HL - Genes, Metabolism, and Transformations... (Patreon)

Had some very weird dreams last night, but woke up this morning with some new ideas for gene expression and conversion.

Under the right conditions, certain catalysts will begin the conversion of genes... if the catalyzing agent remains present long enough, the gene can be completely transformed/replaced, otherwise changes will slowly revert.

These processes occur primarily while we sleep, and this is one of the factors that will make sleeping important in game. (others will include eliminating brain-toxins and regulating hormone levels in general, so-as to stave off weight gain, Alzheimer's, dementia, irritability, ADD, etc.)

Most chemical catalysts take roughly 72 hours to clear the system, while their mutagenic components/payloads are used up immediately. This means that after 3 days, you will begin reverting, unless you keep taking whatever compound is triggering the change, and have enough of the mutagenic hormones to continue the transition.

All of this means that the new Metabolic and Genetic systems will need to be tightly tied, even though we will support non-chemical metabolisms. Both systems depend on hormone expression, even for non-chemical species; also, even without any ribonucleic  acid chains, non-chem's still need to pass on genetic information.

The Val equivalent of DNA, for example, is stored in microflows of raw elemental energies, and by altering said flows, they can alter their own physiology- practically evolving at will. This effect is mostly cosmetic, as they have no internal organ structures or direct dependencies for survival; their entire form acts as a unified cell for metabolizing heat, electricity, pressure, gravity, radiation, etc.- growing and shrinking as needed to adapt to the available resources.

Anyway, looks like species & gender traits and the new metabolic & genetic systems will all need to be designed/introduced together. Once implemented, this will open up a ton of transformative content. (including furry and non-binary options)

No set date/version for this, but it is something I'm planning and co-developing as we move toward the new interface and related systems; so I'm thinking this will be introduced sometime between engine versions v0.3 ~ v0.4, along with the appropriate items, powers, spells, etc. to affect these changes.

To that end, two of the substances are already in the game's lore, one is even available for purchase.

Before I began this post, I had already worked out how the Athena Compound (originally called "Essence of the Goddess") will react to the various combinations of sex genes, hormone & power levels... turns out it's quite the catalyst. :plotting:

As to the other... perhaps one day you'll be able to charm a certain person into sharing her special cookies. ;)