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[Vakey Rujevic]

A month late, but I have finished my final goal for Q2 (Setup Base Environment). And this is it, a super rough draft of entire environment for the game. As I am developing the game, the environment is going to change and grow, but with this I just wanted to start small and simple so I can have a base to work of off.

The first thing you’ll probably notice is that it looks like an eye. Totally unintentional, but I might run with it and make the game’s environment be set within the eye of a giant, we’ll see. The second thing you’ll probably notice is that it’s a color wheel. Wasn’t trying to do that but it happened naturally as the game is heavily inspired by Ayurveda, a 5000 year old philosophy on the knowledge of life from India. Heck, the name is Sanskrit and it directly translates to “Knowledge of Life”. Thats all, just the science of life.

Since the game is inspired by Ayurveda, let’s start with what Ayurveda is. In it’s simplest form Ayurveda breaks down life (and all of existence for that matter) into 5 elements: Earth, water, fire, air, and space.

Then it puts these elements into 3 categories knowns as Doshas in order give context as to what qualities they provide:

• Kapha (Earth, Water): Cold, Dull, Moist, Green
• Pitta (Water, Fire): Hot, Sharp, Oily, Red
• Vata (Air, Space): Cold, Light, Dry, Violet

And order matters as Kapha goes into Pitta, and Pitta goes into Vata and then Vata goes back into Kapha (and vice versa) You can see these Doshas everywhere in Life. Like in our seasons:

• From mid Winter through Spring (Kapha)
• Summer to mid Fall (Pitta)
• Mid Fall through Mid Winter (Vata)

So given that, here is how I used those Doshas to create the environment of the game:



You’ll notice in the Kapha environment, it’s more soft, round and green and full of life. And then as it goes into Pitta, the environment becomes more hot, sharp, and red. Once it goes into Vata, things begin to shrivel up, getting dry, spacey, violet. And then it flows right back in Kapha. The colors of each Dosha are represented in the environment thus the reason the environment looks like a color wheel.

Finally, the current will flow through that circular pathway in the environment, carrying you through all 3 Doshas to experience all the qualities of life.

[Vakey Rujevic]

Starting this quarter rather late and with 6 weeks left I think it would be great to spend that time experimenting with some organisms. That will be my theme and here is what I aim to accomplish with each goal.

Experiment with Jelly fish like organisms

Jelly fish are magical and I want them in my game. But I am no sure if I can make an organism like that. Creating their tentacles is what will be challenging. The physics of that will be hard to simulate, especially in a way that’s going to be performant. But if I succeed, then that will pave way for creating other tentacle like organisms.

Experiment with Bee/Humming Bird like organisms

The goal of this one is to experiment with an organism that moves around with wings, but more like the wings of a humming bird that give it a lot of precise control when moving around. Also would like to experimenting with some feeding mechanics of this organism if time permits.

Experiment with Cheetah/Shark like organisms

This one is all about experimenting with a fast predatory organism chasing smaller prey and how it eats and consumes its prey.


Been sketching these organisms to see how they could like. Here is some sketches of them.

[Vakey Rujevic]

Successfully implemented the jelly fish organism! I was worried that the physics of the tentacles would not be performant, but it runs very smoothly, and the effect is just magical. Playing as the jelly fish surprised me of how fun and meditative it was.

[Artifice Machine]

Love those sketches!
Haven't looked at this since its early forms, it's neat to see all of your progress since then.
Sometime soon I'll make a point of reading through here more thoroughly.
Regards!

[Vakey Rujevic]

Love those sketches!
Haven't looked at this since its early forms, it's neat to see all of your progress since then.
Sometime soon I'll make a point of reading through here more thoroughly.
Regards!

Thank you! I love doing the sketches, they really help me visualize what the game could look like.

[Vakey Rujevic]

Here is the humming bird inspired organism. This is my first time experimenting with a winged like organism. The wings of this little creature vibrate, more so than flap, to propel it in its desired direction and give it higher precision in movement.

There was more I wanted to experiment with, such as:

• Animating ripple effects that come out of the wings
• Particles near the vibrating wings get propelled away
• Organism needs to move twice as fast when both its wings are propelling it in the same direction

Typical physics reactions you would expect from this kind of organism. But not in enough time right now as I have my quarter goals to finish (3 days left O_O). The final goal is to experimenting with a shark like organism, watch out now.

[Vakey Rujevic]

These two organisms know a thing or two about connection! They are two independent organisms that have the ability to come together, and they often must for this is the only way for them to eat and digest the pray they hunt. But more on that later when I focus on implementing the hunting/eating mechanics.
This kind of completes my final goal for Q3. Originally, I wanted to experiment with hunting mechanics of a more shark like organism, but there is just not enough time in the world man (and I am 3 days late anyways).

But the physics of this type of organism and how they connect is pretty cool. Read on if you’re interested.

Setup

Each body part of this yet unnamed organism is connected by a 2D hinge joint, shown in red in the image below. But the hinge joint is offset to the left or right of the body. This gives it that 2d dragon flying effect when it moves around.



Connection

When they get close to each other (and have a desire to connect), I am enabling a 2d spring joint between each of their body parts to connect them. This forces they bodies to connect and stay connected, as shown in red in the image below. Even though they are connected, they still move independently of one another. However, I am having them both listen from the same input component when they are connected, thus syncing their movements together.

[Vakey Rujevic]

I’ve been working from Dharamshala (India) for the past month (pics above^), at the foot hills of the Himalayas and home to His Holiness The Dalai Lama and Tibetan people in exile. It’s been year and half since I wrote about me moving to Taiwan so wanted share some pics and travel logs of what has happened since then.

Taipei, Taiwan (June 2016 - June 2017): Originally my woman and I moved here to experience the cities incredible culture and for me to save enough money to be able to work on Life of Sundura full time. The money has been half saved and half lost due to family financial issues back home. But I have given up that way of becoming a financially independent game developer. That day may come, but I am happy with the J.R.R. Tolkien approach of having a full time job I am passionate about and working on my passion project (Life of Sundura) on the side.

Now this organic (and quite post-apocalyptic) city has been sooo inspirational for me and my game. Def my favorite city thus far, and quite the hidden gem (pics below). Unfortunately the pollution there was affecting my girlfriends health so we decided to pack up and go back packing across Asia and see where the road takes.





Thailand (June 2017 - Sept 2017): We first went to Chiang Mai (an ancient city popular among digital nomads) and while there I met fellow gamedev Jake Hollands (creator of SPACEPLAN) as his also traveling across Asia and working on his next game. Then my woman and I went to the southern islands (Koh Tao and Koh Phangan) where we got open water certified. Scuba diving at those incredible coral reefs was quite inspirational for my game.



India (Sept 2017 - Nov 2017): We started our first two weeks by bouncing from New Dehli, to Agro, to Jaipur, to Rishikesh, to finally making it to our current destination Dharamshala which has one of the most incredibly diverse communities I have experienced, a place where different cultures and religions live peacefully amongst each other, how refreshing.



After Dharamshala, we’ll be visiting family in the US before embarking on our next chapter in global living. It has been challenging balancing a full time job, traveling, and working on the game (which has been getting short hand of the stick lately), but I love doing all of it. Will try to keep you guys posted on my travels as I am developing Life of Sundura.

[Jasmine]

This is actually very interesting. What is your current job? It obviously allows you the freedom to work remotely, which I am incredibly envious of!

[Vakey Rujevic]

This is actually very interesting. What is your current job? It obviously allows you the freedom to work remotely, which I am incredibly envious of!

Currently working as a front end developer for a small company called PowerDMS. They (and by "they" I am speaking off the team as whole) originally where against people working remotely, but a few of us expressed the desire for that and little by little we gained their trust. And now there is 3 of us working remotely around the world.

[Vakey Rujevic]

Currently focusing on implementing the concept art above, where the humming bird organism feeds from the juicy nectar of a plant.

[KPas]

I like your project and I'm watching it evolving for some time. 
But I'm not quite sure about the gameplay, because you described it as an interactive story.
Is there a gameplay demo build available by any chance?

[Vakey Rujevic]

I like your project and I'm watching it evolving for some time. 
But I'm not quite sure about the gameplay, because you described it as an interactive story.
Is there a gameplay demo build available by any chance?

Thanks I don't have a gameplay demo build just yet as the gameplay has not been formalized quite yet. I am still experimenting and play testing with what works and what doesn't, so even I am not quite sure what the gameplay will be like for the game. Like for example, right now I am experimenting with different organisms and the eating mechanics for them. So based on how other organisms eat and how Sundura eats will dictate a lot for what the gameplay will be like. Like the Jelly fish eats by consuming the energy of other organisms it touches with it's tentacles. So I can see there being some gameplay around having to avoid those tentacles. Then there is also: how often does Sundura have to eat to keep living? Does the food she eat effect her positively or negativity in the environment? How does she get the food? When she has kids, how does she feed her kids? How does her mother feed her when she is a kid? So there is still a lot to experiment and play test with. But ultimately what I am striving for is to immerse the player in the entire lifespan of single organism, and the gameplay will revolve around what that organism has to do to live in this world. Hopefully I will have something more concrete soon

[Vakey Rujevic]

Hey! Haven’t posted in a while. Life can be crazy sometimes but still working on the game, and here is the implementation of how the humming bird organism eats.

Huge milestone for me as this finalizes the ground work for the eating mechanics of the game. Going to be playing around with how other organisms eat next. Expect more updates soon.

[Vakey Rujevic]

Trying to get some work done, but can’t stop playing with this ball.

[QOG]

Trying to get some work done, but can’t stop playing with this ball.

Art style continues to look sweet, excited to hear more about the gameplay.

[flex$]

this is so sick on so many levels, just pouring through this devlog i can see how much love and care and deep thought you've put into this, and on the technical side, from what i've seen, you're doing really spectacular motion/camera fluidity work that really brings the inspired artstyle to life. very rare stuff my dude

[Vakey Rujevic]

Art style continues to look sweet, excited to hear more about the gameplay.

Thanks! Can't wait to nail down the gameplay. So many directions I can take it in so need to be careful not to bite off more than I can chew.

this is so sick on so many levels, just pouring through this devlog i can see how much love and care and deep thought you've put into this, and on the technical side, from what i've seen, you're doing really spectacular motion/camera fluidity work that really brings the inspired artstyle to life. very rare stuff my dude

Means a lot hearing you say that! Love pouring all I got into this project. The camera stuff is a lot of fun and something I fine tuned early on thanks to all the play testing.

[Vakey Rujevic]

Been focused on making an organism that has the ability to pull near by energy towards it, kind of like a vacuum. I am strongly considering this being how our main character, Sundura, consumes food. So will be experimenting with how this mechanic plays out in different scenarios (like hunting down other organisms).

Another thing to note here is that this organism’s spine is also it’s health bar indicator.

[Vakey Rujevic]

Work in progress, making a millipede inspired organism that can camouflage itself. I know millipedes are vegetarian, but I would love to make this lil guy a predator.