Advanced_NPCs, can be used to create the "life" of the village, whether in an intelligent way or simple movement and trading.

I'm thinking a mashup between my own villages mod and Sokomines CityBuilder. Citybuilder allows building upgrades and manages the "city".

I'd like to encourage someone to tackle both Awards and Sys4_Quests. One to manage player advancement, either D&D like player stats or a fully developed tech tree. You mentioned one idea, which I've also considered, where the awards are essentially craftitems that enable higher tech ingame items. This shouldn't be difficult, as this is really reliant on craft recipes. You can't make the Iron Pick without the Iron Age craftitem, which you only get after crafting so many Stone Age tools, or you've created a certain type of machine that then "enables" the new tech recipes.

This, however, is very game specific, as the recipes and awards really wouldn't transfer to other games. However, there may be room to allow the tech tree upgrades in a modular and generic enough way so as to allow a single mod to manage all that the above mentioned mods currently manage.

Shad

[Red_King_Cyclops]

Tungsten carbide could be used for tools.

[MCL]

Is this game still being worked on?

[ShadMOrdre]

Is this game still being worked on?

I can't speak for Red_King_Cyclops, but...

An additional year of coding and development, both hindered and aided by the restrictions of a global pandemic. Yet another idea to add to the game.......

I've posted this, an updated effort at the above ideas.

Shad

[debiankaios]

Alpha Centauri? To time i make a game named "Proxima Survival" were you survival on Proxima Centauri. But not complete

[ywwv]

I don't beleive in evolution . we have been de- evolving. ten thousand years ago everyone was 8 ffet t tall amd tjhe nbugs were 100 times bigger and you had to throw spears at them . I erad this on national geograph ic

I dont t hink you can describe the player as "fully human" . its a gradient. there are humans who have not evolved an occipital bun yet . are thehy really people ? or something in between