Had this idea for a game I'd like to play/make

News & General Discussion
1

Name: “Vermin”
The premise is, there are three factions in the insect world.

Arachnids
Airborne (wasps, hornets, etc)
Vermin - these are everything else. (beetles, ants, etc)

This game is a hybrid fps/strategy/rpg. The reason I chose insects is, they have incredible diversity and abilities.

Each scenario is in a 3d environment, of a small outdoor area. Think your back yard. An abandoned barn. A forest setting with a small pond, a rotten log, and such.

Arachnids are masters of speed, maneuverability, etc. They are the killing machines of the insect world, and generally prey on the others.

Arachnids have a queen or some sort of accepted leader, generally well protected in some dark, nasty place. They look upon all other insects as prey.

As an arachnid, you can run up trees, underneath limbs. Cast webs to reach other vantage points. Careful, your abdomen is your weakness.

Units - Tarantulas (weak poison, but tough like tanks). Not very good at climbing. Can’t use webbing initially.
Wolf Spider - very aggressive and incredibly fast. The prime fighter unit. Poison not very strong.
Black Widows - slow and weak, but very deadly poison.
And others.

The Airborne - Hornets, wasps, etc. They look down on all other insects/arachnids, but have a healthy fear of arachnids. they protect themselves by creating a paper nest/ball.
Hornets - fast and agile, stings.
Wasps - slower, but reproduce faster and can harvest faster. (cheaper)
Flies/Dragonflies - excellent scouting units, very agile and fast.
And others.

The Vermin - these are the unwanted, the prey. They are walking sticks, Betsey beetles. As far as arachnids and the airborne are concerned, they really are just bug trash, useful for eating or killing.
Some units:
Stag Beetles - have horns, tough like tanks.
Bombardier Beetles - fast, can shoot acid from their abdomens.
Walking Sticks - Good luck seeing these guys! they are practically invisible, but highly vulnerable.

These are just a few units. There are praying mantis. Trapdoor spiders. Spider hawks. If you’ve ever watched nature shows and seen the incredible variety and wonder of the insect world, it’s incredible.

The story basically goes, scientists experimenting on bees in a lab accidentally produced a contaminated/radioactive amount of royal jelly, which is eaten by a queen bee which escapes. The bee escapes because its stinger is enhanced from the special jelly, able to actually slice through its cage wiring. It returns to the world, where it begins a super hive of bees.

So the story in a nutshell is, initially the arachnids and airborne are fighting over this new substance. The vermin are pretty much crushed underfoot. The substance does a variety of things, depending on the insect…faster flight. Powerful stingers. Super fangs. Webs which are incredibly strong. The ability to jump higher. Etc etc.

Eventually, the vermin rise up and achieve a place of dominance. They are tired of being prey and fodder.

With the mysteries of the powerful new substance which can change everything, the variety of the different factions, and 3d environments to fly, crawl, hunt, I think it would be great fun.

Some images of these creatures in real life:

Stag Beetle

Wolf Spider

Bombardier Beetle

Tarantula Hawk

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2

so… You just want to play it, you don’t actually want to make it? Good luck with that.

3

Sorry, I probably should have said play/make. I’d like to do both :). No comments about the idea itself?

Title changed, to avoid…confusion

4

Well, if you post your game ideas on a public forum, it’s a safe bet that someone is going to make use of them, whether you want them to or not!

5

Maybe change the name, vermin makes me think of rats/mice not bugs. Gameplay wise looks interesting.

6

Yeah…except Prey was already taken! I’ll have to crack open a Thesaurus, and find a good alternative. But you are right…vermin does fit rats/mice better!

7

Pretty good idea.
I would gladly help you with modelling but I hate arrachnids and all this kind of stuff because I played this game when I was really young http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrxL_GoS35k
(it can also give you some idea)

But if you change from arachnids to pink mechs with 8 legs of something, that’s gonna be alright (joke :mrgreen: )

8

A possible name: “HIVE”. All caps cuz it’s cooler like that.

Anyways it looks like a very interesting idea. I hope something comes of it!

9

I think of of the technical hurdles to this game would be, being able to walk on any surface…which most insects can do.

But, it would be fun. And for DLC…a new insect for each faction!
I also think the enhancements would be neat. Imagine wasps shooting small lasers or rockets from their stingers. Spiders with super jump abilities, and armored plates.

10

Great idea!

Also how will the unit creation work?

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Unit Creation:

Unlike many RTS games, where one type of unit is responsible for creating a variety of units, here each kind of insect needs a ‘queen’ or mother type unit. While this may seem a little odd at first…it adds a very important element of strategy and discovery.

So, for example, let’s say you begin the game playing as the airborne insects, starting out as bees. Your queen is responsible for making drones, workers, etc.

So in your first scenario controlling just the bees, the story unfolds, and you may have some simple goal of growing the hive, producing x workers.

The second scenario might be having to move the hive because of some danger, or defending against the initial attack of the arachnids.

The third scenario…you contact the hornets, realizing you need help. For the first time ever, different types of insects are working together on a large scale.

So now…not only do you have a bee queen who can produce bee units, but you also have a hornet hive, and queen.

You must protect these queens…lose your hornet queen, and boom…no more hornets. Period.Lost all ofyour queens…and game over :slight_smile:

So, if you are playing as arachnids, you would have a black widow queen holed up somewhere, that you must protect. Surely you could enlist a couple of wolf spider units to guard the entrance to her lair.

I’d have to put more thought into the 3rd faction…beetles, walking sticks, etc. I think I might have to bend the rules of nature a little bit…normally, you don’t have a ‘queen’ stag beetle, but for consistency’s sake, it might be better to do that. I’d have to research more of the life cycle of various insects, but because the 3rd faction has a WIDE variety of insect types…it might be too difficult to accurately portray the life cycle of each.

12

So, last night I had a little time to setup a test environment. I was able to get a cube to walk on the ground, and actually walk up a tree…conforming to the surface of the tree. Now, I just need to replace the character controller with something that lets me walk on the underside of limbs, etc. Its slope restrictions are getting in my way :slight_smile:

The initial idea I have for walking on surfaces is this: If you are touching something, you are walking it. Gravity doesn’t kick in, so you can walk on any surface. The only time gravity kicks in is if you jump off of a surface, or are knocked off, etc.

I could go with the idea of letting gravity pull me in the direction of the surface I am walking on…but that’s really not what I want. Technically…the bug is attached to the surface, just like in real life. Again, gravity only has an effect if the bug lets go.

Instead, I think I need to use raycasting to sample a few “downward” vectors from my bug, and basically try to keep the bug a set distance from that surface and aligned to it.

13

Funny, I didn’t expect this. :slight_smile:
I just signed up today because I read about your GREAT ideas. The funny thing is that I worked for the past few weeks on a similiar setting.
My game is about an Ant and is going to be an ActionRPG. However, my ant should be able to ride spiders, bugs and other insects (yeah… slavery … ants are mean ;-)).

At the moment I’m trying to move my fully-rigged ant character.

Why do I tell you all this?
I Just wanna make sure noone is calling me a liar in probably two years time :wink:

14

Hah and now we have proof! Great job on the ant, by the way. What modeling software are you using?

I’ve always been fascinated by bugs. They are so diverse and amazing. If they were bigger…we’d be in SO much trouble!

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I was just using blender. But for the moment I want to make sure my rig is working/moving correctly before I spend more weeks on textures and environment. :slight_smile: