Go back to Table of Content
Beyond is not intended as a multi-player game, there are already enough of those and it would be hard to do considering how the game handled the flow of time.
However, the first dweller of the colony will not normally stay alone for the whole game, she could even start with companions.
There is still a design decision to make:
- Will the player be the main dweller of the colony, ending the game if she dies ? Similarly, we have no direct control over other dwellers so their motivation must be managed, as well as relationships & tensions between dwellers. There could even be a case in which the game ends because the first dweller is exiled or killed by the others.
- Or the player plays the colony as a whole, not a character specifically and can keep on playing as long as at least one dweller is there.
The idea of having limited control on other dwellers is very interesting, even if it's just done through needs: if a dweller is too tired, hungry or demoralised, she will simply stop working towards the good of the colony and become dead weight until the root cause is resolved.
Motivation
To add a motivation component is a good feature: why do dwellers wake up in the morning ? How can they be more productive or avoid them costing too much to the colony ? With increasing population, the role of the first dweller could become closer to that of a project manager or motivator rather than just participating in the colony's day-to-day.
To create a motivation model, each dweller could have an engagement score which goes up throughout the day when her needs are fulfilled and down when she works on a task.
Modifiers could make engagement more or less difficult to recover, a value that would itself be called motivation.
Simple example:
Note: Base motivation is 8. This means that after a normal night sleep, a dweller gets 8 hours of engagement.
- Dweller Foobar just arrived in the colony and is highly motivated, getting +20% motivation
- Foobar is a proscratinator, giving -10% motivation
- He likes sports, and every hour spent practising sport adds 30 minutes to his daily engagement
- He's less motivated when he's single, giving -15% motivation
- As a casual drinker, if he spends 30 minutes with an alcoholic beverage during a day, he gets +5% motivation the following day
- Foobar passionately hates John Doe. If they are present in the same colony, their motivation get -25%
Today, Foobar didn't sleep well because of an alarm that rang at 2am. He is considered to have had a night that was 90% normal.
His engagement for the day is:
- 8 hours * 0.9 (night) * 1.2 (highly motivated) * 0.85 (single) * 0.75 (John Doe is here) = 4.9572 hours
- He had a beer yesterday, adding 5% = 5.20506 hours
- During the day, he feel in good enough spirit to do one hour of sports, adding 30 minutes to his engagement.
In total, he will then be able to spend 5.70506 hours on tasks during the day.
With a normal night sleep, a partner, and no John Doe, that would have been: 10.58 hours (almost 5 hours more)