Ndemic Creations Forum

Full Version: New Game Mode/Scenario
You're currently viewing a stripped down version of our content. View the full version with proper formatting.
You've created the most deadly disease known to man.
You've unearthed a Nuerax Worm that took over humanity.
You've eradicated society with the zombie apocalypse.
You've created the Planet of the Apes.

But now, for the first time ever... instead of destroying humanity... you are going to save it.

This is Symbiosis Mode.

A series of plagues will rise up and threaten humanity, and as a naturally occurring or engineered symbiotic plague, your objective will be to evolve to cure these enemies of humanity, and spread to infected hosts to eradicate the plague that ails them, and/or to make humanity smarter to help them cure the disease. And if it's one of those special types of plagues (Neurax, Necroa, Simian), then you'll also be able to make humanity stronger, faster, and better in order to survive and fight.

Here's how I see it working: you go into Symbiosis Mode, and all of the red colored stuff turns green. The bio-hazard signs and plague symbols turn into something more friendly like smiley faces or something... maybe peace signs. When you go to pick your disease type, you're actually picking the type of disease that you'll be going toe to toe against in-game.

Now while that disease will be your main "enemy," there will still be other diseases that pop up, based on real-world plagues (Swine Flu, Smallpox, the common cold, etc.) and while some may present a threat to humanity, they ultimately won't be the ones poised to kill off humanity. If you spend time trying to fight them off, you may be rewarded with extra DNA or something. Cure Swine Flu, get 25 points, cure Small Pox, and get 40... cure the common cold and get a huge boost to your "infectivity" as a cure because fortune 500 companies cash in on you and ship you all over the world to disperse to every population on the planet.

There ought to be a few symbiotic types instead of just having one over-arching type. My idea would be to make special versions for the special diseases (Neurax, Necroa, and Simian) to combat their specific symptoms. But as far as the types of symbiotics, I can see three immediate possibilities: naturally occurring, engineered, and otherworldly.

Naturally Occurring: This one sums up all of the bacteria, virus, etc. without the complications of making specific versions of each disease type. The transmissions and abilities would be the same as the typical plagues: Avian, Rodent, Air, Cold Resistance, etc. But for "symptoms" you'd have things like "Anti-Inflammatory" which would counter sneezing and coughing symptoms, and reduce the plague's infectivity. There might also be some more extreme "symptoms" like a... "Purge" or "Burnout" symptom that causes dangerous and potentially fatal reactions but cures the disease in the subject in the process, especially if the enemy disease doesn't have say... Heat Resistance. I'm not sure where to go with abilities on this one. But perhaps an interesting twist would be to "Turn" against humanity and convert your cure into a disease without warning.

Engineered: This one covers your artificial stuff. A cure that humanity makes. While you will be more limited in terms of evolution, you'll already have a nice cocktail of symptoms to combat the enemy disease type. You'll be focusing on infection rates and spreading your cure around the globe before its too late. On the down side you start behind, with the enemy disease having already spread to a good portion of the globe and maybe even after its already wiped out a good chunk of civilization. Abilities here would be human based: things like shipping the cure off to a different continent, or putting an aerosol version of the cure in some crop dusters and dropping it on infected cities.

Otherworldly: This one accounts for other possibilities and is a good way to make references to a lot of sci-fi worlds, like the Symbiote from Spider-Man (on a side note, a comic-book super-hero world would be a fun scenario). With the Otherworldly type, you will have some potential to be a double-edged sword. Maybe your "cure" involves sacrificing humanity in some way, like the Borg or Cybermen. The Otherworldly type is possibly the strongest of the three symbiotics. They would have a wider range of abilities, focus less on symptoms and more on infectivity. It could cover everything from divine intervention to a subtle alien conquest of Earth. One idea I have is that you might be able to build up a cure to the enemy disease pretty quickly, but that the cure also prevents women from bearing children. It would be easy for an Otherworldly to kill off the opponent disease, but the strategy would be to let the disease live on just long enough to justify infecting every human with your "cure."

Special Cases: Neurax, Necroa and Simian. These three will require some extra symptoms and abilities to combat. I'm thinking mostly things that assist humans in combat, but also help them create stronger social structures to help them unite among themselves (telepathy and the likes). For the Neurax, perhaps a different, but similar plague could emerge, one that is an enemy of the original and aims to infect a small population of humans to fight them off. For the Necroa, maybe there could be a sentient offshoot of the virus that creates warring factions of zombies that try to save humanity. With the Simian Flu... I don't know, I'm running out of ideas.

So anyways, tl;dr:

Add symbiotic plague with the objective of saving humanity from a disease or multiple diseases instead of destroying it.
Reference URL's