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« on: March 30, 2020, 10:49:50 AM »
two tribes [working title]
so i had an idea for a gamemode and i wanted to openly pitch the idea before i start developing it to see how well or poorly received the pitch is. generally gamemodes are the only projects i can ever finish unlike weapons because they are interesting to make and this idea has been in the back of my mind for ages
preface
two tribes is a two-team arms race gamemode with elements of base raiders, trench ctf, factorio, rimworld and other games where amassing large amounts of wealth is the primary objective. in two tribes, two rival teams start off on opposite ends of a nice scenic natural map [with trees, rivers, mountains] and must exploit the resources of the land in order to develop and tune their respective team base. killing the enemy team is a secondary objective, and all players will respawn shortly, making raids important only for hindering the enemy team's progress or the acquisition of the enemy team's goods and resources. the design goal is to generally encourage the players of each team to cooperate and specialize in order to see their tribes' success, which could take between 30 real time minutes to an hour.
idealized game loop
i play a lot of colony sim games like rimworld and dwarf fortress and obviously draw a lot of inspiration from these games. i want players to achieve the same sense of accomplishment when their tribe mass produces nuclear warheads and nukes the enemy team all because the players collaborated and formed a cohesive warlike society. of course getting to the point of mutually assured destruction takes some work.
the arbitrary goal of two tribes and the game-ending condition is when one of the [two] tribes amasses enough resources and goods to construct a spaceship and leave the god-forsaken planet (not ripped from factorio). every other aspect of the game is a means to the end. whether you're harvesting trees to construct a fence for your team base, building an automatic miner and a piping system to supply your gun factory with enough metal to produce a stuff ton of rifles, or laying down a farm to harvest narcotic leaves to mass produce combat-enhancing amphetamines, every action contributes to the eventual success of your tribe and the hindrance of the enemy tribe.
the more resources you supply to your tribe base, the more technology becomes available for your tribe to produce, ranging from neolithic sharpened sticks to space-age power armor. how you acquire these resources is up to you, whether you safely harvest them from the map or form a raid party and steal them from the enemy tribe. sabotaging the enemy can also slow down their rate of technological progression, giving you and your tribe an edge in combat and a head start towards the finish line.
mechanics
ok so that's a lot of text and its probably hard to follow. and believe me its hard to explain. but maybe the mechanics section will make more sense
the two tribes have a spawn point and opposite ends of the map. you play the game like any other fps in blockland. you can break trees or rocks to manually harvest resources to construct tools, fortifications, or you can pool it towards a research fund which gradually unlocks more powerful technology as more resources are supplied. all buildings and tools are shared by the whole tribe as it is a collaborative team game, so your friend's uranium processing facility is also your uranium processing facility (yay). you can also wield weapons, consumables (like drugs, health stuff, etc), and armor to increase your combat effectiveness, and form loose raiding parties with your teammates to attack enemy players or enemy structures.
eventually hand-harvesting resources becomes unsustainable, so after 10-15 minutes you unlock automatic resource harvesters, such as mining drills, which you can place on parts of the map. these harvesters net more resources the farther away they are from your spawn, adding challenge as you need to set them up in dangerous territory to operate efficiently. with automatic harvesters, the resources must be pumped using pipe bricks back to your base in order to be distributed. think base raiders money printer but with conveyor belt. this addition of logistics makes it easier to automatically accumulate wealth but poses its own logistics challenges, like efficiently moving resources or keeping your supply chain defended from enemies.
why?
a lot of wealth-accumulating games have their own respective downsides. base raiders is a pretty well-refined gamemode but the lack of an end condition and cohesive teams leads to constant skirmishes for wealth and eventually one mega-gang which controls everything and ruins the game for everyone. two tribes sets out to remove that by forcing the existence of two teams. also if one team gets too far ahead in the game the losing tribe will occasionally be rewarded with goodies in order to get them back on track.
the goal is to make a truly collaborative team game where every player feels like their individual actions are directly contributing to their team's long-term success but give them the chance to individually work for themselves and maintain freedom. its kinda ambitious but with the right execution it can be made into something fun
if you some how make it through this wall of text and understand vaguely what im trying to propose, give some feedback please
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