jcr13
10-17-2006, 04:56 AM
Cultivation explores the social interactions within a gardening community. You lead one family of gardeners, starting with a single individual, and wise choices can keep your genetic line from extinction. While breeding plants, eating, and mating, your actions impact your neighbors, and the social balance sways between conflict and compromise.
Cultivation features dynamic graphics that are procedurally-generated using genetic representations and cross-breeding. In other words, game objects are "grown" in real-time instead of being hand-painted or hard-coded. Each plant and gardener in the game is unique in terms of both its appearance and behavior.
System requirements are rather minimal: some kind of 3d card that can render OpenGL and stereo speakers. It is playable on a 166MHz PC with a 3dfx Voodoo3 card. Builds are available for Windows, MacOSX, and Linux.
Here is a screenshot: http://cultivation.sourceforge.net/screen3.png
You can download Cultivation for your platform from the main page here: http://cultivation.sourceforge.net/
What kind of feedback do I want?
Well, this is a very "different" game... it doesn't really fit into an existing genre. What do you think of it? Is it fun?
Currently, there is no explicit goal in the game. An implicit goal is genetic survival (since the game ends when your genetic line ends). Is this enough to make it fun? Should there be some kind of explicit goal? Of course, any goal that might be added needs to be balanced with the theme of cooperation. Thus, a goal like "Be the first gardener to _____" doesn't fit very well.
I'm currently thinking about some kind of overall, island-wide goal. If you reach the goal before your line dies, you win. For example, you could be trying to build a structure of some kind. While you do it, you would still need to survive, which can require cooperation.
Suggestions and ideas are welcome.
Cultivation features dynamic graphics that are procedurally-generated using genetic representations and cross-breeding. In other words, game objects are "grown" in real-time instead of being hand-painted or hard-coded. Each plant and gardener in the game is unique in terms of both its appearance and behavior.
System requirements are rather minimal: some kind of 3d card that can render OpenGL and stereo speakers. It is playable on a 166MHz PC with a 3dfx Voodoo3 card. Builds are available for Windows, MacOSX, and Linux.
Here is a screenshot: http://cultivation.sourceforge.net/screen3.png
You can download Cultivation for your platform from the main page here: http://cultivation.sourceforge.net/
What kind of feedback do I want?
Well, this is a very "different" game... it doesn't really fit into an existing genre. What do you think of it? Is it fun?
Currently, there is no explicit goal in the game. An implicit goal is genetic survival (since the game ends when your genetic line ends). Is this enough to make it fun? Should there be some kind of explicit goal? Of course, any goal that might be added needs to be balanced with the theme of cooperation. Thus, a goal like "Be the first gardener to _____" doesn't fit very well.
I'm currently thinking about some kind of overall, island-wide goal. If you reach the goal before your line dies, you win. For example, you could be trying to build a structure of some kind. While you do it, you would still need to survive, which can require cooperation.
Suggestions and ideas are welcome.