h a l f b a k e r yMagical moments of mediocrity.
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Strategy games can be interesting. They revolve around a human (you) or a group of humans trying to conquer the planet, a country, or a situation.
Monetary rewards or military victories may ensue.
Now CropSlash Inc. brings you its first strategy game that asks you to think as a crop, instead
of just growing it as a human. You better think like a plant, or else you don't stand a chance of beating soybeans.
You start out as corn. How can corn colonize the planet (even further)? What genetic manipulations do you prefer? What kinds of industries and end-uses are you good for? What unexpected, perhaps slightly heinous uses may you generate by transforming your own biology? So as a corn plant, you have to think about the future of humanity. What do humans want in 2030? Biodegradable glues? An end to meat and vegetarianism? Local or global food? Adapt yourself to your own predictions and see what happens.
All these questions challenge you, you piece of corn, to take strategic decisions.
Your competitors are soybeans, wheat, cassava, rice. Each crop is geographically tied at the beginning of the scenario. But your strategy makes one win and conquer the planet. (Of course you can choose to start out as any of these crops, not necessarily as corn. But Corn is the planet's current King.)
The entire game is doped in a greenish hue, with soundbites from the music of plants [link].
PS: idea loosely based on Michael Pollan's TED talk [link].
Music of plants
http://www.youtube....watch?v=Og0KoeZzpGM
Plants make sound as they grow, can be converted into fine tunes. [django, Jul 01 2012]
Michael Pollan - TED
http://www.ted.com/...ant_s_eye_view.html
Interesting perspective. [django, Jul 01 2012]
shoot: the whole story
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/shoot
[Voice, Jul 02 2012]
Scholarly article on genetic history of maize
http://cshprotocols.../10/pdb.emo132.full
Owing to its exceptional genetic diversity, maize is highly adaptable and responsive to selective pressure. As a result, maize has been cultivated from the tropics to southern Canada, a wide biogeographical range that encompasses tremendous diversity in soil composition, climate, day length, and elevation (Neuffer 1982). [bungston, Jul 06 2012]
[link]
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So, is this a first-person shoot? |
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If you build it, they will come. |
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Newly planted corn will shoot if you do it right. |
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Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't make the connecting between first-person-shooter and the English word which says that plantlets "shoot" up. |
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See, mediocre English speakers will always miss so many of the nuances of the English language. I will not forget this one. Shooting plants can be interpreted as small plants popping up from the soil, or as Triffids with Kalashnikovs. English is a difficult language. Many double meanings. |
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"shoot" is also a noun that means new plant or branch. |
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I'd play this. I'd get annoyed at it not being called Maize though.
I mean, isn't HFCS the best revenge the plant could hope for? |
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//English is a difficult language. Many double
meanings.// |
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Don't be discouraged. English may seem
perbenatically complex, but in a renning context,
or in normal internoming, it's not that degastic to
get the hang of. Persevere, and in no time you'll be
charfing with the locals like a bodie nummer. |
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//Persevere// Quit making up words, [Max]. |
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Sorry, [ytk], I was unable to rebride myself. |
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Oh, sure, like tump you weren't. |
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[django], take no notice - he's drupping your thill. |
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One of these days, through some bizarre and contrived twist of fate, [MB] will find that he genuinely and urgently needs to communicate a vaguely picturesque-sounding piece of information - and no-one will believe it. |
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He will be like the boy who cried "woolfe", with a silent "w" |
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//like tump you weren't// |
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Actually, "tump" has a real meaning in Middle High German, IIRC. Arguably, it might even be a relevant meaning. |
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"Tump" is a slang word for a small hillock or mound in
parts
of Britain, I'm fairly sure... <net rummage> Yep.
Dialectic, though it doesn't say where in Britain. |
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Are you one corn plant, or are you the whole of corn as a crop? What can one plant do to influence the entire cereal grain? |
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For that matter, what can a corn plant do, at all, that translates to a game concept? |
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//what can a corn plant do, at all, that translates
to
a game concept?// |
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Almost all plants contain a wealth of toxins,
herbicides, insecticides and alkaloids that would
scare you - evolution has done its best to make
plants inedible. So, if I were a thinking corn
plant,
I'd probably just upregulate the crap out of a few
semi-dormant pathways and pack myself full of
hallucinogens. |
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On the other hand, if I were that smart a corn
plant, I'd probably just hide in the corner and
evolve teeth. |
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//pack myself full of hallucinogens// |
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// Almost all plants contain a wealth of toxins, herbicides, insecticides and alkaloids that would scare you |
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Or so M. Night Shyamalan thought. |
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//what can a corn plant do, at all, that translates to a game concept?// |
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It stalks, it shoots, it leaves.
What more do you want? Popping? It's friggin amaizing. |
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Corn's diabolical plan for prolifieration is to remain indigestable. |
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Of course corn can know the future no more than anything else. But the idea of genetic evolutionary strategy is interesting. For example, an organism which lives in conditions that vary greatly from generation to generation might benefit from a highly mutable genome, or alternatively, if it can adapt nongenetically, a lowly mutable genome so as not to screw up its adaptiveness. |
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For a crop plant under super artifical selective pressure, is it better to be highly mutable or lowly mutable? Also genetic changes in an individual benefit the species only insofar as "species" comprises reproductively successful descendants of that individual. |
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I recall the genome of Zea Mays is unusual in some respect betraying some strange events which went on in that species. Lets see if I can link it up. |
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Corn is famous for having transposable genetic
elements, which move around the genome, even
within one plant. Barbara McClintock got the Nobel
prize for work on them. |
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Wheat, however, is the weird one. It's a
pseudohexaploid, meaning that it's got three sets of
chromosomes from three different parents and, in
consequence, has an awkwardly large genome. |
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I'm not moving on until verrucas get a fair crack of the whip, discrimination is what this is, brothers...we won't stand for it. |
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Your joke was corny enough first time [nrm]. |
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// It stalks, it shoots, it leaves.// |
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Oh man, should've been in the book. |
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"Stalks, shoots and leaves" |
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A wild corn appears. Human uses cultivate - it's super effective! |
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