Brainstorming

Musings from LD24 Part I.

8 PM.

Evolution.

The first thing I did was make a list of things I think about when I think about evolution:

• Pokemon
• Spore
• The Evolution movie with David Duchovny
• (I drew a picture of a smily face with three eyes)
• Now --> better
• Neolithic Age
• Hunter-gatherers --> farmers
• Wolf --> dog
• Water --> land
• Metamorphosis
• Mutation
• Natural selection
• Genetic drift
• Simple --> more complex

My first idea came shortly after my last bullet point.  I wanted to make a game about the evolution of color vision in primates.  Weird.  Interesting.  I liked it.

I jumped into the Internet, and pulled out some research.

Evolution of color vision in primates
Primate Color Vision

Ability to perceive red and orange hues allows tree-dwelling primates to discern them from green.  This is particularly important for primates in the detection of red and orange fruit, as well as nutrient-rich new foliage, in which the red and orange carotenoids have not yet been masked by chlorophyl.

Another theory is that detecting skin flushing and thereby mood may have influenced the development of primate trichromate vision.

Taking this, I wanted to make a side-scrolling platform game about colors.  To start, the game world would consist of a single color.  As the player progressed, more and more colors would populate the world.  These colors would represent new obstacles, destinations, and points of interaction.  This was perfect for me because I could do colors without complex sprites or animations.  I was unsure how a player would unlock new colors for the world, however.  This lack of primary game mechanic put a pretty large hole in my idea and initial high.

Concurrently, I was playing with the idea of making a game about forming communities.  The Neolithic Age was a turning point in human civilization as that was when farming became a widespread practice.  With farming came large, settled communities of people.  This community building was a huge step in the evolutionary process to modern man.  I liked the big picture idea, but no interesting ideas for a game came to me from it.

All of this happened in the first 90 minutes.  Like I said yesterday, it'll take me a few days to recount my Ludum Dare experience in full.

Cheers,

Danny