After doing some thinking about the early macroscopic stages, here are some thoughts I’ve had regarding scope. The topic of scale will likely have to define the scope of the macroscopic project in several ways.
First, I think representing microscopic organisms with macroscopic features - i.e rotifer or water bear sized organisms - would not be a realistic effort. That would essentially require a reworking of the microbe stage, or an odd integration into existing microbe stage mechanics - macroscopic mechanics in the existing 2D stage, which is a bit awkward. Furthermore, several more complex organisms at this scale were likely much larger before downsizing. This effectively means that we should probably skip straight to a scale at which microbes are represented as clouds in the late multicellular stage, so I think there’s atleast that barrier defined.
Now the other big area of contention, which I think is less straightforward. The next question is how to represent organisms at the opposite ends of being macroscopic - for lack of a better word, an organism in the “bug-scale” and an organism in the “average-scale”. How do we deal with addressing both ends smoothly? I really don’t think it is possible to represent both extremes well without having special treatment for the smaller size - and, if big enough, have it so that certain smaller organisms are not visible when the player is large enough.
I always assumed that there would be points of time where we would have to make jumps between different scales and abstractions of smaller organisms. The question though is how many different scales will be feasible or ideal to represent.
And the conceptual/design consideration question is at what “sizes” will we see transitional difficulties, which opens up a lot of questions. What scale, and what level of detail, will we take the “average” playthrough to be set in? What scale will we tailor the majority of gameplay towards? And at what points will we have to take special care? Will the average aquatic Thrivian organism be anywhere from a foot to 10 feet for example, and larger or smaller organisms will require some technical considerations? A lot of this revolves around our hard capabilities.
—-
EDIT: one thing to note is that at a small enough scale, it’s easier to abstract environments. Because you are too small to really get a grasp of your position and the environment, the ocean floor can be represented as generic rough terrain, and the open ocean as an expansive space.
Linking this thread due to the consideration of graphics and such - Depicting the 3D Environment - #23 by MirrorMonkey2