First off i must say... wow, this engine looks amazing and i can see tons of potential for
games with this. Now to the reason for my posting, is to add some ideas for anteworld, i already
read what the game is generally going to be about on here. also in explaining my ideas i will be
referencing minecraft a bit, so i hope you don't mind.
I will start off talking about colonization. One thing me and all my friends agree about
minecraft, is at the very start of the game making a settlement/colony is one of the most fun
aspects of the game. we love the challenge of starting off in a empty world with nothing but
resources at our hands to build our settlement on. We love the challenge of starting off with the
basics and building our way up, chopping down trees to make tools to mine other resources to make
more tools and too build up our settlement and etc. but at the same time minecraft is lacking a lot
in this field as well. You cannot build transportation other than minecarts. you cannot build big
boats, or cannons or anything to expand a colony. weapons and transportation basically. The only
resistance you have is from random monsters in the game, which is another idea point i am going to
talk about next.
The other fun part about building a colony is the resistance or survival part of it.
building up your settlement/mining resources is a bit of a challenge because you have to fight off
monsters and the challenge is what makes it more rewarding and fun. in minecraft there are a myriad
of little monsters you have to fight against, but after a certain level of advancement they no
longer provide much of a challenge. I suggest making another AI near your location on the starting
world (within 10-20 miles?) that is doing the same thing you are... building a colony. When this
colony advances so far they will be sending troops to wipe you out, so this puts a new survival
defense challenge to building a settlement.( also i think a peace mode for sandbox free play option
would be nice too). The only other game i can think of that kind of does this is spore. once you
advance and kill the other colony near you there is a another greater challenge empire further
away. that would also be neat to add in your conquest to colonize a country or even continent
eventually.
The next idea i want to add is technology advancement. in minecraft you start with
nothing,then basic tools and advance up from previous tools and etc. I think starting out to mine
wood and stone to build tools to construct your starting building would be neat. You always start
out small to get things established before building/advancing to bigger and better things. Now as
far as the technology advances i think would be up to different mods or game play modes. some might
not like to advance past a medieval swords and bow style of world, and perhaps another map people
would like to advance up to today's type technology building planes and helicopters.
Now on to NPC's. I think for starting off your colony, you should get a couple NPC's. The
more buildings you build and expand the npcs should multiply to have your ever expanding empire
grow. The purpose for the NPC's is to task them out to mine resources, farm food, be soldiers or
etc. Pretty much like playing a RTS game but being there on the ground as a player character.
I always have tons of ideas for games like this, so i will end with these for now and
hopefully get a discussion going where others can expand on these ideas if they like them and to
give the creators of the game some ideas to add to anteworld possibly.