Title: Snowfall on Ganymede Genre: RTS & Simulation meet at the bar for a hookup and... Inspirations: Netstorm and Lemmings. Overview: Snowfall on Ganymede is a challenging game of performance minded expansion. This world is one of ice and snow, a nearly inhospitable landscape. Across this landscape are the Wholly Ponies, small heavily fur coated horses which graze freely. There is no food, at least no normal food. Instead there are crystals, small patches of them and when snowfall carrying bacteria land on them they rapidly become edible plant-life. These commons snowfalls and growths are the very survival of the Wholly Ponies. All is not quite as it seems on Ganymede though. Life has long since thrived under the surface, all because of the crystals which only on occasion breach to the upper world. This crystal life needs the same organic components the ponies do, and they also need to expands their crystals across the surface to form the first power stations for their growing subterranean society. This is where the player comes in. They take on the role of the crystal life-form assigned to the task of building these power stations. They will need to face down the Pony threat, which wants to consume your needed food as well as face other challenges on the inhospitable surface world. All of this does not go on without oversight however, and accountants will routinely monitor the progress of the player crystal in their task and use of resources. They will use crystal scanners just under the surface to accomplish this task. The reproduction of the crystal occurs when it has taking in enough organic matter and energy to explode. Then it scatters it seeds all over the landscape to start new growths. Conclusion: Man, I think this idea kicks ass and it uses all the elements with reasonable strength. Not quite sure what it will looks like visually yet, except that it will be all 2d top-down no-even-isometric style like Netstorm. The other idea I have is that the crystals that can crawl on the surface will act a bit like lemmings, and you'll have to guide them about properly. I'm pretty pumped and excited about this idea :) [Edited by - Jason Petrasko on September 28, 2007 1:54:40 PM]

Original post by Jason Petrasko
The other idea I have is that the crystals that can crawl on the surface will act a bit like lemmings, and you'll have to guide them about properly. /quote]

Hah, thats pretty cool. Theres some nifty ideas floating around on these boards. When I read about the subterranean city, I was thinking maybe you were going to have the RTS take place underground, digging new tunnels, kinda like dungeon keeper, but if you place it on the surface it gives you much more freedoom. So the purpose of the crystal life forms is to snow on the crystals so they explode? Won't that feed the ponies? =x

Keep it up!

Haha, yes. In fact- there is already a dynamic forming in the very essence of the food chain here. I wouldn't be surprised if the wooly ponies may be able to be harnessed by the player for the force of good, even if they eat some of you in the process.

*pictures a basic power source from chained up ponies walking in a circle, conan style*

Alright so I sat down in front of the renderer and this is what I have so far, a basic idea for the look of the crystal lifeforms:

#1

#2


4 Second Animation (22kb, XVID from ffdshow)

So I'm kind of thinking they are like a soft blue glowing liquid crystal kind of affair, pulsing with a slow rhythm.

Alright, no now its time to narrow down this game idea. When thinking of snowfall, I think of snowflakes. Obviously, these will be included. This led me to another idea, the Koch Snowflake. Here is what I'm talking about:



This is an algorithm for geometric progression. It will be included in the 'evolution of krysforms (crystal lifeforms) in my game. How will I apply it? Aye, there is the rub! In a single statement: Qualities are mapped to polar coords, and the shape of the crystal cell (like a gene) is mapped into that polar space. Lets do a simple introduction of the concept:


That is a generation 1 krysform cell. It has only three points, each of which can hold a signal marker denoting power. You can see that it is aligned directly with the qualities of: Strength, Speed, and Durability.


Here is a generation 2 krysform cell. It has six points, each of which can hold a signal marker denoting power. Now you can note that xD, xA, and xS have been added to the aligned qualities. xD = Defense, xA = Attack, and xS = Survival.

For here each generation adds new points which can hold signal markers. How is this used via math to create a given quality score? and How is this used in krysform reproduction? These excellent questions will be answered in the next post! :)