Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[PTTG??]

Nah, make it climate change. As the decades go on, the winters are harsher and the food scarcer. Your population might be rising, too, putting more stress on the local deer. The deer are now under more predation from your people, have less food due to poor rains in the summers, and have less area to forage. So the predators have less food to hunt, so they are more likely to turn maneater.

[RAM]

A survival game based upon classic British comedies. Survive 24 hours Aboard Red Dwarf or in the Young One's house. Be employed at Fawlty Towers for 24 hours without being blamed for any disasters. Spend 24 hours trapped in the Are You Being Served store without being the subject of any innuendo...

[origamiscienceguy]

Sure. Climate change is a good idea too. Combine with familiarity. And make sure that plants grow regularly too, but while you could completely harvest a berry bush, that means that its seeds won't spread etc. Different seasons would require different styles of play. Winter and fall is much more focused on hunting while summer and spring is more gathering.

[Sirus]

In the context of realism, why would the predators get more vicious over time?

Familiarity.

You're gonna have to explain that to me. Wouldn't predators actually get less vicious over time, as they come to recognize the human tribe's "territory" and stay away? At most they'd strike at isolated humans wandering too far away from the tribe, but for the most part they'd just stay out of the way. Especially if the humans managed to kill any of the predators.

[Antsan]

I thought they meant familiarity with the prey, although that seems strange too.

[Sirus]

That's the thing though, humanity never spent much time as prey. Not after we hit the hunter-gatherer stage, anyway.

[Antsan]

No, I mean I thought they meant the predators were getting more familiar with the prey of both humans and predators, so they would be more successful in hunting them down. Which doesn't make much sense.
No change in the direct interaction between predators and humans.

[RAM]

That's the thing though, humanity never spent much time as prey. Not after we hit the hunter-gatherer stage, anyway.

I wouldn't say that is entirely true.

[Parsely]

That's the thing though, humanity never spent much time as prey. Not after we hit the hunter-gatherer stage, anyway.

I wouldn't say that is entirely true.

One local incident doesn't color multiple generations of civilized history. The simple fact is that for a long time most people who died have NOT been killed and eaten by predators.

[Sirus]

That's the thing though, humanity never spent much time as prey. Not after we hit the hunter-gatherer stage, anyway.

I wouldn't say that is entirely true.

One local incident doesn't color multiple generations of civilized history. The simple fact is that for a long time most people who died have NOT been killed and eaten by predators.

Pretty much what I wanted to say but couldn't find the words for.

[RAM]

But it does provide an example that it is entirely possible for predators to hunt humans, even in the presence of rifles and within settlements. I do not personally have any experience of hunter0gatherer living conditions, but it seems pretty clear that it is not going to be universally free of predation. Certainly some groups likely will have replaced the threatening predators in their biomes, especially when given multiple millennia to do so, but saying that it doesn't happen seems wrong. And I suspect that you will find that depredation rates are generally pretty low in most populations. Just because more people are devoured by disease than large animals doesn't mean that there are no large animals actively looking to put human on the menu if the opportunity arises just as they do with anything else that takes their fancy. I am reminded of Nile crocodiles for some reason...

[Sirus]

Please read the whole discussion, RAM. No one is trying to claim that predators have never hunted humans. Rather we're trying to say that, if you want to make a realistic ecosystem and survival game, making predators more vicious as the game progresses is actually the exact opposite of real life. While there are always outliers such as those man-eating lions, the vast majority of wild predatory animals stay well clear of humans as much as possible. Despite our lack of sharp fangs or claws, we're still a species of rather large and strong animals and we have tools to help us kill any threats.

The RPG trope of packs of angry wolves attacking villages regardless of their own losses is almost certainly based entirely in fiction.

[NRDL]

I want something that really captures the feeling that you get in games like Shadow of Colossus, the Long Dark, games that make you feel small.  The feeling of the sublime, that powerlessness and awe in the face of such a powerful force is something games can do so well.

As far as gameplay, one can just do Shadow of the Colossus x 100.  A world inhabited by moving mountains.  You're basically an ant walking, grappling, climbing and living on them, no way to kill them, very dangerous to lose your way on them. 

Apart from the giants who rule the world, you'd also face elemental majesty, swirling vortexes of rain, wind, dust that will potentially wear you down to bones, or knock you off the giants.  The fall wouldn't necessarily kill you, as whatever scattered civilisations that exist on this barren world would have developed means of surviving great heights, e.g. parachutes, grappling hooks, etc.  But on the wasteland ground, you'd have to deal with not only getting accidentally stepped on by creatures with foot sizes of kilometres, but also the denizens of the ground.

These creatures, probably insectoid in nature ( they'd have to be, to be able to reproduce in large numbers and thrive in harsh environments ) would be your size, and the danger would be in being overrun before you can get away.  So at least you'd at least have other survival/combat aspects to gameplay besides hanging on to some titan's armpit for dear life. 

[IWishIWereSarah]

What you're saying makes me think of an idea for a game :
A combo between the 100s of "survival" games (aka minecraft clones) and Shadow of the Colossus on an exaggerated scale, with a bit of witchcraft tropes :
You live on the back (or in the mouth, or ...) of giant monsters, and you collect hair from some of them, blood and fangs fallen from their battles, to create items that can boost "your" giant monster. You can create pheromones with parts like that to attract enemy or friendly beasts.

[Parsely]

I want something that really captures the feeling that you get in games like Shadow of Colossus, the Long Dark, games that make you feel small.  The feeling of the sublime, that powerlessness and awe in the face of such a powerful force is something games can do so well.

As far as gameplay, one can just do Shadow of the Colossus x 100.  A world inhabited by moving mountains.  You're basically an ant walking, grappling, climbing and living on them, no way to kill them, very dangerous to lose your way on them. 

Apart from the giants who rule the world, you'd also face elemental majesty, swirling vortexes of rain, wind, dust that will potentially wear you down to bones, or knock you off the giants.  The fall wouldn't necessarily kill you, as whatever scattered civilisations that exist on this barren world would have developed means of surviving great heights, e.g. parachutes, grappling hooks, etc.  But on the wasteland ground, you'd have to deal with not only getting accidentally stepped on by creatures with foot sizes of kilometres, but also the denizens of the ground.

These creatures, probably insectoid in nature ( they'd have to be, to be able to reproduce in large numbers and thrive in harsh environments ) would be your size, and the danger would be in being overrun before you can get away.  So at least you'd at least have other survival/combat aspects to gameplay besides hanging on to some titan's armpit for dear life.

My dream game is a 3D third-person action title where you hunt down giant monsters by climbing on them, a la SotC, except the hunters are mortal so the typical hunt costs dozens of lives.