“Is it more of a point-and-click sandbox game, or is it more action-based, with movements and a few choice actions mapped to buttons but few menus?”

I visualise it mostly as a first-player sandbox. I don’t want to limit people from moving anywhere they want. (This probably means the map should be an island to limit people just enough.) At the same time the game will consist mostly of making choices. I think the only way of building a perpetual game like this is to have binary choices.

The best way to go is probably to hang choices to certain objects and actions. You see a knive? A: take it, or B: leave it. You have the knive and see your neighbour? A: attack, B: leave.

When you are a flower your choices would mostly reflect around yourself, to let the player get a better understanding of how a flower cannot interact with objects around it. Grow up or grow sideways? Yellow or Blue? Eat insects or use insects?

“It would actually be interesting to have different lifeforms control differently, to reflect just how different the flower’s perspective is versus a human’s. Of course, they would have to be similar enough to not confuse players”

All lifeforms will be given rudimentary vision. Since every life starts at (almost) the same physical location the player will quickly identify with the world and would get less confused. Of course to a compound eyed insect this world will be broken up in many different views and to an eyeless plant it will consist of heat maps (and possibly scent maps to help with scent based actions, think The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess). Perspective and size changes too.

Thanks everyone for the input! I am working on a revision to cover all the things you guys have brought up and hope to get it online before tomorrow’s deadline.