User:Quizzical

Main goals of the experience?

Concept 1. Overworld progression

Reward biodiversity Experience the biomes and worlds changing from your actions Incentivized to play after all goals have been completed?

Progression or Loop Concepts Tech progression happens between seasons, select a tech to study for each biota, if that biota meets the research criteria. If the season is stable with the requirements over a season, it contributes to the research of the task. So you are rewarded for having a biota that is stable. Early research requirements can be trivial to meet and can have imbalanced tasks like nitrogen>x, and complexity can change to nitrogen within a range and oxygen within a range which can map to specific needs for specific plants for them to evolve or survive in that area. Building those plants then requires that region to be stable within the researched ranges, so that each biota might have different goals of balance to support different ecosystems. With the ranges of stability shrinking as the player gets better at managing their ecosystem, and as the range of biodiversity increases in an area that areas "terraforming rank" increases, which contributes to the world stage tech tree, which maybe unlocks more things that can be researched at a lower level, or just lets the player select a perk that can change the game a bit, like relics or laws or something of that ilk.

Maybe it requires specific biomes next to each to research it together, maybe requires multiple of the same or different biomes to research at the same time.

Some plants or animals could have limited uses, as if the ecosystem can't support them. But maybe this is restricted by attributes instead so the player is punished for making to many instead of stopping them from doing so. I.e. plant consumes gold, and if there isn't enough gold on the map for two both die.

Maybe have a higher level biota map that has biota levels adjacent such that a region of multiple biota operating at certain terrains in the same region can help each other or trigger events. I.e. Building two level 2 mountain biomes next to a level 2 forest biome stabilizes the rain events in the forest biome. Or three form an volcanic area, which introduces an eruption event to the pool of events. Or unlocks combination biomes that get added to the drafts

Or different adjacent biomes have different stabilizing effects on a biome. Like higher water levels, higher temperatures

As the terraforming rating increases, the world can support more biota that you can influence, allowing you to expand your map. Allowing you a new biota to develop, or with some events maybe you can duplicate one you have created already. Or you draw a random type of biome and get to choose where it goes on your overworld. Or like blue prince you can draft between three which are a combination of biome and effect. Where effects can affect the biota itself or those adjacent, or even global effects. Maybe as the Terraforming goes up, new biomes start with higher diversity by default? Maybe you get to start the biome with a higher amount of attributes to build from to reflect overall world health.

So if you can't reach the next terraforming rating, you don't get a new biota, and you run can stall if you can't find a way to upgrade any of your existing biomes.

As the game proceeds maybe more demands are made on group resources essentially creating a limit on how long you can go. Although don't love that as much since it prevents somewhere from just getting as far as they can at a leisurely pace.

When an areas terraforming rank increases it can get exposed to higher level events that can hurt the stability of the area, so creating a more stable environment becomes required. But on rank up it can gain an new attribute that makes it a unique area.

Maybe some events add new attributes to an area, allowing it to evolve in a hyper unique way compared to other biota, such that you will want to scrap whatever you have so far and rebuild with this new attribute in mind.

If this is set post apocolypse, some areas can have toxic waste or other plastics etc, that the right combinations of attributes can resolve or create, i.e. plastic eating mushrooms or something which might be required to mitigate some events.

Potentially have super plants or something that only exist in old growth(Very stable, very specific attributes) ecosystems, where the goal of the game is to create a biome with each of these super plants, or a subset of them to win.

If its a roguelite, maybe there are three super plants you need to build to win the run are randomly assigned at the start of a run. Or there are 4 trees that can be set as goals, and completing a run with a tree saves that state, and there is a final barren terrain that can be attempted with the output of you completed tree run. But up to all four tree runs can be used together on the biome making you very strong, so the challenge has to be high, allows people to try and beat the barren biome with only one tree active, up to four trees active. This kinda structures the progression of the game as growing in a similar way that growing things in the individual levels is growing things.

Meta progression between world wipes could add new terrain types, new combination terrain types, new events, new final plants, new plants in general(More specific attribute requirements, so nothing really specific gets added early)

Fail states:

Unable to build the required mega plants Global resources are depleted and no new biota can be created to improve your chances, but you can still maximize what you have if you so desire.

Game variability to make each run different:

Multiple starting plants animals and mushrooms each with special effects or research trees and starting abilities(Limited use), maybe they are genetically modified and given to you to help start your world, but they can't reproduce? and get a random combination of the three. Could be given more as event or upgrades. Random unique starting biota effects, and maybe a global ecosystem that makes some events more likely or some attributes easier to produce.

Maybe other things can also exist in the biome if you influence them too, but you can only directly create plants that are within the sphere of your three starting picks. So you unlock a dictionary through the game of what plants live in what enviroments as they naturally grow if those environments are met, but your groups you can build them outside of the ecosystem requirements but they will die over time as they are not sustained, but have a chance to effect the eco system in the meantime(Limited uses)? i.e. Create a mushroom that adds nitrogen when there is none, to be able to get a nitrogen cycle started?

The mother tree can have various effects like monster trains pylons. Which can heavily influence a run. You can steal the effects of one biota from a previous run or at least the final effect of it.

These various combinations should hopefully make each run feel unique right from the start.

In biome experience: Start with your three plant animal and fungi combo. They can allow you to explore and start making a basic biome.

What do you have to overcome in the biota? With limited resources attempt to get water or other resource nodes not within reach of the mother tree. Which make more flora and fauna options available to expand more. If you can build enough your terraforming goes up and you can create another biota and maybe upgrade this one to expand the resource pools available here, but get limited by having to research? So have to create a biodiverse biota that has balanced attributes, in a specific direction to help with specific research.

Research might unlock plants you can't grow directly, but indirectly?

I think this would lead to having the initial map be the most significant biome, where all the ones around it are built up to build up the main biome so at least one super organism is built on it. Maybe there is only one, and the main map evolving in complexity over time is the goal. eeh or at least useful for one of the main organisms at least.

Could save maps and have them join togehter for visual of world with various almost beaten or beaten island chains.

Concept 2: Scoping

Maybe the biota is composed of multiple biota. Like each plant you make can be zoomed in on and its its own biome, so you cultivate each plant to make it better which the larger biome is then affected by. Could potentially do a couple layers of this with the same system, but with different goals at each? Like Planet/contient/biome/species where its the same gameplay loop at each level but different goals and sybolism behind each level.

Concept 3: Event survival You are a specific group of beings or creatures that must survive various events, so you pick an area you think you can survive the coming event in and generate the biodiversity such that you can survive the event. After a new event is announced you can move to a new biota or an existing one if it seems like it is able to help you survive the event. As you survive the event you can unlock new plants and animals to help survive the next one. Until you survive the mega event, or die. After the mega event you can freely modify any of the biota you have already made

Concept 4: Aggressive Nature/ rewild the planet Have the biota slowly get more and more urban as you gain plants that help you survive in those areas and change them, where the target is to create a broad enough set of biodiversity that you can reclaim abandoned cities. Gain plants that can turn plastic into resources, or metals cars etc into things that you can use. But not everything on every map will be immediately usable by you.

Concept 5: exogenesis /populate a new planet Start with very hearty micro bacteria, and slowly build up biomes and plant types to convert the planet. Moving between biomes to find different types of minerals that can then be transported elsewhere.

Concept 6: Maximise biodiversity (Islanders style) Given the space you have maximise points by making plants that require adjacent requirements to be met. I.e nitrogen using plants must be adjacent to nitrogen fixing plants. Becomes a puzzle of optimizing space given the plants and combinations of plants you have access too. And the more points you generate, the more varieties of plants you can unlock to be part of your grid. Biota have enviroments that limit the types of plants that can be added. Some plants require space around them, some don't. Can't unmake something you have made, but maybe animals can eat it.

Is there something we can do to make the tech tree actually tree like, or could make the animal tree animal like, plant path plant like and mushroom tree mushroom like.

Building certain bioata around certain biota can change the terrain type. i.e if you build forests on all sides of a forest, the middle forest becomes old growth.

Potential upgrades to biota: counts double when researching animalia/fungi/plant

Potential tech upgrades: Critical Spore Mass, if there is enough pollen and mushroom spores in an area, it can seed its own clouds

If doing stars, add constellations, that can either have hidden effects, or if the user plants thing in a pattern that matches the constellation, they can activate the constellations ability for the rest of the run, maybe constellation names are hidden somewhere and tie to specific plants that need to be used to plant them, potential in that plants bio. After they are unlocked the user can toggle them as difficulty modifiers?

Biota types could also be affected by how you grow the biome. I.e start with a body of water depending on which plants animals or microbes dominate could be classified as a ocean, lake, or coral reef, which can change how they influence or get influenced by adjacent biota. If you have the various starting groups, different versions of these upgrades could be more accessible in one run over another.