Lanterns

[StarSea]

Some of you may know me from the attempts at making Phoenix Adopts through myadopts, and then Garden Creatures through the use of the mysidia adopts script, and after both busts, I decided it's time to stop relying on others and it's time to start relying on myself. After a year of making basic HTML and Javascript games, I'm ready to get my hands dirty and try my best.

 

Lanterns is still in the extremely new development stage and while I've got loads of ideas on what I want and where to go with it, I'd love opinions of you guys to help me make decisions on where to go next.

I realize it's very hard to judge how well you'd like a game without any lore or gameplay or anything to go on, but here are some extremely small snippets of current information about Lanterns and what you'll be able to do throughout the world!

 

 

The world consists of one massive main island, four smaller "tribe" islands, and then five teeny islands that are yet to be explored. Upon entering the world, you are encouraged to select from one of the four tribes to join, or you may be nomadic and explore on your own. However, if you choose to explore on your own, you do not have any tribe-mates to help you explore, train, gather, and more. By selecting a tribe, you will receive many benefits that you would not get by being a nomad, although being a nomad has its perks too. Which path will you choose?

There are elements! Yes, elements! At the core of the tribes and their existence is the feud between the four elements of life- earth, air, fire, and water. Although many societies are separated by this feud, some have found peace with each other and from them arose many unique elements. Breed, battle, and explore to seek out these new elements and their qualities.

As you breed your pets, you might notice something odd happening with them. Their colors sometimes change and some even look completely different. What could be going on? Is it a freak of nature, or simply something more unique?

 

Some more specific details for you are;

There are at least thirteen elements

Pet space costs money but there is no cap

Pets cannot die

It benefits your pets for you to be social

The market stock and staff change as you explore elsewhere

You are able to place whatever gathered eggs you have into a nest together

Nesting pairs are very protective of their eggs and won't share

Pets can be small, medium, large, or even massive

 

I have not yet started programming as I want to wait until I've got things figured out, however I will post preview pics as things get decided and done. The best help I can receive to get this up and running is to get opinions from those looking to play it; you guys! As I think of new areas I need help deciding on, I will update the post below to ask for opinions. Thank you for any and all support! I'm so excited to get started on this journey with you.

If you would like, there is a Discord group for Lanterns that you can join [ here ]!

Edited May 15, 2016 by StarSea

[StarSea]

Okay first questions;

 

How many generations would you like to see in a lineage and how would you like to see the lineages? Horizontally (DragCave style) or vertically? With the child at the right or left, or top or bottom?

 

Would you rather allow inbreeding or not? If allowing it, should there be a restriction for how many generations removed they must be before it is allowed? If so, how many would you suggest?

Edited May 27, 2016 by StarSea

[StarSea]

Here is a preview of a pet WIP;

Of course it'll be a lot smaller than this, no super huge head pets lol

 

Edited May 15, 2016 by StarSea

[StarSea]

Sadly my tablet has died (I lost the pen and it's too old for replacements to be for sale) so I can't work on the adopts much at all anymore until I get a new one in. I've got my eye on one so now I'm just waiting to make the final decision on buying it. In the mean time I'll be starting programming up some stuff for the game itself.

[Lindy]

That pet is super nice!! (A+ tbh I like the horse/lion hybrid idea and the SHADING and that lil eyebrow bump, though, is it going to be ok if you continue creating pets on such a large canvas? I feel that would be very straing ^^') I do have some questions:

So when we breed, are there going to be genes and "unnatural" colors introduced through breeding? If so, will it be a chance to have a specific gene randomly, with no carrying at all and a random gene just pops up (ex. no genes carried + no genes carried get a pet with genes/genes carried)? And if there are genes, will there be any genes you could actually buy (for slots if you could actually generate pets, but you did say we gather eggs so probably not)?

Secondly, for my preference on critter "types", I think I would like subtypes, but maybe some critters that you can breed into (possibly!!) hybrids would fall under both categories? Though having a fire/water pet would be a bit strange....

For lineages, I have an idea of "expand lineage" where there is a button you can press to expand the lineage up more generations (unless that was the idea you already had in mind, in that case nevermind) and start out with it going up to the grandparents. I think it would work out better vertically.

Finally, for inbreeding, I personally generally don't like it, but I would allow inbreeding, with no restrictions

 

(oh BOI did that get long!! Feels like an essay in a way!! These are just my ideas so it's fine if you don't like them)

[water_angel]

I think it would be interesting to have species restrictions. Or maybe certain tribes can breed certain species together while others can't and you would have to trade for them (might encourage the social aspect you were going for.)

 

If you do the lineages vertically then I think the child should be on the bottom

[StarSea]

@Lindy's post;

Ahh thank you! <3

I had been struggling for a long time deciding between having the artwork be pixelart or simple drawings and I had finally made a decision I wanted to do pixelart. To help make up for that, plus the fact that I always love when you've got a size scale, I've decided that pets can be a wide range of sizes. Anywhere from a min of 25x25px and a max of 350x350px.

 

And yes, genes! So for genes, I haven't made a set in stone decision on this yet, but I was thinking I would look into the genetics of other animals such as horses, dogs, cats, mice, etc. and come up with some genetics through that, as well as some made up ones to help give the wider range of possibilities that I want, such as unnatural colors and mutations. If I am understanding your question correctly, it is planned to have specific genetics, like LL for lightened pelt color, Ll for basic pelt color, and ll for darkened pelt color!

When you obtain a pet from something like a found or bought egg, the genes will be random, but within the restrictions for that species. So some pets may only be allowed to have LL, some only allowed to have ll, but some will be allowed to have all three depending on the species itself.

As for buying genes, that is an interesting concept... I'll have to think about it!

 

Hybrids is another interesting idea! A friend helped me better define what exactly I was wanting. There would be species, like the horse/lion, and then there would be different breeds of the species, like a horse/lion, zebra/lion, horse/tiger, and zebra/tiger. Everything of the same species will be able to breed together, so for example, you could breed a horse/lion with a zebra/tiger and possibly get a horse/tiger, zebra/lion, or one of the parents' breed too. Perhaps you'd be able to breed a horse or zebra with a big cat to get one of the horse/lion thingmabobs? (I should really think up a name for them lol)

 

Hmmm An "expand lineage" button is also interesting. I'm not quite sure how I would go about making that work without calling for a refresh, unless I had the lineage page pre-load older generations and just hid them until you hit the button. On the other hand, I am not sure what the benefits would be of hiding the older generations if they're already loaded anyways. Hmm

 

And thank you for your input about inbreeding! <3

 

 

@Water_angel's post;

The tribe restriction is a very interesting idea! Wow! I'll have to give that a lot of thought

 

Thank you for your input about the lineages! That helps a lot

[water_angel]

no problem. glad I could help!

 

If you need help with any kind of writing, I've been told I'm not half bad at it. Like writing descriptions for the animals

[StarSea]

Huzza!!! My tablet works again <3 A wonderful amazing friend sold me her spare from an older tablet model and it works!!! <3 I've still got loads of other things to catch up on but once I do we'll be getting some more pets in order!

[serce2]

Ooh, this looks interesting! I can't wait to join the Air tribe, as long as they have birbs :^)

I don't think I have any good questions, and they're probably repeats, but your tribe mates consist of other players, right? If so, is there a sort of hierarchy in it? Also, what happens if a tribe gets too big, i.e.there's so many players that interaction becomes isolated to small groups?

 

Also, about the gentetics thing, wouldn't Ll just be lighter color dominant? Shouldnt it be LD incomplete dominance, with D= dark,( if I remember correctly from biology)? It would be cool if dominant and recessive traits were a thing, and recessives could be more sought-after.

 

How does the mutation system work?

 

Any estimates on a release date?

Edited June 19, 2016 by serce2

[StarSea]

Ahh hello! I haven't been posting any updates because another site I'm working on (ArtFight) is getting super close to the deadline so I've been working over on that thing!

 

Thank you for your interest, serce2!

Player interaction is a major part that I'm still trying to think about and ways that I can add in opportunities for that, and I actually had not even thought about that in the first place! The original idea was simply just NPCs that would have specific tribes and if you were from their tribe, you'd get discounts or a special gift or of the such, but now that you mention the interaction between others from your same tribe, that is a brilliant idea and I'll have to see how that can be put to use! <3

As for the second part of your question, about tribes becoming too large, I will surely have to think about that.

 

The Ll was just a quick example I threw out there since I don't exactly have genetics completely worked out yet. But yes, there are definitely plans to have dominant, recessive, and non-existent traits! And the dominance also depends on what genetic aspect you're looking at. For example, the agouti and white patterns in dogs and horses are based on a dominance "stair" (I'm not actually sure what it's called as I haven't had the chance to look into that part just yet!) where, using random letters for example, the succession could be any A causes there to be no white, then any B but no A causes there to be white on the chest, then any C but no B or A causes there to be white patches (piebald), and any D but no C, B, or A causes them to be pure white.

So someone that is AC would not have any white, but someone with CC or CD would have piebald white, but then if they're BC they would have white chest. And then you would have to have homozygous DD to get pure white as it's the most recessive.

 

For the "mutation" aspect, I was thinking more along the lines of simply how creatures would represent the genetics that they have. Perhaps a rat that has spikes along the spine, or elephants that grow moss on their backs. And some little secrets I shall't share

 

Whooo boy release date is wayyy off lol I've still got a lot to learn about programming and while I can indeed make the game itself with what I know right now, I want to be able to make sure that the game doesn't bog down a lot with just a few players. So far the horselion is also the only pet that has any work put into it, as well. The site itself will have loads of art to go with it for NPCs and introductions and tribes and elements and exploration, even the map itself has a few different pieces! I hope to make exploration pretty fun and interesting, but to do that it'll take lots of artwork.

Along with all of the work that the game itself will take, I'm also currently looking into colleges and jobs and of the such, so that stuff is taking up a decent amount of my time.

If I were to give an estimate, I'd have to be extremely modest and tell you probably a few years or more before it's anywhere close. If instead, I am to be myself and excited as I am about this, I would tell you a year. But honestly with all the stuff I hope to do for it, I'd have to say probably a year to finish working out how and what I want to do, then another year programming up the site and completing artwork!