StupidWoW is a 2-player game of survival and conquest that will take between 3 and 45 minutes, depending on how Stupid you play.
You begin with a nascent civilization. Are you space invaders? Unfortunately proximal pathogen colonies? Intrepid colonials? Rival phantasmagoria? It doesn't matter, this game is Stupid. You're going to try to survive longer than your opponent. If you manage to build something, and you're into winning, you will need to foil your opponent's hard-earned development, while tending to your own.There is a fair amount of chaos in this game, and a fair amount of interdependence. If you want to survive or win you will have to work the reality of this into your Stupid strategy.
Each side has energy, and up to 6 different kinds of creatures. All your creatures will do what they do for a short time, and then you will spend some or all of your energy to create more creatures. This repeats until there is a winner. The winner is the last player with enough energy left to continue creating, or, the first player to surround the opponent's Stupid.
| Creature Name | P1 Icon | P2 Icon | Create Key |
|---|---|---|---|
| Creator | ] | [ | c |
| Swarmer | > | < | s |
| Grower | O | O | g |
| Hunter | } | { | h |
| Food | o | o | N/A |
| Stupid | @ | & | N/A |
| Energy Star | * | * | N/A |
Most new creatures come out of Creators. During the decision-making phases of the game, you will have an opportunity to create new creatures from some, all, or none of your Creators, by spending energy that you have accumulated. Each type of creature has its own set of behaviors, and its own amount of life (which this game is too Stupid to show you explicitly.)
All new creatures cost 100 energy to create, and will appear in one of the empty spaces adjacent to the Creator you use to create it. Creators must have at least 1 empty space surrounding them in order to create. You will only be given the option to create new creatures from Creators that have enough space, only when you have enough energy, and only once maximum for each Creator each decision-making phase.
During the decision-making phase, all movement will pause. Whichever player has the most energy will get to make her decisions first. One at a time, as long as she still has legal creative possibilities, a Creator will be highlighted, indicating that it is time for her to decide whether, and what, she wants to create from this Creator.
When a Creator is highlighted, just push the key, shown in the table above, corresponding to the creature you wish to create. If you wish for any reason not to create something at this time from this particular Creator, push any other key that is not assigned to one of the creatures.
If you Create something, 100 energy will be deducted from your energy and you will then make your next choice, if one is available to you. After the player who started with the most energy makes all her decisions, the other player will do the same, after which, play will proceed with all the newly created creatures appearing. All creatures will then do what they do until the next planning phase.
Stupid Note: This game is Stupid....so Stupid that if you click on your mouse or something while you're making decisions, it might seem like you broke it. Just below the 'reset' button is an empty white space. Although it might not seem like it, this is where all your decisions are being entered. If you seem to be having trouble getting the game to respond to your decisions, click into this empty white space and try with your decision again.When Creators themselves are created, they will move for about 10 spaces until they stop, never to move again. Creators will never move backwards toward your initial starting position, only up, down, or in some direction towards your opponent's initial starting territory.
If a Creator runs into an opponent's Creator, both Creators immediately die. Otherwise Creators will live for about 5 or 6 planning phases before they die for some Stupid reason.
When a Grower is created it will begin moving around randomly, using up its own life to do so. Growers survive mainly by attaching themselves to Creators. Once a Grower makes contact with a Creator of its own team, it will stop moving (and also stop wasting away its life) and immediately begin creating Food. The Grower will stay connected to the friendly Creator, growing food, as long as the Creator it is attached to lives. If the Creator dies, the Grower will begin moving around again, randomly, spending its life until either it finds another Creator to attach to, or dies a Stupid death.
Food is grown by Growers when the Growers are connected to a friendly Creator. Food is consumed by friendly Swarmers to keep them alive and help them reproduce.
Swarmers are created by Creators. They move around randomly, using up their life until they run into either friendly Food, an Energy Star, an enemy Grower, or the enemy Stupid.
If a Swarmer runs into friendly Food it eats it, giving itself more life. If a Swarmer can get its own life high enough, it reproduces another Swarmer immediately.
If a Swarmer runs into an Energy Star, it will spend the rest of its life generating energy for the player. This, in fact, is the only way a player can generate more energy, which allows her to create new creatures. When generating energy from an Energy Star, the Swarmer will be spending away its own life, but not nearly as quickly as when it is moving around. A Swarmer will be able to generate energy from an Energy Star for up to 5 decision-making phases, depending on how much life it had when it latched on.
If a Swarmer runs into an enemy Grower, it will also latch on. If 2 or more Swarmers latch onto the same enemy Grower, the Grower will die.
Swarmers will also latch on the enemy Stupid. If 3 Swarmers simultaneously latch on to the enemy Stupid, the Stupid dies and StupidWoW is over.
One last thing about Swarmers. If they make contact with an enemy Hunter, they die.
Hunters are created by Creators. After they are created, they will live for 3 planning phases. They move around slowly. Every time they touch an enemy Swarmer, they kill it.
Energy Stars are the only creature in the game that are not technically a part of either team. When a Swarmer from either team makes contact with an Energy Star, it will remain there for the rest of its life, generating energy for its player. There are 8 open spaces (in the 8 cardinal directions) surrounding each Energy Star.
Each player has one Stupid. They won't die unless surrounded by 3 enemy Swarmers. They also cannot ever move. They're at the top of whatever Stupid hierarchy you want to imagine your civilization consists of.
The only other thing you need to know about Stupids is they are also able to create new creatures, in exactly the same way as Creators. They will always be highlighted last during the decision-making phase, assuming you still have at least 100 energy left to create with.
If either player has only their Stupid left, and less than 100 energy, the game is immediately over and they lose. If a player's Stupid is ever surrounded by 3 or more enemy Swarmers, the game is over and they lose.
Stupid Note: Sometimes the game knows a Stupid is surrounded a millisecond before it actually takes the time to show you. This programmer is too Stupid to care about that. Imagine it's like checkmate in chess or something less Stupid. If the game says that you are surrounded, it's true.If you want to win for some Stupid reason, you might do well to recognize a few things.
It may take you a few games to get past the first 10 planning phases. You will need to get a little familiar with the timing of the life-spans of some of the creatures before you can really get yourself an epic civilization. This Fool of an author has played games with over 800 creatures alive at once, so don't give up too soon. In time you'll learn how to create litte and not-so-little ecosystems. Once you can pull this off the real strategy begins.
You will pick up the keystrokes fast.
The key places you actually have control over, are which Creators to grow things from, and what to grow from them. Don't forget about skipping over Creators so you can use your energy exactly where you want.
Don't forget that Creators will never move backwards. This is a key part of moving your front line(s). Swarmers may also move forward, but they need a food supply if you want to get them thriving closer to your enemy's home. On a similar note, your Stupid, since it will never move, allows you to create new creatures into your own home region, something that Creators cannot do on their own since they are always moving forwardish.
If you start to intermingle with your opponent, don't forget that Creators will wipe out enemy Creators, Hunters will kill enemy Swarmers, and Swarmers will surround and kill both enemy Growers and the enemy Stupid.
When we learn online, real-live people made all the material. Thanks to all the people whose nameless information kindly made available on the web helped me to sludge this out.
Thank you bonnie chan for excitement around beta testing and consistent encouragement.
Questions or comments to josh @t joshwyatt d.0t c0m