Saves. I know, you guys are working on them. My only complaint about the game is the lack of them. I don't care about size of save files. Whatever size, I welcome them. I don't really care about humans being added in this game. I think a new game down the line designed around the idea would probably be better. I would like the ability to plant trees or grasses etc. Having more control over the ecosystem would be great. Creating rainforest, tundra, deserts, etc would be great. That you guys are working on developing the behavior patterns of the animals is very welcome news. I think this game is less a game and more like interactive art. I hope any additions don't detract from the nature of what has been created here.
Maybe catastrophes (quakes, meteor showers, worldwide floods)? Plant life (mutating plants, carnivorous plants, plants that are food for animals etc)? Polar effects (gets cold when at poles, not pointed at the sun etc). World viewer? For viewing other people making their worlds or something
I personally don't do the "visit another persons town/ creation just to view" thing. HOWEVER, here's a stretch: it'd be cool to have one HUGE planet where players IAP/ subscribe for a plot of land to terraform and everyone can go visit
I'm loving all of these suggestions. My main hope is that future updates focus more on adding to the simulation/creation aspect and less on things like challenges and game modes. I love the idea of a pure honest world sim, where players make their own fun by discovering all the fascinating interactions possible in the ecosystem. Also, my 2 cents on the disputed topic of adding humans - it would be a time-sink. Humans are harder to do than other animals, simply because they have far more complex behavior. I don't think it'd be worth it in the end
The behaviour of humans in the game only needs to be as complex as the developers want it to be. We can have the kind of simple human behaviour found in games like The Settlers and Majesty. Things would be very interesting even at that level. I think it would be worth the effort. People who don't want humans could simply not spawn them.
A gameplay mechanic. I'm not being purposefully vague, because I really don't have any ideas. But honestly there's nothing that makes me want to play this, because there's no "accomplishment" factor.
I lean more towards Goromant's comment then Mirkwood. If you reflect in the early App Store games, they were pure. Along came OpenFient and achievements and every single game is just a cookie cutter of unlocks. It's so refreshing to go to a true classic format without all that noise. I'm sure the ADHD among us want constant stimulation, but really, this is pretty darn close to "playin God" and a VR environment that I've ever seen, and I think the results are evident on the App Stores top sellers list, since it is currently #4.
I've been spending a lot more time with TOPIA, and while I hope that the devs would consider some of my original enhancements, outside of the ability to SAVE, my current issue is the lack of more AI routines, and the lack of animals diversity. There are essentially only two creatures in this game: The harmless herd-grazing animals, and the fast predators. I REALLY love where this game is going, but as it stands, there isn't much to do right now. I spent most of my time trying to find ways to drop animals in, and cordon off the dangerous ones from the livestock. My issues, beyond any other major modifications or additions, is that the animals really don't DO anything. The two predator species devour and multiply. Okay, cool. The herd animals get the little 'heart' icons, and mate, and that's about it. Birds? useless. The other bigger predator guys? same as the little predator. The giraffe-like creature? More bait. I wish that the animals had different traits that affected the eco-system differently. An abundance of one animal creates X which affects the ecosystem in Y way, for example, thus forcing a careful balance of species. And the AI is killing me. Why are the hunter-predators essentially killer lemmings? They RUN towards watery death with reckless abandon! It's cray cray! Right off the top, after you guys figure out the saving thing, just greater zoological diversity. Ditto for the ability to great a wide range of trees and fauna. I'd love to make a forest or jungle that makes it really tough for the hunters to attack my herd animals. I'm still on the side of creating humans in this debate. The more I play, the more that i'm fascinated by the fact that the human machine exists with the single minded focus of attempting to cultivate everything in it's path. The idea of a species that slowly tries to create little settlements across the entire globe seems fun. In this way, the predator animals become really fun because they're the constant thorns in the human side. I've got SOOO Many ideas for this awesome sandbox. If the devs do even half of them, this game would be....what's a better word than amazing? Topia is already that. How about EXTRAORDINARY? Yeah, that.
First of all, I am not a real coder myself - but if I were, Topia would be the ultimate goal for me to create! It's a dream come true being able to play exactly this sort of game, I've always wanted to. So I've already thought a lot about the possibilities - and the limitations. I don't think, someone will be able to simulate proper human behaviour given the limited ressources of an iPhone (it's not even simply to simulate 'clever' behaviour on much more powerful machines). Of course could the devs implement humans (just wandering around placing huts here and there) - but those creatures might never act as complex as some people (including myself) want them to (build huts only near water and food, only hunt if they need to otherwise start farming etc.). We all can see at the example of those carnivores how few information these existing creations have - obviously not even a variable for being hungry/fed up, so they always hunt and eat until nothing is left. I would be glad if some other things could be implemented. For example the possibility of growing woods/jungles (add more trees and combine it with the 'herding behaviour' of those animals so they will form tighter groups) - and maybe the possibility to switch on/off an auto-rotation of your planet, so you can leave it in your docking station and watch the wildlife spread slowly over the continents. Sorry for the long post - just my 2cts.
You should have stopped there. You can't possibly go on to comment on the limitations of iOS devices in trying to power limited "human behavior" after a statement like that. If Majesty and Settlers 4 can run on iOS devices, then this game shouldn't have trouble incorporating simple human behaviour. There's no one here who speaks like they understand the technical details involved in this sort of thing. We see games being built where you go up against AI managing cities and spitting out armies and for some reason it's suddenly not possible for this game? Really?
I like the ideas everyone is throwing in, I actually joined the forum to reply. To the thread. Awesome game. Much potential. 1) weather, rain, snow, wind, draught, tornados, tsunamis, lightning, hot, cold, earthquakes, volcanoes etc. All that good stuff would be nice, both a random gesture in game, or the ability to knock out a whole herd in one or two finger movements, so you can also generate the weather. 2) save option, pretty self explanatory. 3) creature AI, very poor at the moment. I know it's in the start off phase, and I have all faith they will be improved. 4) creature diversity, more animals, more interaction, more species, more everything. What good is a world with a few retards? We want animals that are smarter than others. So weaker animals can out outsmart a predator or a predator can over power a weaker animal. Animal herd behaviour is also a must. Also predators die to quickly if there is no food around! 5) day and night cycles, seasons, all been mentioned before nothing more to say. 6) ability to group a heard button, I'm tired to having to drag one path for one animal at a time, maybe a button to draw a circle around a herd everyone with the dominate species in that circle (most type of animal in circle) would get selected so you can control the whole herd movement. Heck why you are there add a quick select button so you can track that herd later and movements without having to find the heard late on. 7) an undo button. Time and time I have tried to drag the screen to accidentally create a mountain, maybe an undo button for the previous few actions or a redo button incase you go back too far. 8) trees foliage, etc, biomes, you create a desert biome, your oak trees die and only cacti survive, create a hot area with a lot of rain, voila you created a rain forest. 9) goals, so the game goes somewhere, you can have a sand box mode everything unlocked to create your perfect Eden. Or it can cater for the gamer with a goal. Level one, create some land, Ect, level 56 create a desert biome, with two separate herds of animals and cacti. Something along those lines to work towards that would give both types of players a reason to buy the game. 10) humans, not too sure how well this would get on, I guess a world is not a world without some sort of human like being, primitive but the ability to think like a primitive human, creating small, simple civilisations. Let's be fair, lightning striking or sending a tornado through the village will never get old. 11) ability to turn off features. Dont want day and night? Turn it off, want a human only world. Turns animals off, and vice versa, don't want westher and random storms... Turn the features off! These points are in no particular order, I just wanted to give something constructive to the game, so far so good, very good potential. Well done guys! Would like the community's opinion on my thoughts too if possible.
You are absolutely correct. iOS devices are pretty powerful. Topia has a slightly weird set of design goals though. When we started out we didn't know exactly what we were making but we did know these things: 1. Modifying the landscape had to feel good. 2. It had to support thousands of creatures at once. 3. It had to run at 30 FPS most of the time on a 3gs This means it had some technical issues to solve (i'm not complaining, this is my favourite part of the job) and the creature AI had to be pretty lightweight. The biggest issue was getting several thousand all interacting with the landscape, each other and the trees without grinding to a halt. Sadly, due to having to code every other aspect of the game while being in a total financial nose dive I didn't get to take it much further than that. Currently the AI does this: Follow parent until grown React to other in game objects (everything from a mild deflection from other herd members to prey running from predators) Look for food (herbivores all eat grass right now and slowly starve where there is none, carnivores eat herbivores. The herbivores form herds (the heart is a creature joining a herd) they react to slopes (too often by running down them). Follow drawn paths. That's basically all I had time to do before I had to focus on every other line of code in this much-too-big-for-one-programmer project. I'm really looking forward to being able to spend more time on this soon. I'm confident that the creature AI will be able to go way beyond this without causing a slowdown.
You will not have to pay for the fixes we have been talking about so far. The game is very unlikely to ever have consumable IAP. Beyond that it'll depend on a few things that we won't be able to judge for a month or so.
I for one would happily pay £2-3 for this app, as you seem like you have equally big ideas as we hoped for, and above all you are interacting with the community. Major plus in my books, I would even pay more money on top of that for additional content.
I think the key is to try to keep the game sandbox. So, you provide the parameters, the tool editors and allow players to act like artists and think up something they personally would like to do with their world and implement their vision. That fits in with the idea of sharing worlds and seeing what cool & different ideas and visions OTHER people come up with. User-generated worlds with maybe different colors, different predominant animal species and networks? === Looking at where Topia is currently: Key Goals: Terraforming: Enjoyable shaping of the world Enjoyable scrolling around a globe Reactive landscape, so different vegetation grows around different topology? Dynamic Animal AI: Currently the AI does this: Need to expand -> 1. Each species has it's own particular type of vegetation it wants to eat if it's herbibore and perhaps predator 1-1 with herbivore? 2. Breeding rates of herbivores to vegetation growing rate to predator breeding rates eg. this creates variation and the goal for player to create more suitable habitats/biomes for different species. So there is active population management of the player to keep the food network balanced and avoid a crash/extinction. So some form of limit on how easy it is for players to pop animals down maybe a good parameter for this sort of gameplay? 3. I guess tighten up some of the AI so it's immersive/fun to observe passively. 4. Migration AI to search for suitable food sources -> this allows the player to shape land to create MIGRATION ROUTES === Next if you add a parameter that has extreme global seasons eg arctic, temperate, equatorial etc this provides more variability for the player to create migration routes over a periodic timer as vegetation flourishes and dies and forces the herds to move. Yup very Serengeti inspired or just maps of global migration. This is all land based. I'm thinking similar idea for water and fish populations with algae blooms or something and krill/plankton again how they migrate needs to avoid the land is nice contrast. For water, for some aquatic animals fish etc you might want the parameter to be deep water lowered or COLD OCEAN currents to allow plankton to flourish perhaps nearer the poles? Not sure what to do with the birds, fruit trees, insect swarms and oc raptors, some competition with swarms of birds eating the same tree as some herbivores to add complexity?! But all with the current art direction alien serengeti twist? === Love the sky at night aurora borealis/australis, and things like rainbows and weather effects for aesthetics perhaps more localised heavier rainfall around mountains etc which speed up nearby forest grow rates etc? That adds another twist to player terraforming and fits expectations and gives mountains a function so they look cool and do something useful too. === For me, the ability for players to grow their worlds more complex, respond to variation and change to keep optimising their ecosystems so they remain in balance (eg not too many predators to prey and migration routes open and optimised vs water migration routes etc with a biomass counter for score as well as bonus scores. Some way to disrupt equilibrium also would be good so player direct involvement is always required. Or to build a world and see if it starts running itself? / Idk what you can do to further player sharing with AI of creatures or different forms of creatures evolved? Perhaps if you 1st herbivore populations grow and breed and flourish for ages, they can then produce a new type of evolved herbivore that requires several different food types to survives... so the game increases in complexity and challenge for the player? Btw, really like the current 1.0 version - it's really crafting land on a globe and looks and "plays" fun already! Txs.
Thanks for the response, Glenn. From an old fan of your work on Populous, it's great to see you back in similar pastures!
Gah! I tried to keep construstive and impartial, but ended up funneling my own vision again! I guess 2 major ways to look at it: 1. Sandbox -> simulation, emergent interactions -> very macro gameplay 2. Mini-Games galore -> very target/goal-driven using the tools to create mini-games for every other player to experience their world, sort of obstacle course creation for example with different dangers set by players and different objectives, eg go here, get herd to this size, in this amount of time, ensure x are not eaten and so on? In both cases, user-generated content shared around would be very cool to see. Both could very popular approaches. I'm just a sucker for simulation I guess. Topia = alien serengeti to me, sorta like Pandora in Avatar but with the player shaping it.
