I'm working on what can best be described as a pokemon clone... It's different enough to be different, but still it's an iterative clone modeled on the basic structure of pokemon...

In pokemon you can "breed" pokemon together. I'm not quite sure how it works in pokemon as it has been a while, but it's a mechanic so that you can get certain skills or baby forms etc, but overall it's not really like breeding imo...

I too want a breeding mechanism so that if you spend time doing it you can really mess with the stats of a monster so that it is completely different from the baseline model.

I'm thinking that you get 2 of the same family and when you breed them the new monster gets a mixture of the base stats... So if one parent has 10 hp and the other has 15, you could end up with 10 or 15 hp...

Further more as the monster levels up the it gains a certain number of points which can also be mated together so that if you have a monster with +5 HP per lvl and a +1 HP per level you can up with either...

And then on top of these a single mutation is applied, only effecting 1 stat, so that even if you get a +1 hp you could get a +0 or a +3 due to mutation.

Now... I'd like you're opinions on that, but more importantly, this seems to create somewhat of a problem with the ability to breed children with their parents over and over again. So my question is what do you think about creating some sort of stop gap, for example, a monster has a limited amount of times it can reproduce, or that monsters die after a given time, or add in some sort of incest degradation which tracks the family of each monster and if you attempt to breed to many incestuous generations the number of mutations that occur increase and the possibility they are negative increases...

And as a side note to that last part, what do you think of the idea of adding in a negative stat increment. Certain stats could be bad to deal with but livable, while others, like a -1HP stat increment would eventually result in completely useless monster...as would a 0 stat in base HP.

So opinions? Suggestions? Pizza?

Edit: thought of a another option... I can make it so that every monster gets 2 sets of base stats randomly generated. Each set is based on the a randomly generated number between the base stat and the negative of the base stat and it manifest both so that instead of what I was saying above... the parents have 4 stats of which they inherit 2 which means if you breed with the same monster over and over again it heightens the chance that if the monster has a negative stat it is the one that gets transferred, but like real breeder this can also be used to the advantage of the breeder to slowly raise monsters of superior quality with no chance of having negative state on their monsters...

It actually depend on how close you want to mimic real life.

I myself is extremely interested in this topic and have intention to dive into this kind of breeding idea in the future when I have new ideas. I made a game myself in the past that kind of have breeding but I kind of did the "average of the 2" thingy which I realised now is a big mistake. So that is one thing that you should not do.

However, in my previous experiment, I also made some kind of "genes" stuffs and try playing around with active/inactive genes to mimic dominant and recessive genes. This turns out to be quite interesting for me as it makes it quite fun to try to get a certain behaviour in the child. You could try this as well, makes the breeding fun when the player get an ability that both the parents doesn't have.

Regarding the breeding with parent problem, you can hardcode and make sure that the cannot breed with their parent, or any of its ancestor. I don't see a problem with letting them do so, since there are some living things on earth that have weird way of reproduction.

Single point mutation can sometimes produce extremely powerful monster in your case. If given enough patience, I can probably breed monster with high base stats and high growth rate, which can make balancing a pain. You can put a soft limit on such things by making higher amount produces slight defect in other areas. For example, if growth of hp (per level) exceed a certain amount, you might want to decrease growth of speed by certain amount but never below 0. You probably don't want a monster to lose stats as it level.

I think what I have here do not answer any of your question haha.... but is some ideas that I have regards to the "breeding" theme. Please update when you have more stuffs =) Cheers

Monster rancher 2 was fun. I never saw Pokemon as a breeding game. Both games utilize the 'collect them all' aspect, and keep track of what types you've unlocked/encountered in an in-game trophy room/pokedex, and they used battles, tournament style.

Averages I considered, but it just isn't how nature works and is a lot harder to control.

Genes... going all out like that wouldn't be worth it imo, because I'm not good enough with that area yet to make alterations to models on that level and without that it comes back to the stats. I could do it so that there things not associated with a specific stat and have multiple stats effected by one of those, for lack of a better word, genes. How I would go about doing this is when the monster is created it gets some number of gene slots (would probably base this on the type of monster it is) and then it would randomly generate +/- stats based on the average base stats... Then when breeding have which one gets transferred by random and then also add in at least 1, but maybe a few mutations...

An addendum to that is that instead of randomly generating the genes i could have a whole list of base genes that get selected...

and still further I could make a dominance stat on the gene so that when transferring the "dominant" gene will transfer 75% of the time...

I'm not so sure about active/inactive... I like the idea that both genes make a difference, but I suppose it would be interesting to see where a gene somehow gets super horrible stats and then watch as people freak out when they breed and get a monster with all negative increments or something like that lol.

The inbreeding thing, I'm going to give each monster an ID and record who their parents and grandparents are. Then for each match it will cause the next generation to breed slower... So if a mother mates with a son they'll have the same rate of birth as mother/father, but the offspring of mother/son will result in an offspring with a much lower birthrate... So you could breed an ultra powerful monster through selective in breeding, but doing so will cause take longer and longer.

edit: More thoughts on the gene thing...

I was thinking that if I made it so genes are divided into chromosomes and each monster has 2 sets... and each base chromosome has x amount of slots for genes, which can change...So if I want the monster to have 100 points the monster would have 10 chromosomes, each with 10 (as an example) genes... the genes have a stat to modify and a number to modify it by... and a dominance number...

Though with all this it seems like an awful lot of data for this as every gene would require 3 bits of data and if there are 100 genes, and 2 version that makes 600 bits of data, where as the other way where there are 2 sets of stats...it's about 20 bits of data. That seems like a huge difference, not sure how much that matters though.

Monster rancher 2 was fun. I never saw Pokemon as a breeding game. Both games utilize the 'collect them all' aspect, and keep track of what types you've unlocked/encountered in an in-game trophy room/pokedex, and they used battles, tournament style.

It's just one aspect of what I'm doing. I've always liked the idea of breeding in Pokemon...just it was put in after the first version and I never took the time to really get into it. I also found it pretty interesting in Jade Cocoon where the models merged.

Technically I could say it is just a turn based collecting RPG, but it is easier just to say pokeclone and everyone knows what I mean. I am using it as a base of sorts anyhow, but obviously if you tried to apply the knowledge of Pokemon to what I'm making it wouldn't work, just from what I'm thinking about for breeding. ^.^

Oh also, each monster will "evolve" as in they'll have a baby form, a mature form, and an "elite form" or post-mature form, where only the mature form can breed so if you're breeding something you can never level something past a certain level.

Well, I started to think, ok what little things would I change if I was designing a Pokemon clone... but there were so many things I really wanted to change that I ended up with a completely different design. It had monster battling, collecting, and breeding in common, but not a lot else. Sorry that wasn't very helpful. I love monster breeding games, but I really don't love the design of the Pokemon games. I just hate the way pokemon are all so random from each other, and I hate the way breeding works in pokemon, from egg groups to the way eggs are hatched to the fact that you can never get an offspring halfway in appearance between the two parents, nor can you get the same pokemon in a variety of colors, and there are no quests/achievements for capturing or breeding subsets of pokemon... ugh. >.< I won't even get into my sincere loathing for turn-based non-tactical combat.

lol I get how you feel.

I'll probably describe some of this stuff once I get further along in the programming... I want to build the framework before really getting into the individual monster designs but the way my game works is

#1. There are 6 Kingdoms of monsters. Each of these are then divided into Families and then the individual species... And while some Species will be able to mate within the family and outsider their species, that's not a common thing. 1 of the 6 allows mating between all members of the kingdom though.

#2. There are 9 elements, including normal, These are divided into 3 groups with 3 each so that there is a rock-Paper-Scissors within the group and with the other groups.

#3. The trainer doesn't start with the ability to train all the monster types or elements, nor all types and elements to their highest level.

#4. the trainer doesn't have ability to catch and carry around 6 monsters at the beginning.

#5. The trainer needs to buy equipment to improve their and their monster's ability

#6. The trainer does no have direct control of the monsters as they do more or less in pokemon. The trainer issues a command and the monster follows the command when they can or ignores it or ignores it at the moment, because the speed of the trainer is disconnected from the monster. It's more ATB akin to Chrono Trigger than Turn Based Pokemon.

#7. If I could figure out how to make little alteration to the monster models, but maintain their overall look I would be doing that...I have no doubt I will learn that or I will be able to add it at a later date though...It's just not important to figure out right now ^.^

#8. I may add in that the monsters can actually give birth to more than one monster at a time based on the species.

#9. The game's focus doesn't really exist...as it stands I am aiming for a large open world where you can join the military, join "guilds" to do the whole team rocket thing, you can take on what i might consider the main story, you can just breed, you can go be a "master trainer," or you can become a battler, or you can do a mix of these things.

My current plans is once i got this stuff set up, set up a town, and then use unity3d's basic networking to set up a small server and get it working, because the basic master plan is to create a really really simple small server online pokemon-esque rpg, but if that doesn't work, just to have a fun expansive pokemon-esque rpg ^.^ I know the online part people might be all meh about, but as far as i can see there shouldn't be much of a problem setting it up since most of what i need is character position data, stat data, and attack data... all of which seems to me to not be as problematic as a fullscale mmorpg thing and I know roughly how to do it with unity. I'm aiming more for a glorified lobby for an FPS than a MMORPG lol

Have you played digimon world on PS1 before ? I always wondered why pokemon didn't follow that kind of combat system. Less control, more entertaining.

I won't even get into my sincere loathing for turn-based non-tactical combat.

I actually hate this combat system as well. Things could be more interesting by introducing cooldowns, different cost for different actions, spatial position (even if it is a simple one). However, I think it is not really suited for pokemon since pokemon main feature is about catching them all and in the later version breeding.

Have you played digimon world on PS1 before ? I always wondered why pokemon didn't follow that kind of combat system. Less control, more entertaining.

I won't even get into my sincere loathing for turn-based non-tactical combat.

I actually hate this combat system as well. Things could be more interesting by introducing cooldowns, different cost for different actions, spatial position (even if it is a simple one). However, I think it is not really suited for pokemon since pokemon main feature is about catching them all and in the later version breeding.

Haven't played Digimon or Monster Rancher... Didn't have the tech or money when I would have been interested. Didn't care to get it when I had the money.

In my game the monsters have Stamina rather than PP and Speed determines how fast their action bar fills up... I don't see much point in spatial positioning without making the monsters fully movable. I've gone back and forth on trying this out. but currently not considering using it... though it would be somewhat interesting if you have barrier moves and allow burrowing underground and flying.

lol I get how you feel.

I'll probably describe some of this stuff once I get further along in the programming... I want to build the framework before really getting into the individual monster designs but the way my game works is

#1. There are 6 Kingdoms of monsters. Each of these are then divided into Families and then the individual species... And while some Species will be able to mate within the family and outsider their species, that's not a common thing. 1 of the 6 allows mating between all members of the kingdom though.

I'd like to hear your reasons for choosing this. It's pretty much the same thing I dislike about egg groups, the nonstandardization of interbreedability. But, I'm willing to hear why you think it's a good idea.

@ZwodahS I have played some of the monster rancher games but not the Digimon one. It's surprising that a game which gives the player less control manages to be more satisfying; the only game I can think of where that happens is Dofus (playing an Osamodas, the pet user class). That's a tactical game where you the player avatar are a combat unit, and one of the actions you can take is summoning a pet monster, but once they are summoned they do whatever they feel like doing. Some are very predictable -they will walk to the nearest opponent and bite it. Some dart in to attack then attempt to dart out again. Some will occasionally attack allies or their own player, or will use a linear or area affect attack that hits one or more opponents and one or more allies. Meanwhile you the avatar have several other actions you can take, including moving, different types of direct attack, and heals and buffs for the pets.

Personally I think that the ideal combat system for a pet capturing and breeding game would be one where you fight with a team of pets, never a single pet. Tactical is one option for this, and CCG/TCG is another (the captured and bred pets would be placed into the deck as cards).