   My Tortoise
  Hello,I decided to give 3d modelling a little go this week, it didn't go to badly but then again it didn't go to well. The first thing I made was a little tortoise, basic shell with a little head with beady eyes and four stumpy legs with a pointy tail. It was a basic, low poly, un detailed tortoise. I wanted to use it in a game, as in a few game designs I have tried to incorporate tortoises or turtles but this time I would base something around a tortoise.So I decided to do a simulation which had the player come in on a small wooden box filled with grass, and gave them these tools.Water placer - Places pool of waterGrass placer - Places patch of grassSeed Planter - Allows player to plant a seedWater Sprinkler - Allows player to spray water on sceneLamp mover - Allows player to move the lamp around and adjust height and locationTreat - Allows the player to throw in a small berry as a treatWithin the box you can place water (for drinking and bathing) or plant seeds which grow into small plants for your pet to eat. You can also move around the lamp so the plants grow correctly and there is a hot and cold area for the tortoise. Within the box there is a small hut for the tortoise to sleep in. The tortoise has the following variables. Name - Name the creatureSex - Male/FemaleAge - How old the creature isSleep - 1-10 (how much the creature needs to sleep)Hunger - 1-10 (how much the creature needs to eat)Thirst - 1-10 (how much the creature needs to drink)Fitness - 1-10 (how much exercise the creature is getting)Health - 1-10 (the health of the creature)1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest. But my question is this, this is all very well and good until you have placed the lamp correctly, grown a nice patch of plants and given enough space for water but that’s pretty much where it stops. How to make this more inviting to the player? How to increase play time? Do I give the player a small patch of land to play around with instead or a small planet? Do I introduce other elements or animals into this? How long until it becomes to much work to do? Keeping it simple but not a waste of time is key here.Thanks.   
  Sounds to me like you don't have a game so much as a simulation.  If it were me, I'd probably leave it as such.  But I'll still suggest maybe adding the ability to feed it bugs or whatever it is a tortoise eats.  Not sure what else a person wuold do with a real tortoise other than take it out of the terrarium and watch it walk around.  Maybe let it roam free on your desktop?  How about making it into a screen saver? Maybe add some AI and place a small lab in the terrarium. Keep the program running over night and check in the morning to see what has been unfurled. Do the same thing every night until he has taken over the world.   ;  All games stop somewhere.  Either the game has a time limit, or it is a war of attrition where the player always loses eventually, or there is an end plot or strategic goal the player achieves, or the player has discovered all of the game's content and quits playing out of boredom.  In some cases the player will replay the game, maybe even many times (especially pvp games and solitaire/speedpuzzle games) but still, eventually the player will get bored and move on.  An important part of designing a game is deciding what kind of end you want your game to have, and whether you want to encourage the player to replay it or not.   ;  Kseh I really like this idea, of having it walk around my desktop.But how easy is that todo? how is it limited? I was thinking, double click the .exe and it puts a little tool bar along the bottom of your screen (above the Start button) with stats of your pet, and a little water bowl space and a little food basket. Your Tortoise would walk around your desktop, you could pick him up with the left mouse button and put him down places or fling him. You could put the water bowl down for him to drink from and throw food out for him to get. If he got hungry or thirsty he would come bump the water/food station. I was also thinking that maybe, is it possible for him to interact with files on your desktop, like move around them, colision, crawl ontop of them, maybe even taste a document and have it open? or is this too far. I always feel that replay ability is a must but with this title I don't think it will be a big issue, but if any could think of anything that you could do with this desktop tortoise, just let me know. In a technical respect, a desktop tortoise, how hard?;  I don't think it's that hard to do, I'm just not sure how to do it.  Quite some time ago, while trying to learn DirectDraw, I accidentilly ended up blitting a sprite outside of the main window.  So I'm sure you can get the graphics to end up where you want them to be but I'm not sure how mouse clicks would work.You may remember a few years ago there used to be a "desktop buddy" fad.  From what I remember, a sprite of some kind comes up on the screen periodicly, does something and then disapears.  Interaction was usually pretty limited but you could usually click on them and they'd dance or something.  As for interacting with files on your desktop I think it'd be pretty cool (teacher my tortoise ate my homework).  A quick google for "programatically move icons" came up with a few results that suggest the desktop is just an overgrown list view control.  I've never done any sort of stuff like that though.   ;  Thanks I will look into that.Does anyone have any other ideas how to do it technically? Or where to start looking? Also does anyone have any ideas on another 1-3 features I could add to make the simulation a little more exciting? So far I have- Simulation takes place on the desktop- Tortoise grows- Tortoise eats, sleeps, drinks, interacts- Tortoise can be picked up- A little tool box on the screen has water bowl and food barrel (throw food out onto the desktop, place water bowl on desktop (return to get it filled up))- Tortoise climbs, knocks into, even opens filesI think maybe there is room for something else to be on the tool box, like maybe something to clean your tortoise? Or something for the tortoise to play with?Cheers.   ;Technology: Agents, 1998-2009If your platform is Windows, there is a package called Microsoft Agents that allows you to develop this kind of interactive deskrop agents. I don't know how it is now, but several years ago, it is integrated with speech synthesis and recognition, so your agent could talk and listen. You code in visual basic, although you could also do C++ if I remember correctly. The package gaves you some basic character but you could make your own character easily.[ Wiki - MS Agent ][ MS Agent discontinued beginning Windows 7, (April 2009) ]I don't know why it is discontinued, it is probably because Windows 7 OS is not really compatible with the package and Microsoft finds is not worthwhile to support it. But that was the technology behind the paper clip of MS Office. There is probably other surviving open source alternatives that are similar.There was a game where, once your started it, an agent would creep up from time to time to shoot at you, and you would have to shoot it first. There were quite some applications like this. I also coded agent but I learned that it was annoying to see something like that on your desktop after awhile. I got sick of looking at something like that all the time.Pet Society: The current leader of casual pet gameI think the most popular casual pet game now is Pet Society that is played through Facebook.[Edited by - Wai on May 29, 2009 11:31:03 AM];  I-Tortoise :)Maybe a small chance that he can fall ill and a antidote and a gun nearby to kill him if he gets beyond saving :D   ;  He should poop as well, small dumps here and there :)   ;  I will look into that Microsoft Agent stuff as it seems interesting if the tools are there, but does it not work on windows XP? I would have to find a updated version (privately of course as Microsoft discontinued the application)Well I think if it gets ill, from lack of food or water or even lack of exercise It will just be less active then die, no quick solution should be available. Poop, is on the list, but what to clean it up? a pooper scooper, in which you simply pick it up and then hover over the poop and click then it goes away? I will post a picture of the tortoise soon. Thanks again, if any one has any ideas on how to get this made let me know.