New Freeplay Game Type Suggestion - Life Cycle

[Bassilth]

New Freeplay Game Type

Life Cycle

Short description:
In this game mode the player controls any of the available freeplay colonies and survives a year with them in a pine forest. The enemies and food sources change with the seasons. It is a form of 'exam' of what the player has learned through the extra levels and the story mode. It can be also seen as a mashup of every other level for people who played through everything and want something more complex. This game type is better played alone but it can be spiced up by bringing in AI colonies as well.

Unique features:
- It features all seasons
- Differing enemies, threats, and food sources in every season
- Hibernation level features are added
- Player can set how many 'years' they want to play through
- Seasons will be adequately long so the player can experience its full features
- The thermometer is shown on the screen so the player knows when to retreat to the nest
- Queen can be moved from one nest to another but cannot be controlled by the player
- Multiple available nests which have their own advantages
- Flooding system is automatic and reacts to the season

Nest system:
- Although the player can choose to move to a different empty nest, the queen will always follow a specific path to it and will always rest at the common 'queen spot' in each nest.
- Each nest will have its own advantages and disadvantages. The player will be encouraged to move nests as the seasons go by due to food locations and enemy setup shifting. Forming long trails can be dangerous as it might draw in enemies and 'wild' ants.
- Nests found higher up will be safe from floods and have lots of pine needles in preparation for the winter but will have less food available. It will have more large enemy spawns as well.
- Nests found in the middle ground are safe in the summer from the floods, although will occasionally flood during the spring. It would have less large enemy spawns, relatively good food but it is such a good spot that enemy ants, be it AI or 'wild' ants will try to swarm it occasionally to take it over.
- Nests found in the lowest ground will flood occasionally during the summer and will be always flooded during the spring but will have the most food available and have the least large enemy spawns.

How the nest move works:
- If there is an empty nest available, the player can select the queen and click on the entrance of the empty nest for her to move there. The queen will pick a predestined path and follow it.
- The player's ants will automatically go with the queen
- The player can call off the move the same way as they can call off an invasion. In this case both the queen and her colony will go back to the original nest.
- What will happen to the brood the player left behind? They will be destroyed. Moving is a risky business as the two colonies in Queen of the Hill demonstrated. Any ant lost during the move cannot respawn.
- The player then is free to rebuild their nest to their own design in their new home. They need to rebuild the brood chambers. The first brood tiles built by the player will not hatch any ants if the player has ants of this same type already spawned but the brood tile will act as a respawn tile instead.
In other words: Only the excess brood tiles will spawn new ants.
- Alternatively, the old ants will simply stay excess ants that will never respawn once they die. There could be also a timer for how long they are allowed to stay alive before they die automatically, to prompt the player to make more ants but will not be able to keep the excess ants indefinitely.
- What happens to the old nest? Eventually, they will reset, collapse due to lack of maintenance, leaving a small tunnel with the 'queen spot' for potential moving.

Temperature
- The temperature will play a crucial role in the ant colony's survival.
- Like in Hibernation level, the thermometer is displayed on the player's screen year-round. And the player has to keep track of the temperature.
- In the summer, the temperatures are high enough day and night, so it plays no role.
- During fall the nights grow colder and longer as the season progresses. Any ant left outside the nest during a cold night will be slowed down and eventually will die of hypothermia. So the player must busy their ants during the day.
- During the spring the nights keep getting warmer and shorter, so the opposite happens. The player will slowly be able to send out the ants during the night as well.
- The winter is similar to Hibernation, where the player must gather food and pine needles to keep the nest warm in the beginning, then they must sit tight as the winter goes on. Not the entire colony will survive winter, however. As the means of population control, some ants will eventually perish due to the cold within the nest. How many will die will depend on the pine needle amount. I feel they should decompose faster. But even if the pine needles are plety, about 20% (if not more) of the ants should perish on default to gently bump down the number of ants available to the player at the beginning of each season. Obviously this still allows the player to grow their colony season by season but a default partial termination would be necessary so the player will not be OP next season already.

Seasons

Spring:
- In early spring the ground is still covered in some snow.
- Aphids slowly appear towards the middle/late of spring as the snow melts.
- In spring the temperatures sink occasionally and snow may fall, so the player is still encouraged to gather pine needles.
- Insects appear gradually as the spring goes on. The first to appear are mostly threats, so the player has to be careful.
- Insects: Mainly larvae, spiders, aphids
- Flowers start to appear, so seeds can be collected from mid-spring
- Floods bring in food in the form of small morsels
- For leafcutters: Small saplings. Larger harvestable plants start growing at the end of spring. Plants regrow their food values quickly.
- Water slowly rises and eventually floods the lowest level, prompting the player to move, frequent flooding on the medium grounds due to melting snow. Only upper level nests are safe.
- Gameplay here is similar to Rising Tide

Summer:
- Temperatures remain constantly warm
- Adult and large insects appear
- Flowers are more frequent and drop seeds more often
- Fish start to wash up on the shore of the occasionally flooding lowest level
- Pine needles on the ground vanish from the game until late fall
- 'Wild' ants will start appearing from nests off-screen and will try to take the middle level nests occasionally. They will also compete for food.
- For leafcutters: Larger harvestable plants appear and grow more frequently as the summer goes on, replacing small saplings more often. Plants regrow their food values.
- Long rains may bring floods to the lowest level nests
- Game play here is similar to Rising Tide, Queen of the Hill for most ants and for leafcutters it is similar to The Harvest as they have to stock up as much food as possible

Fall:
- Temperature slowly sinks as the season goes on, although temperature sinks slower on the lowest ground level
- Nights begin to be too cold and long for ants
- Pine needles appear only in late fall
- Insects start to vanish and eventually only threats remain
- Flowers vanish as the season goes on
- Fish vanish as the season goes on
- 'Wild' ants start to compete for pine needles, no matter of they took over the middle ground nest or not
- For leafcutters: Plants no longer regrow their food values but can be harvested. Plants are more plentiful in the lowest level
- No floods.
- Gameplay will start to have elements from Hibernation and Cramped, as the player will try to gather as much food as possible, so will attack everything they can find.

Winter:
- Temperature grows dangerously low even during the day and eventually becomes deadly cold for ants.
- Pine needles are dropped by trees often
- Pine seeds appear to replace other foods
- Slowly even the threat insects disappear
- 'Wild' ants disappear, no matter if they took the middle nest or not. If they took the nest, then their chance for them to survive the winter is determined by how many pine needles they managed to collect. If they survive the winter, then they will pose a beginning competition for food until the first spring flood arrives when the nest will be terminated by the flood.
- For leafcutters: Sadly no food is available for harvest
- No floods
- Gameplay is similar to Hibernation

[Airborne Seals]

I love this idea.

[willtofish]

this sounds like so much fun, but also a ton of work, it would probably be added after the full release

[Bassilth]

Yeah, my idea as well. I would never expect something like this to be implemented in the near future. Maybe once the developers have some time on their hands after full release.

[Upsettacokitten]

I love this idea, specifically that you covered the two ant types. Both will have to stock up on food but you talk about how the Leaf cutters might have a larger problem finding it despite their higher food income.

[AnacDoty]

I love this idea!

[Misto Taco Laddy!]

Man i wish!

[DavinoPepino]

maybe when it's full release we'll get a scenario creator