new idea, access gateway for DLC + modding
Posted: Sat Jul 29, 2017 7:13 pm
OK, first, I have to dole out some fawning flattery. This is a really cute and charming game that is always easy to pick up. There are so many hidden nooks and crannies, and it creates a relaxing environment. I would love to see much more growth.
This is something I wanted to post a couple weeks ago, and it seems that something similar may be coming with the “daily tasks” in mini-maps. I would still like to post it.
In line with looking forward to new stuff, I’d like to propose a way to attach official DLC and perhaps even player made mods in a way that has some degree of sandboxing. To that end, the GOOP Gate and PASS Keys. I’m afraid there is a lot to juggle here, so thank you ahead for your time reading this. If you quote something for a question or comment, please trim the quote! I will be breaking this post into parts.
All in-game ideas are presented as purely speculative “for example...” ideas to give an idea of how this would work.
The short version is, there is a gate, the Gateway Of Other Places Gate on the ranch that is activated. Stepping in it opens a menu of Probably A Safe Spot Keys made by the player, along with “Cancel/Exit”. Selecting a key activates the teleporter and sends the player to a teleporter pad on the area that is either a free/paid DLC map, or even a player made map. All maps *must* have the initial teleporter, and this always leads back to the ranch’s GOOP Gate. Each map in add-on packs will have its own unique PASS Key, which is manufactured in the lab or purchased with plorts through the upgrades machine.
Unlocking the Gate should be cheap and easy. The Lab could also be completely circumvented to allow even easier access if the Keys are purchased on a menu of the upgrade machine (by the front of the house) for plorts. I will refer to the Lab here, but one could easily substitute “upgrade purchase”. The Keys should be made with or purchased for plorts, not just cash, to be discussed later.
The main menu of the game would have a new menu listing available official and player-made DLC copied locally, each of which would be turned off by default. The player turns each on to activate the content. (If a mod is removed or turned off, it’s content is purged from the save game.)
<In Game>
Beatrix will have a new extension to the farm near the main area. It could be a stairway on the back cliff leading down to a cave. It could be an excavation off the short path to the front entrance, or an extension off the Lab area.
Entering the area, the player sees an inert teleporter platform, surrounded by (again, just “what if” stuff) eight plort sockets, four pink and four phosphor. There is also a holo-note station from Hobson:
“I’m rather proud of this, which I call my GOOP Gate, even though it’s not always useful. I was able to hook an old teleporter pad up to some of the old nanotech plort generators I dislodged from some ruins, along with an old quantum sensor and a computer I only used for some cool retro games, and, well, I don’t want to bore you too much.
“This device carefully scans for teleporter pad signals that have gone into inert mode, compares them to ownership licenses, and basically finds and activates old pads that are no longer “owned”. It should have an impressive range, and may even take you to other ends of the planet. The address of each new spot is encoded in a PASS Key. -H”
(Slimepedia entry is created for the GOOP Gate, saying it scours for flux wiggles in the sub-atomic quantum fluff that are emitted by teleportation gateways which have reverted to low power mode. A background process checks the gateway’s address to see if it has fallen out of ownership, and if so, can activate the gateway. This allows access to new parts of the world once explored by other ranchers.)
Beatrix can then fill the plort sockets, and the pad lights up. When Beatrix steps on the pad, the player gets the GOOP pop-up window showing all owned PASS Keys (the Key menu), which is currently none. There is also a cancel or exit button, which lets the player leave the Gate.
A few seconds later, a new tech notification window appears for “PASS Key: Pink Island”. This is a PASS Key that is made in the lab, for, say, 20 pink plorts, 10 phosphor plorts, and 5 tabby plorts. PASS Keys can either go under the engineering tech, or get their own menu entry. (Or, purchased at the upgrade machine for that price.)
(Slimepedia entry appears, for the PASS Key, saying it it a small data storage matrix encoding the location and activation code of a far distant teleportation pad which has fallen into disuse. The GOOP Gate reads a PASS Key and opens a stable teleporter gate to that distant pad, powered by harmonized jiggles in the quantum fluff.)
Upon Beatrix making the PASS Key and returning to the GOOP Gate pad, the Key menu opens and the PASS Key: Pink Island is there. Beatrix selects that, and teleports away with a most spectacular wooshing.
Beatrix lands on a small island somewhere apparently far out in the slime sea. There are a few small nearby rocks, but no land mass visible on the horizon. The island, Pink Island as Hobson named it, is small and unremarkable. On the island are a pink slime spawn point or two, a small phosphor slime spawn point (only 2-3 slimes, at night), two carrot patches, a pogo tree, a few rocks, a sponge tree or two and a glow cone, and perhaps an engineering spot. There is also a holo-note from Hobson.
“Isn’t this amazing?
“Well, perhaps not amazing… This is the first abandoned teleport pad I found. I call this place “Pink Island”. I’m not really sure who built a teleport pad here or why, but I’m struck that I’m following in someone else’s footprints, as are you, as will your successor.
“Someone once had a dream here. I’m not sure we will ever know what that was. -H”
If an engineering spot is present, extractors will produce the common, non-area-linked resources.
After taking in the sparse sights and perhaps gathering a few resources, Beatrix steps on the teleporter pad to return to the ranch and step off the GOOP Gate.
Upon returning from Pink Island, the player gets tech notification pop-ups for the PASS Key schematics for any additional areas available from either official DLC content or player-made content. If content is later added, the player gets the pop-up for new PASS Keys when starting the game. The player has to go through the Pink Island “tutorial” before the GOOP Gate is fully implemented for new content. After Pink Island, all DLC Keys are unlocked immediately; they are not story linked (unless designed so by Monomi Park). The Key blueprint/price determines when the area is accessible.
(continued below)
This is something I wanted to post a couple weeks ago, and it seems that something similar may be coming with the “daily tasks” in mini-maps. I would still like to post it.
In line with looking forward to new stuff, I’d like to propose a way to attach official DLC and perhaps even player made mods in a way that has some degree of sandboxing. To that end, the GOOP Gate and PASS Keys. I’m afraid there is a lot to juggle here, so thank you ahead for your time reading this. If you quote something for a question or comment, please trim the quote! I will be breaking this post into parts.
All in-game ideas are presented as purely speculative “for example...” ideas to give an idea of how this would work.
The short version is, there is a gate, the Gateway Of Other Places Gate on the ranch that is activated. Stepping in it opens a menu of Probably A Safe Spot Keys made by the player, along with “Cancel/Exit”. Selecting a key activates the teleporter and sends the player to a teleporter pad on the area that is either a free/paid DLC map, or even a player made map. All maps *must* have the initial teleporter, and this always leads back to the ranch’s GOOP Gate. Each map in add-on packs will have its own unique PASS Key, which is manufactured in the lab or purchased with plorts through the upgrades machine.
Unlocking the Gate should be cheap and easy. The Lab could also be completely circumvented to allow even easier access if the Keys are purchased on a menu of the upgrade machine (by the front of the house) for plorts. I will refer to the Lab here, but one could easily substitute “upgrade purchase”. The Keys should be made with or purchased for plorts, not just cash, to be discussed later.
The main menu of the game would have a new menu listing available official and player-made DLC copied locally, each of which would be turned off by default. The player turns each on to activate the content. (If a mod is removed or turned off, it’s content is purged from the save game.)
<In Game>
Beatrix will have a new extension to the farm near the main area. It could be a stairway on the back cliff leading down to a cave. It could be an excavation off the short path to the front entrance, or an extension off the Lab area.
Entering the area, the player sees an inert teleporter platform, surrounded by (again, just “what if” stuff) eight plort sockets, four pink and four phosphor. There is also a holo-note station from Hobson:
“I’m rather proud of this, which I call my GOOP Gate, even though it’s not always useful. I was able to hook an old teleporter pad up to some of the old nanotech plort generators I dislodged from some ruins, along with an old quantum sensor and a computer I only used for some cool retro games, and, well, I don’t want to bore you too much.
“This device carefully scans for teleporter pad signals that have gone into inert mode, compares them to ownership licenses, and basically finds and activates old pads that are no longer “owned”. It should have an impressive range, and may even take you to other ends of the planet. The address of each new spot is encoded in a PASS Key. -H”
(Slimepedia entry is created for the GOOP Gate, saying it scours for flux wiggles in the sub-atomic quantum fluff that are emitted by teleportation gateways which have reverted to low power mode. A background process checks the gateway’s address to see if it has fallen out of ownership, and if so, can activate the gateway. This allows access to new parts of the world once explored by other ranchers.)
Beatrix can then fill the plort sockets, and the pad lights up. When Beatrix steps on the pad, the player gets the GOOP pop-up window showing all owned PASS Keys (the Key menu), which is currently none. There is also a cancel or exit button, which lets the player leave the Gate.
A few seconds later, a new tech notification window appears for “PASS Key: Pink Island”. This is a PASS Key that is made in the lab, for, say, 20 pink plorts, 10 phosphor plorts, and 5 tabby plorts. PASS Keys can either go under the engineering tech, or get their own menu entry. (Or, purchased at the upgrade machine for that price.)
(Slimepedia entry appears, for the PASS Key, saying it it a small data storage matrix encoding the location and activation code of a far distant teleportation pad which has fallen into disuse. The GOOP Gate reads a PASS Key and opens a stable teleporter gate to that distant pad, powered by harmonized jiggles in the quantum fluff.)
Upon Beatrix making the PASS Key and returning to the GOOP Gate pad, the Key menu opens and the PASS Key: Pink Island is there. Beatrix selects that, and teleports away with a most spectacular wooshing.
Beatrix lands on a small island somewhere apparently far out in the slime sea. There are a few small nearby rocks, but no land mass visible on the horizon. The island, Pink Island as Hobson named it, is small and unremarkable. On the island are a pink slime spawn point or two, a small phosphor slime spawn point (only 2-3 slimes, at night), two carrot patches, a pogo tree, a few rocks, a sponge tree or two and a glow cone, and perhaps an engineering spot. There is also a holo-note from Hobson.
“Isn’t this amazing?
“Well, perhaps not amazing… This is the first abandoned teleport pad I found. I call this place “Pink Island”. I’m not really sure who built a teleport pad here or why, but I’m struck that I’m following in someone else’s footprints, as are you, as will your successor.
“Someone once had a dream here. I’m not sure we will ever know what that was. -H”
If an engineering spot is present, extractors will produce the common, non-area-linked resources.
After taking in the sparse sights and perhaps gathering a few resources, Beatrix steps on the teleporter pad to return to the ranch and step off the GOOP Gate.
Upon returning from Pink Island, the player gets tech notification pop-ups for the PASS Key schematics for any additional areas available from either official DLC content or player-made content. If content is later added, the player gets the pop-up for new PASS Keys when starting the game. The player has to go through the Pink Island “tutorial” before the GOOP Gate is fully implemented for new content. After Pink Island, all DLC Keys are unlocked immediately; they are not story linked (unless designed so by Monomi Park). The Key blueprint/price determines when the area is accessible.
(continued below)