How to make a "living world" that advances without the player

Danimal

Hello, year long forum lurker here; I have been wondering what you people think of game worlds that advance on their own. I have a couple of game ideas, but both of them revolve around the player wandering a game world where bigger powers go at war and/or make peace, And you are just small fry caught in between trying to earn a living with a warband or similar.

Think several neighbouring empires or countries, having semi-random diplomatic events that might make them declare war or peace. Worst yet, they are created with random characterics at game start, so a xenophobic one will always be at war or a matriarcal state will hate a patriarcal one which in turn hates them as well. After some time they declare war and start sending armies and taking each other cities.

How the hell should I go at creating such a thing? Any advice is welcome .

MikeCL

Danimal Interesting idea. Not sure how it would work in a game. But could potentially get gamers hooked. I just imagine that you could "follow" the happening taking place in the world through a website or notifications. Could be cool.

As for the technical side. There's probably many different ways. But on top of mind, I would probably look into a backend server that's always on, that has a cron job that runs every now and then. The cron job could maybe run through a set of scheduled tasks in order to progress the world. And maybe figure out an algorithm that could randomize some aspects and what kind of event that would happen in the world.

Then also have a database for persistent data that you update.

The cllent (the game that runs on your computer) would then fetch the world state when you enter the game.

Probably how I would approach something like this. But this is just an idea without me having done any research on the subject 🙂

Tomcat

Nil novi sub luna.

https://godotforums.org/d/31011-a-living-city

Danimal

Tomcat Nil novi sub luna

"Nothing new under the moon (/sun)", I didn´t claim it to be some groundbreaking idea of mine, it´s been done many times before, ex: mount and blade, battle brothers... Your living city idea sounds nice but as you say there is no point if the player barely sees anything; its much better to just create the ilusion. The first time I experienced a city that felt alive was while playing "Gothic", the npcs just made their daily routine, wake up, breakfast, work, tavern, maybe get dead drunk (or smoke some "swamp weed" for hours 😃 ) and went to bed. I loved how alive those cites felt. You might still get your wish with AI nonetheless.

But let me be more explicit about my idea, as Toxe said I want to make the player feel in the middle of someone else´s "Stellaris" game, no need to produce more events than the necessary for war/peace. Think of each state having relationship tables with all others states, and each cycle they get better or worse, depending on their characteristics: dictatorships hating democracies, closer distances between states increasing maluses, random events that may sour really good relationships or improve it...

The states do their thing, and you are just some dude trying to profit when war eventually blows between them by doing mercenary work. And in time maybe you can even grow to be the black hand that greases with money power hungry states to go to war.

NOW, my question is, can someone give me a few pointers how to do this?.

Toxe

Sure, why not. Totally depends on the game, of course, but take for example a global strategy game where this is usually the case.

xyz

Danimal NOW, my question is, can someone give me a few pointers how to do this?.

What exactly you don't know how to do?

Tomcat

Danimal I didn´t claim it to be some groundbreaking idea of mine

That link contains not only the article, but also a discussion with several ideas, including how to do it.

The states do their thing, and you are just some dude trying to profit when war eventually blows between them by doing mercenary work.

And what exactly will the player see in your game? Eyes to eyes — you can't see faces.

dictatorships hating democracies

Seriously? By the way, history is repeating itself right now, literally online.

NOW, my question is, can someone give me a few pointers how to do this?

To begin with, study politics, that is, psychology and economics, in order to understand the issue.

I'm currently working on a similar project, but I'm starting small — a farm, a village. Then I'll expand — a city, a state. And, yes, of course, I have training in history, psychology… but I'm not very good at programming. 😺

Danimal

xyz I´m still in the early stages of learning, so I will be happy if you can give me some guidelines I can research and develop over time at my own pace.

xyz

Danimal Guidelines on what? Your question is too broad. Try to be more specific.

Danimal

xyz Hard to say actually, I guess the question is, where do I start?. Are there some tutorials on how to automate the answers of some AI to changing external variables taking their own into account?

Danimal

xyz Thanks for the help, sometimes the hardest thing is to put into words what it´s on your mind.

Tomcat That link contains not only the article, but also a discussion with several ideas, including how to do it.

Sorry, only read the initial post and the first 2 answers... will read fully now. It´s good you are improving yourself, and no doubt that it will raise the quality of your work, worldbuilding is a powerful thing. But I want to go on the more shameless side of those conflicts, leave your ethics at the door and stomp a full city while your mechs duck it out with the enemies ones.

The player is a bystander who doesn´t care about the whole galaxy burning down as long as bussines is good, there won´t be any exploration of the dark side of this setup. Maybe it will come as a glorification of violence, but I hope the fantasy-like Scifi setting makes people forget it. Enough doom and gloom on the real world, let them rack accidental virtual civilian deaths guilt-free.

Have you ever played Earth Defense Force?, I love that kind of worry free chaotic energy.

Tomcat but I'm not very good at programming

You already beat me at it for sure.

xyz

Danimal Model your system with data. In general, try to think about data structures and their relationships that would best represent your "world"

Start by implementing the State class, with some basic properties like name and government type. Create several test State objects, assign names and random government types. Make a function that iterates through all states, compare their government types with other states and print their relationship in the form of a number (negative for hostile, positive for friendly), based on some simple heuristic rules.

Build further from there.

xyz

Danimal xyz Thanks for the help, sometimes the hardest thing is to put into words what it´s on your mind.

You talk too much. Start implementing.

Tomcat

Danimal The player is a bystander

What will the game look like (genre, view)? How will the player learn about events in the world? How will they interact with the world?

Danimal

Toxe I have been in a few FOSS projects which all crashed and burnt with lots of drama. I´m quite aware of the brutal complexity of game making, not getting my hopes up or anything to be the next Undertale or Kenshi. I just want to make and play a few ideas of mine, if I fail, so be it. I got a day job, nothing lost.

The bad thing being I´m on the artist side, but I got some basic programming knowledge.

Tomcat What will the game look like (genre, view)? How will the player learn about events in the world? How will they interact with the world?

Talking about greedy, my full idea is kinda crazy big but I want to split it into little chunks that I´ll made and join someday. The gist is this:

Style: low poly with 90´s psx jap games aesthetics
You are a mech engineer (surprise!), you have a mothership that you swap for bigger ones with money, with rooms to upgrade inside, you can also buy other kinds of support spaceships. You can hire others like you to increase brainpower, which is used researching pieces (generators, engines, coolers, weapons...) or improving them. Those pieces can be mounted to get customized mechs.
They need materials to be produced (Ferrum, Adamantiun, Uranium...) which are bought from an universal marketplace with fluctuating prices, later you can create mines on friendly nations.
You produce and sell them by travelling to nations that will have a demand depending on desired type, stats and their war situation.
You create a merc company to participate on missions, the missions are mainly created on planets with warring nations, space stations or plain space. The rewards are money, the enemy downed mechs that can be researched for new techs and materials.
-The missions are autobattled.
The ultimate goal could be one of few, like monopoly, alien destroyer...

So yeah, very complex.

Toxe

Let me ask an important question: How are your software development skills and have you tried making other games before?

It's totally fine if you are a beginner with all of this, we all were or still are, just be honest to yourself. If you don't have experience in making games then do not bite off more than you can chew! Do something smaller first and come back later.

If you already are experienced in software & game dev then you should already have some rough directions in where to look.

xyz

Danimal Is this a "dream game"?

Tomcat

Danimal The gist is this:

…

Well, in my opinion, this is much more realistic than what you described in your first post. At least it's something to think about how to implement. Although, of course, it's not a living world, but only an imitation of one. The world here does not evolve, but is predetermined.

But it's clear that a team is needed for this.

The bad thing being I´m on the artist side, but I got some basic programming knowledge.

A similar scenario could be part of the project I'm working on. And we need an artist (3D).

xyz Is this a "dream game"?

What other options are there? 😼

Toxe

Danimal 90´s psx jap games aesthetics

Please don't say "jap".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jap

Danimal

xyz Absolutely, does anyone else settle for less?.

xyz

Tomcat What other options are there? 😼

Danimal xyz Absolutely, does anyone else settle for less?.

Sigh.

If you actually want to produce something rather than just daydream, here's your course of action for the next 4 weeks:

describe the core game mechanic, write it down as precisely as possible
implement the simplest possible but playable prototype of that core mechanic
upload the prototype on itch.io
call us to test it to determine if it's worth making a full blown game based on it

Go!

Tomcat

xyz Sigh.

If you actually want to produce something rather than just daydreaming, here's your course of action for the next 4 weeks:

…

Typical “professor syndrome.” This is definitely a working algorithm, but as far as I understand the situation, it's still a long way from being launched. It seems like it's necessary to start with earlier steps here. Or join the team to gain more experience to begin with.

Danimal

xyz

upload the prototype on itch.io

Keep in mind that after this step, you may be dragged through the mud, just like me.

Tomcat

Danimal

xyz If you actually want to produce something rather than just daydream, here's your course of action for the next 4 weeks:

xyz No, it's "get things done syndrome".

xyz The prototype doesn't need to be publicly available, however it needs to be made. Otherwise, nothing happens.

I would suggest starting with something much simpler if you want to work alone. And prepare yourself for years of thankless and unappreciated work.

kuligs2

xyz sounds like a plan. Wish it was that easy for everyone.

xyz

Tomcat Typical “professor syndrome.”

No, it's "get things done syndrome".

Tomcat xyz
upload the prototype on itch.io

Keep in mind that after this step, you may be dragged through the mud, just like me.

Well that's the whole point. Better to get dragged through mud as soon as possible, rather than after you've sunk years of effort into the thing. Not to mention the finances.