FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

Hi, folks,

I've been fermenting a few ideas for a game built in the minetest engine, and I wanted to present a few of the more interesting ones here in order to gauge response, generate feedback, and finally decide to which one I will commit (as you'll see, each of the projects are rather too ambitious for me to pursue all of them at once).

"Tooth and Nail" : (originally intended as part 1 of a two-part series)

Lao Tzu wrote:“Heaven and earth are ruthless, and treat the myriad creatures as straw dogs.”

An extreme survival game in which the player literally starts from sticks and stones and must work constantly to eke out an existence in a harsh and ambivalent wilderness. Planned features include:

• A complex and complete "ecosystem", based upon a phagic network of plants, pollinators, herbivores, predators, scavengers and decomposers - most of which have the potential to be both pests and pets.
• Multiple threats to survival : injury, suffocation, exposure (hypothermia), dehydration, starvation.
• "De-buffs": blood-loss, exhaustion, infection (fever), sickness.
• A "collaborative hardcore" game-mode, in which all players on the same server form a "tribe", working together in order to ensure survival. In order to re-spawn, another living player has to be able to rescue you (by activating your bones). If everybody wipes out - game over - the map file is deleted and re-generated.

"Blut und Eisen" : (originally intended as sequel to "Tooth & Nail")

Sun Tzu wrote:"The art of war is of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of enquiry which can on no account be neglected."

In contrast to "Tooth & Nail", "Blut und Eisen" is a PvP gang war, in which the object is to force the opposing faction's capitulation, or eradication. The simplest permutation of this game would be to evenly and randomly sort players into factions on a randomly-generated battlefield, and just let them have at it. Over and above that, features could include:

• "King of the Hill", a simple, skirmish sub-game, in which one faction must defend a fixed point from the other.
• "Strategic Hamlet Initiative", in which factions must secure and defend a majority of neutral villages (and/or villager NPCs) for a given period.
• "Pax Coloniae", in which one faction is greatly outnumbered, but possesses a significant technological advantage (e.g. chariots, steel, crossbows, gunpowder, etc.).
• "Byzantium", in which, in addition to fighting open adversaries, each faction also possesses one or more hidden "turncoats", whose purpose is to sabotage them from within.
• Each player could lead a small "unit" of NPCs, whose purpose would be to protect the player and lend additional fire- and man-power to offensives. The size of this unit could reflect its leader's running kill/death ratio, or how how many NPC villagers he has "liberated", or how many villages his faction controls, or some other factor I've yet to consider.

"Deimos" : A science-fiction variant of "Tooth & Nail" (technically forked from Moontest), in which the player must find a way to survive indefinitely on an entirely hostile environment (i.e. the titular Martian moon). A failed return mission has left the player(s) stranded upon Deimos, and it will literally take years for rescue to arrive. They will need to mine various minerals, and scavenge, synthesize and recycle several vital chemicals, if they are to survive long enough to be rescued.

So, umm, yeah. These are what I'm currently thinking about. All comments and contributions are, of course, welcome.

I like the idea of tooth and nail. Deimos sounds good to, and is basically t+n with different map generation.

A "collaborative hardcore" game-mode, in which all players on the same server form a "tribe", working together in order to ensure survival. In order to re-spawn, another living player has to be able to rescue you (by activating your bones). If everybody wipes out - game over - the map file is deleted and re-generated.

This one sounds like a lot of fun. That would be worth to be a mod of its own.

Oh dear, I was already thinking of a subgame like this. Looks like I was too late in implementing it =/

In any case, go ahead! I'm very excited for this, and will look forward to active development in this style.

I have the most interest in "Blut und Eisen" and "Deimos", although the former one could probably fit into a large mod unless there were huge mechanic changes, such as an RPG-style class/leveling system. My interest in the latter is obvious. xD

As far as developing a subgame goes, I generally find that they are played singleplayer more often than multiplayer unless you can convince a server owner to run one of those custom games. Just a thought, and it isn't a hard fast rule.

Since Deimos has received the most interest, I've started to work upon it in earnest.

Sidenote: You wouldn't believe how many chemicals it takes to keep a person alive on an airless moon! Synthetic food is likely to be the biggest challenge. Thankfully, Deimos (the moon) is probably (as far as we know) rich in simple organic compounds so I can employ some applied phlebotinum to simplify food synthesis until the player can build some kind of permanent farm.

Update: Am currently designing & writing new, custom formspecs for Deimos.

Bonus Linkage: I recently watched these two videos (from the Extra Credits channel), which posed some interesting arguments about what can make compelling and different game-play (independent of considerations like narrative and art-style).

Deimos, but then i would pick the sci-fi one. moonrealm mod v0.8.0 shows how to use custom skybox and override light ratio.

Thanks, I'm looking into it.