Caveman IVAN

Ahaha, awesome!

The torch should burn. Also, can you also make hand-axes? The way combat works should be different as well. More damage all around and monsters have less HP. Sort of like a death-match, but not quite.

Thanks.

The stationary mammoth behemoth is currently just Genetrix with mammoth flesh and a different graphic (he also spawns carnivorous plants, heh)

The chief difference is that you can actually eat him after you kill him

Also, currently, with unmodified enemies, the game is pretty hard due to a shortage of strong materials. I've made bones, obsidian and flint stronger and left bronze and iron (very rare, and stronger) in, but still, you usually end up wearing all bronze.

(I've also left in mithril, currently, but it doesn't fit in very well)

If you have any suggestions for new materials or modifyig the current ones, I'm all ears. I'm thinking of things like petrified bone (stronger than regular, maybe a level below ommel one, if ommel bone gets leaved in), jade, and more rock-related materials (what could be used for weapons apart from obsidian and flint?).

It may also be necessary to make the current materials vary more, since flint/obsidian/copper produce roughly the same results, but it's fun to test the neolithic stage materials idea

An idea was different types of bones as well. A legbone would make an excellent club, while a rib would make a very good spear

Materials, though. Bone, obsidian, flint, leather, hardened leather, granite, jade, the materials for weeping blade like quartz. Petrified bone is a great idea as well. No metals though, except maybe copper.

As for making them vary...
Flint should be the most damaging material for cutting and stabbing, but it's brittle and can break.
Copper should be the best material for blunt weapons, as it's harder to break and does decent damage.
Bone should be the best all around. Fairly durable and doing good damage with any weapon type.
Petrified bone can be the best material, high damage and hard to break, but is also very hard to shape, meaning you'll be using these as you find them, as blunt weapons, no other types.
Obsidian breaks very easily, but is light, accurate and has half-decent damage.

Definitely keep ommels in.

I like the idea about the different types of bones as well. You could use a mammoth legbone as a reallly nice club (but would need super high AStr)

Fire should definitely be used a lot more. Maybe have a lot of brambles and bushes every where. If you set one on fire it will spread. Maybe have some animated smoke too. Right now I'm plundering ideas from my own game

Perhaps you could find somekind of "broken torches" that are unlit. The torch may "break", and so unlit. You would need to find fire or two items made of flint to "repair" it.

Change quarterstaves to long wooden branches.

No scrolls please, as cavemen couldn't read. Instead, pieces of bark that have pictograms in them.

Change the intelligence to come slower, because cavemen weren't very smart.

Make a bone artifact, perhaps a dagger of some sort.

Change some of the creeps (dark knights, mistresses, orcs etc.) into separate tribes.

Great ideas. I'll certainly experiment with chaostrom's material suggestions (and branches, as suggested by Apple). I'll probably just ignore the "default", rotting bones, and instead introduce a variety of bone "solid materials".


That's what I implemented, actually ("sigils"), except I used stones with pictograms, made of various materials. The wands are in, but they're branches in appearance. I also renamed stat-boosting artifacts to various animals, but that's nothing particularly interesting.

You and I are both Homo Sapiens, and Homo Sapienses have been around for roughly 200 000 years. So they weren't that stupid. During the last 50 000 years, there has only been Homo Sapienses.

But this is fiction, so why not.

Erno's right. Our species hasn't changed too much as far as brain function goes. Not sure you can do anything about the rate of intelligence training without fiddling with the source anyhow.

Also, I've had an idea. You've changed Jenny into a mammoth. Well, it could be an old mammoth, hence why it's rather weak and doesn't move.

Uhh you guys sure about that? Homo sapiens sapiens (note the 'sapiens' x2) has only been around for several thousand years if I remember correctly. Before then was Homo sapiens and before then, long before then were the Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon, which were definitely not as smart as us. And if anything, the Caveman IVAN should feature the Neanderthals or Cro-Magnon.

Depends who you ask, capristo. Some people think Neanderthals were homo sapiens, hence us being homo sapiens sapiens (as opposed to homo sapiens neandertalis or something). Cro-Magnon were the first of our kind, homo sapiens (extra sapiens, if you like). They may not have been as smart as us, but that's like saying an African kid with no education is not as smart as us. The difference is not in brain function, but in upbringing. If a Cro-Magnon child were to be brought up in modern society, there would most likely be very little difference.

Ah, now I see what you're saying. And I do agree with that.

But seems to me that would be an argument in FAVOR of our character's Intelligence raising more slowly (and being less essential). You say IF he were brought up in modern society, and of course in this game, he won't be. He has to learn everything himself.

That actually goes in favour of intelligent cavemen. If someone without any education has the ability to survive harsh Ice Age conditions with the materials on hand, while on the other people these days, with the education, information and various conveniences of thousands of years of accumulative civilisation, gets up to the stupidest things imaginable... Well, who's smarter?

I don't really see much point in changing intelligence for a prehistoric setting - first of all, the default attributes (around 10) represent a "typical human", and if a "typical human" is less or more intelligent, the attributes would be pretty much the same anyway, and second of all - intelligence can just be used for other things, eg. knowledge of performing various magical rituals.

I don't agree with a few points here. Homo Sapien Sapiens was discussed already, so I'm not getting into it.

But. If you'd put a "caveman" (I use the word to make it easy, it represents a person from the stone age) to the modern world, he wouldn't be likely to survive alone. Also, if you'd put a modern man to stone age, he'd get his ass kicked in a short time, most likely. Both have a slight chance of learning the basic skills of surviving, ie. fishing, hunting, fighting off bears, running, going shopping, avoiding cars, etc etc. They both have approximately the same brain and physique. Both would encounter enviroment totally different from what they had used to, and diseases would likely kill both of them. The modern man would be better protected from these, since he already has some inbuilt resistance to acient diseases. His problem would be the predators and getting food, in other words the nature. The caveman would be lost in the infrastructure.

To sum it up, the difference lies behind education. The caveman knows everything about surviving in nature, he'd be amazed why modern people take cover for such small thing as rain. A modern man would be in problems with getting food and other necessities, since he suddently wouldn't have the social structures, where everyone is specialized to do his own job and expecting the next guy to do his own, to support him.

This is mostly a result of a certain skill we all share; Ability to read and write.

Homo Sapiens is us. Homo Sapiens Sapiens is a fictionary way of telling apart the "cavemen" and us, civilized, modern folks. Biologically there is no difference. Homo neanderthalensis, Homo Erectus and other acient human beigns were also humans, like makis and chimpanzees are both monkeys.

One of the major differences between a "Caveman" (which is a incorrect term) and a "Modern day person" is that the Modern day person has a huge base of knowledge spread out and a Caveman has a very focused knowledge based upon immediate survival (Which was needed). However one is not greater then the other.

One thing I remember from seeing a movie was that this Pioneer was laughed at by the Natives for getting lost in the woods. The Natives basically though the Pioneer was stupid (highly so). (The movie wanted to destroy the myth that Pioneers simply Wowed Natives into a stupor with their inventions)

Anyhow In my oppinion intelligence (which doesn't represent true intelligence as it is) should perhaps become MORE important in this game and should represent the "Learning Curve" of the character and his ability to take care of, repair, and build tools.

Wisdom should become (if it isn't already) the attribute that becomes magic (since there are no gods to worship)... Please remember though that "Herbology" wasn't magic.

Well, according to wiki Erno is right in that sapiens sapiens is to distinguish modern, civilised humans from older humans.

Another thing, according to some, neanderthals were a subspecies of humans (Homo sapiens neandertalensis). You can look that up if you want.

Finally, chimps are not monkeys, they're apes.

As far as I'm concerned, the difference between monkeys and apes is a matter of size. It's like rock vs boulder.

Chaochao, I tried to confirm that but got fed up with the search and just posted it. =P But anyway, I think everyone got the point.

Neanderthals. I'm pretty sure that you are wrong. If that was correct, we'd be like different genders of dogs, relatives as boxers and greyhounds are (ie. dark skin >< white skin). But I seem to remember thar Homo Sapiens and Homo Neandertalians couldn't reproduce. According to wikipedia it seems that there are after all some result which indicate that it might have been possible. Anyway, their scientific name is Homo neanderthalensis. No sapienses in the middle. Hemm... Kinda like a wolf and a jackal. Same forefather, different outcome. More like brothers than a father and a son.

Emphasis on some people, Erno. I can't really say whether it should have a sapiens in the middle or not.

And since none of us were there, and they're all dead now anyway, the semantics doesn't really matter much.

I've always imagined a three-way battle for dominance of the planet back before the Homo Sapiens first settled in the mesopotamian flood plains and took up farming. Cro-magnon, Neaderthal, and Homo Sapiens locked in a racial battle for thousands of years before Sapiens won.

Course, that spits in evolution's eye a bit, but what can I say. I'm an intelligent design guy. What the hell do I know?

Can we end the threadjack here and get back to discussing the game?

Ooh, before I end the post, new thought. Would it be possible to incorporate the above battle into this variant? Suppose you could select your species at the beginning, with Sapiens being the standard IVAN character while Cro-magnon and Neaderthal are a little bit different. That would satisfy the "tribes" aspect someone suggested earlier, and it just sounds fun to me.


Hey, I just wrote an entire post suggesting the last two pages were an unecessary threadjack, and managed to refrain from using the un-pc term Caveman.



:x
DOH!

uhh.. Void? The threadjack ended april 9th, if you check the date. =P

Your game sounds so cool I might have to buy it if you sell it to some good game makers.

Just thought I'd point out Cro-Magnon were Homo Sapiens.

Other than that, your input is appreciated

A choice of sapiens/neandertalensis would be interesting.

Checking the date before I post... BRILLIANT!!!

Um... yeah. I thought the stuff I'd read on the first page sounded cool, so I wanted to get back to discussing it and eventually seeing it done. But, it seems the threadjack killed the thread. Damn.

Oh well.

Actually, it was less the threadjacking and more the fact that nobody was actually going to make this >_>

Perhaps sapiens would have higher Int, Wis, Charm (Dex and Agi) and neandertalensis would have higher arm/leg Str and End.