@n8bot
2023
Echelons of Deception and Survival is a semi-competitive third-person roleplaying game with elements of social/urban survival, social stealth, social deduction, immersive sim, and battle-royale gameplay.
Between two and eight players compete for survival in a small, contained economic simulation populated with mostly NPC characters — up to 32 total including player characters.
When a player character dies, the player does not respawn as that character. Instead, the player possesses some other existing character in the world.
Tasks must be performed by characters, both NPC and players, to maintain the economic/survival needs of the setting.
In addition to completing tasks, players must navigate the potentially treacherous environments, and avoid/overcome the fully-NPC guards. Players can choose to engage in combat, but weapons and ammunition are scarce and combat is very lethal.
Four game modes, in order of priority:
-
Last One Standing
Player identities are concealed. Players must survive as long as possible while dying the fewest number of times.
-
Casual Free Mode — RP
The economic simulation is given as a sandbox to players. New characters can be regenerated upon deaths to keep the scenario going as long as desired/achievable.
-
Team Target Elimination
Same character respawn rules as LOS, but players are split into teams, players and developers, and a designated "king" is targeted for assassination. First team to eliminate the opposing king wins.
-
Hitpersons
Same character respawn rules as LOS, but players are given a list of characters to eliminate — some are NPC, some are other players. First to complete their list wins. (The list transcends character death, stays with the player.)
- open source — open to contribution
- cross-platform (Windows/Linux now, others to come)
- online multiplayer
- round-based/non-persistent
- competitive or casual modes
- third-person
- roleplaying
- social/urban survival
- battle-royale
- immersive sim
- social stealth
- social deduction
- multitude of environments
- Unreal Engine 5
- Lumen, Nanite, et. al.
- Lyra framework
- EOS/null online subsystems (for online server browsers, and offline+LAN, respectively)
- Metahumans
- default for NPC/Players
- custom for villain (Ulon Mars)
- extensive use of all available clothing and accessory options for in-game swapping
- Marketplace assets
- free, free for the month, etc.
- new and existing open source assets
All characters are controlled automatically by typical game NPC logic performing daily routines and tasks
NPC decisions are made based on randomized/probabilistic personality traits determined at round start — using Maslow's hierarchy, the biopsychosocial model, and the stress and coping model of human behaviour
Players are assigned a single character at the beginning of a session. They can simply let the NPC act automatically, choose to make small decisions, or take full control of the NPC at any time
If control is taken from NPC, NPC control does not return until a full night's rest (or medication)
Tasks are difficult to perform manually
(The player control is a metaphor for mental illness/psychosis/some other form of mind control)
The first and only setting of the first version will be a small contemporary Martian gambling resort colony. This first environment will be used to discover and explore potential gameplay mechanics/elements.
Economy of the small setting is fully simulated
Economic inputs are mostly imported
Economy is sensitive to changes/disruptions in the supply of goods or performance of tasks
Day/Night cycle, compressed time scale
Characters need food, sleep, mental stimulation/wellness
Certain roles/access to certain areas is dependent on cleanliness and dress code
Starting locations of shops/services will be randomized among eligible "real estate" slots
Starting locations of character/roles will also be randomized
Starting stats and traits of characters randomized
PVP is discouraged through game design, but always possible
Players must deduce who is AI-controlled or player-controlled character
A character is defined uniquely by its Metahuman name and face
Upon initialization, a character is automatically given a set of traits — both physical and personality.
Metahuman body combo (Tall/Average/Short & Underweight/Medium/Overweight):
Note: Images are not exactly to scale (camera position/focal length changes).
Restaurant | Cafeteria | Home Cooking | |
---|---|---|---|
Ingredients | wholesale | food waste | groceries |
Recipes | proprietary | N/A | free/whatever/good luck |
Processing | skilled worker | unskilled worker | self |
Waste | food/packaging | none | food/packaging |
Speed/Availability | fast/always | fast/scheduled | slow/always |
Nourishment | pleasing/unhealthy | unpleasing/unhealthy | depends |
Cost | $$$$$+ | free* (with job) | $ -> $$$$$+ |
Default | Work uniform | Fashion | |
---|---|---|---|
Durability | fair | poor | poor |
Dress Code | basic access | work access | all access* |
Cost | free* | $$$ | $$$$$+ |
Note: Clothes must be cleaned in order to maintain dress code access. This can be done manually at home or via paid laundry service.
Fashion-based access is subject to the taste and discretion of the character or robot granting access.
The physical security is all taken care of by extremely lethal humanoid robots armed with firearms and grenades
The robots also serve as the rules of play for the gambling operation robot battle arena — simple wagers are placed on the outcomes of robot battles
The entire colony is built upon this gambling operation — massive amounts of energy and money are spent keeping this running
In secrecy, some of these robots and weapons are being manufactured in excess and used for some other purpose or sold for profit — this is one of the meanings of "Echelons of Deception" — the entire colony is essentially an overall giant deception, with layers of micro-deceptions the whole way down
The rules of the colony will disallow any human from possessing weapons, but of course some people are criminals and will possess them anyway — and some people are VIP and deemed so important that rules basically don't apply to them — unofficially "allowed to have weapons, but can't shoot them"
The rules in general are very selectively enforced — mostly as a way to keep the poor servants of the lower echelons of the colony in check
- cleaning supplies
- personal hygiene contributes to access similar to dress-code
- medication
- robots also administer medication and health services
- rent/real-estate
- power bills
- water bills
- household items/other entertainment goods and services
- spa/makeup/hair styling
- drugs
- allow players to require less sleep/food/etc., with side-effects
- allow players to enhance some traits, with side-effects
- make money by selling to whales/etc.
- drug labs from obscure input products
- illegal imported weapons
Loosely based on chess pieces
Chess | Echelons |
---|---|
pawns | unskilled workers |
knights | moderators |
bishops | business operators |
rooks | VIP hosts |
queens | whale guest |
kings | whale guest* |
Note: King/queen does not translate to any gender in echelons. The only thing that distinguishes a king from a queen is that the king is chosen as the mark for elimination while in TTE mode.
-
- weapons/ammo manufacturer
- robot manufacturer
- facility maintainer
- glass repair
- general colony equipment repair
- air conditioning repair
- sewage repair
- power distribution repair
- general janitorial cleaning
- gardening
- cafeteria worker
- logistics worker
-
- moderators (managers of the robot security force and bodyguards of whales) — knights
- independent business operators (managers of the shops, restaurants/cafes, and other amenity businesses not related to the colony, robots, weapons, gambling, etc.. LOL. maybe they are owner-operators!!! living the dream! llmao! They are just pawns but pretend to own things.) — bishops
- VIP hosts (the managers of the casino, the colony as a whole, etc. but they are pre-occupied catering to the whims of the whales) — rooks
-
- whales
- purely non-worker citizens, who have lots and lots of money who were sold a one-way ticket to the colony as permanent tourists — kings and queens
- whales
Note: Whales are essentially employees of the VIP hosts/colony. If they don't gamble, they lose their status as VIP — similar to losing employment status. They lose access to their echelon, their private gambling salon, their comped food, etc.
All these roles are merely defined by tasks. There is no "official hired or not" status. Hired is a concept mutually agreed upon by the employee and the employer. It depends on attendance, performing the task in question, etc.
This is a tasks system, not a roles/jobs system. Everyone is technically the same. Skill in certain tasks might be required and can be gained somehow.
This is how criminality works. The roles on the black market are not defined "officially," they simply emerge from the market economics (and the AI inclination to perform certain tasks based on toxic personality traits and a probability).
It may include monetization strategies such as in-app purchases or microtransactions, but not until the game is mature.
- concealing one's identity
- deducing other players' identities
- sacrificing a character/life, and/or setting up favourable conditions for future character lives
- eliminating players through surreptitious action, while attempting to avoid loss of NPC life — there is an advantage in keeping as many NPC as possible, to operate the economy and provide potential extra lives
- players may try to acquire weapons and attack other players directly — however, weapons are scarce and combat is lethal, so players must weigh the risks vs benefits of such actions
- as characters die, the colony's economy is impacted, leading to a balance of cost and benefit in all actions. Players must carefully balance their actions in the colony, as the economy and infrastructure are fully simulated. Decisions made can have long-term consequences, and players must consider the cost and benefit of their actions.
- throughout the game, players must also be mindful of their own safety, as there are many ways to accidentally kill their character. The environment itself is hostile and dangerous, and players must always be on their guard.
Multiplayer non-serious economy/crime simulator RP. martian outpost that is privateer-based, capitalist pay your way kinda thing to support Ulon Mars’ martian robot fighting league, formerly Unreal Tournaments he bought from Epic Games.
Villain's name is Ulon Mars
People act confused when they hear the name and someone is like "Yeah he changed his name" and they're like oooh yeah yeah ok but we never say the old name.
Ontology plays a large part of the themes and tone of the game. The ontology will be precise, yet ambiguous. As in, each use of a term will be well defined, but there will be many uses of a single term all of which can only be determined based on context.
E.g., the word echelon itself. It will be used to describe so many things — upper and lower echelon character roles, numbered echelons of player deaths, referring to physical stories of a building, referring to other individual objects. There could be several ways to use these different terms. Upper/lower echelon, echelon 1, 2, 3, or 4. First echelon/Second echelon. Echelon A, B, C. Your echelon, their echelon.
This kind of ambiguous wordplay will be everywhere.
The term neutralized can be used for character death. This acts as a euphemism and also as a play on the other use of the word neutral for character traits described below.
Text to speech using TorToiSe?
Oh wow yes.
If a player dropped out early, and they happened to be the host, the game is ruined. We should plan for host migration, dedicated servers, or have all players in session share hosting duties. Every client is also a server? Madness.
Perhaps a simple positive/negative binary personality trait is determined for each AI character. It could be called "toxic personality" vs wholesome (or sweetheart).
Maybe there is Wholesome, Neutral, and Toxic. All AI character decisions could be based off of a probability weighted against this metric. Being toxic affects probabilities that would be deemed negative like crime, etc.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Twitch/comments/k77rt9/what_is_with_the_wholesome_and_toxic_community/
"In the end, it was echelons upon echelons of deception. Always has been." "In the end, it was all Echelons of Deception and Survival the whole way down, always has been."
Perhaps the total duration of time alive of all characters boosts the absolute score of any players in the game. Relative score, for the single game, is simply last one standing - times died. Across all games, the duration of all characters in an individual game, determines the overall absolute score placement across all games (of equivalent versions — leaderboards will be reset for gameplay changes). THIS COULD HAVE NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES of play sessions being extended to seek leaderboard status. Boosting lobbies, etc. BAGH.
Whisper.cpp for speech recognition for AI characters to detect spoken words.
A very essential core part of this game is that the game can be played and fully enjoyed with play sessions of limited time.
Aspects of survival/MMO games seem very fun, but are inaccessible to people who do not have lots of spare time. Echelons is for them.
Also, the reason that VR is not an option for now. VR is a bit much for some people. This game is for them. This game is to provide the social gaming experience of some of the VR, MMO, and survival games, to people who have no time or energy for that lmao.
The game is like an MMO end game. The MMO is over... people can just RP and have fun before the server gets shut down.
Terms to use for economy sim are source and sink. We want to actually avoid these concepts as much as practical/fun.
The outside economy, from which goods are imported (and exported?) needs to be "simulated" on a basic level, in the sense that it can not be an unlimited source or sink.
The p2p lobby "server" MOTD with the semi-dynamic content, including server rules, can name the actual players in the lobby as the admins/owners of the server. Give real information to the players in this.
The rules can serve as game instructions. No shooting people (press X to shoot).
Robots can be programmed, with the same internal game system, to perform any task/duty that the AI characters perform. They can perform it to much higher standards, and at quicker speeds, and with less instruction time. (The players have the worst speed, accuracy, and instruction time compared to robots and AI characters.)
However, the robots are typically never programmed this way by default. They perform two roles by default: security, and arena combat for rules of play. Only with non-obvious techniques can the robots be repurposed.
Also, a price-list can be discovered for the robots and weapons, but as they are never for sale it seems confusing — it's a price list for outside sales.
Some nearly silent, some really loud. Stylish ones are loud, worn out old ones are quiet but no access.
In dirt areas on the lower echelons. Indicates trends of character movement.
One can be fully toxic and fully wholesome or any combination. Some decisions might only rely on toxicity. Some rely only on wholesomeness. Neutrality is an emergent concept.
The values of GameAI traits, etc., only change based on systems. All randomization only occurs on initial state creation.
The primary way that the traits of GameAI change is when they experience/see/hear events in their environment. The GameAI characters are very much products of their environment.
Player customized content can be made tied to the player account of the creator for a limited time upon merge.
The game ends up actually being kind of like a turing test. Spot the "AI" could be useful for marketing.
Tortoise-tts is used to generate phrases for the NPC — either several consistent voices or just random voices always.
The generated voices must to the player be exactly equivalent functionally as player voices. That is, they are treated the same way.
Character mouth movement is base on the audio which generates movement in real time, the same for both player and generated voices.
Whisper.cpp is used to listen for keywords — gameplay mechanics/scenario "rules" help to minimize the need or desire for communication — but some is allowed (for conducting transactions, work, gambling, etc.).
Generated voices are listened to and interpreted just as the player voices are.
Voices are modulated in real time to alter the pitch up or down randomly/in line with the character, within a certain range, to try and obfuscate all voices.
The character voices are all generated based on text input from designers in easy-to-manage data structure.
New builds periodically re-generate voices so the sounds are not always identical and players can be challenged.
There are several variations of each utterance generated per voice, and they are cycled through in randomized order to attain as dynamic speech as possible.
Defects present in generated voices can be kept to simulate weird player behaviour.
The concept of selling or buying or owning is up to subjectivity. If an NPC who owns a store sees someone with an item they sell in the store, they will expect money for it. Don't pull things out of your pocket at the wrong time.
Books are the main form of allowed entertainment other than gambling. There is an eerie lack of electronics other than colony-provided devices.
The mechanics for shooting are favourable to the player being shot. Checks are made between all clients to verify mutually all kills. Animation/effects will hide the delay. Twitch shooting is not really helpful. It's more about deciding to take action and then seeing various results of those actions.
The game is more like playing in a hitman map multiplayer.
The personality traits are derived from character interactions altering them. NPC and players experience interactions. Some automatically apply buff or debuff to personality, other interactions can allow NPC or players to actively choose to rate another character as toxic or wholesome. This can be done with the expressions system. Facial expressions, etc.
Make the feet part of the capsule more tapered so it's easier to slip and fall off ledges. Foot IK will possibly help provide hilarious dynamic leg movement during the sudden unexpected fall.
Metahuman ragdoll example is key llmao.
The lack of variety in terms of clothing options, hair styles, food, etc., will be masked by the difficulty in making the selections. Not difficulty directly, but in time and space. The player will be pre-occupied with other tasks, the character will not have time to go make these choices as they will be out of the way.
The characters will have a routine, which is somewhat hard to break.
In an attempt to keep the number of metahumans in LOD0 and LOD1, the NPC will aggressively attempt to leave areas with large clusters of other characters. The ranges of each LOD from each player will be maintained, so that no more than about 4 are in LOD0 for any player at any given time.
This will provide somewhat of a gameplay element. Players can try to deduce who is another player based on their emulation or not of this tendency to leave the area when there are too many other characters. Also, the clusters forming around specific characters can perhaps be detected as well.
This is a feature, not a bug.
Players vs Developers. The same rating system is used for all characters. Players and developers each see the ratings conversely. While the Developers see Toxic behaviour, the players see cool. Wholesome is seen as snowflake. It is the same and affects decision making basically the same. The reactions by the character change. The emotions change. Mental health reactions are different
The visemes of the metahuman can be cycled through randomly while characters are talking. As long as the sound is coming through, the visemes are interpolation. However, the magnitude of the openness of the mouth is changed as the amplitude of the sound changes. The combination of the two provides for dynamic reaction to the actual sound, without marionette-like flapping. The visemes will shut the mouth somewhat, and change the lip shape, so that the audio's amplitude influence is hidden, and vice versa the amplitude of the audio hides the interpolation of the visemes. If the amplitude is low, the lips should barely look like they are moving. As if someone is just grumbling silently to themselves. The guards can detect this and say "No grumbling." Llmao.
The character collision capsule should come to a smaller point underneath the character's center of balance. Then, the foot IK will hopefully make it seem reasonable for balancing on thin things. Could work. And make it hilariously fun to slip and fall.
Logistics should be a real concern. Moving basic items from one place to another is a task, especially if this activity must be concealed.
The electrical lines go everywhere and be deadly if u touch them wrong
Whether for Player or non-player character, if the speech/voice is interrupted by death before the sound file ends or the PTT button is released, this can be a trigger to raise suspicion of nearby NPC.
Characters can lose balance. They can be pushed around by outside forces such as other characters. Ragdoll mode is ubiquitous. They can tumble, roll, and be injured on every hit all the way down. Jumping is entering ragdoll mode. Landing with a certain orientation will regain balance, otherwise full ragdoll — based on IK foot placement goals.
When NPC are pursuing a target, they should be targeting descriptive features that could cause them to mistake a different target for the same person. Tall, masculine, long dark hair, yellow shirt, etc.
Often in games this is on or off. An NPC is engaging or not in combat with another. Instead, this is a confusing grey area. Who to fight? Who is fighting? Who is friend? Do I fight, flight, or freeze?
One day is scaled down to about 7.5 minutes. That game day is extrapolated to be a game week. Every day in the game, the characters progress their traits as if a week had progressed conducting that days behaviour.
In the game world, the characters can use account portal to enter credentials every time or they can use the devauth tool to automatically provide credentials.
LMAO... this Player/Developer thing is really coming together.
Player and Developer are called "Echelons" like houses in harry potter. Which Echelon are you? Player or Developer?
"I'm not even a Player, I'm just a user." "Don't say that." "I'm such a user."
Ubot 101, 102, 103, 104, etc. Random hex number?
Self-explanatory.
I will do the next best thing. Block it out.
Wholesale steal that trope from the simpsons. Put it in.
Backpacks can carry items, but are not allowed in many areas.
The NPC feel that the player-controlled MeatHumans act sus... which, they do in a sense. The Player controlled MeatHumans notice the stiff and mechanical way the NPC MeatHumans move and act, because, well, yeah... they are NPC. But is that sus? Hmmm... Worker bees are not sus.
Designer is the pejorative for dev, user for player.
Degen is a term used to describe criminal/shady behaviour.
OODA loop is a concept that will be used when modelling the NPC behaviour logic.
Manufactured goods have a different feeling to the producer than the consumer. The producer is swamped in parts, the process, and materials and the excess. The paint everywhere, metal chips, waste, dozens of parts all stacked together. This feels different than a single, finished, clean unified product in the hands of the consumer.
Below is a collection of notes about the game.
These notes are transcribed from handwritten notes, in the order they appear in the notebook. The order is not logical.
- Roles mapped to chess pieces — 32 Characters total
- Upper echelon: Kings, Queens, Rooks, Knights, Bishops — VIP Whales, Operations Management, Security Management, Small Business Operators
- Lower echelon: Pawns — Workers
- Mental health is modeled with medication as a pickup to buff/debuff certain stats simultaneously (restores mental health with side effects)
- Picture the routines of all the specific jobs/roles
- Characters must sleep
- While sleeping characters/players can use their electornic device (phone, "mental probe" implant, etc.) to perform online shopping and other activities
- AI-controlled characters can also do this automatically to some extent
- This mechanic adds to the narrative as well as gives players something to do when the character is sleeping
- Perhaps sleeping pills are required to do activities while sleeping
- Maybe other types of pills allow a character to forgoe sleep with some debuff side-effect
- Maybe the Knights are more like dedicated security/bodyguards for the VIP whales
- Currency? Digital/Cash?
- "Mars Credits"?
- Proxy?
- Diamonds?
- Bullets?
- Pills?
- Spices?
- Booze?
- Chat? Voice? Text?
- "SMS" via phone or "mental probe" implant?
- Social Credit?
- Player-paid billboard ads?
- Business reviews?
- Message to/from businesses?
- Random business names
- Players name theirs
- Battery on phone or "mental probe" implant depletes
- Camera movement lags AI movement?
- Phone/ID Device can be lost/stolen
- Phone/ID Device is issued by the casino/house/management/colony
- Entire facility is put under lock down, red lights and sirens, if any glass is broken of the dome, etc.
- Roof glass breaking mechanism: multiple layers of glass. Shards of glass rain down on characters causing damage. Red alert, lockdown. Always explained away as thankfully all the layers didn't break. Technical side: Glass planels never do break, they just spawn shards of glass for simplicity.
- Throwing system
- Physical properties like hardness, weight, etc., affect trajectory and damage
- Simply scamming the colonists with exchange rates sending money from earth, converting to Mars Credits and no facility to transfer back to Earth currency.
- Casino/House manipulated the digital currency?
- Printing money?
- Ulon Mars is the mastermind
- Mars Gambling Resort, LLC owns and operates entire facility except small independent businesses (which are owned by Mars Gambling Resort, but operated and rented by the Bishops/whomever)
- VIP Guests Bring the money to keep the wheels greased — tons of it
- Workers do all the work — tons of it
- Robots combat as a basis for gambling and as physical security/police.
- Workers do all the work — tons of it
- VIP Guests Bring the money to keep the wheels greased — tons of it
- Mars Gambling Resort, LLC owns and operates entire facility except small independent businesses (which are owned by Mars Gambling Resort, but operated and rented by the Bishops/whomever)
- "Amazing.com" PRIMO account gives you one-day delivery to Mars from their off-world distribution centers
- Prices are inflated because Mars
- There is a weapons manufacturing facility and a humanoid robot manufacturing facility
- Ulon Mars has ulterior motives for the entire operation. There is an ultimate echelon of deception which is revealed for the first time when the player is victorious in a round.
- MTX for players to be able to offer special items for-sale in their in-game shops
- Has gameplay implications — users without assets will not be able to offer certain items for sale, and could reveal their identity easier
- Pawn — Worker: limited movement, but with a sneaky en-passant (the strategy employed by players)
- Bishop — Small Business Operators: large range of motion in a certain direction, limited to its domain (some special access, but not an "insider")
- Knight — Special Security: range is limited by policy, but can "pick" targets with special access (like jumping over pieces)
- Rook — House: large range of motion, domain is not limited — all access privileges
- Queen — VIP subset: nearly-unlimited range of motion, but ultimately tied to the King and their limitless resources (charm their way anywhere)
- King — VIP subset: debilitated by the stress and burden of the colony — remorse, sense of being scammed, shame, addictions, mental/physical health problems
- Package inspection game mechanic/duty/task/ability
- A certain role or set of roles has the authority to inspect individual packages in logistics at will, searching for contraband or for any other purpose
- Package contents are physically laid out and the individual items can be interacted with like normal
- The Weenie is the large structure at the center of the colony, which serves multiple purposes and is a very tall tower
- The base of the Weenie holds the Emergency Escape Balls which will launch VIPs to safety in case of danger
- They VIPs climb inside, and are launched into the air, away from the colony, and land back to safety on the Martian surface gently via parachute
- They will never function when a person is inside — they will parachute perfectly every time they are launched empty
- They VIPs climb inside, and are launched into the air, away from the colony, and land back to safety on the Martian surface gently via parachute
- The Weenie also supports the protective cup — the glass dome around the colony, which provides the physical barrier to the deadly Martian atmosphere
- The base of the Weenie holds the Emergency Escape Balls which will launch VIPs to safety in case of danger
- Possible mental model of AI/Characters whereby they self-rank themselves in terms of superiority — modelling complexes of narcissists and the opposite
- Mandatory "mental probe" implants (neurolink)
- Last One Standing
- Team Target Elimination
- Hitpeople
- All players are secretly hit persons. Crazy Ulon Mars has given them all tailored hit lists which contain some AI characters and also all other player characters, but without knowledge of which is which. Winner is the first to complete their list without getting hitted.
- Casual RP Mode
Fully leverage the Lyra framework to find the fun. Do not re-invent systems. Build upon existing systems.
To build off of Lyra Sample Project
Maybe different random banners each time, with similar joke rules
Server Rules:
- No killing
- No guns
- No shooting guns
- No stealing
- No talking
- Go to your job
- No bad behaviour
- No selling stuff without permission from the mods
- No drugs
- No arguing with the mods
- Report to mods (there actually are no mods)