Mini game: Kill All Cancer concept stage / wip

jbskaggs

As mentioned before as I wait for my wife to work on the art of my rabbit game I am going to try and complete a few small games. Here is my first game design. This was sparked by XYZ Cataclysm game but I went another direction for this. This game is because I hate Cancer and want to Kill all cancer.

Kill all Cancer. A Simple 2d Cartoon RTS / TDS Game. by JB Skaggs 1/8/2022

Summary:

Use nanite / nano robots to kill cancer tumors before tumors kills patient.

Game engine: Godot Type: simple cartoon 2d rts, possible mobile game.

Story:
All other methods have failed so patients come to us for nano /robot / nanites that kill the cancer with weaponry and towers to catch escaping cancer cells and cause immediate reduction of tumor to stop impending organ failure or systematic cancer storm that send billions of cancers thru body.

Cancer locations shows on body map-  severity represented by icon size and random timers and life times.  Failure to kill tumor before lifetime of location ends causes damage and cancer spread.  Clicking the location icon goes to problem area map showing a tumor.  Construct towers and nano robots  surround tumor and destroy it.

Tower types:
cancer killing tower that target cells trying to escape to other organs immunity cell killers to protect nanites as they attack tumor / remove blockage / heal wounds. * factory towers- manufacture the different types of nanites- economy based on nano particles type and quantities floating in blood from IV. Race against time for cancer growth vs fab time, kill time, and clean up time

Nanite types:
healer robots- heal wounds / stops bleeding laser robots that burn cancer cells cutter robots that cut cancer cells too tough for lasers digger robots that remove blockage materials from colon / or cells cut up by cutters etc

Conditions that can lead to failure and complications: organ failure Colon / Vain / Artery blockage allergic reaction to nanites infections caused by nanites Sudden bleeding from nanite wounds immune system destruction of all nanites * cancer storm

Erich_L

You know... this really makes me think back on your tower defense design... hear me out: forget about having a body map and having to go all around the body to combat cancer - all that sounds like way too much work. BUT, what is blood? It's basically a tower defense game! Blood flows through a map and nanite structures could work just like the attacking rabbits you have in your TD. I know the point is cancer and I know that cancer grows in cells ... but all that is not as easy to conceptualize as either XYZ's game on a sphere or your last TD game that basically already works like blood cells.

I think a cancer TD would be much more interesting- you could even have all kinds of stuff continually running through the map (running through the lane- the vein) but where's the cancer? Have a bunch of the tower slots be disabled due to having cancerous tissue. What you do then is set your cancer fighting nanite factory above the cancerous location, it spawns a nanite which works to ... reclaim the tower slot. Let the cancer grow at the same time (similar to XYZ's cogs) so that taking care of it needs to be a priority. Organ failure? Let's table that for later- but artery blockage, infections, cancer storm, immune responses- that could all be done in a TD format that I'm confident you could finish.

I am imagining more of a fun simulation with blood cells continually running through the map than a game with "waves" and "levels". I looked it up, cancerous cells can enter the bloodstream and end up creating new tumors, (Yikes, I am so sorry you have cancer) so cancerous cells could be cells you need to have towers to defend from. Instead of losing points or life- maybe they can just infect the lining of the artery and take away another tower slot.

jbskaggs

This is the kind of response I like! The body map just shows where the current cancer attack is. When you click on a spot on the body say the colon: it opens up a TD map with the cancer and then functions pretty much as you say. If you fail on one TD map then the cancer goes to another organ and or gets bigger. If it claims all the organs you lose. SO that gives you 6 TD maps- brain, stomach, liver, lung1, lung2, colon , and heart.

The idea of the paths being veins is an awesome Idea as well as earning tower slots.

The part I am stuck on isnt the mechanics its the art style- but your post gave me some ideas "Shei Shei!" And that is half the Chinese I can speak.

xyz

All said above sounds great but to me there's nothing "mini" about it. Quite contrary, it's a full blown game. When I hear "mini" I imagine something you can completely conceptualize in one evening and fully produce in another. "Evening" probably means "a week" here :)

Here's how my idea of cancer themed game would look like. It's realtime. You play on a rectangular grid map. A tile can be occupied by a cell or empty. It's enoguh for cells to have extremely simple graphic representation, just a square or a simple sprite:

............
....O.......
...OOO......
..OOOOOOO...
....OO..OO..
...OO...O...
............

Every border cell (cell that has at least one empty neighbor) can decide at any time to reproduce to an empty neighbor tile. Right before doing so it will change shape (say from square to circle) and start pulsating/shaking for a short amount of time (second or so). After that It'll spawn another cell in one of the free surrounding tiles. Only during that time a cell can be destroyed by nanites, represented here by a mouse click on the cell. Cells win if they reach the map edge. You win if you kill them all. Difficulty is scalable by frequency and duration of cell's reproduction phase.

That's what I would call a mini game. It can still be polished to oblivion and even made 3d after the initial development.

jbskaggs

@xyz said: All said above sounds great but to me there's nothing "mini" about it. Quite contrary, it's a full blown game. When I hear "mini" I imagine something you can completely conceptualize in one evening and fully produce in another. "Evening" probably means "a week" here :)

Here's how my idea of cancer themed game would look like. It's realtime. You play on a rectangular grid map. A tile can be occupied by a cell or empty. It's enoguh for cells to have extremely simple graphic representation, just a square or a simple sprite:
............
....O.......
...OOO......
..OOOOOOO...
....OO..OO..
...OO...O...
............
Every border cell (cell that has at least one empty neighbor) can decide at any time to reproduce to an empty neighbor tile. Right before doing so it will change shape (say from square to circle) and start pulsating/shaking for a short amount of time (second or so). After that It'll spawn another cell in one of the free surrounding tiles. Only during that time a cell can be destroyed by nanites, represented here by a mouse click on the cell. Cells win if they reach the map edge. You win if you kill them all. Difficulty is scalable by frequency and duration of cell's reproduction phase.

That's what I would call a mini game. It can still be polished to oblivion and even made 3d after the initial development.

Wow that maybe my next game! Thats a a really cool idea my mind doesnt really naturally think that way, but when you describe it it is super clear and "obvious"! Yes my mini game was planned for one week. I didnt even think of doing something I could do in one day. Maybe the COG's have infiltrated my mind and forcing me into complex structures to thwart me!

jbskaggs

Main patient screen:

Patient generator: Creates random name, health stats, occupation, and avatar pic

smoker increases speed of tumors diabetic increases bleeding an infections heart condition reduces the number of tumors a patient can handle before death hypertension decreases life span of nanites anxiety increases tumor growth

Body map:

Background grid has minor animation of dimming every few seconds.

Shows body in scanner. Heart is animated beating. Eyes are animated blinking. Cancer warnings popup on the different organs. You click on popup to goto another screen to kill that tumor. If tumors occur in all organs death occurs.

Money: shows amount of money to buy raw nanites. Nanites: how many raw nanites on hand.

Menu: Save, Load, Restart, Quit

Store: Allows you buy more nanites, and nanite blueprints.

Quit: Quit without using menu button

Now to finish the tumor tower defense maps.

Screen shots of patient before cancer. And patient after tumors in all organs and dead.

Erich_L

Wow you're working quick! I couldn't help but grin seeing you progress. Poor Anon; only 100 money and all that anxiety. He never stood a chance.

jbskaggs

@Erich_L said: Wow you're working quick! I couldn't help but grin seeing you progress. Poor Anon; only 100 money and all that anxiety. He never stood a chance.

Yeah 100 bucks could probably buy some aspirin here in Utah at a cancer center. Let alone cutting age nano surgery.

Ive been thinking about XYZ's comment- I think his cell strategy would also work in the tower defense. If the cells reach the edge of the map, or they escape down blood stream, or all the nanites die then another tumor pops up on a different organ automatically.

So the defense has to be killing all cancer in the blood streams via towers and the nanite workers have to kill and cell growth, excavation, or healing at the tumor site. The potential new cells could like he said pulse and be super weak to any nanite, but if they are allowed to mature they toughen and take longer / more nanites to kill.

I think pragmatically the path of blood vessels needs to be simplified- so there would be one major vein leaving tumor, and one artery feeding it. But maybe the cancer cells can add new entry points past current tower locations if they are allowed to grow up on the vein. and of course as you said if they grow over a tower or tower spot we lose that till reclaimed and the tower would have to be re purchased and built.

jbskaggs

Also the artery would be a threat as infections and white cells, t cells etc hurdle down the artery. Same with nutrients and oxygen! If we allow the tumor unfettered access to oxygen and nutrients it could speed up growth and defense!

Erich_L

If expanded on this sort of game could do wonders teaching about the human body.

jbskaggs

That is true and maybe a goal when this is done:)

cybereality

One idea you could do is base it on Conway's Game of Life or cellular automata in general. The graphics are very easy (just squares) and the code is all known, so could be done in about 1 week even as a beginner. Also an interesting thing to learn, and this is similar to how real life works (many people believe that the cells in our body work on similar principals, just with more complex logic, so this may even be scientifically accurate).

Here is a tutorial of how to do it in Godot.

For your idea, I would design two colors, the healthy cells and the infected (cancer) cells. The map would start initialized with the healthy cells and a single area of cancer, and then as they touched cancer cells, the cancer would convert them to cancer as well (if they lived, or destroy them if they died). It would basically just be a matter of changing the colors. You can start with Conway's original rule set, but there are other rules that come up with interesting new patterns.

jbskaggs

Thanks I will check these out and see where I want go. Lots of great ideas today. :)

jbskaggs

I ended up sick this morning and slept till 4pm. Got up and made the first coloncancer map. No cancers on here yet. Yet a cartoonish concept map. One vein path with blue blood cells heading up and one artery path with red blood cells heading down.

I have experimented with different shapes and for what I am thinking using a tumor polyp- think of Bob but green maybe more tentacles from aliens vs monsters. He can grow across either top or bottom, and if he grows completely across from top to bottom then the next cycle he would break out into rest of body- or if he is allow grow over the vein or artery, or allowed to let a feeder vein get large enough to allow him to escape. If he grows over towers or locations they are destroyed.

There will be fixed tower locations on top and bottom. Each location as well as ea tower has to be purchased and built.

White blood cells, clots, etc will also come down the veins. Any major damage to cells or veins / arteries that are nor feeder veins releases attack by body immune system. Nanites can be destroyed by body's immune response- temperature, pressure, immune cells, etc.

jbskaggs

Also Bob the cancer I think can summon immune cells as defenders thru the body thinking he belongs and my robots do not..

jbskaggs

Today was a pretty good day. I experimented with animations and various animation software and created BobtheCancer. After I made him and I sat watching the screen play as he sent cancer cells down the blood stream- Then I realized a different way to play this map and keep it tower defense but more action. Reduce it to 1 tower location. The tower is a gun turret. As White blood cells attack you have to rotate tower and shoot them down, shoot down cancers trying to exit via vein, and shoot down the the tumor. This simplifies the game. So I added a simple turret sprite. It rotates and follows mouse. Ill add projectiles tomorrow.

Im thinking of a way to limit the tower. So maybe using glucose as power source that must be mined from red blood. No glucose and the nano gun cant fire. No nanites and you cant create new miners when they get killed, repair, or replace your tower. The miners, the towers, and upgrade to the tower would all cost raw nanites.

I think this is easier than my original TDS idea.

cybereality

Yeah, easy is good.

jbskaggs

added projectiles, collisions on cancer cells and bob the cancer. Also redrew bob at a larger resolution then reanimated him again in godot. Animation system went really fast this time as I knew what I was doing. Drew new gun turret. And created two immunity cells: Macrophage who will ram your gun turret, or eat workers. And the Killer T Cell who will explode damaging you, your workers, or cancers. Also added health bar for Bob the Cancer.

This would go so much faster if I didnt keep falling asleep and get so tired. Meh.

jbskaggs

Well they all can kill each now. Now I need to work scale, timing, and funness factor. To be able to shoot bobthecancer, shoot the cancer cells, and shoot incoming white blood cells before they touch you is tough.

Yeah there are too many white cells coming in. I will have to slow the cells and attackers down. I also need to work out the worker helper system now.

Also what kind of music would fit best with this?

jbskaggs

I added background music and sound effects for the bullets. I need to find soundeffects for cells dying, ship explosion, and bob the cancer being shot. Also need to add soundeffects and FX for the two previous screens.

I need to redraw the background map to better match the game characters here. I also change the cell attacks and cancer cells to waves- to make it more fun than a continuous stream of cells attacking.

But this is getting very close to finishing! Trying to keep it very simple and reducing complexity of my plans daily.