a multiplayer game of parenting and civilization building
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@antking and @BladeWood: How might the elements of this idea I've proposed be retained without adding a menu? I'm not entirely attached to the idea of a life log, but I do think that a Rimworld style health system would be a superior alternative to what exists in the game now.
I had originally posted this in the One Hour One Life Suggestions Subreddit. I was asked to repost it here, so here it is. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
On the one hand, players can stab one another with knives, arrows, and swords. Swords can only be used in the event of war, but knives and arrows are often used instead. This often leads to griefing, undeclared wars carried out with knives, and lethal intrafamily brawls.
Similarly, if you cross paths with a wolf, bear, griefer, or boar, it's pretty much GG. There's no chance to retaliate, you can't fend off a bear that's bitten you, can't strike back against someone that's stabbed you even though you're otherwise perfectly awake and lucid. You just stand there, bleeding out, while everyone scrambles to remember if the pad or the needle comes first. In short, the fighting doesn't allow for nuance: either you're alive or dead.
On the other hand, hot and cold are fairly meh in terms of their impact. Yes, they alter the rate with which you digest food, but that's it. You can't die of hypothermia or heatstroke. You can, however, die of yellow fever, for which there's no cure.
The overall outcome is that, while the game is fun and endearing in every other respect, it's inability to treat combat with the same level of detail is frustrating.
Sociologist, Max Weber, defined states as human communities that have (successful) claims on the monopoly of the**legitimate use**of violence within a given territory. A game about cooperation, which also includes interpersonal violence, therefore cannot afford to gloss over it.
I believe that the problem contains the solution here. But first, let’s look at some other games that tackle health.
Another game that I really enjoy, which lines up a bit with One Hour One Life in terms of subject matter — i.e. survival and families getting along — is Rimworld.
Rimworld has you living on another planet, trying to keep a group of colonists alive as they deal with changing seasons, town building, limited resources that can spoil if poorly stored (more on this later), internal squabbles, and raids. The outcome is absolutely riveting and dramatic, you quickly get invested in making sure that these NPCs get through their situations alive: and there's a good chance they won't.
One thing Rimworld does in terms of health is break down bodies into Systems. Systems have their corresponding body parts: Pain & Heat (Whole body), Manipulation (Hands), Consciousness (Brain), Hearing (Ears), Sight (Eyes), Blood Pumping (Heart), Talking (Mouth/Jaw), Blood Filtration (Kidneys), Moving (Legs), Breathing (Lungs), and Metabolism (Stomach).
Each of those body parts can be subject to injury (which is specified by what dealt the injury: e.g. a cat scratch vs a shotgun shell wound) or illness (malaria, bronchitis, &c). If someone gets a scratch on their arm, and it's untreated, it can get infected. It then becomes a race between the player's immunity and the infection/illnesses severity, with treatment pauses the increase in severity while the immunity ticker goes up. If immunity percentage reaches 100%, then the infection/illness subsides. But, if the severity percentage reaches 100%, then the player dies.
Similarly, body parts can get irreparably damaged from attack: developing cataracts in old age, or losing an eye, cuts Sight; or losing a hand cuts Manipulation, etc. In the case of a serious infection, a doctor might amputate limbs, which eliminates the infection but also the use of that limb.
Enough hits to the head, or blood loss, cause the player to become incapacitated and unconscious. You can then assign one of your folks to rescue them, imprison them, actively kill them, or you can just leave them to die.
Being in the heat too long leads to heatstroke and becoming incapacitated. Being in the cold too long leads to hypothermia. Both situations are lethal if unmanaged, and can be fixed through dressing appropriately and moving players to cooler locations.
Another game that tackles roleplaying as part of a continuity of families is Crusader Kings 2. The Reaper's Due DLC overhauled the health system, replacing what was until then the ‘Ill’ trait with a variety of symptoms: (Cough, Fever, Vomiting, Diarrhea, Malaise, &c). The player is then diagnosed by a court physician, who can carry out all kinds of (sometimes odd or even outright comical) experiments.
Beyond that, players can become maimed in a variety of ways (e.g. one-handed, one-legged, disfigured, mangled), resort to cannibalism, and torture and execute prisoners in new ways too.
This is to say nothing of communicable diseases, which lies outside the scope of what I’m proposing.
Let’s say that both systems were adapted for One Hour One Life. How might that look?
User Interface
I imagine that every player on turning into a toddler would automatically get a “life log”, it would be a drop down sheet of paper in the top-right corner of the UI. It would be a kind of table with 4 columns. The leftmost column shows doodles of the body parts in each row. Let’s say it’s: Head, Mouth, Neck, Heart, L Eye, R Eye, L Hand, R Hand, Body, Waist, L Leg, R Left, L Foot, R Foot. The next column shows doodles to indicate symptoms when they’re present (e.g. a doodle of someone coughing, etc). The column after that shows the level of pain for each: None, Low, Moderate, High, Extreme. The final column shows the degree of use: Elevated, Normal, Weakened, None. If there’s nothing wrong, the entry is blank.
Illnesses
Players’ outward appearances would change when symptoms and pain are present. Characters with nausea might drop a pool of vomit or appear constantly /ill. Coughing characters might cough and make a coughing sound effect, etc. Illnesses would, ideally, be communicable. Eves would be immune to all illnesses.
Food and raw meat that’s left outside, or in temperatures that are too warm, are likely to spoil. Spoiled food goes away after a minute. Eating spoiled food will make you vomit/have stomach flu. Freezing food preserves food so long as it’s cool/near a freezer. Salting food makes it last indefinitely, but lowers its hunger fulfillment.
Symptoms can be treated with medicine. They can be general, like greater plantain leaves. Others, are more targeted, crushed cloves would help with Mouth pain for instance.
Players can also build beds. Clicking on a bed makes you lie down under the covers, which can moderate temperature and reduce illnesses/symptoms.
If an incapacitated character is placed in a bed, they are brought back to consciousness, but will be bedridden for one minute. A bedridden character can speak as before (injuries and conditions not withstanding), but cannot move, and cannot have babies if female. More on this later.
Diagnosis System
If groups of symptoms appear, it behooves the player to get a diagnosis from another player. Diagnosing someone works like the curse system: a player goes up to the sick person and types out ‘You have <illness name>’ — if it’s a correct diagnosis, both players will automatically /joy and there’ll be a chime or ‘ah ha!’ sfx. If it’s incorrect, both players will go /hmph and there’ll be a sad ding or ‘hmm’ sfx. There are a limited number of diagnosis tokens that players have, so it’s key to get it right.
Players can craft and take medications like penicillin, vaccines, and soap (which would prevent illnesses for a window of time when lathered with water and put on yourself).
Injuries
Combat now affects different parts of the body. e.g. Head, Mouth, Neck, Heart, L Eye, R Eye, L Hand, R Hand, Body, Waist, L Leg, Right Left, L Foot, R Foot.
Let’s say two unarmed players are arguing with each other. Player 1 goes to punch Player 2 with their fists by shift clicking without a weapon. Player 2 gets a ‘Bruise’ symptom on her life log, or as ‘Black Eye’ if it happens to hit the Left or Right eye. Arms, hands, torso, and head are the most likely parts to get hit.
Players 1 and 2 punch each other back and forth, each racking up different injuries. The injuries create different pains, which minimize range of use. A player 3 arrives and decides to stop the fighting by trying to stab Player 1.
Player 1 gets stabbed. Normally, that would be it. Instead, his right eye gets stabbed. His in-game field of vision drops dramatically, his right eye registers as ‘Gone’ and it’s crossed out. For the rest of his play through, this character will have this one-eyed trait, and will appear as having one eye to other characters. Player 1 is in extreme pain, and both of his hands is are in severe pain from the fight. He’s still awake though, and he runs to the town hospital.
Player 2 collapses from the pain and becomes incapacitated. A filter overlay that’s grayscale with mostly darkness on the periphery overcomes Player 2’s entire display; it’s much more intense than what Player 1 experiences. An incapacitated character cannot eat or move on its own, like an infant. Player 3 picks her up and runs her to the hospital as though she were a heavy stone. Player 4 brings a stretcher. Player 3 places place 2 on the stretcher, and Players 3 and 4 both run at full speed to the hospital.
Player 1 limps onward, but his hunger is running out. He grabs a gooseberry and tries to eat it, but his hands are now in extreme pain. They’re moving too slowly. The berry drops from his maimed hands just before it gets to his mouth. His hunger runs out and he dies on the spot.
At the hospital, Player 2 get put on a bed and is fed a pie. She comes back to consciousness, but is bedridden. She starts to speak but her word limit is capped to 2 characters due to her broken jaw. She only says ‘TY’ ‘HI’ and ‘F’
Player 3 prepares a jaw splint from some short sticks and copper wire. She gives it to Player 2, who wears it and can eat and talk a little bit more as her jaw heals over the next 4 or so minutes. After time passes, the jaw is healed, she’s no longer bedridden, and it’s like nothing ever happened.
As you can see: injuries and their treatments are tailored. Instead of just having sterile pads and some stitches, players would need to learn new recipes and administer care appropriately: splints for broken bones; cloves, aloe, and plantain poultices for pain; rest beds and coolers to help patients recover from fevers; etc. Fighting, too, would be more drawn out and have clear drawbacks for both sides. It wouldn’t be a one injury and your dead scenario. Even a bear attack wouldn’t be a death sentence, although it would remain severe.
While this idea would make medicine, hygiene, and combat, more integrated and nuanced parts to the game, I recognize it may have its drawbacks.
For starters, it’s a lot of new information to add into the game. The complexity is part of One Hour One Life’s charm, but might this be too much information? Might it be too complex?
Similarly, Jason has made it clear that he prefers being shown problems and not solutions. I’m not about to contest that.
As for grief-ing, does this just create new forms of it? Yes. I’m sure infected players will make it a priority to spread illnesses to other towns, hide medicine, make food spoil, and cause all kinds of havoc.
That said, I think grief-ing speaks more to the player than the game itself. I also think this comprehensive suggestion could solve multiple problems at once, and I look forward to seeing what everyone has to say for good or ill.
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