This was something I’ve been writing in the background for a bit detailing some of the initial gameplay experiences of the macroscopic stage, and thus, what might be useful to focus on first. I think it could be useful for any work following the prototype seen in this thread: The Macroscopic Stage Prototype
The first section describes general “phases” of the macroscopic. The second section describes general trends across different areas of the macroscopic. And the last section focuses on some of the first functioning systems that will likely be needed when it comes to gameplay and the editor.
“Eras” of Gameplay
Peaceful Beginnings, Primordial Eden
Comparable to the Ediacarian on Earth.
- Food sources are widely available. Because resources are accessible, little incentive for intense competition, and not much of a need for organisms to resort to hostile measures.
- Structural capabilities of organisms are very limited. Lifeforms are rather bizarre, blobby, or extremely simple shapes.
- World as a whole appears to be very slow and somewhat peaceful. Oceans aren’t necessarily “empty”, as there are other organisms, but it isn’t busy at all. Calmest stage of all macroscopic stages.
This will serve as an orienting period for new players, and as a period of adjustment and strategy-making for more experienced players.
The Substrate Revolution
Comparable to the Early Cambrian on Earth.
- Freely available food sources start to dwindle. Organisms will have to specialize further, introducing elements of predation or more advanced metabolic strategies.
- With structure still limited, inefficient forms of predation emerge. Burrowing, stinging, and grasping via agents primary forms of offense, with appendages and extremities at their simplest showing up.
- Oceans start becoming a bit more crowded. Pelagic lifestyles become much more accessible, and movement as a whole is increased.
This represents the arrival of competition from other lifeforms, and the introduction of more complex editing tools, like extremities and appendages.
Explosion
Comparable to the Cambrian Explosion on Earth.
- Skeletons are unlocked. Exoskeletons allow immediate access to a wide variety of extremities, mouths, and limbs, whereas endoskeletons allow greater mobility but less immediately advanced parts.
- Freely available food-sources are very rare, making adaptations in consuming plants/other motile organisms extremely important. Competition is exploding, and predation becomes a constant threat.
- Organisms begin to appear more “animal-like”, more clearly displaying anatomy like limbs, fins, mouths, sensory parts, etc.
This represents a point at which the player is assumed to have a control over the basics, and a point at which they are thrown into a world that requires them to master the tools at their disposal.
Gameplay Shifts
Controls
Gameplay for the first couple of generations in the macroscopic will likely be somewhat simple, and comparable in some ways to the Microbe/Multicellular Stages:
- Food sources will be available either in the open water or on substrates (the ocean floor). Organisms, who at this point passively absorb food via their surface area, will locate these compounds and absorb them - either by swimming in the open ocean or by slithering on the ocean floor.
- Movement will be pretty slow, and the world will appear very large to the player. Structures will look ambiguous at a smaller scale.
After a while, organic compounds start dropping, so the incentive for specialization increases.
- Some organisms will be able to evolve mouths, available pretty early on. This will serve as an increase to the efficiency of gathering compounds - compensating for reducing resource availability, but still not solving the problem of reducing free compounds.
- Predation will start becoming an option. Mouths can’t “bite” yet, so combat will likely will be initiated via appendages and other adaptations at first. Mechanics like “touch other organism to damage them” or “press this button to activate X ability, holding/damaging/doing something to another organism”. Might not be very efficient at first with limited movement and function, but it starts somewhere.
- Herbivorous life will also appear in limited capabilities. The lack of many hard parts will keep certain biota off the menu, but certain adaptations will allow ingestion of plant matter.
- Around this time, certain abilities will also be arriving. Offensive/defensive options like stinging/grabbing/poison are covered above, but other strategies, like burrowing and faster movement, will become legitimate ways to avoid being eaten instead of novelties.
Once some threshold - in my opinion, the evolution of hard parts/skeletons - is crossed, the game takes the handling gloves off and begins to really give the player some options. Freely available resources will also start to deplete, meaning actually “eating” something will start to become the only option (unless you’re an extremely low-energy autotroph).
- Shelling will become available after a while, making certain organisms impervious over most of their body to basic attacks seen until then. Shells will negate damage received to certain portions of the body. Until skeletons and other hard parts catch up, shells will be an extremely powerful defensive option.
- Skeletons - exoskeletons at first, with quite a headstart on endoskeletons - will begin to offer strong bonuses and capabilities with immediate access to certain advanced extremities. Basic mandibles, fins, and other limbs will be available, uncorking major offensive capabilities. Swimming/movement speed as a whole will become faster, and grappling, biting, stinging, etc. will become accessible to many organisms.
Constraints as a Whole
Because of how simple the tools at their disposal would be, players will at first largely be focused on sculpting controls to alter their constraints as opposed to extremities, mouths, appendages, etc.
- Surface area will be very important early on, as initial respiratory, motile, and digestive functions will be highly dependent on surface area. As the macroscopic stages go on, surface area will remain influential, but will become much less important as skin thickens and other organ systems evolve to supplant functions.
- Mass will be a constraint early on in the Macroscopic as respiratory organ systems are less capable, so energy-generation doesn’t scale as proportionately with size as costs do. As respiratory structures strengthen, mass will become more of a “design choice”.
- Center of Mass won’t be very important early on since no organism will be very massive. This will help with onboarding.
- Streamline measure will inherently be lower early on because of a focus on surface area; as such, organisms will likely be somewhat slow. Players will also be less capable of taking advantage of a streamline measure without limbs, so it won’t be a very important or manageable constraint early on. The streamline measure will become more important once limbs are evolved.
Movement
Movement in the animal kingdom is highly dependent on structures such as limbs. The earliest organisms will not have access to motile extremities or limbs, so movement will be entirely dependent on constraints at first. This means torso and appendage sculpting will be very important early on.
Once limbs and motile appendages are evolved, constraints will continue to be important in influencing movement stats - but players will be able to dramatically alter function based on appendage structures.
Pelagic vs. Benthic Lifestyles
I think it’s a safe bet to say that all organisms should start out as benthic. It is largely believed that all macroscopic pelagic organisms evolved from organisms that are benthic, as benthic food sources were likely to have been much more reliable for organisms growing in scale. The ability to become pelagic should be available pretty soon, however, probably through some form of adaptation akin to mesoglea.
Benthic - Benthic organisms will likely rely on simple muscular contractions to move across the sea-floor, similar to flatworms or hypothesized movement for creatures like Dickinsonia. Movement will scale with surface area, with flatter organisms generally more motile.
- After a while, benthic organisms will be able to burrow. Burrowing speed/capability is enhanced with a better Streamline measure, so this requires a shift away from the high-surface-area structure of previous organisms.
- Unlocking limbs - particularly, “feet” extremities” - allows for crawling along the ocean floor, greatly increasing speed while slightly reducing the importance of body structure. Limbs require much more energy to maintain.
Pelagic - The earliest pelagic organisms likely would rely on buoyancy, showing adaptations similar to comb jellies and jellyfish. Early pelagic movement will rely on an adaptation to make the organism’s surface area impactful to buoyancy. This will clash a bit with the Streamline constraint, so movement will be pretty slow and highly influenced by currents.
- Fins as an extremity can be placed on non-jointed appendages. Stiffer fins increase speed relative to Streamline measure of the part, while looser fins increase maneuverability based on surface area.
- Once jointed limbs are unlocked, finned extremities provide a baseline boost to speed unaffected by constraints.
Controls Needed At Stage Start
Based on this general description of progression: what can we infer will be needed for gameplay purposes first?
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Basic Sculpting of Torso, Including Scaling, Widening, Flattening, Adding Metaballs - To the point of allowing creations that look like Dickinsonia, a worm, a blob like a comb-jelly/jellyfish, etc.
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Constraints Calculations for Initial Purposes - Mass positively correlated to size of metaballs on torso, and SA:V negatively correlated. Basic SA:V calculation implemented based on how flat/thick an object is. Streamline is a tougher measure, so it’s okay if it’s simple or not-present at first; same with CoM.
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Stats Defined, Constraints Influence Stats - Health, speed, digestive stats are some first picks.
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Constraints Influenced By Certain Sculpting Actions - Flattening creates a higher SA:V and less mass, fattening creates less SA:V and more mass. Scaling up a metaball creates more mass, less SA:V, and scaling down a metaball creates more SA:V, less mass.
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Free-Floating Compound Clouds, Compound “Texture” on Ground - These will serve as the first food sources, representing free organic material available for digestion.
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Gameplay Begins Attached on Ground - Representing benthic lifestyle as likely basal movement style.
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Skin Type/Attribute System, Likely Connected with Introduction of Pelagic Movement - The skin type and attribute system will likely have to be defined by the time pelagic gameplay is introduced, as the initial route to becoming pelagic will be based on a skin attribute.
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Appendages First Introduced In Relation to Constraints/Sculpting - Appendages will first serve as sculpting extensions to the torso, with their function as roots for extremities coming later.