Idea about designing monsters

#1 Actually..... It's a great idea! It has numbers swirling in my head... A system like that would lock in perfectly with one of the monster types in the game my team and I are currently working on, and the numbers for putting the system in place are already coming together in my head....

Thanks for posting about it! :D

#2 I agree, that is a great idea. I've wondered about doing that for a couple of storylines before. In my mind, the biggest problem is the total number of models that might be needed. Quite a few of them would be similar in nature, but in order to have enough different types of monsters (maybe these would be the different branches of the evolutionary tree) it could add up quickly. Say you have 2 evolving monster base types, each with two branches. That's 6 so far (2 base & 2x2 branches) Then you would have a couple of different stages to the evolution say 3 maybe 4 (don't want the monsters to jump to far in each stage) and you have another 3 x 4 = 12, total of 18 so far. If you wanted to add a few 'dead-ends', for humor or realism or whatever add another 2-6 (depending). Also, each of the different stages would need to have different animations that match their base type, branch and stage.

I know that I don't know enough about the modelling aspect, but to me it seems like alot of extra work. Am I wrong (I hope so) or is there an easier way to do it (say some different skins for a stage or two) some sort of other tools/methods to simplify the process. If I'm wrong, please set me straight. Thanks.

#3 This does seem like it could be complicated to set up, depending on how it is done. But the end result, if done *right* would be fantastic! There are certain kinds of games this would work for, and certain other types that I'm not so sure it would work for, but I think it would be great to see a game use this strategy. I think that if I were to use it, I would only be able to take some of the basic ideas (the idea of monster difficulty depending on time, not level; the basic idea of an "evolving" monster [which would benefit from AI, especially in the robot scenario... all the robots could be part of a collective that shares information about your whereabouts and your gameplay style, and the robots get smarter as time progresses, specifically adapting to your gameplay]). Thanks for sharing your idea, and if you have any new ones, feel free to share those, too! I hope that anyone who makes a game using your ideas credits you as appropriate.

Alan

#4 This does sound like a great idea, and I think the whole evolution/mutation theory sounds great. With regards to the number of models needed we need only look to Black & White. I'm not a graphical expert, but the creatures in the game were constantly evolving weren't they. I'm sure if you could get your hands on similar technology you could pull of some pretty spectacular visuals.

#5 The Black&White creatures had 3 diff models each, so I guess if there were a number of different evolutionary "paths" that were taken, it may still add up to be alot of models. Here's an example of a tree using 20 models - I think this could be MORE than enough for an entire game.

o
           o< o
        o< o< o
     o< o     o
o-o<       o
     o< o< o< o
        o< o  o
           o

A big advantage during the creative stage would be that the monsters would be modified versions of previous monsters and they would inherit some of the strengths, probably lose some of the weaknesses, and then alittle more could be added on top. Same with the apearance of them, they would simply be big/stronger versions of a previous creature.