Brainstorming

Omg I'm so excited I can't sleep need to post this now otherwise I'll forget and I won't sleep and not be able to function tomorrow to finish animatic but so excited I realize I already said that!!!

Lol, these are just my own personal crazy ideas for the game.

These ideas of mine are mainly inspired by the system found in Lineage II. Basically it's your typical level-up mmorpg that allows you to explore different lands in this huge map. When I said that it was a seemless world, I forgot to mention that there were still many barriers that prevented just anyone from going anywhere and everywhere. What's interesting about these barriers is that they allowed the game designers to withhold parts that were still in development for example. So, in beta testing, the players were allowed to explore an island territory, but were restricted because they would drown if they attempted to swim off the island. There was a stamina bar for when you tried to swim... only elves could swim across cuz they can hold their breaths longer... Also, if you had leveled-up, you would be given a pass from the authorities of the village that allowed you to board a ferry.

Now, how this can be an example for us...? As it was in Lineage II, we start on an isolated island known as a lymph node. Within this lymph node, you can explore etc etc. But to get out, what do you need to do? To either intravasate into a vessel or whatnot. This intravasation process could easily translate into a barrier situation. The main character of the game, whatever they may be, would require to gain a special status or pass as it were to be able to intravasate. The passes would in this case be selectin molecules.

Immediately, here, we're presented with an educational opportunity. For anyone who has played a game, there comes a point when all terminologies - their etiology and abbreviations - become second nature. Depending of the level of difficulty (or perhaps the stage in the game), we can be as general or specific as we would like. We can label the pass here as simply "selectin", or as "ICAM-4".

So, now the question becomes, how does one acquire a pass, or replace it with a new one? Well, how I imagine it is that it would simply be like a skill that can be learned. So as you level up, you can gain access "more of your DNA potential". Instead of calling them weapons, we can even call them "proteins" that are part of your "transcriptional store" or something along those lines. This idea can be further developed, so we have some sort of weapon, skill, spell differentiation. The arsenal available to our hero could include weapons (long range IgE? and short range IgG), spell-like skills such as endocrine signalling, etc.

We could definitely have fun with coming up with cool combat techniques, but what I think would be a cool educational thing is that it forces some sort of organizational system onto the player. So in the player's skill book, these things are organized separately in say "surface expression" vs. "released" weapons.

Moreover, this would give us a great opportunity to implement the encyclopedic idea. In the skill book, you can read up on the "science". But of course, it will be cleverly disguised as "stats" which gamers love so much. Like, how much damage (affinity) to what type of enemy (antigen bacteria etc).

So, the process of leveling-up... well, what kind of game wouldn't have boss events or quests? Suppose in the case of a cancer metastasis scenario... you are traveling to the metastatic site, but you are blocked by a metastatic embolus clogging up the small arteriole to your destination... It's like a mini-boss before you get to the battlefield! Then once you're at the metastatic site, you're trying to kill the cells, but you can't cuz your antibody sucks (poor affinity to this particularly cancer). Well, how do you get the right affinity?

Here are scenarios that I came up with: a) you must find the lone antigen presenting cell to give you the right weapon; b) if you're a roaming cell, you must kill enough of them (collect their parts) in order to level up your antibody affinity; c) capture an antibody that works that is released by a B-cell or something... The possibilities are endless!

And on that note, these different fashions of acquiring skills may evolve and give rise to the possibility of character selection. Do you want to play a character with T-cell characteristics? A melee NK cell? Or do you want to be a support character like a B-cell? And the character/heroes don't have to be cells at all! They can be anything (person, nanotech, etc.)... except that they specialize and adopt the characteristics of certain cells...

Lol, imagine this on the chat room, "Hey guys, where's bob? We need a long-range type on this mission! Or at least someone with cytokine powers"... "No man, all you need is Leah and I to tank! NK for life!"

:D