The Beginning of the Universe

When we start a new game, I am assuming that we begin at the simplest stage - Microbe
(From what I've read I was under the impression that you see organic molecules forming the simplest forms of life and it is up to you to decide how they are formed. You play from there as the microbe.)

But what about the Big Bang, the formation of galaxies, stars, nebula and the universe in general...?
Is there any way - Perhaps through god mode/observer mode that we could see this or cause this to happen?

As to visualizing it heres just some breifs:

The significant events happened in the first second.

Spoiler:

So basically after once second the universe was 30 million times less dense due to matter-anitmatter collisions, protons neutrons and other subatomic particles had formed, and photons dominated (Lots of light in simpler terms)

Spoiler:

So there ya go. Atoms don't actually form for another 379,000 years.

If such an event were to be witnessed ingame, I think Time would have to slow RIIIIIIIIGHT down. (Something like 10^-38 seconds per real second. It would have to accelerate accordingly (Not perfectly but rationally) Perhaps with a little timer in the corner to give you an idea of the time scale. Perhaps you give gravity the 'slip' which sets of the expansion. At first you see some kind of warping effect, then a noise- distrubuted sparkle of photons being formed and destroyed, areas of light patching up then fadng due to antimatter, a rapid 'zoom' out effect as it expands, by now the clock begins to accelerate (When at 10^-11 seconds, begin accelerating RIGHT up to about one seconds where protons, neutrons, electrons neutrinos etc are formed and Photons dominate (LOTS OF LIGHT - Real explosion like).

Perhaps at every major point in time a specific notification could pop up: IE. Quarks formed, Protons formed etc

The clock should speed up to account for a few minutes in about 10 seconds, deuterium nuclei etc forming (Not sure how to show this).
Now for atoms to form, time will need to speed up to TENS OF THOUSANDS OF YEARS in seconds.
Atoms formed 379,000 after Time=0.

Stars formed about 200 million years after Time=0. The clock will have to accelerate to tens of millions of years in seconds. You will see gas clouds coagulating due to gravity, dense areas of these clouds will begin to collapse in on themselves, spin and begin emitting bright starlight.

In the center of dense stars, Fusion occurs and heavier elements will start to form. Eventually elements such as carbon, silicon and perhaps germanium would form.

These elements would have to make it to planets with H2O (Or insert other possible liquid here) present in order to form basic building blocks of life. This would probably be a few billion years after Time=0

Things to think about:

~Implication to game play
~Cut scene, or procedural
~Player interaction
~Visual (Because photons are required for light)
~Time Scale (The Clock)
~Noise (You cant hear sound without a medium)
~Any other concepts/Ideas you have :]

Discuss.
=]

I think you should see it at the start of the first new game, because you wont want to watch it over and over again.

And time would have to be altered lots for this to work, maybe the clock could measure in years, starting stood still, the first one second to about 5-10 real seconds, as the singularity expands (this could have a commentary to tell you whats happening, because of the absence of light), then speeding up to months (you see the clock move about a pixel a second), years (it gathers speed), decades, centuries (going very fast now, and photons form), then millennia (a blur, atoms form), then it begins slowing down as stars form, until eventually one second = one real second as the first life begins. All this should take about a minute. The actual time could be shown under the clock in seconds, minutes, hours etc. in relevance to the timescale, for accuracy.

Implication to gameplay... It would probably show you your starting star and planet as the camera zooms up on your planet and the first life, so you'd know about the planet in cellular, I'd say.
Once it gets to stars forming it should be procedural, randomly creating your home system, and I suppose many local systems. Before that it might as well be a cutscene.
The player could be able to choose a lens so they can see the universe in UV, X-ray etc.. Space looks cool like that.
Before photons you should see... Hmm... I think, if there isn't light, black would be the most suitable colour, but I think that would be a bit boring... Maybe just dark swirling colours?
Because there isn't sound in space, I'd suggest music (maybe the Thrive theme we're planning?) and the commentary would be audio, too.

As a final note, I'd like to say all of this might actually be pretty cool as an intro video when you first launch Thrive, and if this is the first time you hear the theme it would really add something to the music.

I think that this could be shown while a new universe is being generated, or while the game is being loaded. If not then, then i don't think it should be shown at all.

I don't see why this is needed.

DragonEye4 wrote:

I don't see why this is needed.

QFT. How I can see it working, though, is that while the universe is being generated we show an atom, glowing red, almost a pinkish color as it's very bright and full of energy. When it's done being generated we show it exploding into what we know as the universe. AKA, big bang. Just a short prologue/cutscene, maybe 4 - 5 seconds long, nothing that would waste the player's time.

Then again some people might not side with the Big Bang and we may recieve much negative criticism from the 7-year-old flaming, maybe religious, trolls out there.

Noitulove wrote:

DragonEye4 wrote:

I don't see why this is needed.

QFT. How I can see it working, though, is that while the universe is being generated we show an atom, glowing red, almost a pinkish color as it's very bright and full of energy. When it's done being generated we show it exploding into what we know as the universe. AKA, big bang. Just a short prologue/cutscene, maybe 4 - 5 seconds long, nothing that would waste the player's time.

Then again some people might not side with the Big Bang and we may recieve much negative criticism from the 7-year-old flaming, maybe religious, trolls out there.

We never need to state that a god did not cause the big bang, just like we do not need to state that a god did not cause the biological molecules to come together to form the first life.

DragonEye4 wrote:

We never need to state that a god did not cause the big bang, just like we do not need to state that a god did not cause the biological molecules to come together to form the first life.

Alright. So that's a yes to the whole mini-cutscene?

how about we see a big bang video with some interesting astronomical phenomena when we start our first game, and then, so that video doesn't go to waste in making it, we can replay it whenever we want. (it would be cool to watch and i might want to watch it again later)

toxiciron wrote:

how about we see a big bang video with some interesting astronomical phenomena when we start our first game, and then, so that video doesn't go to waste in making it, we can replay it whenever we want. (it would be cool to watch and i might want to watch it again later)

Hmmm sounds good :]

perhaps this could be an easter egg of some sort... With a related achievement... As has been discussed it is unlikely that time travel will be possible...

Perhaps if you are at the edge of the universe (Getting there by either starting there or FTL travel) And you look in towards the center of the universe you can see the big bang happening...

I guess that doesn't really work because you couldn't observe the beginning of space if you are inside it...

toxiciron wrote:

how about we see a big bang video with some interesting astronomical phenomena when we start our first game, and then, so that video doesn't go to waste in making it, we can replay it whenever we want. (it would be cool to watch and i might want to watch it again later)

Maybe it could be viewed once your race develops some level of computing technology capable of simulating the beginning of the universe. It could be packaged with some other "epic-scale" simulations like possible "death of the universe" scenarios, perhaps?

Xenopologist wrote:

toxiciron wrote:

how about we see a big bang video with some interesting astronomical phenomena when we start our first game, and then, so that video doesn't go to waste in making it, we can replay it whenever we want. (it would be cool to watch and i might want to watch it again later)

Maybe it could be viewed once your race develops some level of computing technology capable of simulating the beginning of the universe. It could be packaged with some other "epic-scale" simulations like possible "death of the universe" scenarios, perhaps?

I.. really don't see the point of making a machine just for that. And if your species wanted to build a machine that simulated the universe itself, there would be a point but both computers, both in-and out-of-game would crash and burn. Actually the computer in the game would cause the computer out of it to crash and burn..

actually it could be the ultimate computer research. after you develop AI, mind uploading, quantum computers and all, you could make the universe computer. Basically a whole planet (or star) transformed into a superpowerfull thing that could allow you to see the past and the future of the universe. The big and the small.....




... or we could just have it has a animation that could be re-played whenever you want

or it could be shown when a civilization develops a big bang like theory

DragonEye4 wrote:

I don't see why this is needed.

QFT
worry about it later when we can do something about it.

I think if it is to be shown in the beginning of a game then it should be shown every new game with the abilitie to skip

or it could be show when you enter the game like the spore explosion with the icons swirling around except we wont have icons swirling around

mikalics wrote:

I think if it is to be shown in the beginning of a game then it should be shown every new game with the abilitie to skip

or it could be show when you enter the game like the spore explosion with the icons swirling around except we wont have icons swirling around

I'm going with the first option.

And, by the way, I had an idea for this opening cutscene. Obviously it's going to be the first thing you see in the game, albeit in a closer-to-finished version, but I think I'd share it anyway.

Fading in from black, we see a bright, hot ball of energy. It's clearly smaller, way smaller than it looks but that doesn't matter because we're zoomed in.

It starts out very small, regardless, but we notice that as the loading bar progresses, it gets bigger and bigger. Small bolts of lightning start shooting out of it, and finally, when the game is loaded.. Boom! It pretty much explodes into the universe: The camera shakes at first, but that shaking fades away, and we see hundreds of stars (that's a lot of stars, so this cutscene will probably be pre-rendered) launching out at incredible speeds catching up with the camera from a point, perhaps putting a slow-motion shot here and there.
We see time pass through these slow-motion shots. First we see various stars settling down and growing still, at varying times; second, we see large chunks of space rocks grouping together in spheres, forming planets.

By now, the stars have settled down, and we cut to a galaxy. Still pre-rendered, but the clip played depends on what galaxy the game has chosen for you. Then we fade into the game's logo: Thrive.
And then we cut to the main menu where you see.. well we haven't chosen what you see in the background of in this menu. I'm thinking your solar system? That idea's been around since the Svenvolutions, but I think it's our best option (other than the galaxy, but Spore already took that).

... Perhaps a bit clichéd.

Noitulove wrote:

lots of delicious text

Sounds pretty good to me, but if it's going to run at the start of a new ingame galaxy, we should cut the text out and zoom in to your new planet instead.

I voted for After Ascension.

The cutscene could happen by starting out slowly and then speeding up exponentially. It'll probably look coolest that way.

I think that the beginning of the universe should be a skippable cutscene that plays upon loading the game. It could progress through the eras up to the formation of the galaxy, at which point the main menu comes up. Then, when the player clicks "new game", the cutscene continues from where it left off - it shows the galaxy, then zooms in to the new solar system and shows its formation and the beginnings of life on the player's new planet.

I agree with R136a1 in that you should be able to skip it, but I think it should only be shown at the creation of your first planet, and then be something that you could go back and watch latter as an extra or something.

I also think that it should load while showing it, so you don't have to wait for it to load afterward.

After the first load, I think that starting other new games should just show your planet forming. Or maybe have it be atoms bouncing around in water/space/what ever floats your boat, with the atoms collecting in a row at the bottom to show the progress.

Numbers's (anything we can call you for short?) idea seems good. So would the menu be a Spore-esque galaxy?

Poisson wrote:

Numbers's (anything we can call you for short?) idea seems good. So would the menu be a Spore-esque galaxy?

What about a procedural galaxy?

In fact (cue lightbulb) what if the menu background changed depending on how far your species has progressed? (Think Half-Life 2 menus)

So the first time you start Thrive you will see a cut-scene of the beginning of the universe, and it zooms into a procedural (or pre-set) galaxy, you select a star (one that has a habitable planet) and it zooms into the area of the planet where life begins (commonly oceans I guess).

Then if you quit during cell stage the main menu will be a microscopic scene.
During Organism mode it could show some scenery of your habitat (underwater, mountains, forests, swamps etc).
In tribal/civ/strategy it could show buildings or views on your society centers.
When your planet is united it could orbit around your planet from space.
When you are multi-stellar it could show your cluster/nebula.
And then when you are galactic it could show the galaxy.


If you ascend perhaps it will show random scenes?

There I go ranting again... -_-

Pezzalis wrote:

Ranting, apparently.

That's actually a pretty cool idea, and it'd be cool adding new menues as we add new parts to the game (first just basic microscopic, then scenery etc.. I like Short-Name-Pending's idea for the cutscene in two parts, too, with the formation of the universe as you load the game. Much better than 'Loading, please wait...'.

And for ascension, I think a random menu, from all stages, maybe changing every 30 seconds. In the random menues we could include an extra 'movie' background, a special for ascension, showing a movie of life in the universe or something? A thirty second film: the beginning of a solar system; then an alien creature emerging from the sea; forests and creatures develop on the beach, erosion shapes the landscape as you watch; followed by a developing civilisation; a massive rocket launching; space exploration; god wars (an epic war using god machines; turning the galaxy into a war field) with a creatures point of view as the planet is torn apart, then fade to black; then the galactic core, with a colossal construction being built around the tear, the ascension gate, a ship sets off into it, view the gate front on, thundering energy is going into the tear; as the ship finally touches it the view fades to black, the Thrive logo in place of the ascension gate...

Idea.

When you click "new game", you can have an option to choose how the universe is created. (I.E. Intelligent Design, Big Bang Theory... The dream of some other being?) Because...

A) It will (hopefully) avoid the whole argument that usually follows with that;
B) It could possibly have some in-game effect, especially around the god-tools section of the game;
and C) It could affect your creature's thoughts about its existence.

Or maybe its actually the difficulty setting! Gasp! My brain is bleeding thoughts!

If you have a god (or gods) that creates everything you could build up for example Karma or Favor and have miracles once every stage. This would probably be the "easy" mode because of the occasional bonuses.

If life comes from its own power of eons of evolution that would be of normal difficulty or... pretty much the regular game without any of this suggested content here...

And if you have life as we know it existing only as something else's dream, if you messed up too horribly like... say you died 10 times in a row without accomplishing much as a single-cell or lost too much money in some sort of economical depression, then the being is suddenly awoken from its dream. In game-terms, that's a game-over. Sort of a "Hardcore" mode.

Spore had... sort of this concept but it was more towards good or evil (or herbivore vs carnivore) Plus it just seems a little more customized with that little option in there.

Please try to avoid posting on threads so old. This one hadn't been posted on for 2 years.

The final result will have a galaxy that the player can customize before they begin life as a cell. However, this is not to appease to either side of any argument, it is to provide a realistic and fun game. Whether our game features happen to coincide with certain arguments is not our concern or for us to worry about.

Miracles don't sound like a good idea, to be blunt, because it ruins the whole sandbox evolutionary realism nature. No karma, no favour. This is not Black and White, or Populous, or some deity game.

The dream idea doesn't sound much better, to be honest, because again you are forgetting that this is a sandbox. There is already a hardcore mode conceptualized.

I vote beginning of every game, but you can choose an option to turn it off, or just hit escape to skip it.