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So I was really sick today (and I mean really sick as in I was in bed all day and drank nothing but water) and I had this really weird idea about making an RTS game. An RTS game you ask? Everything has already been done, you say? Well, what if there was an RTS game where you controlled armies inside the human body? Imagine how "sick" that would be! So lying in bed all day with nothing to do, I kept on thinking and thinking about the idea for this game to the point of obsession. Now, I got to the point where I can pretty much play the game in my head! (Yeah, I know, I should have found something better to do). Now, that I have this idea, I desperately desperately want to share it with the world so that someone might like it and decide to make this game someday! Without further ado, here's everything I came up with:
The game itself will have a wacky feel to it, similar to Red Alert 2, because come on, who wouldn't let out a chuckle when they're freaking controlling a white blood cell? The graphics should be similar to Warcraft 3 to go with the comic look of the game. As for the gameplay itself, there will be 3 factions: The Immune System, The Germs, and Cancer.
The immune system will pretty much consist of stuff in the human body, like white blood cells, platelets, red blood cells (which gather resources), etc. You'll build stuff out of unit production buildings called bone marrows, and you build buildings similar to how you would in command and conquer - by selecting them on a sidebar and placing them manually. The central immune system structure will be a building called the Nerve, and will function like the construction yard in C&C. They will have an ultimate unit called the Pill Fortress, a flying structure shaped like a pill capsule (as in the pills you swallow) that will be like a battlecruiser (as in it destroys everything).
The Germs, on the other hand will operate a lot like the zerg from starcraft. They'll have a worker unit called the contagion, which will build structures and gather resources. They’ll focus on pumping out a steady stream of relatively weak, but fast units. Similar to zerg, they can go a variety of different tech. The germs can get bacteria tech and make bacteria, a solid all around unit (similar to a hydralisk). They can get virus tech and make lots of zergling-like units. Once bacteria get to the later stages of the game, things will get really interesting. They’ll start getting fungi tech and parasite tech. Imagine parasite tech! Imagine a bunch of bacteria riding on a massive beast called the ringworm! Yeah, the ringworm will be the ultimate unit for the Germs (similar to the zerg ultralisk).
Cancer will look and play like nothing you ever saw before. Their basic worker will be a unit called the carcinogen, which will build both structures and UNITS!! That’s right! All cancer buildings will do nothing but enable tech and allow upgrades (similar to zerg). All of their units will be build by carcinogens! Multiple carcinogens can be assigned to a certain construction project so once you have like 20 carcinogens, you can build pretty much anything within seconds. In order to balance this mechanism so cancer players can’t just bring all their carcinogens with their army and continually reinforce, Carcinogens can only build on “mutated gound.” (similar to creep) Units and structures will only spawn on land that has been mutated. Speaking of Cancer, you’ll have access to a ton of cool units, like mutant cells that explode, and tons of other cool shit that I haven’t thought about yet. The downside of Cancer is that it’ll be a lot like Terran from starcraft in that it’ll only work if you have good micro and multitasking.
Resources will consist of blood, and a varying resource, depending on the faction. Blood will be harvested from veins and arteries that are scattered across the map and each faction will have their own resource gatherer. Red blood cells for Immune System, contagions for Germs, and carcinogens for Cancer. Blood will be just like minerals in starcraft and will be the bread and butter of your army and production buildings. Everyone will need it. I haven’t decided on what the varying resource for each faction is yet.
I haven’t decided on a good story yet. So far, there’s not really much to tell in a story besides the human body getting plagued by infections and diseases left and right and the Immune System has to scramble to deal with everything.
Yeah, I know I had waaay too much time today. Hopefully next time I get this sick, I can play this game to make me feel better faster! I imagine that stomping the Germs as Immune System will make anybody’s own immune system work harder!
I even have an expansion pack worked out. There will be a fourth faction called the nanites, a group of nanomachines created by scientists, who lose control over them.
  
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I like. It is just such a good concept!
5/5
Maybe people who do mods would be interested in this, except that completely different tilesets would be required.
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the other varying resource can be oxygen(gas)?
just something that popped into my mind
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On February 01 2009 11:11 CompX wrote:
the other varying resource can be oxygen(gas)?
just something that popped into my mind
Oh yeah, that fits perfectly! Thanks.
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You can have two types of blood gathering: veins are easy to harvest from, but arteries require a special building because of the high speeds, and yield more. It would work a bit like yellow and blue minerals in SC2!
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Interesting concept. I would definitely play it if it were made~
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Haha, with figures that look like those of Osmoses Jones? =D
Pretty fun idea =)
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Thank you so much! That's exactly what I wanted to play right now!!!!!!!!!!! But I can't open the file
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Sounds like it could be fun, but ridiculous.
You'd have to flesh out some more unit types and mechanics though. Maybe various spells (fever/inflammation for immune system, no clue for the rest), but in general more stuff.
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rofl pretty good concept. I would like to see an entire design doc made out of this :D 5/5
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it will be cool if some1 from TL can make it!!
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10387 Posts
cancer = imba
everyone knows that cancer always wins against immune system
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And here I was hoping that you'd actually have some original gameplay ideas.
Oh well. ;/
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On February 01 2009 11:42 ArvickHero wrote:
cancer = imba
everyone knows that cancer always wins against immune system
Not when you're young 
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Psht... until chemotherapy comes around, then it's pretty even.
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THERE IS A GAME LIKE THIS
and on the top of that, it's a starcraft clone!
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This is a really cool idea. I think you might have trouble finind enough relevent and instantly recognizable units for Cancer, though. If that fails you could always make the third "race" Prescription Drugs. I know they aren't organic, but whatever. That would work well in creating conflict with both Germs and The Immune System (hey, it's possible to poision people and/or overdose on something). You'd also have a race with a more solid, tech oriented feel that relies of fewer, more powerful units (Protoss-y).
But on that note, I think you need to move past all of these comparisons with the sc races and try think up more mechanics and flavors that are TRULY original.
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you should put in viruses as another race or maybe replace cancer haha
but I think that the expansion pack idea is neat
make the story somewhat like what happened to you when you thought of the idea
just a person sick in bed while inside his body a huge war is raging
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rofl.
just make sure its not too disgusting
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3 Lions
United States3705 Posts
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Tech to ebola; gg immune system.
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intel officer: "incoming penis! no condom... EVERYONE PREPARE FOR AIDS!!! BATTLE STATIONS!!!"
frontlines operator: "sir! our immunity is becoming deficient!"
squad captain: "MAY DAY MAY DAY, call the Nerve... we're in deep shit this time"
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Unit List for the game IMHO
Helper T-Cell: Scout Unit, can bring back enemy corpses (antigen) for resources to unlock new tech.
Cytotoxic T-Cell: Attack Unit: very effective against all targets: must be in melee range to activate.
Plasma B-Cell: Long Range Attacker: Produces antibodies, or small missiles that swarm a target and damage it (think really weak scarabs, but absolute shittons of them)
Neutrophils: Starting cell: cheap and numerous, but die fairly quickly. Able to contain small infections effectively. Can be trained, or can be sent in through inflammatory response spell:
Inflammatory Response: Activated at the nerve: Sends a chemical signal to a target area on the map instantaneously, giving a small passive boost to all immune units in the area and a small debuff to all enemy units in the area. Also spawns neutrophils that head directly to the area. there is a cooldown.
Granulocytes: Engulf an enemy target and break it down to receive antigens (which can be spent on more units)
Megakaryocyte: Is able to wall off a blood passage to clot it, preventing enemy movement until the wall is destroyed.
Macrophages: Giant, massive, immune tanks that attack multiple targets at once and can destroy them fairly quickly. However, they are slow, and do splash damage to friendly and foe units. This can be very bad in large battles.
LAK Cell: Not very effective against small targets (read: bacteria) but when unlocked is absolutely devastating to cancer cells, one-hitting most weaker cancer types and doing bonus damage to buildings.
Symptom Spam: Signal is sent to patient, resulting in (after two minutes or so) unlocking of external treatments.
Antibiotics/Antifungals/Antivirals: The bane of the bacteria. Viruses, fungi, and the like are immune from each type that does not target them. However, these drugs, though expensive, do heavy damage.
Chemotherapy: Massive ray shocks the system, dealing heavy damage to all units in an area.
Adrenaline: Increases all immune cell movement and decreases build time.
Surgery: Destroys and renders impassable a certain small area. May cause spontaneous infection near area.
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Go patent this shit before someone else steals it.
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OMG Caller are you a biology major? Thanks for all the information man! Now just make one for germs and cancer and we're good to go 
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Germs/Pathogens:
Bonus resource is plasmids, which are left behind after a bacteria/virus/fungi is destroyed. Collecting plasmids with any germ unit would add them to your count for tech and special bacteria.
Bacteria Tech:
Bonus: All bacteria duplicate every 30 seconds.
E.Coli: Weak attacker that releases damaging toxins on death, melee.
Tuberculosis: Melee, armored tank that is resistant to antibiotics and effective against all enemy types.
Salmonella: Ranged, weak attack but good defense. Can be upgraded to Salmonella 2.0.
Salmonella 2.0: Ranged, delivers a devastating area of effect payload to cancer cells and buildings, also regenerates quickly on cancerous growth.
Plague: Amazingly strong bacteria that does massive damage to immune structures, immune cells, and lymphoma. Can burst out of granulocytes, destroying them.
Virus Tech:
Bonus: All viruses can infect a certain type of cell and burst out of it after 40 seconds, creating three new viruses. All viruses are also melee.
Influenza: Basic virus type, relatively weak damage, cheap to produce, infects lung and throat cells. Produces plaque when released, slowing down immune and cancer units.
Hepatitis: Infects liver cells, does heavy burst damage but is pretty slow moving.
Epstein-Barr: Very hard to kill except by engulfing. Faster than most immune units. Low damage.
HIV: Virus that rapidly infects helper T-Cells and Leukemia cells, cutting off antigen gathering. Also does decent damage and has decent HP. Takes little damage from antibodies.
Adeno: An altered cold virus, this particular type infects cancer cells.
Fungal/Protist Tech: These guys are sneaky and don't need to duplicate.
Mold: Leaves a lingering presence wherever it goes, dealing damage-over-time to any unit that moves over its presence. Has no attack and relatively weak.
Malaria: Targets blood-gatherers specifically, destroying them in one hit. If one is not careful, malaria can rapidly exhaust one's blood supply.
Dysentery: Quite heavy damage dealer that is hideously vulnerable to enemy attack, but go apeshit in an area with low damage dealing enemies.
Sleeping Sickness: Nearby cells slow down rapidly to 50%, also does decent damage and defense for/against all targets.
PAM: The Fungal superweapon, when brought to a Nerve station it will immediately destroy it and all nearby cells in one hit. It will be very apparent when this is spotted, it is also relatively delicate.
Cancer:
Cancer accumulates mutations over time, so their resource count goes up slowly but steadily based on the amount of cancer cells there are. Their resource count is used mainly for boosting each variant of cancer cell and for casting spells.
Melanoma: a relatively weak cancer that spreads cancerous growth fairly quickly. Cancerous growth does damage over time to all non-cancerous units. It goes away when the cancer cells are not nearby.
Pancreatic: Disguises its identity by emitting hormones to nearby cells, making it seem like a normal pancreatic cell. Of course, it will rapidly get obvious that a pancreatic cell has no business away from the pancreas. So it can "morph" into nearby cell types. Otherwise, fairly weak cell damage and HP wise. Good for ambushing units.
Coloretric: Deals heavy damage to most units, notoriously hard to kill, but also slow as molasses and melee.
Liver: A very deadly cancer that attacks nearby enemy units in bursts. However, immediately afterwards, it is vulnerable to most attacks for a small period.
Leukemia:
Corrupted immune cell that duplicates every 30 seconds. Also quite effective against most germ types, but will lose in a battle if heavily outnumbered unless supported by other types. Benefits from inflammatory response.
Cancer Spells: All spells cost mutations.
Corrupt: Targets a cell in the cancerous growth, turning it into a cancerous cell.
Confusion: Targets a region of cells in a cancerous growth, causing them to be confused and attack each other.
Metastasize: Randomly spawns random cancer types from their respective areas (Melanoma-skin, leukemia-lymph nodes etc.)
Chemical imbalance: Destroys random enemy cells in the tumor for a period.
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EPT
