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[ed boy]

What is humanity ascendant, I hear you ask?

Humanity Ascendant (HA) is a new browser-based game that I'm working on. You can find it here. Currently, it's not much to look at, but there are big plans to come. In the far future, I hope to have it be very very complex (the DF of browser-based games when it comes to complexity).

So why am I creating this thread when there is very little to show? Three main reasons. Firstly, so that you good people will put pressure on me to work on it - if I don't have any pressure on me, it find it very hard to work. Secondly, to provide feedback on the plans and the future goals. Thirdly, to help guide the development of the game and tell me what to work on.

Also, feel free to create an account on the game, but don't get too attatched to it - at this early stage, I'm resetting the account database sometimes to account for changes in the structure of the game.

[Ampersand]

Not a lot of information on what the game IS. I'd appreciate having at least a little information on what the game intends to be like, and already has.

[ed boy]

Apologies for not including that in the first post.

HA will hopefully be (at some point in the future) a round-based browser-based game. Each round, the characters start with no skills and no resources, and they must try to gather enough resources to build a spacecraft capable of carrying a number of them. Players can either work on their own or in factions. Working in factions will mean that the faction as whole will be able to gather resources quicker, but a spacefract that carries more people will take more resources to build. Even if they are in the faction that has built the spacecraft first, only those who have been given a place on the craft will be officially considered to have won.

I opted for the round-based system at it avoids many problems that a continuous system encounters. Since the characters reset regularly, there will few to no problems with some players being far more powerful than others. It also allows for people to try different playstyles in different rounds.

I also wish to make the development process as open as possible - In order to make the game more enjoyable, I need input from other people. I have set up a suggestion system which ensures that every good suggestion will be implemented, and people can track the process of the suggestions. I have played games like this before, and I was always annoyed at how even suggestions which were deemed by the entire community to be good ones were not implemented.

Currently, there is very little up - people can create accounts, log in, move around and do very little else. However, I wish to get other people included at this point, as they can help plan ahead with the game. I have my own vague ideas that I will go with if nobody else provides input, but I realise that it would be best to get other people's input as early as possible.

[Supermikhail]

Have the place where they start in be infested with zombies. Or dinosaurs. Or rogue AIs. Well, at least I'd like some tension besides meta-gaming and farming, other people might think differently.

[inaluct]

This sounds like a really cool idea. I hope you do a lot with it, I'd totally play a game like what you described.

[ed boy]

Have the place where they start in be infested with zombies. Or dinosaurs. Or rogue AIs. Well, at least I'd like some tension besides meta-gaming and farming, other people might think differently.

There will be greater tension than metagaming and farming - I plan for stealing resources to be a lot more worthwhile than gathering, so there should be a lot of inter-faction rivalry.

This sounds like a really cool idea. I hope you do a lot with it, I'd totally play a game like what you described.

I certainly plan to do a lot with it, though the more input I get the more I can do.

[Supermikhail]

Oh, stealing. You could sort of follow the example of Valve, where they take special care so that the player that's been fragged doesn't feel dissatisfied, and show the shooter. Well, I don't really know how exactly it would applicable to your game.

[ed boy]

Something like that is certainly planned. One of the goals is to have an events log which shows everything that happened to a player recently.

Mean guy punched you (3hrs 3mins ago) and again (13hrs 2 mins ago) and again (13hrs 2 mins ago)
Nice guy said "How are you doing today?" (12hrs 55mins ago)
Mean guy said "Imma shank you!" (12hrs 50mins ago)
Mean guy stabbed you (12hrs 49mins ago)
You started bleeding heavily (12hrs 49mins ago)
You passed out from loss of blood (7hrs 34 mins ago)
You died from loss of blood (5hrs 14mins ago)

Whether or not you get to see recent events if you die is a matter I have not decided on (and need your help deciding on). After all, when the player respawns they are supposed to be a clone of themselves that they saved earlier, and they wouldn't have memories of the future. It would also allow for sneakiness in players. However, some might not enjoy logging in to find that they had died and not knowing who or why.

[inteuniso]

I think this game would be a lot more fun and a lot more frantic where if you died, you died for that round. No respawning until next time.

Also, shorter rounds(Say, a week) would lead to a frantic scramble of stealing and connivery.

[ed boy]

Although that would indeed lead to franticness and stuff, It would only be so for those who survive. For those that die, it would be tedious and annoying. There will be reprecussions of dying, though.

The current plan is that, by expending resources, a player can 'backup' their character at certain places. when they die, they can restore themselves from one of these backups, but they lose all progress that they make since they made the backup. The backup locations can be destroyed for potential large effects, but there will always be one backup that cannot be lost.

[Supermikhail]

Hey, hey! And you've gotta weave these back-ups into the story, the setting! Like all the nice video games do (although atm I can't come up with a good idea).

[ed boy]

Yup, it's in there.

Spoiler: backstory, summarized (click to show/hide)

• As time passed, human technology became more and more advanced
• Eventually it reached the point where each generation of computer was advanced enough to produce a more powerful generation
• Technological progress from there was exponential
• Atomic modulation was invented
• • Objects could be fed into atomic modulators and destroyed to produce energy. Objects could also be created, perfect to the last atom, from existing blueprints
• People suddenly started feeding themselves into atomic modulators to gain immortality
• There was a giant disaster, and most people's blueprints were lost
• The players are the few survivors
• The players can feed themselves into atomic modulators to backup themselves
• If a player dies, they are reconstructed from a backup (but it costs lots of energy to do so)

[Supermikhail]

Oh...


So, what happens to the soul?


 

[SolarShado]

how's this coming? sounds interesting

[ed boy]

Progress is a bit slow right now, as I'm settling into uni and have a lot less time available to work on it, I'm afraid. It's not a dead project, though, and I'll be coming back to it.