Level editing to solve environmental challenges?

AJ · 2005-07-05T02:06:16

Imagine that you're building a colony from scratch in a hostile world filled with monsters, bandits, flashfloods and hurricanes... from a personal, RPG-like perspective. Would it be interesting to solve these and other environmental problems with "lego" like building pieces? What I'm specifically thinking about is the ability to "spray" material in order to build structures from a third person perspective. This would aid you in solving environmental challenges, both that you face personally (in terms of navigating a level) and that a community of NPCs might face. Introducing The Construction Cannon The construction cannon would "spray" a level item into existence based on nanites and your library of templates. If you were in a ruined city, for instance, and needed to get across a chasm, you could "spray" a bridge into existence. If you needed to get to an open door high up on a wall, you could spray a ramp to the location. Or, if you were being hounded by enemies, you could spray a wall into existence. You could customize the template to stretch, scale or transform the object through specially articulated points (creating, for instance, and arched bridge to bear more weight, or curved bridge to round corners). The speed at which the item was sprayed in would depend on its complexity, size and the quality of the cannon. Solving Community Problems Your ability to spray objects into existence wouldn't stop with your own personal needs. More expensive construction cannon, mounted onto vehicles, could spray buildings, walls and bridges into existence. If you found a town that was trapped on an island due to a washed out bridge, for instance, you could create one. The bridge could either be an automated toll bridge, or you could give it to the town, thus improving your reputation. Obviously, if this feature existed in game, the game world would have to be providing continuous environmental challenges. But I'm imagining an Earth ravaged by climate instability and rogue nanotech. So you'd have monsoons near England, for example, massive windstorms near Tokyo, or roaming constructs and bandits haunting the outskirts of an armored Los Angeles. Plenty to do, IOW [smile] Thoughts?

Game Design and Theory Game Design

Started by Wavinator June 29, 2005 10:07 PM

19 comments, last by Wavinator 19 years, 7 months ago

Wavinator

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July 05, 2005 02:06 AM

Quote:
Original post by Iron Chef Carnage
What if nano could only consume objects made of compressed matter? You land on a planet with minimal tech readings, nano dissolves your landing craft, your guns, and all your comms gear, and you're taken hostage by spear wielding natives, who may or may not be distant descendants of a colony that was wiped out with nano. Can anyone say un-neutron bomb?

Edit: Can anyone say thread hijack? Sorry Wavinator.

Hey! Aren't you the guy who's been warning me about wild swings of unexpected possibility? [lol]

If you did have that scenario (which is just waaaaaay cool, btw) I'd say "should have had a ship in orbit with a few EMP weapons ready!" [smile]

--------------------Just waiting for the mothership...

Level editing to solve environmental challenges?

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Level editing to solve environmental challenges?

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