Evolb - new phaser game in progress

[OpherV]

So for the past two months I've been working on a new game called Evolb, the final project in my year long Game Design course in the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design.

 

It's a strategy\survival game that uses basic principles of evolution such as natural selection, mutation, trait change over generations and more using fun and simplified models

 

 

EDIT: New gameplay video here:

 

I have most of the general mechanics up, a basic level editor as well as a major part of the design.

 

The basic premise is that you start out with a bunch of creatures, these creatures must eat otherwise they die. They also breed, and their offspring can mutate to change or add traits: Speed, size, offensive capabilities, armor, resistance to cold\hot\poisonous environments, cannibalism and more... ! 

 

Since I'm a big believer in free knowledge the entire game and its assets are going to be open source under GPLv2.

 

 

You can see what I have so far here:

http://opherv.github.io/evolb/

 

Source code is available here:

https://github.com/OpherV/evolb

 

 

I'll appreciate thoughts, suggestions or any general comments.

Thanks!

[SeanEBaby]

I'm at work so I'll have to keep this sort...

 

...I just wanted to say I thought this was great.  You've taken a really complex topic and turned into a simple game, I used to teach science and I would have totally used this.

 

I made a game using evolutionary type concepts a while ago (http://waltonia.co.uk/) I feel like it's almost a polar opposite approach than the one you took, my game turned out way to complex.  

 

Seriously... well done and I hope you get a good mark for it.

[SeanEBaby]

(oh and you might want to get this thread moved to the game showcase )

[OpherV]

@SeanEBaby

 

You have no idea how much that comment meant to me! It's heartwarming to see that someone shares and understand the vision of something you've worked really hard on

I even included your comment as "positive feedback" in my presentation deck, hope that's alright by you

 

In any case I've improved much of the game during the past couple of days, and included a new gameplay video of the updated state.

 

How can I get this thread moved to the game showcase?

 

 

Btw your game is complex! So many sliders and buttons

One of the interesting debates I had during the research phase for my game was whether to frame the project as a game, a toy or a simulation. In the end I chose the game concept, with a simplified evolution\reproduction module.

 

For example, in real life you have complex traits that are derived from multiple chromosome combinations. I simplified the whole mess of gender, gonosome and reproduction issues by modelling each organism to have a list of traits. The organisms are genderless, and when two reproduce the offspring traits are determined from its parent traits. (If both parents have the trait, the offpsring will too. If only one, there's a 50/50% chance unless the trait is dominant).

 

So while it's a simplified model, it's still somewhat complex. Just not infinitely complex like in real life I think I'll do a write up of the model in the github wiki page so other interested people can follow.