To level up jellies, you have to fill their needs. Their needs are like eating, playing, and sleeping. Needs can be filled directly, by for example feeding a jelly or playing with it. But as jellies level up, they will gain more independence, meaning they can take care of their needs themselves, as long as the player puts down the facilities needed to do so, like plants to eat from, and pools to bathe in. Each jelly has slightly different needs. As the jelly levels up and grows, it gets more needs.

Feature Summary

To level up jellies, you have to fill their needs. Their needs are like eating, playing, sleeping, and bathing. Needs can be filled directly, by for example feeding a jelly or playing with it. But as jellies level up, they will gain more independence, meaning they can take care of their needs themselves, as long as the player put down the facilities needed to do so. For example, if you plant fruits for the jelly, it can eat it itself, or you could make a swing that the jelly can play with on its own. That way it becomes more about building a good environment and home for the jelly.

Each jelly has slightly different needs. As the jelly levels up and grows, it gets more needs.

Goals

• Encourage the player to take care of the jellies
• Encourage the player to build good living spaces for the jellies
• Encourage the player to keep improving how well they take care of each jelly
• Make each jelly feel distinct
• Start simple and increase the complexity of the game progression
• Don't be too annoying for the player to have to fill
• Be as simple and intuitive as possible

Feature Components

Need meters

For each need, there is a meter. The meter goes from 0 to a max value. The need meter shows how satisfied the jelly is with its needs. If it's 0 it's completely unsatisfied, if it's at the max value, it's completely satisfied.

Each jelly also has a happiness meter, which represents the jellies' overall satisfaction. This meter goes from 0 to the combined max value of all its needs. The value of the meter is equal to the value of all needs combined. At any time, the jelly passively gains XP for the trust levels based on its happiness meter. The happiness meter has to be above 50% for the jelly to gain XP. If it is, the jelly gains XP equal to the value of the happiness meter minus half the max value of the happiness meter, every minute. In other words, the jelly gains XP equal to how much above half the happiness meter is. The jelly doesn't however lose XP if the happiness meter is under 50%.

Fulfilling needs

In the beginning, the player has to fill every need directly. That means they have to feed the jelly to fill their hunger need, play with them to fill their play need, bathe them to fill their cleanliness need, etc. However, when the player has filled a need enough times, the jelly will learn to take care of it itself, if the player has put down the facility for the jelly to do so. For example, if they have planted a berry bush, the jelly will learn to eat from that berry bush. If you have made a bath for the jelly, it will learn to bathe itself when it is dirty. These facilities have to be within the jelly's biome. Specifically, if the jelly has learned independence for a need, then when the need meter drops below 75% of its max value, the jelly will try to fill the need as best it can by using the facilities in its biome.

When fulfilling a need, the amount added to the need meter will depend on how well the need is fulfilled. This means that some food will bring more satisfaction to the hunger need than others, and that some toys will bring more satisfaction to the play need than others.

Different jellies can also have different preferences, as in they prefer different types of food, toys, and beds, depending on their type. There are some needs that all jellies will have, while some needs might be exclusive to one or a few jellies.

When the jelly levels up

As a jelly levels up, it gains new needs. So in the beginning a jelly might only have a hunger and a sleep need, but later it will have many needs. The max value of old needs also increases, meaning you have to improve how well you take care of the need.

Example Visual

What should be manipulable in the Unity editor

• What needs each jelly have
• At what level does a need become active for each jelly
• The max for each need meter, for each jelly, for each level
• How many times does a need have to be filled, before a jelly gains independence for it
• How fast does each need meter decay for each jelly
• Settings for individual needs

Considerations and Dependencies

External Documents List