If any of you played The Thing from SC thats what this game is like. To an extent.
There will be two teams. The Survivors and the Things/Assassins/Killers/etc, but not in the normal sense.
Victory is shared
Sight is not
All players are considered enemies, however there is no auto-attack
Survivors - Survive till the time runs down.
Have a custom sight radius that is not full 360 degrees
Can shoot in the dark if they think someone is there, can only do this once in awhile.
Have limited ammo.
Things - kill all the Survivors before the timer runs down.
Can burrow
Can Sneak - Slows speed greatly, but makes it so they are harder to find. Survivors can see them if they are in direct line of sight for to long(this also applies to burrow).
Distract/Throw Rock - can make the Survivors think someone is there
General
There will be ammo packs lying around the map; Survivors have shared vision with the packs (small sight radius).
After you die you can stay and watch, however chat will be disabled. There will be two different views.
See all - there is no more fog of war and you can see the entire map at once.
Actual vision - see what all the players see.
I most likely will be needing help with scripting the vision properly. If anyone is willing I need some help with understanding how to code in pure Galaxy since this GUI is really a pain.
The idea is that the survivors may find powerful weapons, but half the time, they rarely have a few rounds of ammo in them.
You could find a Handgun with only half a clip of rounds left, or you could find a empty Revolver.
Another idea is to allow players to combine items to make makeshift weaponry...
And I'm wondering why this can't turn into some kind of LOST map...
Of course, it'll have similarities...
Maybe the "Things" can be better termed, "Hostiles" and this can be in a form of:
- Illegal Arms Traders (A Computer type)
- Wild Animals (Has special relationship with certain unit types, better used for a "Hostile" player type rather than set to a computer)
- Hostile Natives (Same with wild animals, since the natives adapted to them)
- Etc.
Maybe half of them can be controlled by a computer, whilst specific hostiles are tasked with killing the survivors.
The only thing is, the Hostiles basically have a unit that's alike to survivors in many ways, except able to spy and even engage survivors without them knowing they are hostile.
Give the Hostiles multiple objectives, like finding out exactly where the other survivors are (if the other survivors met). Also, it's a optional objective to figure out the survivor's armory, as survivors are able to build survival structures from materials they collect in the wilderness.
Modify the chat system so you'd be communicating with those within a vicinity.
Make a system that checks who's attacking who, so once a survivor starts attacking another survivor, it automates the unit's ability and they will attack back (self defense).
Territory system:
Even hostiles have their own territories, but the players doesn't know that.
Wandering into a group of armed traders might be the worst thing you'll do... Otherwise the same can be said for wild animals' nest or the Natives' camp.
Trap system:
Both survivors and hostile players can make traps, depending on the item collected.
Spike Traps does a deadly amount of damage to survivors, and cripples their movement speed.
Net Traps immobilizes the player, requiring them to use their survival knife to get out of it.
Pitfall Traps immobilizes the player, but also makes it near impossible to get out unless the survivor spends their energy to climb out of it.
Easily detected and is shown with leaves on top of the ground.
How a pitfall can work is that the unit gets "transported" to a pitfall terrain, and there is one for each player that can fall in it (so if 2 players on two different area falls, they don't meet up).
Need to use a ability within a region to "warp the player" back out and this destroys the pitfall (so basically the pitfall trap sets up a temporary region for the trigger to work, this temporary region can be moved around the map to make the pitfall workable).
The survival knife has a set durability that can be restored by combining it with a rock to sharpen it, using the knife weakens the durability, in combat, it has the shortest range but the fastest attack speed.
Combo System:
- You can create items by combining materials found on the map.
Your ideas sound great, but its really getting off the idea of original The Thing from SC.
I'm planing on making this game nice and simple with a few extra touches to enhance replayability.
The thing can disguise itself as people, so maybe allowing the thing to have a couple of forms is nice.
-True Form (Used to kill people with higher life)
-Normal Form (Same health as other players, Can be used to kill people but the victim's death will be heard)
-Disguise Form (Used to act like another player, changing character color and unit name incase you were using the "select system". Cannot be used to attack others)
It was possible to do with WC3, especially in those RP maps where you can set the color of your units to whatever you wanted. I haven't installed WC3 in like 2 years so I don't quite remember the trigger command.
Maybe allow the thing to meta-morph into things they targeted?
For example, if you have wild animals in the map, the thing can mimic any unit and saves it into it's memory bank?
So in order to mimic a human, you must stealthy find and mimic it without them noticing you, either by pretending to be a wild animal (of which they might shoot if you moved in a intelligent manner).
But being able to mimic birds might be useful...
Maybe mimicry cost energy to maintain a form, kinda like cloaking.
The true form of the thing? Looks like the changeling, and is able to "consume" beings to restore health, and energy, and gain a mimic.
This makes the thing only able to kill in close range, when in it's true form. Taking advantage of a survivor's blind spot, the thing can do a sneak attack to consume him. Consuming a survivor will instantly turn you into a mimic of the survivor, with full energy...
Maybe another idea, the more the thing consumes survivors, the more it levels up.
There can probably be 3 levels, and the thing gets higher max hp and energy whenever a player consumption is successful.
When the thing is in a human form, it can equip and use items and weaponry.
In some cases, the survivor starts off with greater health initially, as the thing needs to consume people to level itself up.
Survivors could have 250 hp, and 100 energy.
The thing (true form) can have 200 hp, and 200 energy.
Lv1 = 200/200
Lv2 = 250/250
Lv3 = 300/300
The thing when imitating a survivor, gets the same health but energy capacity is different.
When the energy runs out, it reverts back to it's true form, with the same % of hp and energy.
Interesting aspect, since survivors can't regenerate hp, it also means the thing can only heal in it's true form.
The thing can have a cooldown time in between transformations, so it can't swap back and forth.
Once the thing turns back to it's true form, from a survivor form, it drops all the items it picked up.
Now for survivor's aspects:
- Being able to kill the thing when it's mimicking a weak animal is best, but to figure out which one is the thing is hard.
- Most of the time, players will shoot and ask questions later.
Lore?
If kept to the lore of Starcraft, say that the Terran Scientists captured a changling, and kept it in a lab for experiment, but unfortunately, it came in contact with some of the highly radioactive chemicals, and thus made the changling evolve into a more threatening monster. The survivors are essentially players who were locked in the lab, as HQ initiated a lockdown to prevent it from getting out.
If any of you played The Thing from SC thats what this game is like. To an extent.
There will be two teams. The Survivors and the Things/Assassins/Killers/etc, but not in the normal sense.
Survivors - Survive till the time runs down.
Things - kill all the Survivors before the timer runs down.
General
There will be ammo packs lying around the map; Survivors have shared vision with the packs (small sight radius).
After you die you can stay and watch, however chat will be disabled. There will be two different views.
I most likely will be needing help with scripting the vision properly. If anyone is willing I need some help with understanding how to code in pure Galaxy since this GUI is really a pain.
So basically, survivors have a "detector" when it's in the direct line of sight?
Say a view angle of 160 degrees, and 20 degrees of detection at a range of 3?
_____
/
|
|-------20
|-------
|
\_____160
Pretty much.
I'm considering adding items that can be used by the Survivors, such as a map, smoke bomb, flare, ammo, sword, better gun, etc.
@ThisIsSpoofed:
Better ideas and terminology:
- GPS device
- Smoke Grenade
- Flare
- Torch
- Flashlight
- Ammo Belt/Clip
- Survival Knife
- Handgun, Rifle, Shotgun, Revolver
- Makeshift weapons (Wooden Spear, Wooden Stick)
- Makeshift traps (Spike Trap, Net Trap, Pitfall Trap)
- Materials (Wood Boards, Branches, Rocks, Vines, Ivy, Spider Silk)
The idea is that the survivors may find powerful weapons, but half the time, they rarely have a few rounds of ammo in them.
You could find a Handgun with only half a clip of rounds left, or you could find a empty Revolver.
Another idea is to allow players to combine items to make makeshift weaponry...
And I'm wondering why this can't turn into some kind of LOST map...
Of course, it'll have similarities...
Maybe the "Things" can be better termed, "Hostiles" and this can be in a form of:
- Illegal Arms Traders (A Computer type)
- Wild Animals (Has special relationship with certain unit types, better used for a "Hostile" player type rather than set to a computer)
- Hostile Natives (Same with wild animals, since the natives adapted to them)
- Etc.
Maybe half of them can be controlled by a computer, whilst specific hostiles are tasked with killing the survivors.
The only thing is, the Hostiles basically have a unit that's alike to survivors in many ways, except able to spy and even engage survivors without them knowing they are hostile.
Give the Hostiles multiple objectives, like finding out exactly where the other survivors are (if the other survivors met). Also, it's a optional objective to figure out the survivor's armory, as survivors are able to build survival structures from materials they collect in the wilderness.
Modify the chat system so you'd be communicating with those within a vicinity.
Make a system that checks who's attacking who, so once a survivor starts attacking another survivor, it automates the unit's ability and they will attack back (self defense).
Territory system:
Even hostiles have their own territories, but the players doesn't know that.
Wandering into a group of armed traders might be the worst thing you'll do... Otherwise the same can be said for wild animals' nest or the Natives' camp.
Trap system:
Both survivors and hostile players can make traps, depending on the item collected.
Spike Traps does a deadly amount of damage to survivors, and cripples their movement speed.
Net Traps immobilizes the player, requiring them to use their survival knife to get out of it.
Pitfall Traps immobilizes the player, but also makes it near impossible to get out unless the survivor spends their energy to climb out of it.
Easily detected and is shown with leaves on top of the ground.
How a pitfall can work is that the unit gets "transported" to a pitfall terrain, and there is one for each player that can fall in it (so if 2 players on two different area falls, they don't meet up).
Need to use a ability within a region to "warp the player" back out and this destroys the pitfall (so basically the pitfall trap sets up a temporary region for the trigger to work, this temporary region can be moved around the map to make the pitfall workable).
The survival knife has a set durability that can be restored by combining it with a rock to sharpen it, using the knife weakens the durability, in combat, it has the shortest range but the fastest attack speed.
Combo System:
- You can create items by combining materials found on the map.
Your ideas sound great, but its really getting off the idea of original The Thing from SC. I'm planing on making this game nice and simple with a few extra touches to enhance replayability.
@ThisIsSpoofed: Go
The thing can disguise itself as people, so maybe allowing the thing to have a couple of forms is nice.
-True Form (Used to kill people with higher life)
-Normal Form (Same health as other players, Can be used to kill people but the victim's death will be heard)
-Disguise Form (Used to act like another player, changing character color and unit name incase you were using the "select system". Cannot be used to attack others)
I'd like to do the color thing, but I don't think that's possible. I'm defenitly doing the different forms, probably using the changling.
@ThisIsSpoofed: Go
It was possible to do with WC3, especially in those RP maps where you can set the color of your units to whatever you wanted. I haven't installed WC3 in like 2 years so I don't quite remember the trigger command.
Maybe allow the thing to meta-morph into things they targeted?
For example, if you have wild animals in the map, the thing can mimic any unit and saves it into it's memory bank?
So in order to mimic a human, you must stealthy find and mimic it without them noticing you, either by pretending to be a wild animal (of which they might shoot if you moved in a intelligent manner).
But being able to mimic birds might be useful...
Maybe mimicry cost energy to maintain a form, kinda like cloaking.
The true form of the thing? Looks like the changeling, and is able to "consume" beings to restore health, and energy, and gain a mimic.
This makes the thing only able to kill in close range, when in it's true form. Taking advantage of a survivor's blind spot, the thing can do a sneak attack to consume him. Consuming a survivor will instantly turn you into a mimic of the survivor, with full energy...
Maybe another idea, the more the thing consumes survivors, the more it levels up.
There can probably be 3 levels, and the thing gets higher max hp and energy whenever a player consumption is successful.
When the thing is in a human form, it can equip and use items and weaponry.
In some cases, the survivor starts off with greater health initially, as the thing needs to consume people to level itself up.
Survivors could have 250 hp, and 100 energy.
The thing (true form) can have 200 hp, and 200 energy.
Lv1 = 200/200
Lv2 = 250/250
Lv3 = 300/300
The thing when imitating a survivor, gets the same health but energy capacity is different.
When the energy runs out, it reverts back to it's true form, with the same % of hp and energy.
Nobody can see each other's energy capacity.
Lol, you're really making this out to be a long action-y game. I might think about implementing your ideas once I get the framework down.
@ThisIsSpoofed:
Interesting aspect, since survivors can't regenerate hp, it also means the thing can only heal in it's true form.
The thing can have a cooldown time in between transformations, so it can't swap back and forth.
Once the thing turns back to it's true form, from a survivor form, it drops all the items it picked up.
Now for survivor's aspects:
- Being able to kill the thing when it's mimicking a weak animal is best, but to figure out which one is the thing is hard.
- Most of the time, players will shoot and ask questions later.
Lore?
If kept to the lore of Starcraft, say that the Terran Scientists captured a changling, and kept it in a lab for experiment, but unfortunately, it came in contact with some of the highly radioactive chemicals, and thus made the changling evolve into a more threatening monster. The survivors are essentially players who were locked in the lab, as HQ initiated a lockdown to prevent it from getting out.