Hi

I am looking for anyone that is interested in joining me to make the mostest awesomest game evaaar. I would also be keen to join a team if you think your team could use my concept. I will explain what I am creating in a bit but first let me say a bit about myself.

I taught myself to program about 5 years ago quite literally because I wanted to make a game and had an idea that has stayed with me ever since. The platform I have been using is Unity and C#, although I am quite happy to learn something else if need be. I consider myself a decent programmer although having had no programming education my approach can often be trial and error and a healthy amount google. I do spend most of my time at work doing some form of programming though.

So what I am creating is simple: a "living environment". I developed a system of equations a while back that allows for plant and animal populations to be linked to one another. The reason for it is to make something that I don't think any game has ever tried and I think it would add a lot of value to a number of games. It would allow for players actions on the environment to have repercussion or cause weather events to cause animals and plants to thrive or die off.

Over the last 5 years I have spent time figuring out both how it all works and what the most efficient way to implement it in a game world is. About two years ago I put aside enough time to make a simple demo that shows roughly how the whole thing works, even if the implementation wasn't that good back then. If you would like to see it then check out the link to download it. There is also a write up on it in that link and it will really help explain what is going on.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ebaqtnhh0gbiehs/AACMeCCBSDmEs9w06-2per_qa?dl=0

The abstract is reasonably concise and explains what I am excited about: "This paper discusses the Environmental Engine, a system to implement a dynamic natural world into a game. The engine provides many benefits including, providing a dynamic environment to players, adding new layers of gameplay, adding depth to weather used in a game, creating new economic dynamics and generating a more immersive environment. The engine is a system of mathematical equations where each species is represented by one equation. The population of each species depends on other species for its survival which provides a means to determine how species affect each other’s populations. The attributes of these mathematical equations make it fairly pliable to many games. While not a core element of this paper, the manner in which the Environmental Engine is implemented is important and hence is discussed."

So who am I looking for? Well certainly fellow hobbyists, people with their own ideas that could make this more than just a concept; someone who can code a bit would be great too. The truth is that beyond the concept of this living world I haven't focused on much outside of it. I have many ideas of what I would do, but I have tried to stay focused on this narrow aspect. In short what I have in mind is largely a blank slate that needs your input. I'd also be keen to join a team that thinks this idea could be implemented in your project.

Let me know if you would like to find out more.

Hey Ronan,

I read your post and your pdf, and i just wanted to say i found it very interesting.

Your calculations and abstract reminds me the basic concept of my game which is "open-world" features - non static world-map. im using similar formulas to calculate variety of stats such as colony sickness / birth rate / happiness / forest growth / pollution and etc.

the idea is that the player actions effect the "non-static" map in a competitive way which encourage the players to be creative trying to over power the rival teams.

im making a web-browser strategy game, which has the traits of both RTS and MMORPG games. my goal is to create the "non-static" environment in a way which will add strategic depth and tension to the game, and which will also reward the players for being creative and being able to cooperate.

I would really like to show you what i have done/planned and hear what you think.

Hi Ronan,

I'm very interested in working on a concept like this. I've always been fascinated by the concept of a contained environment that lives and breathes via an underlying mathematical formulas. Some of the games I like in that vein are Species ALRE and the Creatures series, even if they only offer glimpses of this concept. I also love the clockwork types of games such as Rimworld and Prison architect. Dwarf Fortress is also a fascinating one in terms of it's dedication to simulating insane amounts of detail. Anyways, all that to say that I love the concept and am very interested.

I'm also a self-taught programmer and I used to do web development. On the game dev side I've dabbled in Love2D, SDL, but I'm most comfortable in C# / Unity3D. I don't consider myself a good game programmer, but I'm working on changing that. I'm more of a jack of all trades by necessity. I do a bit of everything but I do want to focus on programming whenever possible. I feel that I need to accelerate the learning process via collaboration. I'm also hoping to work on multiple projects with the same person and develop a working relationship if the fit is right.

What I can offer to the project is programming, graphic design, UX, game design, audio production, video production, writing. Basically I'm willing to do whatever is needed. Keep in mind that I'm not a pro at anything of these things but I'm able to learn whatever is needed for the work. I'm also bilingual (French) which could always come in handy for localisation.

Here is my hobbyist portfolio on Bitbucket: https://bitbucket.org/yomigatech/yorangamedevportfolio

Please contact me via a pm if you're interested.

Thanks, Yoran

I find the idea of an living world interesting and i would like to hear what kinds of ideas you have in terms of using it in a game design.

Personally games like Dwarf Fortress and alike are big favorites of mine and i would like to see that envelop of that kind of a design pushed.

What i can offer is my experience with C, C++, C#, Php and Mysql, Javascript, Java, HTML, Css, JQuery(UI), Monogame, Some Android Development Experience and a few others

what i am interested in is developing Systems on which the game is built, so what this comes down to is i am ok with doing programming of course but id like to focus most of my time on designing these systems and then having other members of the team take up implementation with direction. I have been a hobbyist programmer for over 16 years and i am offering that experience if the project sounds interesting.

The only thing i will say outside of that is i don't use Unity i just don't care for it. Feel free to message me if you have questions etc, and no this post is not meant to make me sound egotistical just setting reasonable expectations for what i am will to do.

Regards XainFaith