In this iteration of Morbus I want to explore humans having a victory condition besides just killing all the brood aliens or running out the clock. The original concept of humans running out the clock was that there was some sort of outside (human) party that arrives and they learn of the alien threat. The result would then be that all the aliens would be exterminated by some “off-screen” force, or maybe more sinisterly, all players (humans and aliens alike) are killed by this party because how can you tell who’s an alien and who’s a human?
This means that the ultimate alien objective was to convert all humans, so that when the next group of humans is detected, they’re none the wiser that an alien is amongst them. If just one human remains, they could snitch on the aliens. Or if we take this one step further, the ultimate objective is survival.
Meanwhile the human objective isn’t survival like running out the clock implies. Their objective is to alert the world that there are shapeshifting aliens and to not let them spread. Similar to the movie The Thing where the dude at the end of the movie destroys the research station to prevent the spread of the alien.
I like this idea of “I know I can’t win, but I could prevent you from winning too” and I think it could be played around with.
Self Destruct
Most Morbus maps takes place in space, either a space station or a space ship. There are a few earth based maps or remote planet colony maps but it’s a usually small building/facility.
What if the human team, when realizing that winning the game would be difficult, could decide to try and tie the game instead? A tie for the humans could mean “everyone died, humans and broods alike.” So how do we make this happen?
Let’s say there’s a nuclear reactor on the map, and you can activate a reactor overload, or a self destruct sequence. There’s a 2 minute period of time where if the sequence isn’t stopped, boom, everyone dies and the game is tied.
So how do you start this self destruct sequence?
Obviously you wouldn’t want to make it something you could start any time. Someone could grief the game and just start it at the beginning of the game. This is something that’s supposed to be used only when all hope is lost. So how do you turn this “story” into a gameplay mechanic.
A simple way is you add some basic check, if half the humans have been turned into aliens, then you can start the self destruct sequence. But then you get someone who camps the button and waits for it to activate and then presses it.
Obviously you could cancel the countdown, but then it might become meta to always have someone waiting at the button. I’d rather this be a tool in the toolbox of the human players that’s used sometimes instead of a constant occurence.
There could be “keys” hidden in the map. Perhaps you need 2 keys to be able to start the sequence, even cooler, you might need 2 people to turn both keys at the same time. The same could be said about deactivating the self destruct sequence. Maybe swarm aliens can’t turn the keys too?
Now this requires humans to search through the map, or just stumble upon these keys. The requirement to have half the humans turned into alien also might become irrelevant because now it will take time for humans to actually find those keys.
But how do we explain the “half the humans are turned alien?” Maybe the ship/station has some sort of global bioform scanner. It can detect the presence and quantity of aliens, but not the location. As more brood aliens are made the presence level goes up which unlocks the ability to self destruct.
Is this really a tie though? As we discussed earlier the default Morbus victory condition for humans for was to run down the clock, which in a way implies that all humans died anyways. So maybe this isn’t a tie but just an alternative human victory, just a lesser one.
Major Human Victory
Killing all the aliens seems like a major human victory; It leaves no doubt in mind that humans are victorious. If running out the clock seems like a “sorta” victory and causing a self destruct is also a “sorta” victory, we should give humans a choice to just “win” (besides killing all the aliens.)
I want to give humans more to do than satisfying their needs and pointing guns at suspicious people. A purpose to existence, a goal in life… i mean an overarching goal in a round.
I think Among Us is cool because in that game the crewmen have random responsibilities around the ship to do. It’s like Morbus where they are forced to split up to accomplish tasks, however not accomplishing those tasks only delays victory, it directly doesn’t harm the actual player. The indirect harm is it gives more time for the traitors to kill other crewmen thus reducing their chance of winning.
So in short, do your tasks, and if everyone does them, then you win.
Zombie Panic Source was another cool game back in the day with a similar idea. Humans vs Zombies, and for humans to win they need to complete a set of tasks on a map and then they win (ie escape.) These tasks were shared across the whole team though, and like Morbus, it was an FPS.
I think it would be really cool to give humans in Morbus a way to win by completing a set of team wide tasks. It’s adds to the “sandbox” dynamic of Morbus where every round is a different experience and plays out a bit differently.
Objective Victories
There are a couple types of objective victories I can think of
Escape
In this objective, one or more human escapes from the map, they live to tell the other humans of the alien threat. This is a loss for the aliens because they’re found out and assumably killed by off-screen humans.
The steps for this type of victory could be;
- Gather proof of alien existence
- Perhaps a brood alien must be killed and a sample harvested from them
- Repair an escape lifepod which was damaged before the round started
- Run around the map finding materials and tools
- Complete little minigames to conduct the repairs
- Launch the lifepod
Brood Aliens could possibly sabotage this victory
- Put some sort of remote explosive device inside the lifepod
- Shoot the lifepod down with some sort of ship turret
- Within some timeframe after the lifepod is sent away
- Be inside the lifepod instead of a human
Alert the outside world
This objective is similar in result as the previous one, but it doesn’t require a human to escape. In this scenario we should imagine that the communications to the outside world have been disabled for some reason, and the humans must repair them and use them to alert the outside (human) world of the alien threat.
The steps for this victory could be:
- Gather proof of alien existence
- Repair the communications array
- Gather materials and parts around the map
- Complete minigames/tasks across the map
- Transmit a warning message
We could imagine that transmitting the message takes some time which leaves the brood aliens a chance to deactivate the transmission process.
The Brood Aliens could also possibly sabotage the communications array again, thus delaying the humans.
Alien Killing Virus
This objective would see the humans winning in totality.
Through “science” the humans could create some sort of alien killing virus or bacteria. This virus could either be a hand held weapon used by humans, that’s super powerful against aliens, and/or it’s administered across the whole map via HVAC system (or life support) which causes either an immediate or imminent human victory.
The steps for this victory could be:
- Gather alien samples
- Presumably by killing brood (and/or swarm aliens)
- Research/science mini games / timed tasks
- Perhaps there are multiple labs across the map
- You have to conduct research in all of them
- Manufacture the virus
- Once again some mini game or timed task
- Disperse the virus
- Take the virus to the Life Support hub which will disperse it across the map, thus killing all aliens
Brood Aliens can interfere at multiple points along this path. What could be cool is after the virus is manufactured, the human is given a virus sprayer (spray bottle?) which does massive damage over time to aliens in close range. The aliens could have one last kamikaze rush to try and stop the humans before they get it to the life support system.
Security System Activation
Similar to the virus but instead the humans activate automated turret security guns across the map. Maybe this isn’t an instant victory but it almost assures a human victory.
Minigames
There’s been mention to minigames in this post. I like the idea of forcing players to do silly minigames in the middle of a stressful situation. I think the Helldivers franchise is amazing for this; you’re in the middle of a huge firefight, explosions, bombs, gun shots, and you have to do a stupid button click sequence perfectly or the landmine you’re defusing will blow up in your face and kill you. Absolute cinema.
I could see the minigames in Morbus following a similar theme. Timed button clicks, sequential button clicks, dragging wires from one side of the screen to another. I’m really focused on clicking the button at the right time and oh my god was that an alien that just transformed next to me!?
Summary
I think there’s a lot of cool directions to explore victory conditions in Morbus. I would like to give human players more to do than just “survive and hunt.” These victory conditions could coexist with the timer victory, but perhaps the default time victory condition is longer, for instance 15 minutes.
Lot’s of cool ideas. Right now we’re still really early in the development of Morbus. None of this stuff is critical to creating an enjoyable “core” experience for Morbus, but they’re longer term features that will flesh Morbus out and make it more dynamic and replayable, and help build out that “sandbox” i’ve been referring to.
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