3d Color Blob Game is the working title for a game I''m working on with a group of Haverford College students as part of our Game Developers Club. I''m trying to come up with a good story or at least a pretense for this game which is basically a puzzle-action game. Quick overview of the game: You are a jello like blob that moves about in a discrete 3d grid world. Your enemies are also blobs. At any point you have at least 2 characteristics: a color and a shape. Colors: red, blue, green, or yellow. Shapes: cubed, spherical, cylindrical, or pyramid. You can attack enemies and "consume" them if they share either your color or your shape. (Think the card game Uno) If you don''t share color or shape you are injured, etc., etc. As a blob you are going to move from one 10x10 or 15x15 grid level to another, avoiding, attacking, and manuvering about enemies. I''d like to have a story for the game. I''ve been playing with a Mario save the princess idea, but basically the princess in another blob. I''ve also been throwing around the idea of the blobs existing within your computer... and I would even use the hardware specs of the computer to generate random levels, but this idea seems a little too clever. Also, I think I''d rather have a unique story in a unique world, not our own. If any of you can come up with a story for a few blob characters, please chime in. - Jason

Maybe theme the entire game around viruses? All enemy blobs are viruses/bacteria/diseases and you are the cure. Maybe put in a backstory where you are inside a human character.

quote: Original post by iodine23
When you consume the other blobs, do you gain their attributes? This is how Uno was played, correct?

Since there will be some goal to "win" each level, you probably should have an alogorithmic approach to level generation. Something smarter than just random level generation. What if the game randomly places nothing of the same shape or color. Or can you still morph into a non-compatible enemy, it just requires that you take damage?

The point is, you need to make sure each level is winnable, otherwise you''re going to frustrate your players with unsolvable puzzles, and that''s no fun.

Yeah... if you ate a red sphere, you would become a red sphere.

Also, we plan on hand designing most of the levels with algorithms for choosing the enemies in a way so that you could complete a level no matter what your current attributes were.

We thought of adding a random level generator, and of course the generator would use the same algorithm as the constructed levels to choose enemies...

But, I''d rather focus on the story in this thread...

If you''re interested in the algorithm for choosing enemies, drop me an email.

- Jason

IMO, a game like this really doesn''t need a story; if I felt that a story had just been tacked on ''because there should be a story,'' it would detract from my enjoyment of the game. Call me picky, but meh...

The game itself is a cool idea though.

How about making the theme ''You are what you eat''? :D

Or perhaps more like a chameleon - are there certain corridors and grid sections that you have to be the right color or shape to pass through?

Or, possession? the blobs are actually people''s karmic auras, and you have to possess the right chain of people to help you accomplish your task. What''s your task? Maybe making it back to your own body, from which a villain banished you? With the sub-task that you have to accomplish various guardian angel-type objectives - unite people with compatible auras into being couples, replace a person who can''t handle being wherever they''re at with one who can.

quote: Original post by sunandshadow

Or, possession? the blobs are actually people''s karmic auras, and you have to possess the right chain of people to help you accomplish your task. What''s your task? Maybe making it back to your own body, from which a villain banished you? With the sub-task that you have to accomplish various guardian angel-type objectives - unite people with compatible auras into being couples, replace a person who can''t handle being wherever they''re at with one who can.

I like this idea that you are trying to get back into your own body, or shape. It could work as an end goal.

Also helping other blobs move throughout levels by "possessing them" would be interesting.

Perhaps you could start some levels by "possesing" someone, which would be different than obsorbing them. Then you would move around as them. At anytime, you could "unposses" them.

As it is now if you are hit 2 times, you become a puddle of slush (or sludge trail as we call it). As a sludge trail you have only color and no shape. We could impliment a command to become a sludge trail if you weren''t one and leave behind the person you possesed.

This would add interesting missions were you would have to get someone from point A to point B or person C wants to be a square so he can merge with his girlfriend, etc, etc.

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Thinking of some other ideas... if you were trying to find a dodecahedron to obsorb so you could save the world, marry another dodec, or you just like being a dodeca... etc.
You could be trying to infiltrate somewhere where you know there is a dodeca or whatever.
I think I just like the word "infiltrate."

quote: ]Original post by iodine

What if you took a "negative" approach and make your blob the virus and it''s your job to "corrupt the system." That could apply to a computer theme or a biological theme, like what was presented earlier.

In general with games like this my motivation for playing is getting a high score, getting to farther levels, beating the clock, etc. The story is kind of irreavant.

You could also try to work your story in by doing something like Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo, with moves you complete causing a "good outcome" in the story (in that case the story was a Street Fighter 1-vs-1 battle)... a "damage" would count as a bad outcome.

If your levels are hand built, each one could have an accompanying scripted story and you get to see more of the story as you absorb each one of the placed enemies.

I like the idea of being a bad virus instead of a good one, but still I think I''m trying to stay as far away from this real world as possible and enter a different one. (does that make sense?)

I''ve never played the Puzzle Fighter games, maybe I should check them out. From what you''re saying, it seems like in those games the story is totally irrelevant from the actual puzzle, just a measure for "how well you do" in the story. Hmm...

I''m a little turned off to this idea, but I do enjoy like the Yu-gi-o cartoon where they''re like, "I need to beat him in this collectable card game in order to save my grandfather..." I love how stupid and unlogical it all is.

Thanks, for the input everyone.

- Jason