I can, but I don't see the whole picture with this option yet. If I make this, there is a problem: it's very easy to tell who is The Thing at "night" by just coming everyone to one place.

Well are we trying to convince the Thing to act or are we just punishing the Thing for not acting? If you are going to the the text msg thing you should at least have warnings to the Thing first so he knows what he has to do before he gets butt-fucked.

You could implement a system where he has to kill a person every X minutes or else he is revealed.

You could also set up a system where either on a timer or through a group effort that the players can induce a flicker inceptor where they have to quickly scan all the players to see which one is the thing. If it was a group effort that would be cool because you would then have the added clue of looking for the player who is trying to sabotage the operation.

How about exploiting the player's curiosity? Each human player leaves a scent as he walks - an invisible trail only the thing can see. It can be implemented by creating N burrowed units next (not to slow him down) to every human player every T seconds and by cycling through these patches of units and removing one from each patch. This way a scent will only last for N*T seconds.

We're trying to avoid a stupid dead end situation when The Thing doesn't ever want to morph.

Yeah of course, everything that describes the game for new players is gonna be added.

Hmm... This is a nice idea! But I want more collective effort involved. But this may be merged with the code breaking game idea I was discussing above as a way to "increase" the timer.

Yeah, yeah it's warmer! Can't see the whole idea clearly. A way to "scan" other players... this is really nice... gotta brainstorm about how this works exactly.

It's not really a way to struggle with the inactivity of The Thing, but is a brilliant piece of an idea on itself! Should think how to convert this into revealing The Thing... maybe it's The Thing who leaves the scent behind? And maybe players have to "scan" trials somehow?

Don't know where it goes, but I'm just dropping another random thought. The player who reveals the trail keeps getting transmissions from burrowed units when on top It will look like blinking yellow (or red) circles.

Well the collective effort would be players could set up one guy as bait since they know he's going to have to HAVE to eat someone soon. Then they see who is the guy that attacks him. This has added complexity as they won't know who to offer up as bait or how to hide this strategy from the thing since they don't know who he is.

You could have certain rooms or traps that do certain things sort of like how a Pyro in TF2 can set fire to Spies pretending to be on the other team. This would force the Thing to try and avoid these while not giving away the fact that he is The Thing.

Well what it would be like is through a team-effort or a timer or whatever whoever is The Thing has something appear above the marines head like an inceptor maybe, this 'flickers' (Create/Remove quickly) so people will have to try and look at everyone at once to see which person flickers.

Hmmmm, IMO, you're not thinking in the right direction: for a simple yet interesting thing map you don't need a triggered interaction between every idea/system. You just need to pick your ideas and systems carefully and let the players do the interacting/interpreting: instead of revealing the thing via a scent-related trigger system, why not just have, say, one player walk in a clever way such that it appears that he's entering a room but then he changes direction. So if a thing were to follow his trail it would first walk next to the door of the room before realising that the human didn't enter it. All you would need then is to observe the suspected player and see how he walks. You might implement a camera system for that, for example. Or you could allow players to somehow alter the scent levels they give off or even place decoy scent points and then the players themselves have to figure out how to use that to their advantage.

You know I quite like this idea so I'm gonna just keep chucking random things in that I think of.

Now for items I am thinking the players have items that the thing has as well (so the thing can't be caught out by not being able to use a certain item), yet the thing will additionally have his own little trinkets that players CANT get. Basically player items will revolve around escaping from the thing/revealing the thing while Thing items will revolve around tricking players into thinking someone else is the thing so they get killed instead. REMEMBER. You want to make playing the thing just as fun as playing the players and both have an even chance of winning. BALANCE IS KEY.



PLAYER ABILITIES/ITEMS
Smokebomb - blinds everyone in X radius except the person who deployed the smoke bomb. Can be used to get away from the thing if you fear he is about to kill you?
Blink - teleport somewhere randomly, good way to avoid the thing
Propulsion - increases player speed (scourge movement), can use to jump walls and shit
Mute - force everyone EXCEPT The Thing to be unable to cast spells. If you see someone casting a spell once you used this spell, you know they are the thing. You just have to convince everyone else now!
Mute 2 - force everyone in X radius to be unable to cast spells.
Sixth Sense - briefly reveals where all players (including thing) are and what they are doing. Good for players for trying to catch the thing in the act. Good for the thing for tracking down players who are isolated.
Agatha Potion - warmer/colder method of finding the Thing which lasts for X seconds. If this proves to OP you could use it to track down the latest location of The Thing's kill. Eg. someone just dies you smash this potion and quickly try and find the death site and the Thing. Oh yeh good idea: have corpses (flags?).
Agatha Potion 2 - the thing's version could be for tracking down players instead.

THE THING ABILITIES/ITEMS
Curse - forces the player to cast a Thing-only ability, tricking other players into thinking that that person is perhaps the Thing.
Curse 2 - could even make a person look like the Hydralisk for X seconds. Could even fuck around with ally settings as well.
Poison - when a person is poisoned they will die in X seconds. Poisoning someone can be an indiscriminate attack with the requirement of having to be in melee range. The poisoned player could be unaware of the fact he is poisoned. This would force people to keep their distance from each other and then freak out if someone got close to them as they don't know if they were poisoned or not.
Poison 2 - as above - but the poisoning is obvious to who gets poisoned but only after X seconds. Then they can run around screaming aagh it was this guy it was this guy or aggh someone poisoned me before dying. This can then be used as The Thing pretending he is poisoned as an attempt to lure someone or trick someone into killing someone else.


I'm also thinking instead of having just ONE thing per game you should have rounds. Like after the thing loses/wins a new player is selected another round begins. You could split your map up until multiple arenas as well so there would be different arenas layouts each time you play the game not just one. These arenas could have their own little tricks like traps and such as well.

MAP TRAPS
Hiding Spots - you can jump in these and stay in them for as long as possible as long as no one sees you. Being in these places can make you immune to certain reveal spells. People can still randomly search these places though.
Trap Rooms - these can trap you in enclosed areas. The thing could wait in these areas/lure someone to these areas and pounce when the room becomes enclosed. These rooms could also make everyone in them immune to reveal things.
Teleport Rooms - use them for getaways.

You also want to think up ways for The Thing to still be a threat even when detected.



You know I'm thinking you do a radical changeup altogether - take it or leave it just hear me out. Basically I've been playing these PC Game Assassin's Creed Brotherhood its got a really unique multiplayer similiar to the thing. Except everyone is a thing and everyone is also a prey. Basically each person has to kill one other person. People never get contracts for the people hunting them. The higher you score the more people you have with your name on the contract. It is a pretty awesome mechanic because on the one hand your trying to kill your dude but you also have to watch out for the guy who's aiming for you.

Oh yeah that reminds me another thing that game had civilians you could have civilians. Basically NPC Marines walking around everywhere indistinguishable from the players. Players can pretend to act like bots, killing a bot accidently can give away your position.

Anyway that's all I got for now GL with it.

This won't work like this because if The Thing wants to sit, he won't morph even when given an opportunity to kill someone. I need the remedy against this kind of a stupid thing behavior.

Sorry, I haven't played TF2.

This is too obvious to detect, if you're not completely blind =) I can make a cloaked observer on top of the player, but it's also waaaay too obvious.


SMART! This is a good addition to the picture. But I also need a reliable way which inevitably leads to the detection of The Thing if he doesn't want to behave like The Thing... (Given all other players play the right way.)

I've just thought of a scanner. The scanner is used by exactly 3 players. It tells (only yes or no) each player who uses it if there is The Thing among the other 2 players. But it only tells truth when there IS the thing among players who use the scanner. When all 3 players are clean the scanner may tell truth or lie. The problem: is there a realiable way to reveal the identity of the thing? (I've just thought this up and don't know myself.)

A group could just test mutiple times to see if it changes it's mind.
I sortof feel that if the thing doesn't want to act like the thing he shouldn't be playing.

The main problem is that the thing usually doesn't attack because people clump up.
-Making the map really dark with lots of narrow twisting halls will help them from being all together... sortof. It's also important to make scouting important. but maybe only two people can go at a time?
-Secret passages that only the thing can use? That way he can quickly escape if he needs to.
If there was some way to make it so that the thing can merge back into the crowd after leaving. Problem is they can unally him and find out who he is right away. Find some way to make the thing turn into people that have died.

Private_parts, thank you for your big post. Items sound a bit complicated for me to implement, but there are several interesting ideas that may be fruitful.

JaFF, also keep in mind that the thing can walk in it's monster form without the fear to be revealed (unless all people gather altogether). I don't really see a point for The Thing in following the other players. If I was The Thing, I was just randomly walking around looking for single guys and run when I see more than one (or something). But I see your train of thought, I need to think more in that direction.

Yea, this is a very obvious problem for the thing maps: choosing what items/abilities/interactions you want to have because there are so many options, especially since the game is so variable and player-dependent each time.

I had this idea that if you strictly define the world the players are in (i.e. modern) and the technology/abilities that go with it, it will make the gameplay better and open up additional idea/system interactions. Just a thought. I never liked black magic among depleted uranium shells.

Let's say the device gives always the same answers for the same group of people.

You're right, but I still want to make the game interesting even in this case. That why I'm thinking about having a collective puzzle to reveal The Thing.

Yeah thank you for these hints! But my terrain is sucky yet xD Though I hope I can tweak resources degeneration times and amounts of sources supplies so that people couldn't clump up for a long time. Also, in my map it isn't possible to unally or give vision to anyone.

Not that I want to put everything I told into the map altogether... I'm just trying to brainstorm and fix ideas that randomly come to my mind "on paper".

P.S. Wormie is exhausted and needs a rest. Going to update the head post tomorrow.

Read through all the ideas once again and updated the head post. Digesting all the information at the moment.

UPDATE: Was longing to triple post, but I should school myself down!

I think I've made up my mind. The puzzle which reveals the identity of The Thing is gonna be a distributed code breaking game! Specifically the game is called (yeah, I've finally remembered it's name) Mastermind. (Hello, Tank_7 and FoxWolf1!) The passworded number is gonna be a 6 digit octal number.

Now, attention to the picture:


Yes, it's my shitty terrain. Whatever. Digit slots are represented as flying terran buildings (blue circles on the picture) and digits are buildings' colors. People can choose colors of the building at a terminal nearby. In the middle (green circle) people can test the current code. Two mineral fields in the middle will show the number of matched (with the code) colors and the number of correctly painted buildings. Aside from being a pretty mind intensive puzzle itself, this variant has an added layer of complexity, because digits are distributed all over the map (at 4 spots) and noone can see the whole picture (shared vision is forbidden) and can't easily change digits on his own (try to walk all over the map!). That way, people have to necessarily work together if they are going to solve the puzzle, which leaves space for The Thing to sabotage the collaborative operation by many ways.

It was waa-a-ay too complex for an average team of bnetters if it was all. The team is gonna receive hints as time goes by. The simplest thing (and hence maybe the best) to do is to randomly open digits of the password one by one as time goes by. For example, let's say a random digit is revealed every 6 minutes after first 4 minutes of the game. And after 40 minutes (real 20 minutes on fastest) the identity of the thing is automatically revealed. Don't be very captious because I got numbers from head and they are of course a subject to balance changes.

The nice thing is that the map doesn't force people this way of playing. You can just ignore this opportunity and try to find out The Thing by other means. On the other hand, when the game gets really boring you can always switch yourself to solving a puzzle, which is always fun.

Ah yea, and the other thing. Predicting The Thing will be running around and randomly switching buildings colors, I'm gonna add the JaFF's idea of a trail. Each player is gonna leave the trail of burrowed units. When player stands still for some time the game pings all steps nearby by sending transmission from the underground unit. When player stands for some time *exactly* (will tweak an inverted location for this) on top of the trail unit it unburrows and reveals the color of the holder. (Hello Tux!) This way people could investigate the nasty person who visits buildings and randomly changes their colors! (Of course this ability may be used in dozen other ways as JaFF pointed out.)

In addition, when The Thing morphs into it's monster form it leaves the skin of the marine on the ground for a while. The skin (and hence the color of it's owner) may be revealed the same way as a trail with the investigation.

I've finished. Now, I have some other business to do, so I burrow under the offline stone until weekend when I hope to make a working prototype of the map.
Cheers lads!

P.S. I may as well add another less mind intensive and more micro intensive option to achieve the goal. (I.E. a beast rushing all over the map, which reveals the identity of the thing upon death.)

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Apr 26 2011, 4:52 pm by Wormer.

I'm pretty sure no one will get what the fuck is going on
Moreover, mechanics like code-breaking... unless you describe it better than what you have so far... will remain a mystery.. unless you include text explaining it.. and that means frontloading tutorials.. which is bad in its own way.

I'm also not sure whether the Mastermind still change into a cloaked hydralisk and starts killing people or not..... I mean, with a puzzle mechanic, there's hardly any need for that.

Wasn't the trail idea explored before in Mafia.. which this game is becoming more and more similar to?
Didn't it fail pretty spectacularly?
Nobody used it or really knew how to activate it.. And even when they did use it, it hardly gave enough information to warrant its use.

I also don't see how this code-breaking mechanic intergrate in any way the core gameplay mechanics of The Thing maps. Granted that now it's a completely different map... but I don't get it. I can see people walking around aimlessly going "wtf is going on" and probably stay @ the testing area b/c that's what gives them information, albeit not knowing wtf it means. And what about the interactions between the Mastermind and the Players?? How does this code-breaking induce backstabbing and treachery?

... and yes, the terrain is shit
it looks convuluted with no real patterns. It yeilds no strategic terrain (you should have raised terrain around important buildings so people can scout others w/o being seen) and it generally looks like a mess... For a Puzzle game, the terrain should emulate a surreal professionalism sort of design. Since you're doing Code breaking, why don't you take inspiration from Computer chips and make paths look like them or Something like that...

Just here to make a short note.

UnholyUrine, it's even better if the mechanics of the code breaking part will be the mystery (The Thing kind of map must contain a mystery!). I don't want to add boring tutorials too*. May only spread hints all over the map. Mastermind is not The Thing or a player role in general, instead it is the name of the code breaking game. Haven't you missed the timer part? There is still a timer which inevitably reveals the identity of The Thing in the end (like a natural The Thing maps mechanic). Keep in mind people still can't stand at one place for too long and can't go as a crowd because of the 3-resources mechanics.

Trails... I'm not pretty sure if trails are gonna work or not. I won't add this if it is not gonna work, but I want to try. Once again, there won't be a dropship or a building driven system to "use" the ability. The ability is going to be activated on it's own when you stand for a given amount of time. (If you've read it carefully, there are actually 2 modes of activation: when you stand just *near* the trail marker or *exactly on top* of it.)

Thank you for the constructive criticism about terrain. By the way, if anyone wants to make terrain for this you're welcome.

Still gonna to seriously occupy myself with the map on weekends.

* Because all explanations fail unless a person reaches the idea on his own.

Post has been edited 6 time(s), last time on Apr 28 2011, 8:46 am by Wormer.

>:C

Don't know why I'm helping you



EDIT:
Pylons = where u can put your code breaking buildings
Overall = Inspired by some computer chip networking stuffs.... It's not as good as I want it to be, and there're plenty of space to put more doodads and other patterns.. that's up to you to do

lastly... Can't upload file for sm reason.. it says "not enough space"

Post has been edited 4 time(s), last time on Apr 30 2011, 9:00 pm by UnholyUrine.

Because thing maps are awesome.

Wooo! UnholyUrine! Pretty pretty! I like this!

Should look into having around 24 spots for random placement of resource sources, but that won't be hard to find. You can upload it on Mediafire. After I'll make some triggers the next day and we realize the idea is not a total fail, you guys might want to help me tweak the terrain better. I'm not really against turning this into a team project or something.

EDIT: Wormer wants the file (the mark of request goes at this place)

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on May 1 2011, 10:14 am by Wormer.

http://www.mediafire.com/?a59gsvt4mu3y6d0

There

I don't mind helping out.. but I want to play the map first.. cause I'm still not sure about your gameplay mechanics