Game mode idea - "Gridwar" [preliminary name]

[LLamaBoy]

I just had to get this idea out of my system or I'd be up all night thinking about it.

If you don't like stories, skip to the picture and after.

Ok, so first a little background.
Once upon a time, when Darwinia was freshly released, I intended to create a mod of that wonderful game with a full storyline and everything. I wanted to expand the world of Darwinia with new locations and history, give my own contribution to the lore of Darwinian evolution, etc.
Unfortunately, due to being at college, contracting an awful case of writer's block, being lazy and becoming shamefully addicted to a certain MMORPG, my mod remained half-finished.

I'm getting to the point, don't worry...

One of the levels I'd created was intended to be a sort of 'residential' island for the little stickguys, where they went to rest after working in the mine and to hang out with their brothers. I had Skorp/Athlonboy (who is awesome) create a new shape I designed to place on the island to represent their homes, which look something (read: exactly) like this:


The concept was that they entered in the base, and they would be stored in the structure, emitting a glow in the area enclosed by the petal-like bits at the top to show occupancy.


Fast forward to an hour or so ago.

This map returned to my mind with an idea of a game mode: When DGs are stored in these "residence bloom" (or a better name) buildings, their idle cycles contribute to a large computing task, a la real world distributed computing. Details here are fuzzy on what the purpose of this task would be; probably something associated with the annihilation of enemy DGs.

Now here's the vital gameplay elements of the mode:

• Players can insert DGs into the blooms at any time to increase their computational power
• Once a DG is in the bloom, they cannot be removed.
• The task requires a respectable number of DGs to complete. Initial proposal: starting number of 200-250 DGs to complete it in 10 minutes. Each extra DG contributes extra, so 300 => 8 minutes, 400 => 6 minutes, etc. This would probably need to be studied to find a good balance in the equation.
• There are also spawn points on the map which can be taken to spawn more DGs. Each team will have at least one secured spawn point so as not to be eliminated.
• First team to complete the computing task wins.

Now it may seem at first glance to be similar to KOTH, but there's a lot more of a tactical edge to it, I feel. The player will need to make fast decisions on whether to sacrifice some DGs to get their research moving faster, or to assault an enemy spawn point and cripple their production first.

Of course, the actual model of the blooms can be changed or altered, maybe to have an actual doorway in the base or something. (Although having something graphical that I thought up in the game would be awesome )

Anyway, that's all I got, hopefully I can sleep now.

Feel free to comment and poke holes in my idea.

[Orange Soda]

It sounds novel, but it doesn't sound like it have many players.

[xander]

Actually, rather than sounding like KOTH, it sounds more like rocket riot to me, but much more DG intensive. I like.

xander

[Phelanpt]

What xander said.

Would the structures be attackable? I'm thinking no from your description, which would make it much different from Rocket Riot.
Cool idea.

[LLamaBoy]

What xander said.

Would the structures be attackable? I'm thinking no from your description, which would make it much different from Rocket Riot.
Cool idea.

You're right, the structures would be invulnerable. The only way to win would be to invest more of your own Darwinians in the blooms and to steal spawns from your enemy.

It sounds novel, but it doesn't sound like it have many players.

Not necessarily. As I see it, there's nothing preventing maps of up to 4 teams or even more, provided the game allows for it.

I had another little thought about the structures today, specifically regarding the subject of ownership.
These are the two options I came up with:

• Each team has their own bloom(s) which only DGs of their own team can enter. This would be a pure race for the completion of the task.
• A more combat oriented method: There is a single, neutral bloom or collection of blooms in which any teams' DGs can enter. Each bloom would maintain a running total of the DGs within; the team with the majority maintains computing power in that particular bloom. If an enemy team reaches a certain total (I'm thinking == to the leaders' DGs), he gains control and [not sure of this part] the leader loses a number of his occupied DGs, say 50%.

I'm not sure which would be a better system right now. Perhaps it could even be possible to have both, with some blooms assigned to teams and others being neutral.

I'm at work right now, but I might mock up some screenies to show how I imagine the interface and UI to appear when I get home.

[bert_the_turtle]

The second variant would have the "20 dollar bill auction" dilemma, so I'd be for that

[Pox]

If the beowulf clusters were team-specific and close to spawns, I can't imagine much of a contest happening - surely sending enough DGs to do significant damage to an opponent would leave you both behind on points and open to attack.

[martin]

but if you manage to capture a spawn off the enemy you're up.

I like the idea of a single neutral spawn, but simply whoever has the most DGs processes the task at a rate equal to the number of DGs they have in there in total.

edit:: you could approximate this mode by having a KoTH game with points mode set to DGs per second in zone. Have the zones on islands with radars going to the islands but not away.

[LLamaBoy]

Ok, here's some screens with an example mocked up map to illustrate some of the ideas a bit better!

First, an overview of the map:

(Bear in mind this is primarily to show a set of potential setups, not a final map concept)

As you can probably guess, this would be a 2 player map, with Green and Red starting on opposite sides of a single island. Each starting point has a spawner and a bloom. On either of the other corners of the island are two other neutral spawners (grey Ns). In the center are another 4 blooms, two of which are neutral, the other two belonging to opposing teams.

Now for either team to reach their second personal bloom, they will have to pass through the neutral area and possibly encounter the enemy, resulting in carnage! Furthermore, there are a pair of uncontested spawners for the players to fight over for more population.

~~ Quick aside ~~
A couple of questions came to me while I was putting this together.
Q: Why would players bother fighting for neutral blooms, if they had their own seperate structures that are immune to takeover?
A: There could be a capacity limit inside blooms, which would be greater in neutrals than team-specifics. E.g. Personal blooms can only hold up to 150 DGs, while neutrals have a huge capacity of 400-500!

Q: Why not just sit in your base, piling wave after wave of respawns straight into your bloom? [Probably relelvant to Pox's query a couple of posts up]
A: Well, combined with the occupancy limit stated above, we could also enforce a minimum DG requirement for the task to actually begin. Using the above numbers, a required amount of say, 200 DGs would force the player to seek other blooms to progress.
~~ END ~~

Now, onto the matter of UI stuffs. Cue another mockup image!


(Apologies in advance for crapness, I'm not artistic)

Not much to tell here, I just want to point out the main bits, namely the scorboard in the top left, which shows how many DGs each player currently has contributing to the task, as well as the estimated time left for completion at the current occupancy.
Note that this number would not count any DGs in neutral blooms if they are not on the majority team.

The other element visible is the compass icon pointing to one of the blooms in the distance, showing which team has control of it, and how many of their DGs are residing in it.
One small issue here: In the case of neutral blooms, how to show the occupancy of the non-controlling teams? I'm blank on this one at the moment.

So... yeah.

P.S. martin: you're right, that could be a slight approximation, but the DGs on the island are still subject to attack from enemy DGs, crate weapons, etc. Also, the home spawns of each team in this mode would be locked, enemies wouldn't be able to completely remove you from the game.

[xander]

P.S. martin: you're right, that could be a slight approximation, but the DGs on the island are still subject to attack from enemy DGs, crate weapons, etc. Also, the home spawns of each team in this mode would be locked, enemies wouldn't be able to completely remove you from the game.

To deal with the 'locked' aspect of the home spawn, you could surround the home spawns with laser fences that cannot be brought down, and put a power-up free zone around each home spawn. That would probably get the job done. As for preventing enemy attack, you could once again use no power-up zones and laser fences. This would, of course, mean that neutral blooms would be nearly impossible, but it might get you close to what you wanted in the near term.

If I get the time, I will mock up a map.

xander