Black and White
Story so far
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the PC game of the same name, it is basically a mostly open sandbox type game in which the player takes the role of a god. The player must battle against other rival gods for the belief and worship of the people of the land. Once there is no longer anyone believing in a god, that god is wiped from existence. Belief can be attained either by being benevolent and loving towards the peoples of the world, or by striking fear into their hearts through chaos and destruction. Each god is aided by a "Creature," which serves as the god's avatar in the world. The Creature takes on the appearance of an animal, such as a horse, or lion, or a cow, and acts as a physical representation of the god.
The goal
Make a WC version of this. If you've played Black and White before, you know this is impossible, especially with the Creature. However, I'm not going to try and make an exact replica of the game. The focus of the WC version will be more focused on the management of the villagers.
I've only just started on this, but ideas are flowing like a raging river, and I've already laid down some of the basic functions of the game. But here's what I've got so far.
Overview
Black and White will be a micro-management intensive game where players can either play as one of two rival gods, or one of the ten warring tribes scattered throughout the realm. As a god, your objective is to have complete dominance of the island by eradicating your rival god. This can be achieved through either converting all of his believers to your side, or wiping them out. As a mortal, your objective is island domination through unification or conquest. Whether or not the tribe's goal is religious is entirely up to the player.
Gameplay
Gods
Tribes
Summary
Every tribe starts out with the Village Center and a handful of Villagers. These Villagers are capable of some basic functions such as the gathering of food and wood, construction of structures, and basic military operations, mainly defending from outside threats. Every minute, each villager will consume a certain amount of food depending on what his or her profession is, and a number of wood will be set aside for the maintenance of structures. If the tribe fails to provide enough food for each villager, the ones who are not fed will die. If the demand for wood is not met, the buildings will begin to deteriorate depending on how short the village was of the required amount.
Features
-Careers: When making a new villager, he/she starts as a child that serves no real purpose. When the child grows, it can then choose from a number of career paths to follow. Both men and women can choose to perform basic village functions such as the harvesting of resources. Men can join the village's military, and build structures, while women can devote their lives to service of the gods or join the army as the more subtle assassin role.
-Lifespan: No villager can live forever. As soon as a child matures, his or her life force (represented as mana) will slowly drain away. Villagers can live from as short as 15 minutes to as long as 30.
-Backstabbing: Backstabbing is a combat function. In order to promote more advanced military tactics other than mass the strongest unit and charge the enemy, units receive bonus damage when attacking from behind. The bonus damage varies from unit to unit, but is usually higher for ranged or assassin units.
Help Wanted!
Much help would be appreciated for a project this size! Several roles I will be needing, either now or later include:
-A terrainer who can make a good island-like terrain, but not too tropical. If you've played Black and White, you'll have a very good idea.
-Someone who can get rid of the leaks, because I know nothing of JASS and have been using GUI all this time, and something tells me my triggers leak like a mother.
-People to provide conceptual ideas. This is a pretty broad subject and is basically helping me think of ideas for the gameplay.
-Balance testers. These guys will have to play the game itself numerous times, and decide if the numbers are set exactly right to create a (for the most part) fair game environment in which only the most skillful players will emerge victorious.
More to come!
