Otherworld - a game I'm working on

Oh yeah, I forgot to remove that text. Currently it's possible to attack and kill animals, but what is not implemented is healing, so if you get wounded, you will continue to bleed each round, including all subsequent fights, so it's possible to bleed to death if you don't stop fighting in time. It's also possible to manufacture pretty much all Neolithic items and some of the wood tech. It's also possible to dress an animal carcass (I mean separate the parts from it, not put it in a funny costume). Currently you can't separate the meat yet, but you can get antlers and sinew, which can be used on some manufacturing projects. You can also get scapulae from some animals. The large scapula is used to make the bone shovel, and the regular scapula is used to make the hide scraper. Currently it's not possible to scrape hides yet, but I will get there eventually. Overall what most people do in the beginning is travel around until they find granite, rhyolite or basalt, and chert, flint or again basalt (basalt is dual action and counts both lithic and polishable). Then you make a knapping stone and a manual grindstone. With these you can manufacture the basic Neolithic tools. The hammer requires a stone awl to make a hole for the handle, and the hammer can be used as an improved version of the knapping stone. Once you have a stone axe, you can fell trees, and once you have the flint-toothed wood sickle, you can cut grass. This way it's possible to clear out vegetation in the square you're in. In the future this will be a requirement for making fields for farming.

 

I wrote some guidelines for the future clothing system. The temperatures are in Celsius.

Layers per clothing type:

Ushanka: 3 layers
Padded hat: 3 layers
Thick wool hat: 2 layers
Wool hat: 1 layer
Regular hat: 1 layer
Hood: 1 layer
Padded hood: 2 layers
Fur-lined hood: 2 layers

Padded jacket: 2 layers
Regular jacket: 1 layer
Wool shirt: 1 layer
Long-sleeved shirt: 1 layer
Undershirt: 1 layer
Short-sleeved shirt: 1 layer for torso, 0 for arms
Vest: 1 layer for torso, 0 for arms
Fur vest: 2 layers for torso, 0 for arms

Padded trousers: count as 2 layers
Trousers: count as 1 layer
Wool leggings: count as 1 layer
Long underpants: count as 1 layer
Short underpants: doesn't count as a layer

Padded shoes: 3 layers
Lined shoes: 2 layers
Regular shoes: 1 layer
Socks: 1 layer
Sandals: 1 layer

Layer requirements:

45

Head: 1 layer
Top: 1 layer
Arms: 1 layer
Legs: 1 layer
Shoes: 1 layer

40

Head: 1 layer
Top: 1 layer
Arms: 1 layer
Legs: 1 layer
Shoes: 1 layer

35

Head: 1 layer
Top: 1 layer
Arms: 0 layers
Legs: 0 layers
Shoes: 1 layer

30

Head: 0-1 layers
Top: 0-1 layers
Arms: 0 layers
Legs: 0 layer
Shoes: 0-1 layers

25

Head: 0 layers
Top: 0-1 layers
Arms: 0-1 layers
Legs: 0-1 layers
Shoes: 0-1 layer

20

Head: 0-1 layers
Top: 0-2 layer
Arms: 0-2 layers
Legs: 0-2 layers
Shoes: 1-2 layers

15

Head: 0-1 layers
Top: 1-2 layers
Arms: 1-2 layers
Legs: 1-2 layers
Shoes: 1-2 layers

10

Head: 1 layer
Top: 2-3 layers
Arms: 2 layers
Legs: 1-2 layers
Shoes: 2 layers

5

Head: 1 layer
Top: 3-4 layers
Arms: 3-4 layers
Legs: 1-2 layers
Shoes: 2-3 layers

0

Head: 1-2 layers
Top: 4 layers
Arms: 3 layers
Legs: 2 layers
Shoes: 3 layers

-5

Head: 2 layers
Top: 4 layers
Arms: 4 layers
Legs: 2 layers
Shoes: 3 layers

-10

Head: 2 layers
Top: 4 layers
Arms: 4 layers
Legs: 3 layers
Shoes: 3 layers

-15

Head: 2 layers
Top: 4 layers
Arms: 4 layers
Legs: 4 layers
Shoes: 4-5 layers

-20

Head: 2-4 layers
Top: 5 layers
Arms: 5 layers
Legs: 4 layers
Shoes: 4-5 layers

-25

Head: 2-5 layers
Top: 5 layers
Arms: 5 layers
Legs: 4 layers
Shoes: 5 layers

-30

Head: 3-5 layers
Top: 5 layers
Arms: 5 layers
Legs: 5 layers
Shoes: 6 layers

Sample clothing per temperature:

45

Head: sun protecting hat necessary
Top: light long-sleeved shirt to block sun
Legs: light trousers
Shoes: sandals to block heat from ground, no socks necessary

40

Head: sun protecting hat necessary
Top: light long-sleeved shirt to block sun
Legs: light capris or trousers
Shoes: sandals to block heat from ground, no socks necessary

35

Head: sun protecting hat recommended
Top: sleeveless shirt
Legs: shorts or loincloth
Shoes: sandals to block heat from ground, no socks necessary

30

Head: sun protecting hat recommended
Top: sleeveless shirt
Legs: shorts or loincloth
Shoes: barefoot or sandals, no socks necessary

25

Head: no hat necessary
Top: short-sleeved shirt
Legs: shorts
Shoes: barefoot or sandals or light shoes, no socks necessary

20

Head: no hat necessary
Top: short-sleeved shirt
Legs: capris
Shoes: sandals or light shoes, no socks necessary

15

Head: no hat necessary
Top: long-sleeved shirt, short-sleeved undershirt, or light jacket + undershirt
Legs: trousers
Shoes: light shoes, socks

10

Head: some sort of hat
Top: jacket, long-sleeved shirt, short-sleeved undershirt
Legs: trousers
Shoes: shoes, socks

5

Head: wool hat that covers the ears
Top: padded jacket, long-sleeved shirt, short-sleeved undershirt
Legs: trousers, long underpants (optional)
Shoes: (lined) shoes, socks

0

Head: wool hat that covers the ears
Top: padded jacket, thick long-sleeved shirt, short-sleeved undershirt
Legs: trousers, long underpants
Shoes: lined shoes, socks

-5
Head: thick wool hat that covers the ears
Top: padded jacket, thick long-sleeved shirt, long-sleeved undershirt
Legs: trousers, long underpants
Shoes: lined shoes, socks

-10

Head: thick wool hat that covers the ears
Top: padded jacket, thick long-sleeved shirt, long-sleeved undershirt
Legs: padded trousers and an underlayer or trousers, wool layer and underlayer
Shoes: lined shoes, socks

-15

Head: thick wool hat that covers the ears
Top: padded jacket, sweater, long-sleeved undershirt
Legs: padded trousers and an underlayer or trousers, wool layer and underlayer
Shoes: padded shoes, two layers of socks

-20

Head: ushanka or a wool or fur layer covered with a wind-proof layer
Top: padded jacket, sweater, long-sleeved thick shirt, long-sleeved undershirt
Legs: padded trousers and an underlayer or trousers, wool layer and underlayer
Shoes: padded shoes, wool socks

-25

Head: ushanka or a wool or fur layer covered with a wind-proof layer
Top: padded jacket, sweater, long-sleeved thick shirt, long-sleeved undershirt
Legs: padded trousers, regular trousers or wool layer, and underlayer
Shoes: padded shoes, wool socks, regular socks

-30

Head: ushanka or a wool or fur layer covered with a wind-proof layer
Top: padded jacket, thick sweater, long-sleeved thick shirt, long-sleeved undershirt
Legs: padded trousers, regular trousers, wool layer and underlayer
Shoes: padded shoes, 2 wool socks, regular socks

If a person is wearing too many layers, they get an encumbrance penalty. Each clothing item will have a thermal value for certain body parts and each temperature will have a required range per body part. If you exceed the thermal value, you will be too hot and if you don't reach it then you will be cold.

 

Persistent browser based game / society simulator / RPG

As a difference to most traditional RPG's, there are no quests, plot or levels. If you want to pay another player's character to work as a bodyguard, run your shop or fetch resources for you, you can do that, so in a way you can create your own quests but there are no points for completing them. You agree between the characters what the reward is. You can also cheat them out of their pay but there are likely to be consequences. The objective is not to win but to live. You can set your own goals, like lead your community from Stone Age to Iron Age, or build the most beautiful palace, or convert as many people to follow your religion as you can, or then you can just produce enough food and items to stay alive and spend the rest of your time socializing with other people. There is no right or wrong way to play, maybe short of attacking animals until you bleed to death, or starving yourself to death.

 

I've been using a chert knife to kill animals. Currently the animals have a very high chance of missing, so it's unlikely you will get hurt so quickly that you wouldn't have time to escape without bleeding to death if it starts seeming unlikely you would win. If the blood drop symbol has a frowny face, it means you're seriously injured. Currently I haven't yet added the mechanics for making bronze, iron or steel and also the weapons that use them don't have attack values assigned, so even if you were able to make them, they wouldn't count as weapons.

Currently the items that can be used as weapons are: basalt cleaver, basalt hammer, basalt knife, bone sickle, chert knife, flint cleaver, flint knife, flint-toothed wood sickle, granite hammer, rhyolite cleaver, rhyolite hammer, stone axe, stone-tipped spear, throwing spear, wooden bat, wooden club and wooden truncheon.

It's quite possible to accomplish a lot of things without access to animal parts. Currently animal skins are objects rather than resources, and my plan is that you can make rawhide (a resource) with a scraper, or dry it on a rack, then use a brain tanning solution to produce leather. I'm not going to work on this until next year, though (provided I don't die in a plane crash, keep your fingers crossed). Also it's not possible to separate bones yet. I could make it possible to use a severed leg as a club, that would be funny. One problem with the rawhide thing is that the current system doesn't support variable result weights based on weight of the input, so either I would make all hides in a size category give the lowest amount of rawhide possible in that category, or develop a system that allows assigning a percentage of the input weight (better solution).

 

Thanks. I survived the plane ride. Of course I still need to go back in the first week of 2017.

I was thinking last night that I think I could afford to slow down the time so that one day in real life is just 1 week in-game instead of a month.

About combat between humans, people should choose in their settings if they're aiming for a kill or forced surrender or just to stop the other person from attacking. If the day changes while the battle is ongoing, if someone dies, they will be dead from that point on, but they can still act out the combat scene so that the player of the dying character can get closure.

 

I guess optimally people would have a default strategy that is used if the player doesn't have time to make individual choices before time runs out, but if they do log in, they can come up with a one time only strategy for that particular fight. Then if they notice that it's a good one, they can alter the default strategy to work the same way.

My idea of how to do the strategy settings is allowing people to select a counter style for each individual combat style, and also exceptions for when your woundedness reaches certain thresholds. Optimally you can also pick certain people onto a no kill list, where you tolerate more violence from them and even if they were trying to kill you, you would only attempt to overpower them instead of harming them. This way if your family member, especially a child, suddenly decides they want to commit suicide by proxy and attack your character totally out of OOC motivations, you won't automatically kill them even if you were stronger, but for example try to tie them up. In the future, pain will also trigger different responses, like a possible out of proportion retaliation in a friendly sparring match, or a flee or surrender reaction in a life-threatening situation. For example if you're just practicing and someone accidentally breaks your nose, you might lash out and try to do the same for them or just curl up and start crying. Characters will have a bravery variable that can be trained. Also if you win several fights in a row, your bravery increases, whereas if you get beaten up a lot, it decreases.

 

I hadn't thought about the multiple opponents part. Logically people should be less brave when outnumbered. If someone is very foolhardy, they will believe in their own victory even when outnumbered. There needs to be some system for keeping track of who is on whose side, as well as allowing people to turn on their allies. But in an automated combat, how do you define when to turn on your allies? It should probably only be done manually. I should look more into how to program combat. It won't be like the hunting system where you currently hit once per click. Maybe I should change that to use defaults as well and you should decide on the rules ahead of starting the battle.

 

Currently it's only possible to initiate combat against an animal, but if two people approach the same animal, one of them will be able to see the other one and attack them. The other person won't be able to retaliate or hit back on their own because they can't even see the other person, since they joined the combat in the future in respect to your timeline. That's why I will eventually need to rewrite it. I'm wondering if just having two sides would work. There could be cases where there are three or more sides, but if people are wise, they would attack and wipe out one party before turning on the other one. But what about bar brawls where everybody is against everybody? In that case it would be better if people defined their primary target, maybe some secondary targets plus a rule to attack anybody who attacks you first, and in some cases everybody who tries to run.



I'm currently working on the new resource system. I have made a lot of progress in one day.

 

Most recent additions are the tags system for resources, requiring fire for projects that use a fire pit, oven, hearth, forge etc., changing the way trees are generated and reducing the frequency of trees in areas that aren't forests, redesign of some of the minimap graphics, timezones and expression of day and night, including overlaying the minimap with semi-transparent blue when it's night, and the introduction of season. Currently there is no temperature but you can see the season as well as the time of day.

 

I keep adding stuff when ever I feel inspired to do it. After last post, I added temperature, air humidity, rain, and the ability to scrape hides to produce rawhide. I also noticed that there was a bug concerning multiples when manufacturing items that use components, so I fixed that. I should soon add brain tanning. I'm not putting myself on a set schedule, but I've been updating more frequently now because one guy accused my project of being a dud, and I wanted to prove him wrong.

I'm not using any software for this. I'm not sure what I could expect from such. What does it do?

 

One thing I have come to realize today that in order to get what I'm going for, I will need to allow the game to generate new resource types dynamically. I will have to assign tags to all base resource types and write a system that defines which categories can mutate and which logic they follow. Each fruit, vegetable and berry will have a base wild form and a domesticated form. Multiple varieties of the domesticated form can exist. Some domesticated forms can be a merger of two wild or other domesticated forms. For example all citrus fruit can interbreed. Hybrids and mutations will inherit the tags of their parents but some tags can mutate. I need to write a rule set for which tags can mutate and into what, and which tags overwrite each other. For example processed overwrites unprocessed and any flavor overwrites bland.