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Viva; Outline for a video game
Topic Started: May 10 2018, 11:04 PM (319 Views)
Crescendo
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Fetus
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Hey guise!

I've been working on the outline for a video game I'd like to bring to fruition. I'm sure everyone here is familiar with Spore and No Man's Sky, two games that gave us high hopes, and didn't deliver their high promises. At this point, I'm sure many of us are tired of hearing about them.

There is currently a game on Steam Greenlight known as Evolution, a sort of unofficial sequel to Spore and I couldn't help but think that even if it did get off the ground (they currently have no funds), it would likely flop since the promises are just so high.

I came to a realization that these games are based off of two main enticements for the player: customization and exploration. To create a game where you start from a simple unicellular organism to an intergalactic empire is no small feat and any game that has attempted to include many different parts into one game has faltered in one way or another.

Furthermore, we all know that the experience of playing as your very own speculative creature is vastly different from colonizing many worlds as a sentient race and so I've decided to focus on one game, for the former.


Viva is a fully customizable, world-building, real-time strategy, mmo rpg game where you create your own world, complete with fully customized landmasses, biomes, chemistry, plants, creatures, physical features, and ambiance.

You are an organism, one of 200 on your planet (in addition to a few key species like plants, bacteria, and pests) and you n most navigate your way through an unforgiving world.

Ranging from being hunted by apex predators to your very own siblings, seasonal weather changes to cataclysmic extinctions, and extreme food scarcity to high competition, you must endure and adapt to ensure your species' survival.

• Fight, Fly, or Freeze as you attempt to evade becoming lunch.

• Lead an elusive, rogue-like life where you become the stuff of nightmares or live in huge eusocial colonies exploiting the resources around you.

• Interact with and modify the environment around you to your needs in addition to learning a lot along the way.

• Trade organisms with your friends, play in each other's worlds, and even battle in a mini game arena.

• Explore breathtaking and bizarre landforms ranging from gigantic mesas, floating mountains, crashing falls, majestic mountains and much much more!

• Create your own custom planet and choose the distribution of your 8 biomes, complete with customizable archetypes based off of real world environments.

• Choose from hundreds of various ambiance tracks and cultural music to give your realms a sense of character.

• Create unique and specialized organisms ranging from 1 cm long glowing worms to 30 meter long bellowing behemoths.

• Use our powerful editor with skin texture choices, drawing tools, and part function archetypes to create the creatures of your wildest dreams.

• Enable Documentary mode where you can create your own feature film documenting the weird and wonderful lifeforms on your planet.

Table of Contents:
Worlds
Life
Edited by Crescendo, May 17 2018, 04:26 PM.
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Crescendo
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Worlds:

Number of Worlds:

Each Player is limited to 5 active worlds at a time; players can download zip files of the worlds they want to save if they want to create more worlds aside from their allotted five.

Multiplayer:

Each player's planets will work as hosting servers wherein players can login to a planet of their choosing and assume control of one of the many organism populations on the player's planet. Players can choose if they want their user info visible to other players.

Players can also trade creatures with others from their respective worlds, form interspecific or intraspecific colonies/packs/herds, drive another to extinction, and even farm other species.

Worlds Features:

Worlds include a number of fully customizable features such as:

Composition

  • Gas Giant
  • Desert Planet
  • Terrestrial Planet (Earth-like)
  • Barren/Iron/Ice Planet
  • Ocean Planet


Biomes

  • Tundra, Arctic
  • Temperate Forest, Temperate Grassland
  • Tropical Rainforest, Tropical Island
  • Desert, Chaparral
  • Swamp, Floodplain
  • Alpine, Sky
  • Barren, Dramatic
  • Marine
  • Freeform (locked until player completes specific objectives; functions as extra secondary biome of your choice in meantime)


Planetary Relations

  • Binary/Multiple Star System
  • Tidally Locked
  • Rogue Planet
  • Natural Satellites


And more to come...
Edited by Crescendo, May 14 2018, 08:47 PM.
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ZoologicalBotanist
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This looks like it would be very interesting. I am definitely going to follow this.


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OWENEV
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Actually, I think NMS was pretty good. I get your point about not delivering on its promises though. Also, this looks cool!
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Crescendo
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ZoologicalBotanist
May 11 2018, 08:03 AM
This looks like it would be very interesting. I am definitely going to follow this.
Thanks :) I'll be updating it every week!
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Crescendo
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OWENEV
May 11 2018, 02:04 PM
Actually, I think NMS was pretty good. I get your point about not delivering on its promises though. Also, this looks cool!
Yeah! I liked it too! I actually liked Spore too but the problem with both was that they focused on algorithmic infinite variation which yielded predictable outcomes and lackluster experiences. When they could have settled for large-scale, but finite variance that is both interactive and unpredictable.

Like when conceiving this game, I thought about what made games like Subnautica so successful. I mean Subnautica focuses on solely a marine environment; having the focus on making it interactive, unpredictable and beautiful is what made it so successful.
Edited by Crescendo, May 12 2018, 02:44 PM.
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Crescendo
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Life:


Mobile Archetypes:

These are what constitute the "animals" of your World.

•Vertebrate (200 per planet)

•Fish (3 slots; for applicable biomes; if player selects size as Critter or Bug, habitat as Aquatic, then player species will be integrated into biome as 1 of 3 fish slots)

•Mollusk (3 slots; for applicable biomes; if player selects size as Critter or Bug and player species has gelatinous skin, then player species will be integrated into biome as 1 of 3 mollusk slots)

•Pest (3 slots; for each biome; if player selects size as Bug and player species has chitinous or siliceous skin and habitat is NOT Aquatic, player species will be integrated into biome as 1 of 3 pest slots)

•Plankton (3 slots; for applicable biomes; if player selects size as Bug, habitat as Aquatic, diet as Herbivore, is in a Herd or Colony, then player species will be integrated into biome as 1 of 3 plankton slots)


Sessile Archetypes:

These are what constitute the sessile organisms of your world.

•Moss/algae – (3 for the whole planet)

•Fungi/Lichen – (3 for the whole planet)

•Plants – depends on biome; types: ground, low, shrub, tree

•Coral – (3 for the whole planet)

•Bacteria – (3 for the whole planet)*

•Virus – (3 for the whole planet)*

*non-consumable


Creature Interactive Customization:

In addition to the customization of your creature's appearance, you will be able to customize how it interacts with other organisms and its ecosystem:

Size:
This determines your creatures scale relative to the world and other creatures around it. It affects everything from your locomotion to your abilities. (e.g. A Bug with wings beats them fast like a hummingbird or bee but a Titan with wings flaps them like a pterosaur)


  • Bug: 1 inch to 1 foot (like TFIW's Terabyte)

  • Critter: 1 foot to 1m (like Serina's Tribbets)

  • Beast: 1m to 3m (like Snaiad's Sprogophidians)

  • Brute: 3m to 10m (like Expedition's Arrowtongue)

  • Titan: 10m to 30m (like Avatar's Hammmerhead Titanothere)
Note: size limits do not include parts you add to your organism such as tails and horns, etc.


Diet:

Diet determines what your creature can consume in the world. This is arguably the most important characteristic of your creature as it determines how your creature gains energy, where it lies in the food web of your ecosystem, and whether your design can measure up in your selected biome. *

*(The game will also suggest a biome for you once you have added features to your creature; e.g. A Herd Terrestrial Diurnal Brute Herbivore with high muscle and low fat is encouraged to live in a Temperate biome and discouraged to live in the Arctic. Meanwhile, a Loner Petrial Nocturnal Brute Carnivore with low muscle and high fat is encouraged to live in a Barren biome and is discouraged from living in a Tropical biome)


  • Herbivore – plants, fruits, seeds, nectar/sap, rocks, other sessile organisms

  • Frugivore – fruits, seeds, nectar, plants

  • Detritivore – carrion, rotting fruit, feces, eggs, other sessile organisms

  • Liquivore – fluids/blood, pests, eggs

  • Petrivore – rocks, coral, mollusks

  • Insectivore – pests, mollusks, plankton

  • Omnivore – custom (up to 8)

  • Piscivore – fish, mollusks, eggs, plankton, pests, other organisms

  • Molluscivore – mollusks, fish, coral, other organisms, plankton, pests

  • Planktivore – plankton, pests, mollusks

  • Exudativore – nectar/sap, fluids/blood, eggs

  • Carnivore – other organisms, eggs, fish, carrion, mollusks, pests, plankton


Habitat/Breeding/Nesting Grounds:

This is where your creature retreats to rest/hibernate and/or breeds. A perimeter may also be setup as your territory. In these areas, you have faster healing and your abilities are augmented. This is also where you are reborn if you (or your entire party) are killed.

  • Arboreal (in trees/plants): trees, plants, wood

  • Parasitic: on other organisms, fungi, feces

  • Fossorial (subterranean): burrows, under sand, trapdoor

  • Gressorial (terrestrial): in the open land, perimeter, thickets

  • Natatorial (aquatic): in the open sea, perimeter, corals

  • Cavatorial (in rock): under rocks, caves, caverns

  • Volatorial (in the sky): clouds, sky, nomadic

  • Scansorial (in mountains): cliffs, mountains, mesas
Edited by Crescendo, May 14 2018, 08:53 PM.
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beingsneaky
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when do you think the first prototype/demo i going to be out like a couple of months or so
Edited by beingsneaky, May 12 2018, 07:46 PM.
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Mynameisnotdave23
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I would buy this so quickly if it was a thing.
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Crescendo
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beingsneaky
May 12 2018, 07:46 PM
when do you think the first prototype/demo i going to be out like a couple of months or so
No, not even close. I'm still working on an outline for the game. Plus I'm the only one currently working on it. I'm garnering interest to see where I should continue going with this.

I'll eventually start posting screenshots of menu screens and what to expect as far as feel for the game.

I'm primarily posting an outline to know the full scope of what Viva will undertake. And to know if this is something the Spec community wants to support. Partly because I want this game to come from the Spec community and will include references to popular projects (e.g. Darwin IV, TFIW, Serina, etc.).

Also, this is not really a Spore 2.

Think of it as Spore + Saurian + Subnautica + Evolve + Graffiti Kingdom = Viva
Edited by Crescendo, May 18 2018, 01:15 PM.
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