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[Laukku]

Out of curiosity, Laukku, which elements of Junji (correct me if I'm wrong, but I presume you mean Junji Ito, yes?) or Corrado Roi's work do you think particularly lends itself to depicting the slugcat? They're both accomplished artists with very distinctive ways of drawing people, but I'm really not seeing anything in their oeuvre that particularly recommends them to this application. Even though the world is very, very scary, the slugcat is totally cute, and there's no getting around that. The more uniform tone of Junji or Corrado Roi doesn't seem like the most ideal touchstone for accommodating that range.

Ito and Roi were some extreme and not very good examples I thought of in a few moments as a contrast to Cal Arts/Disney school of thought - hence "not too much". I was thinking mainly of more solid, subdued proportions and shapes, and Ito's silhouettes and often thin limbs. I did not mean the grotesque stuff.



EDIT: Tove Jansson would've been a much better example of what I was thinking. She's got he "grim cute" aspect wonderfully.

In keeping with the subtle cartoonish charm that Joar has painstakingly maintained from the very beginning, the expressiveness of the character is more important than staying "on model". The exaggeration of the legs grounds the body, gives a sense of lithe power and fluidity to the character, makes for more dynamic poses, and is kind of cute. It actually reminds me of Rebecca Sugar's work, with its effortless sense of volume.

I personally would be looking more towards something like Jeff Smith's work on Bone, since he does a really wonderful job of scaling stylistically between more simplified forms and incredible detail, as well as tonally between charming and incredibly dark.

Nothing wrong with dynamicness - it's just that I was hoping that the slugcat would maintain some animalistic realism without looking like a posing exercise by an animation student. Good point on the stylistic scaling though - I didn't intend to take that subtle cartoon charm away. There should be a balance.

[ｂ∀ ｋｋｕｓａ]

i don't like the new design, kinds of reminds me of cartoons.
it reminded me of an old french comic:

[jamesprimate]

^^^ actually, i think Joar will *love* that you are making that connection!


Thanks for opinions gentlemen! All will be considered. For the time being, it is water under the bridge though. As Joar mentioned, we had a tight deadline for this aspect, and assets have already been shipped for the purposes of this particular logo iteration. It will likely be revisited again when we get nearer to release and we have everything else set. We've had universal positive response to it outside of the devlog, the people less familiar with the project, so we'll look at this all with the long view a few months down the line and see how things feel 

(Whats amusing for me is remembering how much everyone HATED the last logo, and the nightmare thread fires that happened around the creation of that. Now of course many people fondly remember it, haha. As always, change is bad.)


Anyway, moving on! We've got a lot of game to make, so have to keep on the grind. I was very much enjoying the posts of screenshots from The Mist and war of the worlds, etc, as inspiration for this new beast (nicknamed the Raindeer, yes yes we know.) As for the behavior and role, I dont want to spoil too much of course but as usual Christian and Teod have made some very close guesses.

I havent been posting much recently, as most of the level stuff right now isnt so flashy. Im currently working on a subregion that connects Suburban to Linear Farms, so ive been experimenting with finding a gradation of the plainer, boxy "valley" SU style and assets with the more much detailed open horizon LF style:


detail: https://i.imgur.com/pUzLpvX.png

you'll notice a liberal application of worm grass, which has quickly become my favorite rain world creature. 

and other task is creating the wide stretches of crop farms:

detail: https://i.imgur.com/r5990VA.png

not terribly exciting, i know. that should change soon though, as new tiles are incoming.

We're probably a solid halfway through the region, but of course i want to wait to see how the Raindeer plays before going too much further with LF room geometries, as the rest of the terrain will be its turf.

[ProgramGamer]

 

Are those worms with that one fungus disease that ants get which inspired The Last Of Us?

[Teod]

Thanks for opinions gentlemen! All will be considered. For the time being, it is water under the bridge though. As Joar mentioned, we had a tight deadline for this aspect, and assets have already been shipped for the purposes of this particular logo iteration. It will likely be revisited again when we get nearer to release and we have everything else set.

Speaking of deadlines...

yep! We're going into beta soon and needed some new visual direction to take us down the final stretch :3

Does that mean you're going Early Access? To be honest, this is a little concerning... While everyone in this thread (me included) sure wants to play your game asap, the reality of the situation is that Early Access launch is the launch of a game. I'm not sure if Rain World is ready for the general audience. I believe that having more closed testing group (Kickstarter backers and a limited number of keys) would give you all benefits of early access without all of the downsides.

[jamesprimate]

oh we're definitely not doing steam early access or anything like that. i hope that hasnt been implied anywhere, as it was never considered. it'll be more as you have described: a closed beta with the adult swim games testers, some kickstarter backers, some old rain world pros, etc. the "early access" of the kickstarter tiers was for the alpha versions we've been sending out over the past months, but they were essentially mechanical prototypes stripped of the narrative and progression elements, aka "the game".

but this is just planning ahead, were not there quite yet. its as you've said, there is a looooot of work yet to be done and we have no desire to show off our bugs just yet!

[tortoiseandcrow]

"Raindeer" is great, and reminded me of the amazing Michael Deforge.

[gimymblert]

slugdeer

[JLJac]

For the logo stuff James said it ~ we are gonna return to it when the general packaging is to be touched up close to release, but for now we're really happy with what we have, especially the cute cartoony aspect actually. The mood we're going for is "grim cartoon", with the slugcat being more "cartoon" and most other stuff being more "grim". Still its black stare and the dramatic lighting conveys a hint of that gloomy atmosphere, meaning it hits the right balance for us.

Update 459

More work on locomotion and I also started a bit of the skinning process of the legs, as it didn't really make sense to work on leg movement without knowing somewhat what it will end up looking like.

Also the creature is now better at handling uneven terrain; instead of just throwing its body out over a ledge (and stumbling and falling) it carefully places a leg or two on the below level and then ease itself out.



Going up a ledge is a bit more difficult as the corner tends to "cut off" the trailing legs and make the creature lose its support, but by having it stay a bit more clear of the actual corner this behavior is also getting better.

[Christian]

Oh my god, the animations of the legs are so so good...
The movement is otherwordly and hypnotic at the same time

The vultures had my favorite movement before, but man, I think this might top it

Edit: Although for climbing up, I'd imagine this thing would put its front legs on top, stretch them out for support, and then pulls its back legs up.

Rather than putting back legs up first

[Keith]

Crazy leg motion.

  ...how?

Could you give a brief explanation of how you achieved such a system? That looks really good and natural. Everything you've done with the movement of each creature blows my mind.

[Torchkas]

bluh, his shadows look pretty gross

[JLJac]

@christian, yeah, good point. ATM it doesn't really have a good distinction between front and back, it mostly just thinks of them as "my four legs", but that could def be a nice touch!

@Keith, thank you sir! If you go one page back you can see a debug visualization of what the legs work like behind the skin that is pasted on top of them. Those tentacles are composed of two main components, the semi-transparent "ghost tentacles" which work in tile space and make sure that they never overlap terrain, and the jointed physics tentacles on top of that which provides a bit more plausible movement.

The creature ray-traces from its body downwards trying to find a good grip position when it moves a tentacle, and when it does so path-finds a way to it in tile space. Then the tile space "ghost tentacle" starts to move along that path, dragging the floaty physics tentacle with it.

On top of that I draw what you actually see in this post above. I use the positions of the physics tentacle in the debug visualization, but relate to them somewhat liberally, basically just using them to make sure that the leg is not super obviously sticking through a piece of solid terrain. The elbow bends are accomplished with a simple inverse kinematic formula, google inverse kinematics for more info.

Hope that was somewhat helpful, it's getting a bit late over here haha  

[Keith]

Ah, I actually get it. That's pretty cool. It's interesting to think of all the different ways developers have come up with to achieve something in their games.

I'm so looking forward to this game, I hope I'm able to get a good minimum 5-6 hours of it. :D

[jamesprimate]

^ i think at this point it'll take that long just to explore all the rooms 

@tortoiseandcrow: i love that strip sooooo much. spot on 

[oldblood]

I'm so looking forward to this game, I hope I'm able to get a good minimum 5-6 hours of it. :D

I'd estimate I got 2-3 hours out of just messing around in the alpha from months ago. This game is going to be a huge time-sink and should have a huge re-playability factor, I wouldn't worry about the hours you hope to get out of it. You will play for longer than you plan to...

[Christian]

I have put at least 10+ hours into Rain World across the alphas and E3 build. About 2 of those were arena fights, but the other 8+ were spent exploring and surviving in the different regions

So yeah, this is going to be a big game

And then there's going to be multiplayer

[Keith]

Guys. Stop......


I'm already excited for this game, you all pointing out how much there is to it is only making me get depressed that it's not out already. Haha.

Thanks for the heads up. :D 

[barneycumming]

so great- as always!  the new long-legged guy is gonna be amazing

[Lilou84x]

I'm in love from the very first time I'd see the pictures, and then saw the gameplay.... it's just amazing and I can't wait to play it. It have loving stealth mechanics from what I've seen, and I just cant wait to take this little fluffy-white-thing to it's goal!! Congrats!