RPG elements in scenarios

[byorgey]

When I started building Swarm I was not thinking in terms of role-playing style games at all, but I think we are slowly moving in a direction where it is more and more possible, and I really like the idea of being able to build scenarios that are like traditional RPGs in some ways but also require programming. (Just think of your favorite RPG and imagine if you could write a program instead of having to "grind" for resources, or in order to script some common sequence of actions, etc.) @kostmo 's recent Frivolous Excursion scenario (#1136) opened my eyes a bit to the possibilities, but I would love to be able to push it further (and maybe @kostmo does too). In fact even aside from crafting specific scenarios some of my long-term vision for "classic mode" incorporates some aspects of this (e.g. you eventually discover towns and cities with aliens you can talk to, structures containing puzzles, etc. etc.). I thought I would create this issue as an umbrella issue to talk about some of the features we might need to be able to build the kinds of scenarios and play experiences that we want.

When I think of RPGs I think of (at least) the following characteristics:

• Open world exploration. We already have this, although it is currently tedious to move around the world. We do have "driving mode" (Add a "driving mode" to the REPL #819) but it's currently cheat-mode only, and I think it's a bit disruptive the way it pastes lots of commands into the REPL. To me, Input handler command #102 is crucial to making open-world/exploration-style scenarios more fun.
• Communication with NPCs. This is definitely one big thing, perhaps the biggest thing, that is missing. We can make NPCs but we currently have limited ways to communicate. See Inter-robot communication #94 , Medium-independent communication #737 .
• Multiple goals/objectives/quests. Thanks to @kostmo 's work on multiple goals/conditions for a scenario we already have this.
• Acquiring items/inventory/crafting. We already have this too, although Overhaul the entity system #455 would make it a lot better.

Feel free to chime in with other elements.

[kostmo]

Another aspect of RPGs is stats progression in various dimensions.
In swarm, the acquisition of entities that provide specific capabilities is analogous to "spells". But the "strength" of those spells could depend on some orthogonal scale.

Some examples of things that could be affected by leveling-up these stats:

• increased range of commands
  • detection distance of sniff/chirp
  • range of view (Give view a limited broadcast range #17)
• maximum time one can wait (e.g. for Location watch command #687)
• speeding up crafting/drilling times
• faster movement through adverse terrain (Terrain types and resistance to movement #205)
• increased inventory capacity
  • in this regard, perhaps some entities should not take up "space" in inventory, while others do occupy finite space and are capped in quantity
  • Related: Resource depletion by movement (e.g. fuel, water spills)  #550
  • also: Infinite items in inventory #621
• memory capacity/cap on program size (a la Code golf scoring #866)?
  • maximum available slots in an array (see Array type #98)?
• hit points and damage multipliers (Adversarial robots #89)
• perhaps saving the game (Saving and loading games #50) could be rate-limited (maybe in certain play modes or during "combat sessions"), and better stats allow the wait time between saved to be decreased

[kostmo]

Another important aspect of RPGs and adventure games: #1228