[Ironshanks]

Heh, kind of a funny story actually, I wrote this at 4am this morning because I was having trouble sleeping, and I've discovered that actually beginning a project puts me to sleep really fast.

Anyway, here's what I have done. I might continue it, I find the idea somewhat interesting, but at the moment I've been dying from solitude so I figure it can't hurt to post and get some feedback.


INSECTACT
Tactical Insect Role Playing Game

1. Overview:
The concept for Insectact is, in fact, quite simple. You play as an insect, and you must compete to survive and thrive in a hostile world. The key feature of Insectact however is the metamorphosis system. This system allows the player to somehow alter his form every time she gains a level. Insectact will also feature an expansive, interactive environment, and fleshed out combat system.

2. The Story:
You have been born, as all of the insectacts are; an anonymous white pupa squirming in the nursery brooding pits. And like every ripe young pupa, you are destined to do the colony good; to battle the ceaseless onslaught of the spyders, beybeys and lugs, collect vast quantities of sweet nectar for the queen, and expand the boundaries of the colony into the untamed wilderness. Maybe if you’re lucky you’ll be chosen as one of the few suitors who copulate with the queen herself. Maybe.

3. The Player:
The role of the player in the game is to go about living (eating mostly) and performing various tasks for the colony. The more specific role the player takes is determined in part by the metamorphosis path they choose. The player’s actions can be broken down into a few categories: combat, eating, construction and metamorphosis. There will be more on that later, but first a look at the actual make-up of the player.

Stats:
The player has a variety of stats, as in most RPGs, to determine the effect of his interactions with the environment. The following is a list of the various statistics and a brief definition of each:

Health - Fairly straightforward, this stat is a number that represents how much damage the player can take before he dies.
Armour - This is the overall armour of the player, a high armour statistic will reduce how much damage successful attacks do.
Speed – The speed is used both as an overall statistic, and as a part specific statistic. As an overall statistic it represents the walking speed (or flying speed if the player is flying) of the player. When in combat this will determine how many spaces the player can move in a turn, when roaming you will see the difference in how much energy is used up per space.
Might – How physically powerful the character is, has a big effect on grappling in combat, moving objects and digging.
Hunger – This indicates the overall hunger of the player. That is; how much food the player needs to gain a level and how much food consumed will count for.
Stamina – The stamina statistic relates to how much food is used up with every action.
Capacity – Indicates how much food and nectar the player can carry.

The Player’s Body and Metamorphosis
The player character and his stats are determined by the parts the player has chosen during the game. The player is divided into a series of different parts, namely the head, carapace, abdomen, front limbs, middle and back limbs, wings, and mouth. When the player gathers enough food he can enter chrysalis and choose to upgrade or change a (possibly multiple, specifics yet to be decided) part of his body, for example; transforming mandibles into serrated mandibles, or mandibles into pincers. This is executed through a hexagonal matrix where the player chooses a path for each part by selecting adjacent hexagons. When the choices are made the player will emerge as a newly transformed insectact, ready to utilize his new abilities.

4. Playing the Game:
Play will consist of two basic segments, roaming and combat. While roaming, there are many actions the player can take in terms of interacting with the environment. These include picking up food or nectar, moving objects, depositing nectar at the colony, feeding, and digging tunnels. The map itself is a top down grid with simple iconographic sprites.

Combat:
Combat will occur whenever the player is within range of an enemy. Combat is divided into a few phases where the player chooses his strategy.

Phase 1: Movement
Combatants move around on the map. The player can move to any space that is in range, unless he is grappling or otherwise engaged.

Phase 2: Grappling
If two combatants are next to each other and one initiates a grapple (by selecting the enemies space) the grapple will be executed. The winner of a grapple is determined by the might of each opponent and the attack strength of their mandibles. There are three outcomes to a grapple. The first is that one combatant pins the other, this means that the pinned combatant is unable to block or dodge any attacks. The pinned combatant will still be pinned in the beginning of the next turn. The second outcome is that one combatant injures the other without pinning its opponent. Such an attack has a possibility to be dodged or blocked. The final outcome is that the opponents break away with no damage done to either.

Phase 3: Striking
In this phase, attacks can be done with the abdomen, limbs, or mouth of a combatant. These attacks will not be executed until after phase 4.

Phase 4: Evasions
If the combatant chose not to attack in the previous round, then he can now choose to dodge or block an attack. The exception to this is if the combatant is pinned, in which case he can only attack.


PS: Pardon the cheesy name. Also, I still need to work out the actual algorithms and probably tweak the stats. I need a good description of map information and some of the map objects.
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That's not a broken link, it's a PICTURE of a broken link. It's really very conceptual.

[BigManJones]

Nice idea, very interesting. Needs more of a story element though; copulating with the queen may be a worthy goal if she is as hot as say, (put name of really hot chick here) but for an rpg we need more story content.

[Ironshanks]

I don't know about that, I was thinking rouge-like, entirely exploration based. There ARE several ways to beat the game, one is killing the queen of the arachnids, one is to become a suitor to the queen, one is to gain so many levels that you become a "super bug" so to speak.

I'd also like to point out that I'm not personifying the insects, so story is limited in that aspect too.
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That's not a broken link, it's a PICTURE of a broken link. It's really very conceptual.

[golrien]

Heh, nice idea. Reminds me slightly of Simant.

[DrunkenCoder]

I really like the idea, quite a bit like EVO (from the SNES)
And I dubt it really needs a strong backstory besides exploration and
evolution, maybe a multiplayer aspect?

export the INSECTACTs and let them battle it out err.. sorta..
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If there's life after death there is no death, if there's no death we never live. | ENTP

[Ironshanks]

Heh, actually I've been thinking about dropping the "bug" aspect completely, maybe go with a more alien style, I'd have more versatility with the part concepts anyway.

Multiplayer would be pretty cool, not sure how it would work though, since the play dynamic is kind of long term.
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That's not a broken link, it's a PICTURE of a broken link. It's really very conceptual.

[m2j]

seriously, sounds sweet. Like a reality sim.

matt