Breeding Season: Alpha Version 5.3 [Update 11/3/14]

[Lukas]

I've lurked a long time on these forums, but registered just to throw my hat into the ring as well. This project had a ton of promise but seemed to be in a constant state of rebooting without adding a whole lot of new features. Too bad, but I think the idea of a monster breeding game is still something people want to see come to fruition.

I can program in Java and python, and I've done a bit of Flash but nothing heavy. I'd say the first part is seeing if people are really serious about forming a team and making a list of those interested and what languages they can code in. Same for the art asset side.

I have nearly two decades of experience in software development, so I could help provide some management guidance. That said, someone with specific project management experience would be better, or who have at least worked with others and can provide some insight into the challenges of working/collaborating on a project when everyone is remote.

So, is this actually happening, or is it just talk around the fire?

[DerPeter]

Well, if we're not using the original story, then I'm out.

[evildumdum]

Hmm, i'm a big fan of combat. I'm not familiar with unity but i'm sure it's simple enough to learn the basics. If we end up getting a team together i'll look into the possibility of designing combat engines for it. Gladiatorial style would be most appropriate i think. After all, they are trainable monsters (*Cough* Pokemon *Cough*). Remind you of anything? I'm thinking sexualised combat, where the loser ends up being roughly fucked into submission. Perhaps throw a rival farm / feral monster attacks / bandits / skirmish level war vs another nation in there for added game lore related battles.

[evildumdum]

Well, if we're not using the original story, then I'm out.

Your loyalty is commendable, but i have to ask... What story? there was a small amount of exposition at the beginning and a few unfinished event lines and... Well that was it really. The rest was almost entirely un-implemented. Add to that the property rights H-bomb has over the original story and you have a shit recipe for disaster.

So, is this actually happening, or is it just talk around the fire?

It's feeling out the water and seeing if there are any people that have the ability to and commitment to re-starting the project. Lots of people are considering it. It's just lining up the skill sets.

[DerPeter]

Well, if we're not using the original story, then I'm out.

Your loyalty is commendable, but i have to ask... What story? there was a small amount of exposition at the beginning and a few unfinished event lines and... Well that was it really. The rest was almost entirely un-implemented. Add to that the property rights H-bomb has over the original story and you have a shit recipe for disaster.

That is exactly why I think the story can be used. To claim property of something, you need to have proof. There is none because the story has never been written out. My knowledge comes from 2 years lurking the streams.
Also, if there is one that would sue you, it'd be S and not H.

The game needs a proper story, a grand story at best. A story that allows you to fuck the gods in the end is perfect for that. I am not looking for a story that exists only to give a background for the game. I want it to have a proper goal to work towards. Sonething to look forward to or I will drop this game as soon as I've seen all the animations, like I did with so many games before.

The original story of BS serves this goal just right. And it'd be cool do market the game as a story where not even the sky is the limit.

[evildumdum]

No reason we can't alter the setting a bit, but keep all the good stuff like the goal of fucking the gods etc. Just because it's different doesn't mean it will be any less grand.

[ValturNaa]

Agreed. A new story can be as in-depth, as grand, or as far-reaching as the game project requires, and I for one am all in favor of story-driven gaming. I'm liking the idea of nations bathed in war, as this gives you a context in which to breed powerful gladiator monsters rather than the simple improvement of stats and increased sale prices. Swap the Guild for the national guard/army as your main buyer of monsters and a source of tokens which are used as alternate currency, throw in a handful of neighboring monster breeders who will periodically want to buy, sell, or trade monsters, and you have a pretty involved structure for the same basic breeding mechanics. And of course there can still be locals who just want a monster to fuck. Anything above that only adds to the grandeur of the game. I have several unpublished game worlds already that this could easily fit into, although I'd imagine you'd want something new for this.

As for combat, a gladiator style works and it would be awesome to have an arena where the same monster battles numerous opponents in sequence until it finally "faints" in defeat, or defeats all comers and is named champion. Based on how well it does, you could sell it much more than usual. However, I had been thinking something of a turn based strategy might be interesting for larger battles. Not necessarily Heroes of Might and Magic style, but maybe a similar theme, with unique units rather than stacks of standard ones. Or, if stacks are employed, the total stats of the stack would be derived somehow from the stats of the monsters that make it up--something like that, so it still makes sense to breed the strongest monsters you can. I'm wondering if the two can coexist and how much extra work that would be.

If combat is to be implemented, however, a decision needs to be made. Will the monsters be magical (and what kind of magic will they wield) or simply brute-force attackers? The original BS monsters would work well with the latter, between the teeth and the claws and the hooves that almost all of them have. If it's to have magical attacks then the monsters need magical types, and that will require some interaction between the types.

[evildumdum]

Na, magic is another basket of fruit entirely. Besides, this is highly sexualised warfare. You'd have the standard clawing and biting with slight variations depending on breed, but the diversity would come with their seduction techniques. Elves for instance might be particularly susceptible to demon's sexual assaults etc. Turn based strategy is my forte, so i have to approve that one though lol

[ValturNaa]

Okay, quick thought regarding the lore. The kingdom of Monstropity (all names are open to change) once lived in relative peace with the larger neighboring kingdom of Crusadia, whose high religious code dominated their kingdom. Monstropity has long been a land of monster taming, breeding, and battles for sport and entertainment, all practices which Crusadia would gladly abolish. But Monstropity's last ruler, Good King Fenrir Harlsonn the Fifth, was a generous but not a militarily ambitious ruler. He dismantled much of his standing army so that the money could go to charity, and sold many valuable magical artifacts once used to claim and protect the kingdom but now gathering dust on the castle's many pedestals. While he turned a blind eye, Crusadia claimed much of Monstropity's land, and their agents gained access to the capital city of Wolfmore. A little over one year ago, Crusadian agents murdered Good King Fenrir and launched an outright war. Duke Fentler of the Southern Reach, the highest ranking nobleman left in Monstropity, has taken charge of the military and is leading a desperate campaign against Crusadian invaders. To do so, he is abandoning the old policy of not trusting monsters outside a cage and has asked the remaining monster breeders to breed strong and loyal soldiers to fight alongside his men. Your character is a monster trainer who was displaced by the sacking of a village, the only survivor saved by Duke Fentler's forces. Captain Ironbeard, local recruiter for the Duke's army, sees you settled in a dilapidated ranch inside the Duke's lands and asks you to build it up and breed monsters to help the army.

I see the main story unfolding through fulfilling bulk contracts for the army. As you fulfill various contracts and build up your monsters, you pass different tiers that increase the demands, but also the reward, of the bulk contracts. Each one comes with a cut-scene that advances the story, gives you a new monster ability to breed in, or both. With each advance, the map of the country gradually expands. Eventually you attract the eye of the Duke himself, who starts making his requests in person. He later reveals that he believes your character is the bastard child of the late King Fenrir and therefore, with no more direct heirs, a possible heir to the throne. At end game, the Duke reclaims the capital city and invites you to travel there. Inside the capital, you unlock a series of quests that eventually results in your being crowned King/Queen. This makes you the consort of the gods (should be some hints during the quests that this will be the case) and brings the game to a successful conclusion. You can still breed and fuck monsters, visit the throne room to fuck the gods, and find little scenes scattered around the places you've secured, and build an army of monsters because that is now national policy. Also any side quests you skipped earlier can still be done.

Separate from that storyline are the arena and campaign. The arena has a pretty basic story of the nobody from nowheresville who works his/her way to fame and fortune. The monsters you sell at the arena would remain in the arena and not contribute to the war. There would be a reputation system in place which contributes to the arena prices offered for your monsters. The campaign, however, would be a story involving yourself and another captain of the Duke's army, with plenty of its own sex scenes with both the captain and his monster elite corps sprinkled throughout. Various campaign missions allow you to capture, unearth, or otherwise find many of the magic artifacts given up by the former king, which will be returned to the pedestals in the throne room at game's end. Your direct role in the war would be a minor one at best, and would not be a major factor in completing the main quest. The campaign would be divided by difficulty into regions, and each advancement of the main quest would unlock a new campaign region.

edit: oh, one last thing. As King/Queen, you would either have your monster farm moved to the palace grounds, or have a magical portal that takes you straight back. So everything at end game would be conveniently close by.

[ValturNaa]

another thought. Completing the campaign in various regions might allow you to explore those regions: meet the villagers, visit local ranchers, wander the wilds looking for new monsters to capture (and this could be as simple as pushing an "explore" button or as advanced as RPG-style walking around the map). Wild monster battles could be a less competitive place to practice one on one fighting, where victory results in your monster raping the opponent and a game option to carry it home to tame. This could also give monsters experience in the same fashion as breeding them.

[evildumdum]

Ok, though please not the name Monstropity... its a monstrosity. *Badumbum tschhhh* Personally i like the Agatean Empire and the Kingdom of Bavan.

Hmmm, it has some good points but seem a little fractured and difficult to piece together without having the player assume the role of multiple characters. In my experience that never ends well. What about the story of a displaced monarch (crown prince / princess maybe) who loses their kingdom to an invading empire. They have retreated to a well hidden border fortress in secret with the last of their men. There they confirm the loyalty of the castle and village. Seeing the potential in the monsters that have become friendlier in the region (due to townsfolk fucking them) the monarch decides to set up a breeding farm to create an army of monsters. The campaign gameplay would be balanced between breeding and forming regiments. You then send those regiments on missions (Multiple battle scenario's) while trying to maintain a low profile until you have the power to be a real challenge to the empire.

[ValturNaa]

yeah, just pulling names out of my ass there so all up for debate. I was thinking of the name Monstropolis...and I do like your names. I was actually thinking of it more like the child the king concealed (possibly one of many) who chances to be saved and get into monster breeding, and the Duke either stumbles across or deliberately tracks down your past. Which gives you that added incentive to reclaim your kingdom. So the beginning of the game could introduce a certain amount of mystery regarding your past, and gradually that mystery thickens until finally you ask the Duke to look into it. But the displaced crown prince/princess also works.

My thinking is that the combat should be subservient to the breeding, since breeding is the main point of the game, but I'm not set on that either. Whether people want a strategy game with monster breeding, or a breeding game with optional combat, I'd love to see it take shape either way.

I also had a thought that there could be a rumor (true or not) that the player's mother was actually a monster. Likely a humanoid one so it wouldn't be physically obvious.

[evildumdum]

The duke could easily take the role of the tutorial guide / in game help as well as providing exposition. I also think that combat should be an optional extra. This is why i brought up gladiator matches and mission scenarios as opposed to grand campaign style battle strategy. A sort of halfway point between battle strategy and RPG.

[VintageBass]

... Weird thinking, and if you don't mind me interjecting, but I have this weird idea for like some shop where you can get like home cooked meals as a way to help your monsters out. Like each meal will provide like different stat buffs and debuffs and could help out on down the line. Now I don't think we need like a hunger system, but something in place where you could have like this one place you can go to feed monsters these items that can help them out, to help make that perfect monster you want to help in whatever desire you need, like making a more combat oriented or a more breeding-friendly type creature.

Just thinking up of like possible NPCs down the line that you could meet up, and possibly build a relationship as well. Heck, that could be something as well, as the more friendlier you get with an NPC, the better stuff you could get and, maybe, get some scenes out of them? Helps out in the world building as well to learn about their history and the like.

[evildumdum]

I always hated the milking of consumables from monsters. That mechanic could be a good replacement. You get an optional boost to stats without having to religiously milk every monster every day.

[Cobalt]

So, there was not much feedback on my previous idea on this Forum: viewtopic.php?f=34&t=2954&cache=1&start=2040#p531856
In the meantime I was gathering feedback from other sources and we worked out a possible concept.
So the idea of a customizable game prevailed. The idea is similar to what I was posting earlier. A quick sum up:

The game will be split in core and content. We will create a core team to develop the core of the game. Everybody else is invited to provide content. The core team will closely listen to the content contributors feedback and ideas (the community). The core provides the game mechanics and will furthermore act as the content loader.
The current core mechanics planned are:

• Interactions (with NPCs and objects)
• Breeding (with monster variations, stats and inheritance)
• Market (one idea is to maybe offer a global market where players can sell/buy monsters to/from other players)
• Combat

In time, more mechanics would follow, like mini games (fishing, …) or consumables, depending in what the contributes would vote for.
Plans are to provide a platform to share content and make it easy to enable it for the game. Probably an in-game downloader.
The current content elements that can be provided by the community are:

• Regions (towns, forests, …)
• Objects (that can be placed in regions for simple interaction)
• Characters (NPCs)
• Missions
• Monsters
• Packages (a whole collection of content elements to provide a whole seamless world)

Content may depend on other content and extend it. For Example, someone might create a region content and others may fill this region with characters and objects and even others may use these characters and objects for their missions and develop a story.
Current plans are to bake the animations into the core, so people interested in delivering content won’t have to hassle with animating their monsters. The core team will create a bone model and create all required animations. Contributors then can choose what animation their monster will support. New animations may be added by the core team in future releases to, for example, provide a wider range of possible monster creations.
I see there are many people interested in games that develop a story and offer a unique world to explore. This can also be reached by this project, other teams may form to develop content packages to create an own world with an own story, not needed to create their own game engine.
The current idea is to use MonoGame as framework. It offers a wide range of target platforms if needed, is very flexible and not too hard to master. But the final decision is not made yet. This is true for all of the ideas above: it’s a pretty early stage. So everything can change if other people disagree with some concepts or have better ideas.

I will soon start an own thread on this forum to see who is interested in this project and who is willing to contribute.

@DerPeter, evildumdum, ValturNaa, VintageBass: Do you think that may be suitable for your considerations as well?

[ValturNaa]

@Cobalt Works for me. Let us know when you've made the thread. I've always loved the idea of customizable games. But if monsters are to be engaged in battle that means contributors can't just create a monster with a few enabled poses, they also need stats (that is, unless all monsters use universal stats) and some sort of attack. So there will be a bit more work involved in creating a new monster class than in, say, redesigning an existing monster. Shouldn't be a problem if the core is built right, just throwing that out there. We should also have a small "official" monster list, say 2-6 varieties, embedded in the core game. These should NOT be the same monsters used by BS, but I do like the idea of sticking to the wolf/cat starters. Or possibly some type of dog monster, which might be more conducive to early training than wilder beasts. I don't know about MonoGame but I'd let the coders pick the framework. I am, however, leery of a global market or combat system. Then you have to deal with servers and all sorts of crap, and all I really want out of the game is a single player thing anyway. Although maybe there could be a global connection available later on as an add-on, possibly a paid service.

@evildumdum When I said campaign, I never meant it as a particularly extensive thing. A campaign can be as simple as 3 missions which follow a given storyline. So, depending on how combat-involved the game needs to be, there could be just one battle for each region, or a series of 3 battles, or a grand-scale map with 25 different camps that need to be conquered. But structuring it as a campaign means that it should be undertaken in a specific order and, thus, follow a kind of timeline or story.

@VintageBass I think it would add more interest, though also more work, to add NPC relationships. I'd love to see it happen, and I'd be glad to help make it so. But that also might be part of the expanding game contributed by the community. And maybe it would be less work than I think, especially if the human scenes can use the same animations as some of the monsters.

[evildumdum]

One thing i'd like to add. Think small. It's all well and good throwing these grand large scale idea's out there, but lets face it we'll never hit anything of our target is a million miles away. Once they type of game and team members is hashed out, there should probably be some small and realistic goal to work towards, such as getting a basic breeding system up and running. It can always be expanded later.

[Ungawa]

But a question you also have to ask is if the trainer needs to have an attack or submit button themselves. If you keep it to a Monster arena, that may be more viable than anything else.

Still, the best thing is to make sure the core and the gameplay work before getting into a battle arena which may change the priority.

[Cobalt]

But if monsters are to be engaged in battle that means contributors can't just create a monster with a few enabled poses, they also need stats (that is, unless all monsters use universal stats) and some sort of attack. So there will be a bit more work involved in creating a new monster class than in, say, redesigning an existing monster.

True. Each content element will require a manifest. The manifest will contain all required Information about the element. In the case of a monster, there are the poses, the stats, the traits, the preferences, skills, … dunno.

We should also have a small "official" monster list, say 2-6 varieties, embedded in the core game.

I like the idea of having a few representative, "official" elements. Maybe two regions, 2-6 monsters, a few NPCs… Something that could represent the game to the public. These could also be an example on how to create content, as kind of tutorial. But I think it still would be good to make them optional, so packers can remove them if they do not fit there world. So make them default elements that can be unloaded still.

I am, however, leery of a global market or combat system. Then you have to deal with servers and all sorts of crap, and all I really want out of the game is a single player thing anyway. Although maybe there could be a global connection available later on as an add-on, possibly a paid service.

The global market was an idea by one web developer and will surely be one thing implemented later. I personally like the idea of giving the players the ability to interact with each other in some way. But I agree with you on that, the single player experience will have to be top priority. Online features should only be optional. Well, we will see…

One thing i'd like to add. Think small. It's all well and good throwing these grand large scale idea's out there, but lets face it we'll never hit anything of our target is a million miles away. Once they type of game and team members is hashed out, there should probably be some small and realistic goal to work towards, such as getting a basic breeding system up and running. It can always be expanded later.

I agree and disagree. It is important to set goals that you can reach. What goals are realistic depends on the team. I hope we can form a team that is experienced enough to reach these goals. So far, it looks like we can make it.
But I disagree with "start small, expand later". We surely have to go step by step. But we also have to see the bigger picture. If you plan a project too small, you will often have to start all over as soon as you want to enhance your current plans (BS is a good example as many game routines were rewritten multiple times). Creating interfaces for the artists is something I would have done anyway, even if it is more work in the first place. The difference is, the plans are to make these interfaces public, so they have to be designed with more care.
But if we should fail with this project, I assure you my aid in creating a basic breeding system of your choice for the platform of your choice.

Just thinking up of like possible NPCs down the line that you could meet up, and possibly build a relationship as well. Heck, that could be something as well, as the more friendlier you get with an NPC, the better stuff you could get and, maybe, get some scenes out of them? Helps out in the world building as well to learn about their history and the like.

I really like this idea. Would you mind if we take this into account for our plannings?