Lore

On earth, long ago, strange creatures appeared. These are blobs, single-celled organisms with a way of life similar to an animal in the way of eating, however, they develop more like a mushroom to expand and develop.

You (player) will play as one of these creatures. Your mission is to make your organism prosper by making it always bigger. But watch out! Cohabitation with other Physaridians is not possible. The territory can only belong to one blob. You will therefore have to be strategic in order to conquer the territory, seize the available space and protect your heart.

To achieve this, your blob will expand as time passes as long as your core is intact. You can choose when and where you want to expand; if you prefer to opt for an aggressive strategy (Like a "thunderbolt" attack) or rather defensively by protecting your heart and your territory, you are free to place your units.

Controls

In the lobby, use your keyboard and mouse to select inputs and edit them.

During the game:

Action	How
Positioning a shape	Move your mouse with a selected shape on the map
Validating shape placement	Mouse left click on the map
Select a shape	Mouse left click on the shape list
Rotate a shape (during placement preview)	- Rotate left: Left arrow or "Q" - Rotate Right: right arrow or "E"
Move the camera	Place your mouse in the border of the game view. Keyboard "WASD"
Zoom the camera	Mouse wheel With keyboard: - Zoom out: 1 (numeric) or - (numpad) - Zoom in: 2 (numeric) or + (numpad)
Menu (quit game, minor informations)	"ESC" key

How to play

Firstly, it's a multiplayer game, so the first step is to invite your friends. You can also join lobby created by other players.

Home

When you join the game, you will reach the home view.

On this page, you can select your in-game skin. The skin can only be chosen from this page.

You can also enable the daltonism mode (this will add some pictographs on player cells). This mode can be switched during a game.

The "play" button will open the lobby page, which is the step to join a game.

The "credit" button will show you some credits, like the game creator, used resources, etc.

Lobby

When you quit the home page with the "play" button, you will reach the lobby view.

1. On this page, write your pseudo in the first field.
   1. 
2. You can join a room by writing its ID or selected it in the drop-down list.
   1. After entering the room information, just click on "Play". You will have to wait the room owner start the game.
3. If you want to create a new room, click on "Create" (no need to enter a room ID).
   

Lobby creation

When you create a room, firstly you need to choose the maximum number of players that can join your room.

Click on "create room", to go to the next step: game configuration and waiting for players. Share the room ID with your friends.

When you have created the room, ensure a room ID was correctly generated (first row). Otherwise, no one can join your room and you will not be able to start the game.

For now, there isn't any error feedback that will tell you if there are problems encountered.
In some case, no room ID will be generated. If after 2-3 sec, the ID is still not set, create a new room again.

The available configuration:

1. Grid form factor:
    
   1. Choose the grid form for the game between hexagons or squares.
   2. The map of the game depends on the form factor.
   3. Note: the squared grid has some visual issues for now, this will be fixed in a future release.
2. Choose the time for the game:
   

   
   

   1. Setup phase (time to place its first shape when game starts).
   2. Game phase (maximal time for game duration, at the end of the time, a winner will be named.

You can also see the name of the players that are in the room. As the room owner, you are a player too.

Game

Placement preview

During the whole game, you will have the ability to place shapes. To achieve that, you will have a preview of the shape in semi-transparency.

The anchor of the shape is indicated by a small round. It will be always on the same cell.

The anchor has 2 utilities:

• Determinate the board case where the shape will be placed (near the mouse location).
• Rotate shape around it.

If a shape can't be placed, the preview will be "redded".

Some cases where the shape cannot be placed:

• Shape is outside of the game board.
• Overlap a wall.
• Overlap own placed cells.
• Overlap enemy placed cell with higher type.
• Bonus min. capacity isn't enough.

Setup phase

During this phase, you will need to place your first shape, which will be your starting position.

Game phase

My / enemy cells

Your cells have a light blue outline, and enemies have a darker outline (color changes for each opponent).

On this image, you can see the player (with the green skin) and one opponent (with the yellow skin).

If you use the daltonism skin mode, The same picture will be like this:

Cell properties

Cell color

Note: the color shown below is for the main skin (named "Lime"). The second skin (named "Lemon") is yellow.

•   Kernel cells (higher color of the skin)
  • Your life points, if you had 0 cells of this type on the board, you lose.
  • You can place a shape if it is neighbor to this cell.
  • Kernel cells are of type "Resistant" (but have not the icon).
  • If a shape contains a cell of this type, it can be only placed on empty cells.
  • With the daltonism mode, a heart is added.
    

• Alive cells (mid color of the skin)
  • You can place a shape if it is neighbor to this cell.
  • Normal cells will take this status if they are linked to a kernel.
  • With the daltonism mode, the cells are hatched.
    

•   Dead cells (low color of the skin)
  • Normal cells will take this status if they are not linked to a kernel.
  • With the daltonism mode, the cells are dotted.
    
    

Cell type

• Defensive types:

• Resistant
  • "Erode" have no effect on this type.
• Shield
  • Can't be captured by enemies (except with a "piercing" type).
• Offensive types:
  • Piercing
    • Beat "Shield" cells.
    • Become a normal cell after the placement.
  •  Erode
    • Remove enemy cell.
    • No effect if placed anywhere else than enemy cells.
    • Doesn't place ally cell.
    • Doesn't count for shape placement (can overlap anything).

The priority type reminder can be displayed from the game menu.

How to win

There are 2 ways to win:

1. Be the last player on the board (all enemy kernel cells have been removed)
2. Having the biggest blob at the end of the game countdown

Shape list

You can (un)select a shape to place in the shape list. You can also see in this list:

• The shape structure (types, position).
• The amount of poseable parts.
• The countdown before increasing by 1 the shape quantity.

The generation countdown will not be updated if:

• The shape quantity had reached it's maximal capacity.
• The player doesn't have the shape (unlockable with bonus) ("Generation disabled" will replace the progress bar).

If you defeat the last kernel cell of an opponent, you will steal their shape amount. 

Bonus

Different bonus cells are scattered on the ground. It is possible to seize it to take advantage of certain advantages over these opponents.

Types

There are 2 types of bonuses:

•  Speed
  • Divide by 2 your shape production countdown.
•  Shape
  • Enable a shape production.
  • The shape is not indicated to the player, but it is fixed at game start.

Capturing a bonus

To capture a bonus, you must meet a criterion: having a minimal blob size:

• If the bonus is not owned, it's a fixed value.
• If the bonus is owned, you can steal it if you have more alive cells than the actual bonus owner.

If a bonus is captured, its flag will take the color outline of the player.

Neighbors bonus are a bit special: capturing one will capture all neighbors' bonuses. For example, the player captured 1 bonus, but got the 3 effects on the following image:

In-game Information

Game Menu

At any moment, you can open the game menu by clicking on this button

This menu allows you:

• See your pseudo and the number of remaining players.
• Switch between the normal and daltonism skin mode.
• Check the priority type reminder.
• Leave the game.

To close this menu, hit the "cross" button 

Game progression

This HUD is displayed during the game phase, centred at the top.

It allows you to see the remaining time of the game and your current state.

You can expand it to see the leaderboard.

Hovered Cell information

When you hover over a cell on the game board, you can see some information in the upper right corner.

 

The information changes depending on the situation. It can be for example:

• Cell coordinate.
• Current cell owner.
• Current cell type.
• Bonus indication.
• Is the placement allowed or not.
• etc.

Project information

This game is currently in progress and developed from A to Z for a school project. It's a self-made project.

The end of the project for the school is set for the end of July, but the development will continue as a hobby alongside work.

The inspiration for the game mechanics are:

• Blobs (complex unicellular organisms) (expand over time, move)
• The "Blokus" board game (pieces, placement on neighboring squares)

To achieve this game, I've used Unity.

What will come next ?

For now, game development is suspended until end-October.

Credits

UI:

• easy UI emerald - default (from astr999)

Hexagonal base sprite for tiles: 

• From Unity Tutorial for Hexagonal tilemaps

Fonts (Google Font):

• Patrick Hands
• Eater