Game Description - siggame/MegaMinerAI-14 GitHub Wiki

Plot

You lived in a place the scientists called “the lab”. You didn't really understand it, but you liked the scientists. They always gave you water and found new music for you. They said something about making you able to 'reactively fertilize with various radioresistant plants to facilitate irradiated zone decontamination.' You weren't sure exactly what they meant, but they thought it was important, and you were happy to be able to do something for them. And then there was a light.

When you orient yourself, the lab is gone. The scientists are gone. Your roots can't feel your normal hydroponic solution. And the heat is unlike anything you've ever felt. As your stem pans about, your chloroplasts show you pools that feel like the 'radiation' the scientists would sometimes use in the lab. It burns with an intensity that the scientists had never used on you.

You aren't sure what has become of your world. This is something new, something harsh and lonely. You briefly think back to the “fertilization” thing. The scientists always seemed happy when you did it. Maybe if you bud off now, the scientists will see all your sprouts and be pleased and come back for you.

Just then you lay your chloroplasts on some monster. Some grotesque plant creature. And it seems to be flowering. A fear runs through your hypocotyl. Is it going to fertilize better than you? Will the scientists notice it more than you and take it away rather than you? You ready your stamen, knowing what you'll need to do.

Objectives

  1. A victory occurs when the enemy's Mother Weed is killed.

  2. An alternative victor condition (if one is needed) could be to have the most command points' worth of weeds in the enemy's territory (that is, in the enemy's half of the garden). If this alternative victory condition were implemented, you could decrease the spawn rate of an AI's weeds when they are spawned in the enemy's territory - this could further contribute to the rubber band mechanism. Implementing this alternative victory condition could also be an incentive for an AI to not simply remain on their own side of the garden.

Units

Two players begin with a Mother Weed on their separate sides of the map (a garden). The objective of the game is to kill the enemy's Mother Weed. From their Mother Weeds, players can continually spawn one of any of the following kinds of weeds:

  1. Spawner Weed - Spawns any of the weeds (except the Mother Weed) at a certain rate (rate could be faster or slower than the Mother Weed).
  2. Choker Weed - Attacks enemies within its short range. High health and high damage.
  3. Soaker Weed - Soaks up nearby nuclear waste/fertilizer (see below for description of nuclear waste/fertilizer's mechanics). Provides buffs to allied weeds within its range.
  4. Mutant bumblebee - A disfigured "medic" that flies around garden and pollinates (aka heals) other weeds; can be damaged/destroyed by Spawner Weeds
  5. Squirting cucumber - Long range, low damage, low health.
  6. Suicide cucumber - High damage, low health, fast speed. Kills itself when it attacks.

There is a cap to how many units a player can possess at one time. Each of the above units costs a different number of those "command points". These command points can serve the practical purpose of preventing the game space from becoming overcrowded. After all, too many weeds means too few nutrients in one garden, not to mention the fact that this particular garden survived nuclear fallout.

##Features

  1. Spawning: The Mother Weed and Spawner Weeds each have certain radii within which they can send out spores to spawn more weeds. The Mother Weed's spawn radius is larger than the Spawner Weeds'. Weeds can only be grown in available spawn zones. Once any weed has spawned (that is, flown from its spawning plant, landed, and sprouted - which need not take longer than a turn, unless that would be beneficial to the game mechanics) that weed is stationary. It will not be moving at all. Ever. Moving across the garden towards the enemy Mother Weed is a gradual process of alternating between Spawner Weeds and other units. As a player's number of weeds increases, spawn rate decreases. More weeds means fewer nutrients.

  2. Nuclear Waste/Fertilizer: There are puddles of this stuff strewn throughout the garden in a symmetrical pattern (Is it possible to randomly generate that pattern?), with each puddle taking up anywhere from one grid space to several grid spaces. Can weeds spawn on the same space as waste/fertilizer? Heavens, no! But, Soaker Weeds can sprout in spaces that are adjacent to these puddles to provide buffs for your weeds. (My recommendation for a buff would be an increase in the attack points and HP of all your weeds (of course, attack points only applies to those units that can attack). If that buff does not work, I also thought of several other potential buffs: a raising of the cap on the number of weeds that a person can generate, or changing the Killer Weed's attack to be a ranged attack). The benefit that these puddles do for your army is directly related to the number of Soaker Weeds that you have in spaces next to these puddles. For example, if the buff was increased HP and attack, the more Soaker Weeds, the more HP and attack your weeds would have. This provides a trade-off for the players. Increased spawner weeds means a stronger army, but it also means a decreased spawn rate. (If it would not be too complicated, there could be different colors of waste/fertilizer which could each provide different buffs - these could be spread across the map in a symmetrical pattern).

  3. Uprooting: Any plant within the radius of a spawner weed may choose to uproot itself and move to any location within the radius of that spawner weed.

Rubber Band Features

  1. The game Plants functions off of the basic rubber band feature that the rate of spawning decreases as the number of weeds increases.
  2. In addition, players have the choice of trading off spawning speed for increased buffs via the waste/fertilizer.
  3. Finally, if this would be beneficial to gameplay, an AI's weeds spawn slower in the enemy's territory.

*Please note, I do not in any way condone the misconception that nuclear power is inherently bad or results in sentient plants.