User:Quizzical

Main goals of the experience?

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.

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 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.

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.