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[IndigoFenix]

So I made this thing for a cell phone that is fairly good at figuring out what kind of biome you're standing in (water, desert, forest, etc.) and since I tend to default to game making when trying to figure out what to do with a program I write, I thought it would be cool to make a monster catching game where you walk around in real life and encounter monsters based on your environment.  Maybe the weather too.

Anyway, I'm casting around for ideas regarding how to make such a game and have it be better than just a gimmicky Pokemon clone.

Some thoughts:

Possibility to capture monsters using either combat (Pokemon style) or by befriending them.  The monster socializing mechanism should be as elaborate as the combat system.
An elemental system which ties into the local environment.  Some creatures function better in hot, cold, humid, or dry weather, and the amount of local greenery could also have an effect.  Elemental skills could also temporarily alter the local virtual environment.
Monsters doing stuff when you aren't directly playing the game.
Multiplayer stuff - players in close proximity could all engage a single target which occupies a 'real' virtual location.  Maybe kaiju-sized 'epic' creatures that require large numbers of players to defeat.
Procedural monster generation?  Could be tricky with regards to art, but would be cool.

Also, I have no ideas regarding story, worldbuilding, tone, etc... I've pretty much just made the biome detector at this point.

[Magistrum]

The problem with something like that is that making the monsters occupy a "Real" space is really difficult, i have never made anything capable of keeping the augment reality up if you didn't hold your phone quiet. If you just shake a little it goes crazy.
Moving slowly is okay, but the algorithms have trouble keeping it in the same place. you look to the right, then you look back at the creature and it's visible more to the left than before, even if it was supposed to stand still.
If you could find a way of circumventing that I would be pleased to help you.




_{I would like a gimmicky Pokemon clone...}

[acetech09]

You could always go 'the monsters are invisible' route like a few other AR games. You see them through some fancy devicemajigger (your phone) and have to somehow interact with them without seeing them.

I think there was one like that themed around ghosts that was pretty cool.

~

As an avid Geocacher, I can conceive of a cool game like that, where you hunt different mobile, invisble 'monsters' in some environment, perhaps coordinating with other people to form a 'containment grid' around it to capture and score. If you could import some kind of population/activity heatmap, you could assign more points for monsters in remote areas, etc etc.

That would be pretty damn fun, come to think of it.

[Vector]

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[MaximumZero]

Keeping an eye on this. The more creative people will jump on storying this thing up in no time, I'm sure.

[IndigoFenix]

I think I'll pass on the 'monsters are invisible, use your phone camera to see them' route, both because of the technical difficulties in making it look convincing and because having to move your phone around while playing just to see what you're doing seems more annoying and gimmicky than fun.

One possibility is to track down encounters in real space and have the action itself play out in abstract space, where you simply command your monsters.  Something roughly similar to TWEWY's encounter system.

The system works using GPS, so geocaching is certainly a possibility.  But what kind of things would you leave lying around in such a game?

[Skyrunner]

I definitely think that having actual gameplay happen in abstract space is better than the alternative.

[acetech09]

I definitely think that having actual gameplay happen in abstract space is better than the alternative.

Alternatively, gameplay happening almost purely in the physical space. Placing virtual traps in a certain location, then scaring/baiting the monster into it, etc.

[Vector]

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[IndigoFenix]

I definitely think that having actual gameplay happen in abstract space is better than the alternative.

Alternatively, gameplay happening almost purely in the physical space. Placing virtual traps in a certain location, then scaring/baiting the monster into it, etc.

There will probably be elements of both.  To enter an encounter, you must touch a roaming monster in physical space.  Some will engage you directly, while others (perhaps more rare ones) may show up as 'radar blips' that you have to hunt down yourself.  That way, you can play the game while sitting down, but there will be a reward for those who are moving.  The encounter itself will play out like a regular RPG encounter, where you select your monster(s) and give them commands, with the space being handled mostly in abstract.

Traps are a good idea, for example, leaving traps with bait lying around and then returning later to see what you've caught in them (or just leave the bait out without a trap to lure them closer without getting them angry).  This could be a way of catching the rare creatures without having to chase them down.

But what kind of things would you leave lying around in such a game?

There's usually some kind of items you can get in Pokemon games... I think that having these items be "gift-oriented" rather than "function-oriented" would be best. Maybe like a couple of fancy food items that heal your monster a little or something like that, but the skinning being more important than the gameplay impact. That will encourage the givers to focus more on the hunt being high-quality and enjoyable than the goal, which will discourage developing grinding-style challenges.

Hmm... well, it wouldn't be the main focus of the game, but once there's a system for leaving stuff lying around already, adding a system for customizing it would be simple enough.

[Vector]

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[IndigoFenix]

So I have a handful of experimental mechanics, a small list of 'mons, and a prototype.  Took it out for a walk and ran into mostly rock and sand creatures.  As I live in a city in a mostly desert climate, this appears to work right, although I'll need to figure out some way of running tests in a broader range of environments.

Due to the way the biome sensor operates (mostly based on color analysis from satellite images), it seems that it will be hard for the game to differentiate between heavily urban asphalt/concrete and rocky/mountainous natural terrain, both of which resolve as dull gray.  This doesn't seem like such a bad thing; animals that live in cities tend to be hardier variations of the species that live in the natural surrounding biomes, and the same could be said of mountain wildlife.

Current issue: how to go about determining 'valid' locations where a monster can move in real space.  The easiest way to do this would be to just position them randomly and let the player work out how to reach them (like in SpecTrek, another AR game where you chase ghosts).  This would be fine for common monsters that would show up at close range (so if you can't reach one you can just ignore it and find another), but for rare ones that you have to go looking for, it might very easily place them in impossible-to-reach locations.

Then there's the idea of including 'Legendaries', ultra-rare (possibly unique) creatures that travel around the world and wait for players in a set location that can be detected from a distance, requiring a significant amount of investment to even encounter, let alone capture.  Maybe that's not such a great idea in practice, but it would be so cool if there was a practical way to pull it off.

[acetech09]

Maybe resolve urban/populous areas by density of certain entities on google maps? Distance from restaurants/liquor stores would be a start.

[Vector]

-snip-

[IndigoFenix]

Oh yeah, internet connection in rural areas could be an issue, although not necessarily an insurmountable one, depending on how much information was stored in the app itself.  GPS works without an internet connection (although it can be slow without one), so if the game stored a world map and creature list internally, you wouldn't need to connect at all.

Finding persistent legendaries out in the wild could be an issue though, unless the game stored them in a hidden cache that updated when you returned to a location with internet access, and then you'd have to deal with the possibility of duplicates if two people caught the same target creature without updating the server-side data.  Geocaching out in the wild could be problematic for the same reason.

The other concern is that the more data is stored in the app, the easier it is for hackers to cheat, which could be a problem if there was a real competitive side to the game.  Although, if done well, for instance, more emphasis placed on a balanced metagame then on level grinding and getting the most powerful monsters, cheating to get rares wouldn't be such a big problem, even for competitive players.  Note Pokemon, for instance - the game mechanics are complex enough that simply having lots of rare creatures or hard-to-access movesets doesn't do much to assure victory against other players, instead it is presumed that any possible 'mon and moveset combination may potentially be used in a tournament and emphasis is placed instead on creatively using the possibilities allowed by the game.