Procedural Creatures and Efficiency: Where Beasts Were Born DevLog 4

I actually think I'd rather the player just control one character and the game be multiplayer. It just sounds really fun to go hunting beasts with the boys.

The companions don't have to also be witches. Familiars, summoned demons and even maybe a beast stolen as a hatchling would fit a "witch" theme, and contribute to run variety on the player side. It could even allow for some big melee units to enter the battle under player's command. Unrelated but important: the beast showcase shots use a very different camera from gameplay. Maybe the beasts' details are better seen from a high shoulder surf perspective, and we never noticed because we have seen them up close so much we fill in the details and imposing feel in the isometric view in our heads. Something to consider.

I dont know if this is just me but the game gives off a very stop-motion like artstyle that i cant really describe. Looks amazing

Having a little creature hunter tribe to manage could be a lot of fun. Like a stone age hunting party exploring these caves. Would let you make the creatures a lot deadlier too because one tribesman dying would mean you still have some remaining, so you could afford to give each of them less health. Real time with pause would probably be the option that requires the least amount of manual dexterity to succeed in and more about strategizing, positioning and trying to predict creature behavior, trying to keep as many of your tribespeople alive as possible.

I think one could draw inspiration from the monster hunter series, where there are traps as tools, but also creatures get "exhausted" or hurt over time that gives windows of opportunity for side/back attacks. Also, there are more powerfull attacks (like charging), which when dodged by the player leave the weak spot open for a few seconds as a reward. In the end it really depends on how you want this to play out. I have never seen RTS-like controls on such a rogue lite, I imagine it is quite exhausting when its get faster, and rather repetitive when being slower. You could keep the current setup and just rely on it being more fun in multiplayer, similar to monster hunter, where solo missions are possible, but require more prep/traps/timing. Tile-free turn based, like Divinity 2, could also be an option, but there you loose the option for skilled aiming and reaction time to be rewarded. love the concept of the evolving creature rogue like, excited to see where you'll end up

For combat you might want to look at the original Dragon Age. I wouldn't go the turn based route, but I liked that you could automate your teammates by giving them some basic strategic options. Where to position, what enemies to target, what spells to use, etc... Then you can still swap and control individual team members directly, while the others are automated.

that system looks amazing. We need more genetics sims. They're starting to come back into popularity and I love it.

You sold me on the enemy evolution and the whole claymation-like look and jittery animation. This game screams uniqueness

OH LORD, IT'S HERE! DEVLOG 4! THE PROPHECY CAME TRUE!

- Tactical Pause is a must (at least as an accessibility tool) if doiung antyhing with more than one unit to control Maybe (since we are a witch and all) grant the character a teleport spell with long recharge, or even better cast teleport-back-to-this-place spell on the ground where player is standing and after 3s teleport back to that place. It will encourage baiting monsters into specific places before 3s runs out (so pressure). That should help with positioning as part of the gameplay without needing to stealth & stuff

Since the protagonist is a witch, you can focus on giving the player different abilities making it possible to target different areas of the creature. Possible spells are stun/slow, different elemental attacks, AOE, Decoy/Mirror image illusion, Teleport, Summon minions (possibly even some of your previously encountered enemies?!), summon wall/obstacle and more. All of these different types of spells would in turn allow the creatures to evolve countermeasures (either direct resistances to them or to evolve stratifies that works better against them)

After being on a permanent state of pant shitting while playing rain world I can safely say this is a very exciting project

Not sure if you’ll see this but I’ve been watching this dev log series since the start and ahh! It’s so cool and you’ve come so far. The creatures look so sick and I’m just wishing you the best man. Top notch videos too!

Love the look! An animation deep dive would be really interesting

Glad you're back man! The game looks sick! I am still in awe how detailed the procedural generation is and how well it works together!

procedurally generated creatures in games are the most interesting way to do them. hope stuff like this becomes common place in the next 2-3 years

I love everything about this game, from the idea, down to execution. as long as single player will be the viable option I will buy it on the spot. I wish I had brain power to do such awesome math magic :)

The amount of work you put into this is unthinkable, keep grinding

Love these devlogs, this project is evolving very nicely! For the player movement, I could imagine using a control system similar to Project Loki. It's a game that's in closed Alpha so it's not super easy to get access to if you want to try for yourself, but basically you control the character movement with WASD and use your mouse to aim where your weapon is pointing. It feels super natural to control and avoids all the potential frustrations that could come from an RTS style of movement where the pathfinding may sometimes just walk the player straight into a beast or take them on a route that they weren't expecting. Keep up the great work, I'm always looking forward to the next devlog!!

Controlling several characters sounds like a lot of fun!!