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[JLJac]

Thank you so much everyone! Really means a lot to know that the tiny little details I spend hours on are actually noticed!

Answering a few questions -

No UI won't be a new game + feature, because it's the default mode. Maybe we'll have something like that you can hold down a button and see how many flies you've caught so you don't have to count them, but we're definitely aiming for an entirely clean screen during gameplay. Inverted RW, heheheh, idk... really breaks canon, that one. But if it's fun it could be included as a secret or something.

Shortcuts - yes, super unclear where they lead at the moment. They are not graphically finished to look like they did in the lingo version, where it was a little clearer because they had little arrows at the entrances and the actual shortcut consisted of black somewhat visible dots, but even back then it was hard to know. This one definitely needs some thinking.

Environments - nope, I've decided that the environments are going to be completely static. A bit boring, I know, but it was a sacrifice I had to do in order to have the shadows. Also it would have been a technical nightmare. The third reason is that as it's only me doing animation, it feels reasonable to focus the energy on creature animations. If some flower wiggles as you pass it that might be cool, but it can never convey personality or narrative like creatures, so it feels like more bang for the buck to put my hours there.

Update 322
Now when everyone is excited about the latest kickstarter update, I take the opportunity to do boring stuff! Sneaky like a ninja!

So today I fixed some lizard-getting-stuck scenarios. And made blue lizards able to climb slopes that are in the ceiling. Maybe when James wakes up he can undo some of the boring by posting one of the gifs that didn't end up used in the kickstarter update - where there any cool ones, James?

[Wlad]

Environments - nope, I've decided that the environments are going to be completely static. A bit boring, I know, but it was a sacrifice I had to do in order to have the shadows. Also it would have been a technical nightmare. The third reason is that as it's only me doing animation, it feels reasonable to focus the energy on creature animations. If some flower wiggles as you pass it that might be cool, but it can never convey personality or narrative like creatures, so it feels like more bang for the buck to put my hours there.

So I shouldn't expect any hanging ropes or chains that slugcat could grab on. All envrinment components are already in the game?

[JLJac]

That could be added, but I think I won't, because it'd be inconsistent to have some such things be static and others be interactive. You never know though, if there is some way to do it stylistically in line with the rest of the game... As for whether all environmental components are in the game - if you mean stuff like plants and chains and other such decorations, of course not! Lots to be added when we get to the Art Phase.

[Wlad]

That could be added, but I think I won't, because it'd be inconsistent to have some such things be static and others be interactive. You never know though, if there is some way to do it stylistically in line with the rest of the game... As for whether all environmental components are in the game - if you mean stuff like plants and chains and other such decorations, of course not! Lots to be added when we get to the Art Phase.

I meant environemnt components with game mechanics. Components which affects player. For example bars, shortcuts....

[JLJac]

Ah! Yeah ok so with that stuff I'm preeeetty happy to keep it simple - I'd rather have a few solid, understandable components and then use creatures to make it interesting. That said we plan a pretty big game world, so it would be weird if not one or two more environmental elements like that snuck in. But it's not going to be a huge plethora of tile types, rather tiles will be kept pretty plain to set the stage for a plethora of creatures.

[Christian]

Nice, some Rain World coverage on Rock Paper Shotgun!
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/10/06/rain-world-new-engine/

[jamesprimate]

Nice, some Rain World coverage on Rock Paper Shotgun!
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/10/06/rain-world-new-engine/

ah thats awesome theyre even paying attention to updates! i dont have the heart to correct them on the game maker thing, but fortunately commenter doomlaser knows whats up! 

[Fermenter]

beautiful work. I'm happy to see you getting some coverage!

Could I ask what you software use to make your gifs? I currently use a combination of Fraps to capture and "Free Video to Gif Converter", but I'm not really satisfied.

[JLJac]

GifCam!

Update 333

Lizard strikes!





There's quite a lot going on here. In the morning I did the crouch-and-strike behavior you can see, which is also graphically communicated by the head turning black as they're charging. This is intended to look cool, but is actually mostly a liability to them - if they try this against a moving target they'll most likely miss, and even though the lunge itself is fast there's the charging and a speed penalty after as well, making the net speed gain negative in most situations. The lunge is a little bit different between breeds, the green one has more of a bull rush, and the blue one has something akin to a proper jump which it only uses very occasionally (as it's a pretty safe bet it'll result in falling to death on any level without a floor).

The great technical challenge of the day was something you might not expect though - placing the slugcat between the jaws of the lizard. Now there's a huge complex system in place where a graphics representation can contain sprite containers as well as sprites, and a system for moving objects into and out of those containers. So the lizard has essentially an entire sprite layer between its upper and lower jaw, and when the player is bitten every player sprite is moved into that layer, while still being moved around by the player object.

These Futile sprite containers also nest, which is pretty cool - in theory I think a lizard could be biting a lizard which is biting a lizard which is biting a lizard...

Now that the system is in place I think it's going to be pretty easy to implement similar stuff for other creatures, so if a creature is supposed to eat another, or contain an object nested in its sprites in some other way, there's a framework for that. One creature can even have several sprite containers, why ever they'd need that. Maybe something with two grabbing hands or something similar.

[jamesprimate]

Good lord! That is brutal!

[gimymblert]

The hand and head animation anticipation is godly, it really sell the character

[BurningBright]

The hand and head animation anticipation is godly, it really sell the character

Totally agree, the way the slugcat puts his arm out, turns his head away and closes his eyes as if to brace himself -- damn!  These are tough to watch, but in the best of ways.

[Christian]

Damn, now those are the animalistic animations I was talking about!

If you had a spear, could you jam the lizard's mouth open, make a quick escape? Kind of like a last ditch effort, that only holds it for a second but gives you a moment to escape?

Edit: okay, wow, as much as I love the Slugcat animations, the lizard's movements are just perfect. That subtle shifting of the limbs to set up for a pounce is perfect. Amazing

[muki]

 





GIFs from the latest Kickstarter update

 

those shadows are the best I've seen in a platformer. ever.

the little details. how the shadows are offset, how some of them are broken up as they go over the turbines, it's all so magnificent!

[DarkWanderer]

This is really starting to look amazing. Can't wait for lizard spearing animations

[Christian]

Still noticing new things. Love how in the first GIF, the lizard kind of flips the slugcat and catches it in midair with its jaws. It's a quick little subtle thing, but it's cool

[brrrrr]

Perfect animations!
I am a big fan of your project! 

[JLJac]

Thank you thank you thank you thank you! I'm really pleased with how things are coming together as well Keep in mind though that I hit record until it looks good - there are some ultra wonky or problematic recordings before I get a really good one, so there are still problems to sort out before the game looks good every time.

Jamming lizard mouths open - yeah, the idea has come up a few times, and I do like it. It's a really classic trope, putting a vertical stick in the mouth of some beast. But gameplay-wise I'm not so sure ... like, if you have the spear, why wouldn't you just want to spear it? And if you could do both actions, how would the game know which one you wanted? I'm not introducing a new button for that specifically, and it could get annoying if there was some context sensitive thing going on that didn't always line up with your intentions. We'll have to see if a natural way to implement it shows up.

Update 334
The goal I set out for today was making lizards carry their prey back to their dens, but that led to a million other things, so now I'm just generally sorting out all sorts of stuff with that original goal in the back of my head. Mostly I've been doing stuff that has to do with creatures carrying other creatures. Making it work with shortcuts was somewhat tricky, as well as having it happen between rooms, but those issues are sorted out now.

I've started on a framework for creatures carrying other creatures in abstract space, which might be pretty cool. For example it means you might be able to enter a room and see a creature carrying another, or have a creature pass through your room with some prey already in its jaws, disinterested in you.

To me personally I think this is the most interesting aspect of Rain World - the "terrarium" or living world aspect. The player is a main character in the way that the simulation is run at a finer granularity close to where the player is, but the entire world will be alive and eventful all the time, if you are there or not. This is obviously going to be hard to make into a balanced game, but we'll try, haha. Dwarf Fortress has a similar philosophy and works pretty well because the game isn't about winning, but about the stories that develop through the unexpected interactions. We can't really fall back on that as much because Rain World is more of a traditional game that you play to win, but also we have astronomically fewer moving parts than DF. This is a balance issue we'll really have to give some close consideration though. Any way I'm really excited that we're getting closer and closer to having the eco system simulation up and running.

One thing that hints that the dynamic food web is getting closer is a little test I did today. After having tested the lizard biting behavior exclusively on the slugcat, today I fired up a green and a blue lizard and told the green one that it finds the blue delicious.



Everything connected flawlessly. The bodies connected, the blue lizard was not allowed to move, it was placed between the jaws of the green lizard, green can grab on to any of the body chunks and keeps its grip there, even the terrain impact bubble effects showed up to give the scene some extra flavor. I'm really hoping this isn't becoming too brutal, I'm not intentionally trying to make it dark and gritty, I'm just implementing the mechanics and this is how it happens o___0

The point is this though; any creature can eat any creature - it's just one line of code in the relationship declarations away. In the old version something like this would have been a two day nightmare, if not impossible. It's going to be so much fun when we have more species running around!

Edit: This works equally as well apparently :D A bit over the top shaking for such a small prey perhaps ...



Note that I'm not intending to have lizards hunt flies, I'm just trying my "anything can eat anything" setup

[Christian]

IMO, I feel the lizard on lizard attacks shouldn't be so...floppy. I could see the lizard thrashing around with a slugcat, but lizards are more comparable in size (and I'm assuming, weight) so it seems a bit off to see the green throwing the blue around so easily

But overall, it looks wonderful. I don't think it's too brutal, just very natural and realistic. Exactly how I'd envision a croc-like animal would attack and move. It's not gratuitous, just perfectly animalistic.

[JLJac]

That's a really good point ~ I did lower the effect of the weight of the carried creature quite some because otherwise it looked awkward when carrying around the slugcat, but yeah, the blue lizard should be a bit heavier. Maybe I can do some polynomial thing which makes low weights be really low but higher weights increase steeper than linear progression.