It has been discussed on another thread the idea of putting mutation points into certain parts to develop them further.
The main idea behind this involves tech trees and modifying different areas to produce different results and we imagine it would function on some kind of graph, this is where a visual aid would come in handy, but the basic idea is to produce some kind of basis for the mutations to work from and on this graph the closer you are to the axis the further along you are in the game, the more issues your cell/creature will have with that part.
points cannot be removed and reallocated elsewhere, it would most likely cost to move the part into the safe zone of the graph in question.
If we wanted to have a separate set of points to affect the player’s cell/creature may I suggest Adaptation Points which would be out of the player’s hands and would be affected by what is in its environment. These Adaption points would be stage specific to Cell and Creature type stages and would most likely be adjusted to something else for following stages.
Please your additional thoughts and recommendations below, and of course, discuss!
Yeah sorry, it’s used a lot in computer science so i forgot some people migth not use them at all. what i meant was a sort of tech tree where you can get to a tech from several different directions and you can go back (which it’s useful if deleting techs is a thing to save tech points)
Visually I can imagine it as some sort of bridging thing where the different orbs are the techs themselves and the lines between them are bonds and you could strengthen those bonds to improve on the tech at the end. Could be a funny visualisation having different, well developed branches which flail around slightly
Here is a good example of what TheCreator wanted to implement as an Organelle Upgrades system: Organelle Functions
Basically when you enter the editor you can choose either to spend mutation points to place or move or delete organelles, or to select an organelle and upgrade/specialize its function.
Adaptation points it’s an great idea, in my opinion would be very creative if this adaptation points were cumulative and not consumable, this points would be earned by eating, winning combats, evolving, adaptating, surviving and of course thriving (I think call it Thrive points would also be a great idea haha) this points would be added and with more points more parts and intelligence would be unlocked by the organism. Even being cumulative points the player should be able to lose “thrive points” by dying, being hungry, sick, etc… I also think it would be good if when the player reach some number of points be able to evolve to another stage.
Mutation points can stay in the game to limitate the number of changes and buy new unlocked parts (just like Spore) in the editor, as well as tech points and etc… Thrive points would be useful just to unlock new parts and evolve from one stage to another.
I don’t like the concept of gamey, “points” the player would need to earn to make changes. I think that granting mutation points when the player reproduces is a much better system. Also your suggestion about using the points to increase intelligence goes against how I imagine the multicellular editor to work, in that you would not have choices to buff things you want, instead the player would edit their tissues to get that effect. So to increase intelligence the player would increase their brain to body ratio.
I guess maybe I didn’t explained perfectly, the “adaptation/thrive” points would not increase intelligence, they would be increased by more intelligence, survival, winning and everything that shows how the organism stablish his dominance to others and environment, more adapted, more points. This points would be used (by reaching some number, ex.: when the player achieves 1000 thrive points in the Multicellular stage, he can evolve to the next stage) to evolve from one stage to another and unlock abilities like strategy mode, and everything… I also said that the mutation points should stay and will be useful as it is now
So you are suggesting the player would be given more of an equivalent points to mutation points, the better they are doing? That also is not what I think Thrive should have. While we are making a game I don’t want to add too many mechanics that feel like a game. Anyway, it will be easier for the player to reproduce if their species is well adapted.
Secondly, the stages are planned to very smoothly move to the next one. So there won’t be a button that gets unlocked at some point saying “grow some legs and go on land” (as happens in a certain game). But rather the player adds new organelles (binding agents) or develops new technology (society centers) in order to move to the next stage.
I don’t want to discourage you from showing enthusiasm by suggesting ideas, but you should familiarize yourself more with the major design points of Thrive and some of the (recent) discussions about premade parts, the multicellular editor etc. Of course future design decisions are up for debate but I doubt many people on the team will have enthusiasm for that as it will take years for us to get close to having to lock those decisions in. And as we want the game to have a natural flow into future stages the design decisions regarding future stages will need to take into account what is already in the game.
Alright, I know thrive will be more realistic, show an smooth evolution and etc, (and I really love it) I read every article in the website, watched gameplays, searched concepts, and I’m searching and learning more in the forum, I don’t see how this “adaptation points” would be a bad idea, besides even being an gradual evolution it has differences between stages (ex.: from Multicellular to Aware will move from 2d to 3d view, the strategy mode will be unlocked in the Awakening stage and a lot of another things) and this changes needs to be triggered with something (if nothing mark an limit to some stage than when the player will evolve from one stage to another?) this “adaptation/Thrive points” don’t even would be directly controlled by the player, it would be just like an timeline so he can sees how’s he doing…
