Ecologies

Species naturally organize into associations that somewhat resist invasion. This is obviously because species that do not resist invasion do not stick around. An interesting system of ecologys for the game would be ones that are relatively stable until the player disturbs them.

An example of this is this fire based grassland.

The &s are highly flammable bushes

the ;s are dry grass and the ,s are young grass

Gs are grazers that survive on the grass. Not seen are predators that survive on the grazers

Ts are trees slowly invading the grassland.
Because of the presence of the highly flammable bushes, fire keeps the grassland free of trees. But when the bushes are removed grassland turns to forest. Introducing creatures that eat the bushes would create this forest, if not for the high population of predators (due to the grazers) and relative scarcity of bushes. So this system is both naturally stable and disturbable with work by the player.

Slightly different uses of a resource can allow the coexistence of similar organisms.

All four of these species grow inside of walls any only one can live in a wall at a time.

# lichen: spreads by placing seeds onto adjacent walkable tiles which can then spread into walls.

# moss: can only survive in a wall with a face flat to the air. Spreads to adjacent tiles.

$ slime: Wanders orthogonally within the walls until it touches air. When it touches are it spreads into tiles that do not.

# algae: Only spreads in tiles that do not touch air. Doesn't like touching more than two other algae at once.

Moss and algae always win when they fight a different organism for a tile which is how they survive in their more specialized niches. Lichen always loses and compensates by it's ability to spread across air gaps. As I said in my last post, the layout of walls effects the balance between these four organisms which then really changes the resulting ecologies of the species that eat them.

Level generation by creatures

Since I plan to have a working ecosystem, digging out the levels is a continuous process that is done by creatures rather than by a level generation algorythm. Towards that goal I tested out several digging behaviors.

The first I behavior, I call dwarves, is really two sets of behavior. the head dwarf digs long straight tunnels an occasionally changes direction. The secondary dwarves occasionally place doors when they are about to enter a larger space, and also dig away corners that are not next to doors. This builds a room and corridor like map with only local knowledge.

A second set of behaviors I call Ants. It makes sure that certain tiles ahead and to both side of it are occupied by walls. This makes it leave islands of unexcavated material behind.

Finally because it was so easy, I implemented a maze digging creature. It can only dig into tiles that do not create a new connection.

Because different layouts effect hunting effectiveness and what kind of plants can grow, the digging creatures that are on a level really effect the types of species that survive on that level and therefore it's resistance to invasion.

A game I would like to play

I have a rather bad habit that prevents me from enjoying most computer games. When the game gets slightly hard or uninteresting I start to wonder if maybe there is something better to do.

Strangely, I really enjoy hard and sometimes pointless activities like draining puddles, programming, and drawing endless numbers of lofi sprites, but when a computer game gets hard in the wrong way, I feel betrayed, as if the creator is unnecessarily hindering my job. The only games that never make me ask this, are games like manufactoria or tribble breeder, in which I get to build a somewhat open ended thing, possibly because I feel as if I make something real in the game, and am not just stuck in a sisyphean fight.

I would like to play a game where the world interacts with itself and I am so weak I can only try to set off each part against the other to get where I want.

I would like to play a game where I can automate the parts I know how to do freeing me from micromanagement and letting me enjoy watching a well automated game.

So for the seven day roguelike competition I would like to make a game that allows you to farm.

Managing the area to get the most of what you want out of the complex ecological relationships is my idea of fun.

Automating this management where possible seems even more fun, and so a game that allows you to gradually build a system to exploit a dungeon ecosystem is a game I would really enjoy.