Interaction Spec

PHEVO

My project for this semester will be a game that is similar to battleship, but involves biological infection instead of artillery.

In Phevo, you have a board full of creatures, called phevos, that have a simple "genome." This genome expresses itself in the phevo's appearance. For example, phevos may have "genes" that code for the appearance of a red outer shape, and yellow inner shape, and several different geometric possibilities in their appearance.

The board you have is set up next to a board representing you opponents. There will be any where between 16 and 64 square on the board (the exact number will require user testing.)

Early Test Of Phevo Board: This is a sketch I made of what the board might look like in Phevo. Some of the elements important to the game are already present.

To begin play, the user selects a phevo to attack the enemy. A regular phevo will be able to attack an enemy phevo with the same genotype. However, by spend more time (or resources, perhaps,) that phevo becomes more generalized. It may lose color or shape. This indicates that the phevo will be able to attack a broader range of targets. For example, a phevo without color may be able to attack phevos with the same shape in any color available. This makes the attack stronger.

Once the attack phevo has reached sufficient strength, the play can release it to attack the enemy. The player will need to balance between launching many quick attacks (very specific, depletes board stock) and slower power attacks (takes considerably more time.) The pace of this will have to be gamed in a prototype.

"Promoting" a phevo to attack leaves an empty space in the board that the player will need to fill. This can either be done by mating phevos or by cloning (I may have cloning be the default behavior, and may let that happen automatically unless the player intervenes otherwise.)

The game ends when the opposing player has had all of his or her phevos destoyed.

Attached is an archive based on a mechanic I have been meddling with for some time now. Requires Python and Pygame.