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Description

i had ideas for my dream game and did silly sketches
.. then got carried away a little making a design draft

(like this post if you would play my game & i will turn you into a creature)

(long ideas ramble below)

–
all of the following would be optional additions to the base game (above) . a lot of this is just taking the entire gameplay of OHOL but instead of being crafting+farming based is more about abilities/mutations & fighting.

Different elements represent different types of players, each creature/clan is assigned a base element.
Player can choose which clan they want to be born to using karma, a metacurrency (awarded whenever any clanmember successfully reaches adult or dies of old age). Or with a big expense create a new one.
This naturally congregates experienced/dedicated players into high quality clans which have the most successful children; it also helps players who are good-intentioned newbies because (like OHOL) the nicest players would act as guides.
Each clan/color of creature has a different UI art-theme, a set of abilities (on a hotbar), and their own set of voice/gesture noises

Green Clans - survival and growth. the easiest 'basic' element with abilities of movement/defense and gathering+farming food from nature. Voice noises: windy flutes

Red Clans - power and aggression. Red clans are the antagonist PVP team meant to kill other players, including themselves. Voice noises: scary heavily distorted power tools & engines
In contrast to the usual karma system, they are instead awarded karma for murdering any other player (except for their own direct children)
Being born to (or creating) a red clan only happens by spending a large amount of karma; roughly the amount from 2 successful normal lives. This Red karma-cost would be tweaked and possibly dynamic-reactive based on how peaceful the world is; so Reds would be rare to see, but not overly costly to play.
It is like an intense gamble where player could lose their karma investment instantly, but if they manage to live then they can get a significant amount through killing other players. Only the most skilled and ruthless PVPers would be able to exclusively play as Reds.
They are obligate carnivores & are required to eat the bodies of other players, getting negligible satiation from NPC animals; however, killing a player also increases their hunger-rate exponentially, so that especially murderous Reds will only get a singular rampage before dying.

The gameplay loop of Reds is entirely different from the typical colors and involves roaming around looking for player-groups, then waiting for the best opportunities to attack (alone players or children). Often that involves scouting and using a 'sense' ability that points to the nearest off-screen player. Typically they work as solitary hunters but, if they are diplomatic, can team up with others of their clan & share corpses; betrayal is inevitable though because at some point one of them would get too hungry. Similar vibe to DS3 Mound Makers working with invaders (& entire game is Dark Souls multiplayer vibe in general)

When you are a cool-color creature and see any Red player you know it is a big deal because they invested their karma to come there and personally rip you open. Teaming up to kill/avoid Red players is really important because if they get enough kills then they just become nigh-unstoppable terminators, in general the biggest threat to the survival of your family.

Violet Clans - optional addition clan 1, about healing and empathy. special magic abilities of healing, protection, and buffs for other players. very weak on their own requiring clans of other elements to live, but can be highly valued. Voice noises: windchimes & bells
Violets have unique powers of psychic projection where they merge with the mind of another cool-color creature, leaving their body in a temporary coma; while in the projection-state the Violet player knows the status of their main body but that is it. The Violet's inactive body has to be fed and protected to maintain the mindlink. While the mindlink is active, the Violet player gets access to special abilities/magic which originate from the body of their host; also a single host can have multiple Violets (who appear as a tiny holographic eye orbiting the creature.) Mindlinked Violets are, along with fully-leveled Reds, the most powerful entities in the world; a host with many Violets is theoretically the most powerful.

Violet powers are the most varied and include the following; targeted powers can target the host or any other creature; also these cost chromaharmonic energy (mana) which generates over time.
- Mind merge; base ability of Violets, they can project into a host through touch as described above.
- Heal; only way for creatures to heal combat damage, Violets are needed everywhere for this reason.
- Protect; creates strong defensive shield
- Possession; temporarily takes over full control of the host w/ strong buff to attack and defense.
- Paralyze; laser-beam that stuns another creature
- Astral project; usable without a host, the Violet enters a coma and temporarily becomes a spirit for a random amount of time; possibly getting directional hints towards things like food-sources or Reds. Really powerful scouting tool for clans if the Violet uses gestures to communicate the info.
- Uplift; temporary unique buff that allows the host and Violet to talk in a private anonymous text chat; the only point in the game where language can be used.

Blue Clans - optional addition clan 2, about crafting and building. only clan that can create structures & machinery . still cannot farm their own food and must rely on Greens for that. entire elaborate system of technology progression & crafting based on tiers of items would be designed later; they would have potential to be the most powerful creatures if they teamed up with others for long enough to progress to the end of the tree, a process taking several generations. Voice noises: computerized beeping

–
Families would generally last only short amounts of time (<10 generations) due to the whole difficulty of the game & the presence of Red players.
The entire goal is to try to invest in helping your family/clan group overall, earning karma, so you can then respawn in it and keep your family alive; hoping it will grow into the strongest/largest family. Family lives & death counts are tracked and can be viewed from the menu, so that you can keep track of how well your family is doing even after you die.

There is no ingame chat/usernames, but there are gestures (corresponding to number keys) that produce a single word + an animal noise + a pointer to your cursor, serving as a simple language.
Words marked with * are Magic Words, which are unique and have some in-world effect

- SQUEAK (unique; the only noise that children can make. usually used when their food meter is low.)
- FOOD
- DANGER
- *LOVE
- *CALL (makes loud noise; only gesture visible from off-screen & gives everyone a directional pointer going to the source.)
- NEED
- FOLLOW
- STAY

The 'LOVE' gesture has a unique magical property. Adults get a stat buff (a little satisfying ding) whenever saying LOVE to a child or to the corpse of any dead Clan member.
This is part of the central design motif where players are rewarded for doing good roleplay/creature behavior (like with little dopamine treats.) Other examples are the entire karma system & the Reds' language (below). The meaning of LOVE gesture still holds true because if someone uses it multiple times you know it's ~real love~ and not just for the buff.

–
The Red Creatures, being inherently destructive beings, have a different set of gestures:

- ATTACK
- FOLLOW
- *GROWL
- *BLOOD
- *KILL
The Red magic words, when activated, make a unique visual effect and scary noise. GROWL debuffs movespeed of a targeted player; BLOOD buffs all nearby Reds; KILL adds a permanent buff to the user if said over a corpse, only usable once per corpse (how Reds grow more powerful)

[optional fx] An adult Red creature is like a terrifying horror-monster cryptid thing where, in addition to looking like a demon, it dims the saturation of the world, causes spoopy/tense music to play, and makes creepy glitchy effects if it is near you.

Red Clans would (presumably) exist in states of chaos due to players being hyperaggressive. Due to the karma rewards + player-food requirement, a lot of the time the Reds would just end up fighting their own clanmates without ever finding anyone else; the immense power-potential of Reds is naturally balanced out this way. (notably they are the only clans that have friendly-fire. literally they can just kill eachother at any time, even the children can bite)

–
Map is composed of different procedurally generated sub-realms; like Niche but far more simplified; tiles with landscape & randomly placed objects/creatures on them; simple to implement like just a roguelike with stuff placed in tiles. The world is dynamic and zones disappear/respawn after no player visits them for some time; also there is a very limited number of zones, all contained in a square. This gives a constant gameplay impetus to keep moving & gathering, and forces players to face challenges in the form of 1. food scarcity, 2. NPC predators, and 3. other player clans. Blues if implemented would have a unique structure/ability that makes a zone static, letting it function as a hub for building & crafting.

–
i don't think i will ever make this but it was fun thinking about it anyway
this all sounds like a 'science-based 100% dragon MMO' moment but as someone with years of uni-level gamedev study it actually would be doable if i just made it my entire life for a year... i already made the base game for it years ago w/ the procedural world creature-walkaround roguelike thing. no screenshots of it sadly but send $50 mil to my patreon anyway thx. public beta of the game would need none of the features except just spawning as a creature in tile-based world, going around clicking on berry bushes, and pressing buttons to make weird noises at eachother. very fun

if multiplayer/server programming wasn't such a nightmare then i would be working on this already.. (maybe in roblox someday or as an .io type game)

realistically might make this (initially) as a singleplayer version with a central focus being an elaborate dynamic AI which would replace the need for players; the AI creatureminds already existed in simple form in the alpha version where they would walk around looking for food etc., just could keep adding features to them over and over. that would be fun in its own way though i ideally would want it as a social-experiment type game like OHOL or Journey, seeing how players act like creatures.

as i write this though i realize the appeal of simulating AI creatures as actual people having feeling/mood variables, personality & relationships so they could be your friends/rivals/mates, lots of potential for that like with semiprocedural dialogue trees etc. like it is the sims.. and then my brain goes in a different direciton wondering if that would be too much power and i would feel bad watching them suffer and bleed. i have to stop writing this post at some point lol or maybe not

(nope) i realized i could just make them feel pain as pleasure or some sort of sedation like a 'tingle' variable so they can just be ripped apart but its ok.
pictured: creature brain miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:…

//
extra design notes:

clan& player names would be decided by players; chosen from a preset list of various nouns/adjectives like how Warrior Cat names/clans are.
Clan name: XClan
Child name: XKit
Adult name: XY
Elder name: XSage

Description

i had ideas for my dream game and did silly sketches
.. then got carried away a little making a design draft

(like this post if you would play my game & i will turn you into a creature)

(long ideas ramble below)

–
all of the following would be optional additions to the base game (above) . a lot of this is just taking the entire gameplay of OHOL but instead of being crafting+farming based is more about abilities/mutations & fighting.

Different elements represent different types of players, each creature/clan is assigned a base element.
Player can choose which clan they want to be born to using karma, a metacurrency (awarded whenever any clanmember successfully reaches adult or dies of old age). Or with a big expense create a new one.
This naturally congregates experienced/dedicated players into high quality clans which have the most successful children; it also helps players who are good-intentioned newbies because (like OHOL) the nicest players would act as guides.
Each clan/color of creature has a different UI art-theme, a set of abilities (on a hotbar), and their own set of voice/gesture noises

Green Clans - survival and growth. the easiest 'basic' element with abilities of movement/defense and gathering+farming food from nature. Voice noises: windy flutes

Red Clans - power and aggression. Red clans are the antagonist PVP team meant to kill other players, including themselves. Voice noises: scary heavily distorted power tools & engines
In contrast to the usual karma system, they are instead awarded karma for murdering any other player (except for their own direct children)
Being born to (or creating) a red clan only happens by spending a large amount of karma; roughly the amount from 2 successful normal lives. This Red karma-cost would be tweaked and possibly dynamic-reactive based on how peaceful the world is; so Reds would be rare to see, but not overly costly to play.
It is like an intense gamble where player could lose their karma investment instantly, but if they manage to live then they can get a significant amount through killing other players. Only the most skilled and ruthless PVPers would be able to exclusively play as Reds.
They are obligate carnivores & are required to eat the bodies of other players, getting negligible satiation from NPC animals; however, killing a player also increases their hunger-rate exponentially, so that especially murderous Reds will only get a singular rampage before dying.

The gameplay loop of Reds is entirely different from the typical colors and involves roaming around looking for player-groups, then waiting for the best opportunities to attack (alone players or children). Often that involves scouting and using a 'sense' ability that points to the nearest off-screen player. Typically they work as solitary hunters but, if they are diplomatic, can team up with others of their clan & share corpses; betrayal is inevitable though because at some point one of them would get too hungry. Similar vibe to DS3 Mound Makers working with invaders (& entire game is Dark Souls multiplayer vibe in general)

When you are a cool-color creature and see any Red player you know it is a big deal because they invested their karma to come there and personally rip you open. Teaming up to kill/avoid Red players is really important because if they get enough kills then they just become nigh-unstoppable terminators, in general the biggest threat to the survival of your family.

Violet Clans - optional addition clan 1, about healing and empathy. special magic abilities of healing, protection, and buffs for other players. very weak on their own requiring clans of other elements to live, but can be highly valued. Voice noises: windchimes & bells
Violets have unique powers of psychic projection where they merge with the mind of another cool-color creature, leaving their body in a temporary coma; while in the projection-state the Violet player knows the status of their main body but that is it. The Violet's inactive body has to be fed and protected to maintain the mindlink. While the mindlink is active, the Violet player gets access to special abilities/magic which originate from the body of their host; also a single host can have multiple Violets (who appear as a tiny holographic eye orbiting the creature.) Mindlinked Violets are, along with fully-leveled Reds, the most powerful entities in the world; a host with many Violets is theoretically the most powerful.

Violet powers are the most varied and include the following; targeted powers can target the host or any other creature; also these cost chromaharmonic energy (mana) which generates over time.
- Mind merge; base ability of Violets, they can project into a host through touch as described above.
- Heal; only way for creatures to heal combat damage, Violets are needed everywhere for this reason.
- Protect; creates strong defensive shield
- Possession; temporarily takes over full control of the host w/ strong buff to attack and defense.
- Paralyze; laser-beam that stuns another creature
- Astral project; usable without a host, the Violet enters a coma and temporarily becomes a spirit for a random amount of time; possibly getting directional hints towards things like food-sources or Reds. Really powerful scouting tool for clans if the Violet uses gestures to communicate the info.
- Uplift; temporary unique buff that allows the host and Violet to talk in a private anonymous text chat; the only point in the game where language can be used.

Blue Clans - optional addition clan 2, about crafting and building. only clan that can create structures & machinery . still cannot farm their own food and must rely on Greens for that. entire elaborate system of technology progression & crafting based on tiers of items would be designed later; they would have potential to be the most powerful creatures if they teamed up with others for long enough to progress to the end of the tree, a process taking several generations. Voice noises: computerized beeping

–
Families would generally last only short amounts of time (<10 generations) due to the whole difficulty of the game & the presence of Red players.
The entire goal is to try to invest in helping your family/clan group overall, earning karma, so you can then respawn in it and keep your family alive; hoping it will grow into the strongest/largest family. Family lives & death counts are tracked and can be viewed from the menu, so that you can keep track of how well your family is doing even after you die.

There is no ingame chat/usernames, but there are gestures (corresponding to number keys) that produce a single word + an animal noise + a pointer to your cursor, serving as a simple language.
Words marked with * are Magic Words, which are unique and have some in-world effect

- SQUEAK (unique; the only noise that children can make. usually used when their food meter is low.)
- FOOD
- DANGER
- *LOVE
- *CALL (makes loud noise; only gesture visible from off-screen & gives everyone a directional pointer going to the source.)
- NEED
- FOLLOW
- STAY

The 'LOVE' gesture has a unique magical property. Adults get a stat buff (a little satisfying ding) whenever saying LOVE to a child or to the corpse of any dead Clan member.
This is part of the central design motif where players are rewarded for doing good roleplay/creature behavior (like with little dopamine treats.) Other examples are the entire karma system & the Reds' language (below). The meaning of LOVE gesture still holds true because if someone uses it multiple times you know it's ~real love~ and not just for the buff.

–
The Red Creatures, being inherently destructive beings, have a different set of gestures:

- ATTACK
- FOLLOW
- *GROWL
- *BLOOD
- *KILL
The Red magic words, when activated, make a unique visual effect and scary noise. GROWL debuffs movespeed of a targeted player; BLOOD buffs all nearby Reds; KILL adds a permanent buff to the user if said over a corpse, only usable once per corpse (how Reds grow more powerful)

[optional fx] An adult Red creature is like a terrifying horror-monster cryptid thing where, in addition to looking like a demon, it dims the saturation of the world, causes spoopy/tense music to play, and makes creepy glitchy effects if it is near you.

Red Clans would (presumably) exist in states of chaos due to players being hyperaggressive. Due to the karma rewards + player-food requirement, a lot of the time the Reds would just end up fighting their own clanmates without ever finding anyone else; the immense power-potential of Reds is naturally balanced out this way. (notably they are the only clans that have friendly-fire. literally they can just kill eachother at any time, even the children can bite)

–
Map is composed of different procedurally generated sub-realms; like Niche but far more simplified; tiles with landscape & randomly placed objects/creatures on them; simple to implement like just a roguelike with stuff placed in tiles. The world is dynamic and zones disappear/respawn after no player visits them for some time; also there is a very limited number of zones, all contained in a square. This gives a constant gameplay impetus to keep moving & gathering, and forces players to face challenges in the form of 1. food scarcity, 2. NPC predators, and 3. other player clans. Blues if implemented would have a unique structure/ability that makes a zone static, letting it function as a hub for building & crafting.

–
i don't think i will ever make this but it was fun thinking about it anyway
this all sounds like a 'science-based 100% dragon MMO' moment but as someone with years of uni-level gamedev study it actually would be doable if i just made it my entire life for a year... i already made the base game for it years ago w/ the procedural world creature-walkaround roguelike thing. no screenshots of it sadly but send $50 mil to my patreon anyway thx. public beta of the game would need none of the features except just spawning as a creature in tile-based world, going around clicking on berry bushes, and pressing buttons to make weird noises at eachother. very fun

if multiplayer/server programming wasn't such a nightmare then i would be working on this already.. (maybe in roblox someday or as an .io type game)

realistically might make this (initially) as a singleplayer version with a central focus being an elaborate dynamic AI which would replace the need for players; the AI creatureminds already existed in simple form in the alpha version where they would walk around looking for food etc., just could keep adding features to them over and over. that would be fun in its own way though i ideally would want it as a social-experiment type game like OHOL or Journey, seeing how players act like creatures.

as i write this though i realize the appeal of simulating AI creatures as actual people having feeling/mood variables, personality & relationships so they could be your friends/rivals/mates, lots of potential for that like with semiprocedural dialogue trees etc. like it is the sims.. and then my brain goes in a different direciton wondering if that would be too much power and i would feel bad watching them suffer and bleed. i have to stop writing this post at some point lol or maybe not

(nope) i realized i could just make them feel pain as pleasure or some sort of sedation like a 'tingle' variable so they can just be ripped apart but its ok.
pictured: creature brain miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:…

//
extra design notes:

clan& player names would be decided by players; chosen from a preset list of various nouns/adjectives like how Warrior Cat names/clans are.
Clan name: XClan
Child name: XKit
Adult name: XY
Elder name: XSage