Test of the Oyster Catcher
Whats Required to make the Test Work
- This test idea relies on Teppy implementing swimming which he has stated is doable.
- It also relies on additional resources being added to the game namely Oysters which when opened at a kitchen will provide Oyster Flesh, occasionaly and with high perception, Pearls and if your dexterity and focus are good enough, an intact Oyster Shell. Intact Oyster shells can be further worked to make Mother of Pearl which can be used as inlay for decorative buildings or objects.
Object of the Test
- The object of this test is to gather pearls of varying rarities to make a Perfect necklace.
- Rarities could also be sizes ie. a Huge pearl would be a very rare, large would be rare, medium would be uncommon and small would be common.
- On signing up for the test you will be assessed by the Scientists at the University of Body and assigned a Necklace Template.
- The template will have slots for 20 common pearls, 10 uncommon pearls, 5 rare pearls and 1 Very rare pearl.
- There will be 7 different types of pearl for each rarity and these are likely to be colours, ie white pearl, black pearl, blue pearl etc.
- The catch is that although you will know the rarity value for each slot you will not know what type of pearls fit into the slots of the necklace template.
- The very rare pearl slot in the template is generic and can be filled by any very rare pearl of which there are 7 types - more on that later.
- Oysters can be gathered by swimming in specific areas and diving for Oysters. This will not be animated due to limitations with the engine however a popup or message in main will tell you if you have been sucessful.
- To sucessfuly find an oyster you must solve a mini puzzle.
- The puzzle works by turning cells on and off, a cell being a 1 co ordinate cell. Each cell is randomly assigned a value of either on or off or you could read it as favourable or unfavourable for oysters.
- Each time you dive you turn the cell you're in plus the ones you are directly North, South, West and East of to the opposite state that they are currently in.
- In addition you can carry out a shallow dive allowing you to assess the area immediately surrounding you. You will be told the state of the water in each of the 8 cells around you and the cell you are currently in. This will not cause the state of the cells to change.
- For example "The water is mirky North West of here - You can't find any Oysters" would tell you that, that cell is off.
- "The water seems to be clearing to the South - there are signs of Oysters nearby" would tell you that, that cell is on.
- "You see a shark to the East this area isn't safe to dive in" would tell you that, that cell is dead.
- To find a common pearl you would have to turn a grid of cell size 5x5 on. For uncommon it would be 7x7, rare would be 10x10 and very rare 15x15. (Grid size could be tweaked to get difficulty right)
- Dead cells would be randomly placed which can not be turned on and these would be more common closer to shore.
- On finding an oyster you would have the option to open it there and then to look for a pearl, gather the oysters or leave the oysters to avoid kicking up the silt. Pearls found in this manner become like fishing trophies and are player specific. Oysters gathered in this manner could be opened in kitchens but their pearls would not count for the test. Gathering a pearl or oyster would turn the relevant grid surrounding that spot dead for a certain time (due to silt kicked up) after which it would be randomly reset with on/off cells.
- Further to this each time you dive (including a shallow dive) a CON and or END timer is incurred - you will need to get you breath and/or energy back before diving again.
- Pearls of greater rarity will be found in oysters found in deeper water where the Con timer will be greater and there are less dead cells allowing bigger grids to be found.
- Once you have gathered sufficient quantities of pearls you can fit them into your template. Only those found by yourself can be fitted.
- On completing a necklace you can submit it to a University of Body and they will tell you the percentage of perfection for the necklace.
- You will then be given back the necklace and be allowed to ammend the types of pearls in the template. In the process the perals you remove from the template are destroyed.
- After an amount of trial and error you will be able to make a 100% perfect necklace.
- At this point you pass the test.
Rewards
- As this is a body test it is traditional for the test to give incremental stat increases. As such your consitution or possibly perception increases with every 14.2% of perfection for your current necklace design. Or one stat every 7 correctly fitted pearls with the last point dependent on a completed necklace.
- You do not lose this increase if your necklace design subsequently goes down in perfection.
- On completing the test you are given back your necklace and it now becomes wearable. A stat bonus is given according to the very rare pearl that you have on the necklace. There will be 1 type of stat assigned to each of the 7 types of very rare pearl.
- There is a rumour of a pearl out there somewhere called the One Pearl which is even rarer that the 7 very rare pearls and can give an as yet undetermined enhancement.
Increase the evilness
- Only complete necklaces will be considered by university for analysis.
- To go into deeper waters you first must make sure you have a high enough Constitution - This will should make for a steeper difficulty curve.
- Have pearls behave like mushrooms with specific regions having different types of perals but at same time constantly shifting location each day.
Feedback and suggestions
- Please post below any comments good or bad you may have on the above test idea. Thank you -- Zint.
Every time you move into or out of the water there is a 0.01% chance to lose your "One Pearl". You would have to look for a new one to get interesting new bonuses/penalties (loads of different possible combos, sorta like food stats). Bonuses/penalties add up to a total of 0. "Ooops, your One Pearl fell into the water and got lost". One Pearls have to be fitted to the necklace once found, only then will you know the magic of the pearl. It can never be removed from the necklace, only exception is if you lose it by accident (see above)
Other possible stat bonuses/penalties on One Pearl:
+/- Landwalk Skill (different skill for each terrain type: desert, grassland, road, rock, water, etc), increased/decreased movement on that type of terrain
+/- Skill Points
Removal of random skill
Addition of random Skill
Add more suggestions below
- Waerloga
I would suggest the stat effect being focus, and this used as potential replacement for the Test of Reason. One, because fitting the pearls into the necklace correctly is in keeping with the solving of thought puzzles. Second, in this telling the Test of Reason was implemented so late more then a few people passed it as soon as they signed up. Telanoc
I think the Test of Reason is an incentive to play Thought puzzles. Without it, many players will try no puzzles at all, thwarting Thought further. -- ShanVizen
I really like this test :) I would think con would be the most likely attribute, replacing the Darkest Night test. I would ditch the one pearl idea, stat bonuses already being more than enough of a reward.
My one concern is that this might well become a test of cooking, since high con food, at least in T2, was quite easy. Expect divers to have con between 200 and 500 :)
Cappu
I would suggest that the reward for this test (along with the stats), should be the ability to swim in water in the same way that we walk on land. -Toba
2 comments. 1st - not sharks, crocadiles. 2nd - perhaps the reward is an ability to swim the Nile if your pockets aren't so full that you will be weighted down. - Sebak
Further Ideas
Following further discussion on the Forums I have added a few more ideas for comments:
I think incorporating these risks into the act of gathering oysters might be fun with possible long CON stat timers incurred depending on the hazard you come across. Constitution timers should also be required and proportional to diving to a certain depth. I.e. the further to the bottom the greater the con timer and you can't dive again until con timer expires. Of course the most rare oysters/pearls are found in deep water away from surface predators.
In order to find good oyster beds you could implement a series of signals such as signs of certain birds feeding nearby, spotting an octupus in the water (an oyster predator) etc. Maybe only when you spot x number of signs do you actualy find the oysters and the fun bit would be to try and zero in on the spot by detecting signs from the surrounding environment. You could also make it that you only get the signs as you dive. Coupled with the con timer this would make the difficulty increase and allow the tweaking of hunting oysters so that it remains challenging yet fun.
Ok heres another idea.
Each oyster bed is located in a various sized grids depending on the size your are looking for. Each grid starts of locked.
To unlock each bed you must turn all the squares in the grid on.
To start each block in the grid is randomly on or off.
Dive in any block and you turn the block you're currently in to the opposite state and at the same time you turn the blocks immediately north south east and west of you to the opposite state that they're currently in. (Diagonals are not affected).
On the dive when you turn the whole of any grid 'on' you find the oyster bed.
At this point the whole grid becomes dead for a random time at which point it is reset randomly. Dead blocks are out of play and any overlapping grid will be unsolveable.
To add to the difficulty random permanent dead blocks are scattered across the world making finding the larger playable grids a puzzle in itself.
If deemed too easy the grid size is adjustable.
I know there's games out there that copy this (or should I say that I've copied to get this idea!) and below is an example.
http://www.fingertime.com/duckduck.php