Showing interest in my anatomy system.

[Endorya]

As some of you may know, I'm designing this complex anatomy system to track damage realistically or at least closer to reality. I'm creating this thread so I can understand if this interests any of you because it will take me a good deal of time to add screenshots with multiples instances of my anatomy templates accompanied with loads of text to explain it all. I really don't want to waste time doing all that if in the end this is just something you really don't care about.

Let me just give you a quick info on what I'm trying achieving with this system so you can decide if this interests you.

Features:
- Allows characters to track damage to specific body parts from torso to finger.
- Body parts can have 3 levels of complexity like Chest -> Thorax -> Ribbs.
- Each body part level can have layers like Skin, Fat, Muscle and Bone followed by internal organs.
- Each layer has a certain amount of HP to understand how deep a wound can be.
- This system allows an accurate tracking of internal bleedings.
- Each body part or even specific internal organs can be set to control a specific body functionality. A crippled leg can penalize movement cost where a lung can affect the character's endurance.
- This system allows a detailed description of what happens for each hit.
- Each weapon will cause different types of wounds. A blade will mostly be about cutting flesh and piercing where a hammer won't cut limbs but crush them.
- Major wounds will leave scars.

[Aukustus]

Will there be dismemberment? Like a critical hit to wrist would sever it. Or severing leg from ankle and halving movement speed forever without killing target and without a possibility to heal it leaving it forever severed?

[Endorya]

Absolutely. If I define a leg to have: Upper leg, knee, lower leg, ankle and foot, the leg can be severed by any of these parts. The target will however bleed to death if not properly healed assuming such anatomy template is set to 'bleed to death'. The healing process is apart from the anatomy system. The injuries are permanent but I will include ways of restoring lost limbs and recovering from nasty wounds for game play reasons. But yeah, I can create a character that can have his limbs permanently severed and still remain alive. I just need to disable the 'Bleed to Death' and Regeneration options.

[Morcrist]

If it's not too selfish of us to want you to "waste" your time showing, then please do so!

I'm always interested in things like this, how other developers are doing things, etc.

Waste away!

[Endorya]

If it's not too selfish of us to want you to "waste" your time showing, then please do so!

I'm always interested in things like this, how other developers are doing things, etc.

Waste away!

Welcome Acolyte Morcrist.

I don't mind "wasting" my time at all by trying helping others or by giving my opinion away. However In this case, since complex anatomy systems is not something people enjoy having in their own projects around here for obvious reasons, I just want to make sure my action will not go in vain because it will take time creating a post explaining the whole thing.

If no one else shows interest and if you want to, I can show it to you in private.

[Joonas]

Have you tried actual combat with your anatomy system? I wonder how slow and tedious combat against multiple enemies could be if you have to keep track of what every hit does (at least to your own character). But I guess Ivan got it working and doesn't Dwarf Fortress also have a very detailed system?

How about combat messages? I could imagine that the log will be quite filled with detailed descriptions of what's happening each round or do you have planned out some kind of HUD (symbols/numbers popping over characters) or image of the character's body showing conditions of each body part?

Now when I think of all the kind of damage weapons can do (pierce, slash, crush...) and then think of spell damage elements (fire, lightning, energy...) multiplied with different body parts etc... the amount of work you have ahead is simply staggering. I've been programming a simple dungeon crawl roguelike for years and it's a huge time sink to get even basic things working but I guess it's hardcore for you or no game at all?

Can you share any screenshots of your game? I remember seeing screenshots of an editor of some sort a while ago but not any actual gameplay screenshots. Please, anything

[Endorya]

I wonder how slow and tedious combat against multiple enemies could be if you have to keep track of what every hit does (at least to your own character).

I don't see how having the game keeping track of damage in a detailed damage system can make combat slow and tedious. Damage is just automatically computed towards particular body parts controlling specific body functionality, nothing else changes from the player perspective.

How about combat messages? I could imagine that the log will be quite filled with detailed descriptions of what's happening each round or do you have planned out some kind of HUD (symbols/numbers popping over characters) or image of the character's body showing conditions of each body part?

What I have planned is having detailed text messages and having a graphical representation of each character body subdivided into body parts that will display damage quantity through color codes, yellow, organ and red. Each body part should also have symbols representing broken bones, cuts etc.
 

Now when I think of all the kind of damage weapons can do (pierce, slash, crush...) and then think of spell damage elements (fire, lightning, energy...) multiplied with different body parts etc... the amount of work you have ahead is simply staggering. I've been programming a simple dungeon crawl roguelike for years and it's a huge time sink to get even basic things working but I guess it's hardcore for you or no game at all?

The amount of work is simply fascinating. That's why I'm developing an "SDK" so I can input and test everything without needing to code. Otherwise it would be suicidal. This is something I've been cooking for some years now which includes 4 redesigns.

Can you share any screenshots of your game? I remember seeing screenshots of an editor of some sort a while ago but not any actual gameplay screenshots. Please, anything

There is no game yet, only the editor I'm developing which also adds to the game's development itself as it shares general functionality they both will use, mainly classes.

Here is a screenie of where I put everything together, anatomy wise.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xfbni7cjrhyi9hl/Developing.jpg

[Aukustus]

Including groin can give much cringe worthy combat messages in your game.

[Endorya]

Including groin can give much cringe worthy combat messages in your game.

Groin is there exactly for that lol! I will be able to create loads of message types by getting status data from each body part. I also plan to have dynamic text to guaranty that each message sounds unique or at least not repetitive.

[Morcrist]

There you go, Endorya. Another has shown interest (Joonas).

That settles it. "Waste" away I tell you!

[Endorya]

I guess so. Unfortunately I'm restructuring the Anatomy form at the moment, the one in the screenshot and it might take a while before it can work again. The reason is that I decided to assemble the body parts visually instead of using a DataGridView. This will speed up reasoning way faster when looking at the whole thing.

[Endorya]

I just want to say that this topic has not been forgotten. Unfortunately, I have been tremendously busy lately due to professional reasons. The restructuring of the anatomy form is finished but now I'm linking the system to other parts of the game. The thread explaining the whole thing might come to reality at the beginning of the next month (July).

[Dewaldo]

I love detailed systems like this, they add a lot of flavor to game-play for sure! My Dwarf Fortress-obsessed friend is always telling me about crazy combat logs in his games, it can turn really bizarre and hilarious really quickly. Please keep us up to date on how this is going

I'm inspired to make a more detailed and interactive combat system that would let players fine-tune how they use different weapons: stances, targeting, grip, combination attacks, etc.

Just one question: Does a realistic anatomy also imply realistic fatality and realistic healing rate? It doesn't take too many stabs to bring down a regular person and even if you do survive, it could be months before you're back in action.

[Endorya]

Just one question: Does a realistic anatomy also imply realistic fatality and realistic healing rate? It doesn't take too many stabs to bring down a regular person and even if you do survive, it could be months before you're back in action.

Hello Dewaldo and welcome to the forum!

This is also something I've thought about for some time. It is possible to kill or be killed with just one strike, however this requires a criteria in order to be applied. First of all, you do need to hit vital body parts like the heart and head but even if you successfully hit those parts, the attack must be strong enough to go through the armor one might be wearing. Without armor you will be easily mutilated and bleed to death; your skull and chest will be truly susceptible to all kinds of damage.

The healing process will be similar to real life, however, since we are talking about a high fantasy world setting, characters can be healed very fast through magic and other healing items. But don't let this fool you, healing during combats won't be that easy as you might think. It can take time for potions and healing spells to kick in. Some will have cool-downs, other ways will include delays, but the really faster healing methods will stress the victim's body to a point that they might only be used once per combat. Most magical healing methods will add undesirable and temporarily side effects, specially the faster methods, like lowering one's senses and / or main attributes, etc.

[Dewaldo]

Sounds awesome!

Any plans for implementing status effects like poison, necrosis or burns?