Concept:

Sim-Ants / DigDug style game created in a large disk, mario-galaxy style world. -Decided to go with a grid for now, sphere math was taking way too long.

Both red and black ants will share the same underground world

Initially the game will focus more on the under-ground aspect and building an impenetrable ant-cave and focus less on the above ground aspects.

Development process, Asterisk indicates complete:

*1. Create the 2D underground world.

• • 2d
• • destructable, player
• • basic types:
• -Dirt
• -Empty
• -Surface
• -Barrier

*2. Create basics

• • Player
• • Ants
• • Basic AI
• • Camera following
• • Player control
• • D-Pad
• • Touch, simple (broke this after I made the surface. / - Touch, dijkstra

*3. Create surface world

• • Link to underground
• • Objects (Rocks, Food), carryable by Player / Ants
• • Object spawns (food on surface).

*4. Basic ant functions

• • hp / death / not sure for now - extended statistics (not sure what these are)
• • Food / Eating
• • Pickup / Drop logic (i.e. stacks of food)
• • Queen / Egg production
• • Egg / Hatch (i.e. Game loop that checks underground for growing eggs.)
• • Collision detection (Grid, patch knows when ant is on it
• • Patch feramone level
  • optional display of feramone level (make a bool that toggles if this is displayed or not).

5. A.I.

   • Ant action AI's:
   • -Wander = limit number of turns the ant can make?

   • -Queen, egg production -Forage = ant prefers stronger chemical trail = chemical trail deteriorates over time

     -Attack (patch knows who is on it, if red + black ant, fight). -Defend -Follow (player, etc?) -???

   • Tunnel design
   • -simple/random -more interesting?

6. Gameplay,

   • Enemy Creatures
     • spider
     • worm
     • pill bug
     • pit bug
   • Enemy Events
     • foot
     • lawnmower
   • Ant Types / stats / AI
     • Worker
     • Breeder
     • Soldiers
     • Queen
   • Scores
   • Ant combat.
   • Win conditions
   • levels

7. Polish

   • Terrain themes / textures (outdoors, patio, kitchen, leg, etc)
   • Object models: -dirt -barriers -???
   • Sound Effects
   • Background Music

8. Wants

   • 3D surface (tiles have a height)
     • this would require an extra rotation for objects drawn on the surface, so that they are parallel to the ground.
   • 3D surface objects -grass that goes up into camera -rocks that join with adjacent rocks to make a big rock.

NOTE: The below was determined to be too much work for too little reward, the effect was not as impressive as hoped for so it was scraped for a plain old 2D array rendered on a 3D plane.

Underground world data structure.

The world is a flat donut, with an unpassable "rock" core at the bottom. The donut is broken down into SLICES. A slice is a logical entity which can be loaded in parts. Slices are stitched together to adjacent slices Each slice is loaded in entirety in such a way that only 2 slices need to be loaded at once for display purposes. Each slice is a 2D array. It does not taper out towards the bottom, as the bottom is "rock" it can be spoofed.

Each slice is broken down into squares which can be: -dirt (clearable) -cleared (walkable, objects may be placed, can be buried) -unpassable (i.e. rock)