a multiplayer game of parenting and civilization building
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Developer Jason has considered some basic way of communication. But I'm not sure it would work like you described it: every Eve and Adam is a prehistoric human. They cannot read or write, but they may be able to communicate or show something through pictographs.
[How do you avoid players drawing, uh, you know? There are more problems beyond this.]
For now the only thing you can do is pass down your legend orally to your children and kin. But you're right, it would be nice if you could leave something small behind, if only for a while.
This is a good idea—the part about body language—but it should not be player activated.
Right now a lot of grief and needless difficulty spawns from players not knowing quite how to handle community and social aspects vs. survival.
So if I abandon a baby (which I find extremely hard to do and have died countless times, sometimes trying to explain to the baby why it has to die), the baby should at least get to see the upset face of the mother to communicate to it that she's hungry; she can't take care of the baby. The baby-player will at least be given the chance to understand and won't be frustrated because this has probably happened many times to them.
This would also make it socially acceptable to run away from conversations or from a social gathering suddenly because other players would see that your are hungry or starving and need to find food quickly.
The game would change radically (for the worse) if it shoved information into your face about what's going on in general; or if players were given the ability to communicate too effectively—but having basic body language/emotions (at least for hunger/starving states) would be a fine addition.
As of posting time, my game has been lagging a lot. It's the first time it's been this bad for me. You die unexpectedly from hunger and seem to move very slow.
(It appears a computer reset solved the problem. Shrug)
Hm, speaking of religion; it might naturally develop in certain communities but at the moment the game doesn't explicitly encourage worshiping and superstition.
I wonder what would happen if some basic form of creative outlet was added. (Pictograms and idol-making?)
Another alternative is making adobe ovens to fire clay bowls. But this part is even more multistep and involved and ultimately not ideal for carrying enough water in single trip.
I've noticed that certain players have realized that keeping water pouches organized in baskets makes survival much easier if they are carrot/berry farmers.
In general there seems to be a drive towards specialized work assignment and apprenticeship.
(In this sense, people who are playing OneHOL now are getting a unique experience that probably won't be around in a few weeks' time.)
Just like the real history of humanity, this is about statistics. The world is HUGE. Some Eves will spawn near the boundary of the explored world and some of them will head the right direction into new, resourced land, and some of them will survive and some of them will leave children. There are going to be a LOT of attempts to achieve those somes.
Aye, that's the wonderful thing about it. More often than not, especially for a beginner, you will be the tribe that was never capable of progressing past foraging. Or you were the baby that died from wolves (and now bears), or by starvation. All of terrible things are part of a larger story about humanities' perseverance.
But the learning curve is utterly brutal. The backbone of the experience, once certain tweaks are made to controls and maybe UI, is going to be experienced survivors coming together to whip the young into shape.
The in-game recipe book is just a formality; it is otherwise useless as you'll know everything by heart eventually since all progress is so hard fought.
(Fun fact: I have played for more than 12 hours and the only thing I command is farming carrots and berries.That and hunting rabbits. I recently learned to make clothing from rabbit furs. That is all I'm confident doing. I still haven't gotten the chance to make ovens or kilns, or work with clay. And so much more.)
I will wait and see if future updates end up acquiescing to new-player hardships or if this is going to remain survival hell.
Reading Jason's news post about everything running out (https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=63) , I can now see more of the design philosophy behind it, so it makes sense in a mature game where the players are all good at the game and playing well. At the moment though, I suspect we need a training wheels version (ie more of a garden of eden) to encourage players.
All of the game's intentions hit the mark when you and other players are more or less experienced. But it took me hours to get to a very basic competence level. So it's pretty unforgiving.
You really need at least two highly coordinated players to teach another what and how to do things if they're new.
I had no idea I was taking away active markers from other people. Oops.
I actually prefer the idea of having your Mother's (Eve) marker be your own until you decide to make one yourself. Like most actions in the game, setting up markers is supposed to be somewhat mysterious (you need to cut down saplings and then use a stone) and time consuming. This is okay (of course, the player gets no feedback on this).
I have played eight hours of One Hour, One Life (OneHOL); let me tell you: I did not have eight lives.
I have lost count. I love the game very much, more than I have a game in a while. I present below some of my Cold Takes (cold, because I have not figured out how to start a fire):
1. First, a story.
There was an old man. He was by far the wisest old man I had come upon in my countless lives (of not knowing how to start a fire).
This old man moved with surprising dexterity and purpose. In a matter of seconds he had provisioned himself with the materials necessary to start a fire. He used the coals
from this fire, now extinguished, to light a kiln. To-and-fro he moved, amassing materials for some great project. I tried to keep the great lesson he had taught me (making a
fire) in the front of my mind as I watched him combine materials for some purpose whose complexity was far beyond me. Eventually, the old man, after having gone away for
a while, returned. I had been at his side all along, coyly following this vessel of intelligence and wisdom when he needed to gather more materials. Had he noticed me at all?
I had seen him working for a long time now. Maybe he would make me an apprentice. He stood in his spot, close to me, lingering in place for a while, I leaned closer to listen,
expectant. What would he say?
"someone took my dam hammr"
He promptly turned into a pile of human bones and I was too shaken to remember the fire lesson at all.
2. Okay. I like that this paleodiet of berries, baby bones, and grief has forced players to improvise. "Do you know the three laws?" The first time I read that it was a wonderful
moment of players trying orally to pass on survival skills to the young. In a more advanced settlement, I saw players take on apprentices, because gathering and crafting
certain materials is such an abstruse process that unless a player learns from another, figuring out things yourself will be long and painful. Besides, you only have the luxury of
doing so when don't need to worry about hunger. It's a wonderful process to have players take on the role of mentors and students by necessity.
But, perhaps, it is a little too frustrating in the end.
3. The crunch of existence is such that eventually, certain Eve's will simply stop taking care of the babies. It's not that there isn't food, it's just that this baby is going to be
burdensome even when it matures. Explaining things takes too long. The will to come together is there, but the way of passing knowledge is too burdensome. This last thing
is the most concerning.
The difficulty of mentoring might not be an issue in and of itself, but the game-player interactions are making things more difficult than they have to be: I have lost items
because I could not click or find them again after accidentally putting them down. (Perhaps a system of layers to choose foreground and background objects.); Picking stuff up
out of containers it also frustrating and requires precious time; The way the game displays information is also burdensome. Maybe the recipes can remain contextual and
opaque as they are, I can see the purpose in that, but having the description of an item appear at the bottom-center of the screen makes it difficult to know what *anything*
is. You just don't look at the bottom of the screen very often.
The above is only basic player feedback. So I will leave the only useful piece of information here: I may be extremely dumb. Or I may not be. But even when I knew how to
make things, the sheer panic of what to do next before I starved kept my thinking all fuzzy and haphazard. I have played 8 hours and I still don't know to fetch water from
ponds. I know which tools you need, I'm just not entirely confident making those tools.
I am not complaining! I am just reporting this to developer Jason so that he may decide if this player experience sounds about right. The only things I truly know with certainty
is that the game-player interactions can be frustrating, but all of the rest is magical and frustrating at once and I am not decided on how I feel about all its parts. But I love it very
much.