Theory of Evolution game idea

Am I allowed to just post game ideas in this forum category? As opposed to maps actually under development? If not here then where? Well here goes...

This is a game idea I came up with awhile ago. It is quite unique as far as I know and I think it could be a lot of fun, however I have my hands too full with my Onslaught map. I'm just itching to spew my idea out somewhere and maybe somebody will like it enough to do something about it. The game could be called Theory of Evolution or Mutant Wars or something. Basically it would be a survival of the fittest type game where each team starts with a big mother-something (can't think of a name) which can spawn off some basic unit types and each of those units could further mutate into a variety of others, like in some tower defense maps but with mobile units. The object of the game would be to destroy the enemies starting progenitor (which would be essentially a big beefy building).

It would be a very active, evolving (duh) sort of gameplay. I think that resource gathering would be a continual active process with constant fighting involved. Resources could pop up randomly around the map as items that have to be picked up by units. I imagine there would be of course gold (or food) which would be a global resource for your race, also there could be items that give units mana when they grab them which could act as an individual resource and would probably effect how they can reproduce and use special abilities they have.

Some more detail on the breeding: each unit would have the option to either clone itself (asexual reproduction!) or mutate into a variety of improved versions of itself with slight differences. The game could make full use of walking, flying, burrowing, amphibious and aquatic units. Every time a unit spawns, clones, or mutates it could be given a random modifier to its base HP, Mana, move speed, attack damage, etc. (+ or - relative to its parent) so you may end up getting stocks that are so good you try to save them for breeding and others that are lame and you throw on the front lines! I certainly haven't thought of the possibilities in detail but it would be cool to have units evolve into entirely different roles like guards for the Spawn Mother (best name I got so far), specialized resource gatherers, or units that have various other jobs like healing or reconnaissance...

Well what do you think? Do you see the potential? Have other people already made games like this? This could be a lot of fun to design but I don't have the time to build it myself. If somebody else wants to though, I would be willing to supply more ideas.

The most similiar game to it would be Spore :D It is really nice idea, I like it very much. It would have to have (uh, do you understand?) really a lot of content - many ways how to evolve your creatures and how to gain world domination.

I hope you will make it, it would be very nice to have some map radically different of classic AoSes, TDs etc.

Thanks for the support. That Spore looks like a pretty crazy game! Of course this game wouldn't be so epic. It would be like just the creature/tribal phase of Spore.

Ya there would need to be a fair bit of content to keep it interesting. Fortunately a lot of that content could be produced by just copying and modifying different variations of previous units. And you wouldn't need many triggers to make this sort of game work.

I like the idea, it's only the phase like 1:fish - 2:beast - 3:beast tribe - 4:village?

Well I wasn't imagining it to be a docile Civilization style gameplay. It would be more active and vicious. The mutating and breeding would be analogous to teching in regular Warcraft but it would be more "fluid" because your fighting units are what you are upgrading and making more units from. There would be no town building or other infrastructure. Your big starting spawning unit would basically be your one building and if it gets destroyed you are game over'd.

Maybe there would be certain desirable areas on the map to control. And part of the game could be matching the right units to the right terrain. Like water or dry land obviously. Or maybe some parts would have a bunch of junk that only smaller units could navigate through, ala Sheep Tag.

It would be nice (add to replay value) if there were a bit of randomness to the tech tree instead of a set path of upgrades. Not to much randomness or some games might end up being stupid. That's what my idea for the varying unit stats was about. But anything fancier than that would require somebody wiser than me I think.

Hehe, I keep adding more ideas to this post after I have already posted it. Maybe instead of the random upgrades I was talking about, there could be Tech Points on the map like in Tech Wars. Except they would be called like Gene Pools or something mutanty. That would combine both of the ideas of the last two paragraphs.

I would like to see something like tropical environment with shallow water lakes there.

I had previously started a map like this, only i focused on darwin's evolution with realistic mutations. Now i figure realism shouldn't be part of the game.

It was a simple system that would average the hero stats of the two parent units, then add a random number (-5..5) to each stat. It wasn't difficult and it was pretty cool. But it was morally incorrect to breed superhumans and send the rest into 'the killzone'.

Anyway, to do something like this, i would suggest using hero stats to change most of the unit's properties. Game constants could be changed to make the effects more noticable. Finally, you could add abilities once a specific stat gets over X. As for evolving size and movement type, that's for someone else to figure out.

This map actually already exists in a sense, and it is indeed called "Darwin's Island"

I've attached it so that you can play it or take a look at it and compare its similarities to what your planning. Its pretty well made, is fun, although lacking true balance and re-playability..the terrain is pretty nice though.

Looks like it has potential... but Theory? =/

Sorry, I was neglecting this post. Glad to see other people are interested.

As for terrain, the Sunken Ruins tile set would probably do best. And there should be a whole variety of terrain distributed in a balanced way with consideration to starting locations. Dry land, shallow water, deep water, open plains, tall mountains, dense jungles, rock-strewn wastes...

That Darwin Island game is pretty simplistic, you just have one unit and you just kill things on the map to level up in a seemingly random and linear fashion. You don't get to choose your mutation path, though it does claim to be based on what you kill.

Smily, I have already explained much of the gameplay, if you don't get it yet then I don't know...Maybe you can be more specific about what you don't understand. What other maps have you made before?

I'm leaning more towards the name Mutant Wars lately.


Wouldn't that mean that all your units would be heroes and your screen would be full of hero icons? It shouldn't involve hero stats. Direct manipulation of HP/Mana/Dmg/Armor/Movespeed etc. would be better. But for that you will need to use either a multi-leveled ability for each stat or weaadar's Bonus Mod system.

Inevitably when you have a large branching tech tree like this game calls for you end up with exponential numbers of unit types. I am thinking a reasonable and interesting selection would be like: 3 or 4 different first-level units which can each mutate into 3 variations for level two followed by about 3 more levels with 2 possible mutations at each level. That works out to either 4*3*2*2*2 = 96 or 3*3*2*2*2 = 72 different level 5 units. When you add all the previous levels to that, that's a total of around 138 to 184 units. Of course any given unit could mutate into any possible number of higher level units, but regardless there would be lots in the end.

I have an idea to lighten the load of unit design. Basically some mutations, rather than morphing to a pre-designed unit type, could offer new abilities to the unit, and these abilities could be offered at random via triggers. The way it could work is that you have a "Learn Shadow Meld" ability, "Learn Acid Attack" ability, "Learn Berserk"" ability etc. all listed in your triggers somewhere. When a unit mutates, say from a Water Element to Coral Element, a trigger could randomly select one of the "Learn XX" abilities and add it to the Coral Element. So the Coral element may have a hard-coded option to mutate into a Sea Monster plus the option to mutate into a Coral Element With Berserk. It would really just be offering abilities for units learn (at some cost, same as regular mutations, I'm thinking mana) but it would add a sense that there are more options in the game with out a lot of work from the map designer. So the Coral Element could press the Berserk Mutation button and then the actual Berserk ability would be added to it. It would still really be a Coral Element with the option to mutate into a Sea Monster and maybe something else but probably not be able to learn another ability. To make it more like a bona fide mutation it could also run the trigger that randomly alters stats on the unit. If the Coral Element with Berserk spawned more Coral Element offspring or even mutated into the Sea Monster they would retain the Berserk ability.

Footmen wars with unit upgrades and recources randomly dropped on map? Its an ok idea, but dont act like its entirely new. Its an interesting variation, though.

I dont like the random recources though. You should gain your recources from killing shit, thats the most effective way to do it in maps like these. You could for example use a cannibalize-like ability that gathers recources for you. Like, farm corpses instead of mines or trees.

It's also be neat if it really had a "survival of the fittest" feel to the map, but i wouldnt know how to translate this to playable gameplay.

this reminds me of a map that generally fits your gameplay concept... "bug evolution" or something of that nature. I could search for it in my newly cleaned maps folder and attatch it if you wish.

You can disable the hero icons on the side of the screen in the unit editor. But, whatever. That's just my take on the idea. I kind of hope someone takes this on.