Predator and Prey-style game

#1 Sounds pretty good actually :-) Why should we need horrible SciFi aliens hunting other fantasy creatures when here on earth we have such beautifull slaughterfests right under the afternoon sun of africa.

erm... What I mean... Finally something original in an action/rpg kinda game. Sounds like fun :-)

Sander

#2 Thanks. :D I was afraid this would become another idea I had hopes for that couldn't be done. But that was my perspective... we have so many aliens and what not running around that it's become passe. I figured we have what we need already.

I thought it up while at work, but also thought of some possible issues...

For one, I was viewing this as also being a multiplayer game in that you would be able to enter a game as any species in their prime (not have to work them up to adulthood). The issue here is how to score as a herbivore. I was thinking of just gaining points by actually staying alive for an amount of time, or perhaps how well you defend yourself from attacks. It would be a slower system than the carnivores' system of kills = points because surely it wouldn't be incredibly hard to stay alive, especially in a herd. Clans could form packs of hyenas or a pride of lions, etc.

I was mainly eager to try out the whole "stalk your prey in the underbrush and then leap from out of nowhere to make the kill." The idea of being a lion and creeping through the grass unseen is very appealing to me. :D

Of course, species attributes would differ... Cheetas would have a higher top speed but not much endurance and antelopes would have an average speed with a lot of endurance. Animals like Elephants and Rhinos would have a bare amount of speed but a ton of endurance. How well you could animate an Elephant with that trunk though is beyond my capacity to reason.

A joke that amused me was that there would be random events like a van of tourists would stop to observe you, and you could attack and kill them as they run screaming. Sure, it's horrifying, but it's a good laugh.

#3 I forgot to mention this about multi...

I suddenly thought that perhaps in multi that the normal world would no longer apply, and that all the animals would be in a berserk mode where everything kills everything else. Antelopes could attack lions and zebras could attempt to take down rhinos, etc. That way, DMs would be a lot more sensible. The only problem here is that it would take away from the game's theme and would perhaps make playing as a herbivore seem unappealing. Personally, I'd like to earn points just by avoiding other players trying to kill me. It would probably make me giddy though. :)

Also, other modes like TDMs would work that way (berserk means). Also, things like capture the flag could become capture the rotting carcus, or something like that. :D Siege could work as in invading another pack's territory and taking control, and king of the hill would be fairly effective with the melee form of combat.

A lot of this would work better if only carnivores were playable, as the point system would be easier and the species would all be more appealing.

#4 You know after reading all of the above. I started getting ideas and such also about such a game. Would defentuly be something new to the market. I dont know how appealing it would be to people though? :/ I know I would give it a try thats for sure. Reminds me of playing everquest on the test server where you could be monsters ;)

If you ever decided to actualy make such a game I would defentuly be interested in helping out. I'm a good scriptor and have scripted many different forms of AI for the torque engine.

I cant model or anything like that (Well I can make objects like trees and buildings and such in worldcraft but thats it)

#5 I got to reading through the different AI threads and someone sparked a Idea. If this game was a 1st person or in this case 1st animal view then you could have different seeing ranges based on the animal. Such as a Lion can see farther then a antalope. Or atleast I think thats right. You could also have different types of hearing/sounds for the different monsters. Like a Antalope can hear really good so if something far away was moveing it would be able to hear it.

This opens some interesteing ideas.. :)

#6 there was a wolf-game similiar to this several years ago. I think it was even called "Wolf".

it was 2d, viewed-from-above (similiar to diablo or so) and included everything a wolf has - a pack, rabbits, beavers and moose to hunt, hunters to hide from, cows not to hunt unless you wanted to farmer to come after you, mating and raising your offspring.

at first, it sounded stupid. why would I want to play a wolf who's running around in the forst all day, hunting rabbits, drinking from the river and... uh... and nothing.

matter of fact, it was one of the most intense games I've ever played.

#7 You wouldnt happen to have a link or anything to a website with more info on it would you? I would be interested in looking at such a game for ideas.

#8 I was curious as to if a game like this had already been made, or at least partially. I'm well aware of the many SIM games in which you act as insects, but those are more or less quite different.

I was aware of the appeal of the game because I asked around about who would want to play such a game and didn't get much of a response until I actually explained the concept. If you just say "a game based on wildlife" then the answer will be no. Explain about stalking other people and defending your kills from other players/species, and then they get livened up.

I'm not sure how appropriate it would be, but I also invisioned a sort of translation system for every species. A lion would growl at you and if you were a lion yourself, text would appear above that lion in English because, hey... we can't understand lion. It would be useful for commands like "fan out" or "attack my target." It would possess a war-like characteristic while still maintaining the atmosphere. You could put a wind indicator on-screen with the basic N, S, E, W so that you could crouch when the wind comes from behind so your prey won't pick up your scent. If you smell another animal nearby (think radar) then a translucent arrow would appear pointing in the direction that animal is at.

There's just a multitude of ideas that popped in my head when I was at work last night, so sorry for all of the info. :) I'm only posting about 20% of them if that helps any. :D

#9 Post it all :) I'm defentuly interested and if you want I would like to help make such a game become reality. Of course my time is a bit limited right now since I'm also working on a MMORPG "Age of Darkness" But I still have some free time for a side project.

#10 In stead of a arrow so to speak it could be a little meter bar that fills up as you sense enemys closer to you based on your smelling, seeing and hearing abilitys. The direction of the wind and your sourroundings.

Such a system my be hard to implanet but would be very interesting. For some reasion the Alien vs Predator 2 game poped into my head when I read the arrow thing. Maybe it was because of the predators senseing abilitys or something. Anyways.. :) Or maybe SimAnt like when alittle ! point pops up when a spider senses you.

In a sense this game would be alot of different types of games in one like you stated above. Capture the Flag, Defend the Base, ect.

#11 Let's see...

In the normal game, the scenerio would move based on major events. You would begin as a toddler of sorts, escaping from other predators and accompanying your parent(s) along their hunting missions. (This would be the tutorial portion of the game.)

When you hit the adolescent years, you would move on your own or begin to participate in group activities, depending on the species and gender. Your "missions" would involve taking down enough prey to feed yourself or your pride/pack, etc. while still remaining alive. There would be shifting environments along the way: rain, dusk, nighttime activities, famine. Let's say, for instance, you're awakened in the middle of the night by an attack from a pack of hyenas. Your objective would be to drive them away or at least escape from them. Or, to kill 1/4 of them in order to drive them away if you're in a group. Missions would act in that manner - they have certain objectives yet are completely natural occurences.

A normal "campaign" or life cycle would be composed of about a dozen to twenty missions or more (depends on the length of missions), all ranging in circumstances. To make things easier, about 5, maybe more missions would fall into each age category:

*Birth/Child-stage
*Adolescence
*Adulthood
*Aging years

Your character's vital statistics (unseen) would rise and fall within these time frames. As a young lion or hyena, etc., you would not be very fast or have much endurance or strength. Your stealth would be very high, however, to allow you to evade predators. During adolescence, your strength would rise, your stealth would drop, your endurance would rise, and so would your speed. Adulthood would bring an increase in everything, as you naturally an adult would have aquired the skills to maintain stealth while becoming physically more powerful. Aging would promise to be the most difficult part of the game, as your skills in the game itself would be tested as AI-controlled younger animals would always be on the attack. The game would be successfully completed once you complete a final mission, whatever that may be - defending your pride against two impudent young male lions seeking to take control of your pride perhaps. Since it is very rare to see an animal die of old age, the game really shouldn't revolve around that.

The setup would involve unseen statistics, as mentioned earlier. You would not see any bars that mentioned how fast you have become, etc, but naturally you would notice the difference. There is a possibility here that the more you run, the faster and longer you can run. I have seen it implemented in other games, so I can see at least the potential. There would be a bar indicating hunger, health, and endurance. Eating fills the hunger meter, which in turn raises health. Endurance is raised from resting (not moving or fighting) and, of course, after every mission, as you'll be sleeping no doubt. Hunger decreases over time, and health will begin to drop after the endurance meter runs out. Endurance drops from excessive physical activity like running and being attacked. Think of endurance as like "shields" on other games. Once your endurance, or shields, is fully worn down, you begin to take damage. These three bars compost most of the action in the game.

There would also be a means of detecting prey. It would involve a variety of senses working together. Let's say you have a digital meter that goes from 0 to 100% that raises as your chances of success go up. You sit still in the grass and observe a single Zebra. As you continue to watch, this sense meter will rise or decrease. The greater it becomes, the greater the chance that the animal will not react as soon as you move. Your unseen stealth stat would affect this meter. The higher your stealth, the faster it raises. Once more, if it is possible, experience could come into play here, and the more you practice your stealth, the greater it becomes. But it is not necessary, as a set value for each age category of each species would be appropriate, as the meter will be judged by how well you are hidden, how well you are hiding your scent from the wind, and how far you are from the animal. The closer you are the greater your chances of attack, but the greater the risk of being seen. If your sense meter hits 100%, then the prey you have targeted will have no means of detecting you. If it is at 50%, then it will have a 50/50 chance to sense you coming, or perhaps it will sense you coming at 50% of the range between you. I'm not sure how well the programming could be implemented, but I prefer to second choice myself. Not crouching when the wind is blowing from behind you towards your prey would cause this sense meter to plummet, along with your chances of a successful attack.

If you were the one being stalked, an alarm of some sort would go off when you become aware of an attack. That would make you aware enough to run in any direction you can manage to get away from the attacker. I'm not too keen on the idea of having a meter that rises when you're about to be attacked because if it rises at all, you know you're being watched by an enemy, which gives you incentive to run anyway.

Attacking will be simple enough. When you think your sense meter is as high as it is necessary to make a successful attack or if you think it's not getting any higher (100% will likely never happen) then you simply press the run button and dash towards whatever animal you've been examining. When you feel you're within range to make a successful attack, you would press the attack button, perhaps with a combo of another directional button. The attack button alone would be a leaping attack, while attack + up would be a swipe of the claws. If you cause enough damage to your enemy, it will collapse and the game will take over from there, assuming you got the kill. (Lions kill by suffocating their prey, but nobody is going to want to bother doing that all the time.)

It is also possible to have a damage allocation system. Let's say your body is divided into the head, each leg, and the body. If your head is damaged, your range of vision would become impaired and your sense meter would not rise as quickly, as would your awareness of predators or other animals. If your legs are damaged, you will not be able to run as fast. If your body is damaged, your endurance will fall at a faster rate. If any of these reaches beyond a critical level then you die. If you reach only critical and survive, but do not heal quickly, your health will continue to drop until you die. You can essentially die two ways: having a body part reach beyond critical or from losing all of your health.

You may be able to zoom in on-screen a little to add a sense of focusing, as a real animal would do. To focus on an animal to attack (you must in order to raise your sense meter appropriately) you must zoom in and select that animal. You will then manually follow that animal via your lock until you feel it is appropriate to attack. Animals like Zebras that travel in great packs will have high stealth, and hence, your sense meter may drop below 1%, at which time you will lose your lock on that animal and will have to try again.

For a herbivore, if they're playable, the circumstances will be exactly the same aside from hunting. You will gain health from eating the grass, not other animals. You will have a lower amount of endurance but a good amount of awareness. You will not have a sense bar, as it is used for attacking only. You will be able to attack, however, if you are required to protect your young or to fend off smaller animals. A campaign mission for an antelope, for example, would be to save a newborn from a pack of incoming hyenas. You would move to a "nav point" where the newborn is located, fend off the attackers by incapacitating one of them, and then retreat back to "base" (the main herd) with the recovered newborn.

Multiplayer would be somewhat similar, if it can be integrated. There could be a deathmatch in which animals are spawned into an area and they must attempt to eradicate one another. Team play would be much the same, such as one species goes on one team and another goes on another team. Personally, I think that would result in a lot of lions ganging up on antelopes, so it would probably be best to divide the teams amongst species, as odd as it may seem. Then again, who ever heard of a DM in nature? Capture the flag could be just that - there's no real need to make multiplayer incredibly realistic, as nothing in multiplayer would be that realistic anyway. A variety of gameplays could spawn from this setup, but it may take some imagination. If an animal stole a flag, it would be carried in the mouth, which would disable it from attacking, for example. Or, it would disable the more powerful attacks, which would involve use of the mouth/head.

There are some other ideas that are swirling up here but I haven't gone to bed yet and it's 8:48 a.m., so...

#12 Wow! That was one hell of a read. It sounds great but i'm not too sure about multiplayer. It cannot be made very realistic like you say but abandoning it altogether? Antilopes attacking lions?

I'd say for true DM use only 1 species and fight eachother. This would be like fighting for pride control. It can be done with any species.

For team DM, CTF etc. use 2 carnivorous species fighting over a corpse or something.

For other teamplay you could use any species. Gnoes have to move from point A to point B white puma's have to kill 50% before gnoes reach B. Or something like that :-) Or just make the regular game multiplayer. Put all players in the same team and let them compete against the CPU AI to win the missions.

#13 Sounds reasonable. I imagine it would be best if all players in every room had to be a single species at a time - i.e. all players play as lions, all players play as bears, nothing else, etc. This way, the theme of the game types can be marked a lot better. Lions' DM would be battling for control over territory, as would most other predators, or in a king of the hill scenerio, it would be a corpse that is the objective. For herbivores, the scenerio would be directed more towards competing over mating rights and such.

Gender doesn't have to be incorporated into the game - there are already enough species and the majority of players will be male anyway.

I was thinking that other species could be hawks or some other type of bird, but I think I decided against it, as the programming would be too much of a pain and the gameplay would be seriously altered.

So far, I'm thinking it would be better if the game was carnivores-only, with herbivores being the AI. It would be more appealing, and the theme of the game would be tighter for PR.

Unfortunately, I'm stretched on my ability to program and code, so I'm left to simply be an idea man for now, unless I can manage to finally get into a programming class, as they're always full. :growls:

#14 Great, Great Post. Keep the info coming. Heck where basicly writeing a Design Document here.

Any ideas for playable Animals?

Heres just a list you probly wouldnt want to include them all since some Animals are similar to others and too many would be hard to add them all in.

Possible Playable Animals:

Lion (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/craterlions/)
Antalope
Jackal (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/jackals/)
Cheetah (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/cheetahs/)
Jaguar (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/jaguar/html/)
Lemurs (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/lemur/)
Wolves (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/wolvesandbuffalo/)
Buffalo(http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/buffalo/)
Addax (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/africa/explore/sahara/)
Horned Viper ( Same As Above )
Camels ( Same As Above)


Possible Locations:

Africa (Different Parts)
Australia (Different Parts)
United States (Different Forested / Desert Parts)

Thats just a few that poped to my eye right off the bat.
Of course you would want to go through and just pik maybe 4 or 5 playable Animals. The rest could be added in via a add-on or another game alltogeather later on. The reasion to limit is for both size of the program and the work required.

I myself would just start with one Animal and then if it goes fast and doesnt use a crapload of space then work up from there.

Note I provided links above to different website for infomation on the animals. Its allways best to know everything you can about the Animal(s) before you attempt to recreate them. I noticed the Nature channel usely follows a animal along its life for a period of time from one point to another. Provideing alot of material of that one animal. (Really Good links there)

Locations is something different. You wouldnt want to have a City or someplace where a lion could go into the city because well even though it does happen once in a great while it doesnt happen that often. So location selection is somewhat important both for scenery and what types of missions you could have in that location.


I'm willing to help create a working demo so to speak of this game if your willing to help out also. It would just be sorta a freetime only project though. We will also need to find a modeler that can model animals. :)

I can do alot of the scripting and basic tree models and so on but no animals or humans or anything like that.

#15 Just my opinion though but I think Multiplayer would be better as a coop style then a deathmatch style.

I like the idea of stats growing as you use them. Such as if you bounce alot you become even better in that one area. Or say if you run alot you learn to run farther and faster then if you didnt run alot.

You could also have things such as say a tiger injures a leg real bad in combat defending his pride. He then obtains a small limp for the rest of his life. Or say he loses a eye or something like that. It follows him along the rest of his missions/life.

#16 Sounds nice. It would definitely bring a lot more awareness to preventing your animal from going blind. BTW, Tigers are solitary animals. :)

Let's say that there are 6 statuses for each body part. Excellent, Good, Healthy, Damaged, Critical, Dead. When a body area reaches critical, that part's vital stats will lower by a certain amount, depending on the scale. Say, if speed is ranked from 1 to 100, and your animal is in its prime with a rank of 75, if its left leg is damaged, its speed would drop to 50. It would be best to not animate the limp, but simply to reduce the stat and put a notice in the menu or on-screen that lets the player know it was critically wounded beforehand.

I got the idea of this type of stat increase after playing GTA3. You didn't notice it, but the more you sprinted, the better your character would become at it. I don't own it, so I dropped by a month later and my friend's character had become much faster. Of course, it wasn't amazingly drastic, but you could definitely tell.

Explain further on the coop idea if you would.

I wish I could get some associate feedback on this, just to get a grip on how well the central idea works and how compatible it is when it comes to putting it in coding. (From the voice of experience.)

#17 I know I'm jumping the gun abit by posting this but while I'm setting here at work a intro / scripted in game intro for the game poped into my head.


..:: Game Inro ::..
(Scripted useing the game engine)

Picture a Lion creaping through the grass and a herd of Antalope a short distance away.

(The camera zooms in on the Lion as he slowly approachs the herd of Antalope in a crouched ready to pounch position)







(The rest of the Antalope stop eating the Grass and do the same)



(The Antalope Starts to run)






I know it focus on the lion but Its just a idea that poped into my head. Nothing big or anything. A Short 30 to 60 second intro for the game.

#18 About the Coop idea.
(It was just a idea in my head at the time havent thought alot about it just yet but heres what I was thinking)

You know how in the single player mode you follow a rough time-line in the animals life.

In coop mode its similar to that. You can a group of your freinds. (Say upto 4 of them so to speak - Dont want to do to many) You start as a new born Cube in the same pride as your teammates/freinds. Your first mission could be hunting training. (Just for discussion I'm calling Your cube and your freinds cubes a team) The team is challanged to find food in the forest because you have wandered away from your parents (they where out hunting for food and you where left unattended).

This mission would consist of hunting rats and small rabbits that wander around the forested area you are in. The only way to catch the wood is to work as a team and trap the small animal. To do this requires atleast 2 cubes to corner the animal between them. Then one of the two cubes must successfully pounch on the animal. (Since this is your first time hunting or being alone for that you havent obtained any skills so your pounching is very very basic and allmost rudamentry. So it usely takes a few trys to do it successfully. If you fail on the pounch the animal flees away from the two cubes and they must capture it ageain.

To finish the mission your team must capture atleast four rats or two rabbits. (Rabbits are alot faster then the rats)

But hang on to make the mission more intense you have predators to avoid and watch out for.

If you are caught by a predator a small period of time of say 3 to 4 mins is alloted before you are eatten by the predator. Dureing this time you can call out for your fellow cubes. If one of the other cubes successfully pouch on the predator dureing this time then you are released from the predator and the predator flees from the scene for a short period of time as if scared by the suprise attack. To finish the mission atleast 3 of the 4 or majoraty of the team must survive. Never fear though its not the end for the poor eatten or killed cube he is reborn in the next mission. :)

Thats just sort of a mission I just throw togeather as an example.

Dont think of the forest as a small area its rather big and from a cubes view its extremly large and dark and dampy (scarey).

#19 In other words, an online campaign. I've seen a lot of that done on Starsiege, one the games the GG crew worked on before starting this company. Basically, it's just a specialty mission in which the objectives are more complicated than "kill this and that," and the enemies are highly skilled and there are a lot more of them.

I would give a slight touch of false realism in dealing with the youth-stage. Instead of capturing helpless animals, a more popular mission would involve trying to get past a large predator so that you may call out to your parent(s). You would have to gang up on one or more of these superior animals and bring it down in order to reach the objective.

Well, in any case, my main purpose in posting the idea was to raise up ideas for later use and for the GG administration. Realistically, I don't have the capacity to do all of this, so I'm essentially screwed. :D

#20 Another Coop mission.
(This one is more combat orieanted)
(Later Adult Years)

I call this one
"Defend the Pride" or "A Walk Through Hell" :)
Anyways here we go.

The Mission starts out as an average night. The "whole" pride was out hunting yesterday and brought home alot of food. After stuffing there selfs the lions and lionesses all prepare to sleep as allways. But a evil is lurking on the horizion. The Hayneas have been geathering and growing hungery. A pack of some 20 or more Hayneas come raceing down the hill side from the water hole aways away from the hurds sleeping area.

As the pack of Hayneas attack you and your team have to defend the Hurd and force the Hayneas to flee the area. But as you havent rested much yet today since it was spent hunting all day your stamana and endurance are extremly low. So your not all that fast and really tired.


This is a more broad mission your basic defend the fort style mission. (But still a good way to rack up experience and training as a team)

Total you could have some 20 or so coop missions and they could be based upon different outcomes (dynamic endings) of how the missions turn out.

Such as a mission or two could be relocateing the hurd and depending on where you relocate or if you even do could change the way the other missions or what other missions play out.


There could be two style of capture the flag so to speak. One as a Young cube it would be capture the pieace of cloth (a small torn off color piece of cloth). Each side has one (if you go with a limit of 4 players it could be two teams of 2 or 4 teams of 1. Each side has a different color. The object is to capture the other teams piece of cloth and return it back to your piece of cloth. :) (Not really that easy if another cube steals your piece of cloth and you have to drop your current piece of cloth off at your base and then go find your own colored piece of cloth.

If you where an adult it could be capture the dead animal carcuss. Same rules apply but you have to drag the carcuss back to your base. (It both slows you down and you have to walk backwards while you drag it :) )(Interesting twist there) (You could also kill the other lions in adult mode but not in cube mode)(They do respawn though but theres a short delay)

Actual deathmatch could be a dual for pride control or something such as that. (Just a idea)

You see where I'm going there. I'm trying to appeal to different age groups here. So the game would be fun for kids and skill be fun for older kids/adults also.