Fox simulator

I'm designing a game where you play as a fox in the forest. It's like a relaxed sandbox where you play just to disconnect for a while and have fun.

Right now I have a prototype where a world is randomly generated, you can control the fox and dig a den, it's pretty fun to dig for a while creating caves and all that. You can also eat or collect food and store it in your den for later.

I've got some planned features like adding rabbits and some small animals (that will require some basic AI to make it fun) so player can choose between hunting, collecting nuts, berries, etc. I also want to add some customization to your lair, it's not minecraft, it's just a fox simulator, but you'll be able to use leaves and fallen branches to create some basic stuff. I'll also add a day/night cycle.

So let's do some brainstorming!

Can you think of more tasks or things to add? Keep in mind that I want to make a game to relax and have fun, I was gonna add a hunter so you had to run and hide but decided not to do it because it'd be too stressful. I might include bears or bigger animals, to create some danger, but it won't be hard to flee.

looks interesting, what about the player have to stole chickens and bring back for the lair and since you dont want a complex combat; when he overlap a a dog or a farmer he loses the chicken, making he have go back and try again

That's a good idea, it's another thing the player can do to get food.

P.D.: It's not that I want a very simple combat, it's just that I want to avoid stressful situations. There'll be some danger but not too much.

I added some physics today and discovered that I was spending too much time playing basketball and football with apples in a cave I just digged. It's pretty fun.

ahh more like a non-combat game, i like this kind of game that is more exploration oriented

what about if the game have more foxes around, each one with a different apearence and behavior (gray fox, black fox, blue fox...) and the player can find specific hidden itens to lure each one of then to your lair if he wants it.

Yeah, I thought about adding more foxes but I'm still designing their behavior, you have to keep their AI simple because it's really hard to do even a quick AI.

P.D.: I'm also thinking about being able to find a mate and having little foxes around, but that's a bit too complex, I'm sticking with easier mechanics first.

Why don't you add hunters to the game which will kill every animal on sight making meat rear to find and camper's and you might steal there food ( it will be hard but it's a suggestion).

This is a great game idea.

I think something that would be easy to do and a fun addition is to treat the world like an ecosystem.

Have percentage chances of things spawning and have related things affect the chance for others to spawn.

eat many chickens from a farm and increase the chance for farms to spawn trickier fences and gates.

collect a lot of nuts and squirrels may invade your den while you are away..etc...

it could perpetually create interesting gameplay as a sandbox piece like that.

Maybe add seasons which change the time mechanic so if it's winter night will be longer and day will be shorter and the amount of prey goes down.

You could add weather and disasters like trees falling over, floods, storms, etc. I don't know, but it seems good. I want to make a game like yours, but can't find a website to download the program. What are YOU using?

First there was SimCity, then Sims, then a whole bunch of others and suddenly the GOAT appeared. Now we have a fox in the house. Nice I like all the ideas that have been presented so far. How about aging? Animals are not immortal. I got various numbers from google for red fox. Anything from 2 to 5 years in the wild it seems. Ending up killed and all that not-so-fun is the reason for wide variation of course.

For the sake of it let's say that our Fox would live 6 years and die of old age without illnesses. One day is one hour. That would mean that one game would give the player 2 190 hours to live as a fox before the Grim Animal Reaper would come to claim it's soul. That is a lot of hours...

Well, it is an idea not a final mechanic XP