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[Christian]

Rain World better win a damn IGF award next year. 

When the designer of Shadow of the Colossus is impressed with your design...

So Excellence in Design and Audio are in the bag, right

[jamesprimate]

this is all the layers from Suburban, which is the one that you can hear bits of in the video: https://clyp.it/udj0xjnt

you wont ever hear all of them together, as there are 10 layers here and in-game system goes up to 5 layers, but the idea is that its something thats constantly shifting for each dangerous situation you encounter. there is a hierarchy for how the different layers come it and out, etc., so hopefully it never gets too stale (one of my biggest fears!)


edit: OH! a curious note about the high lead line on that track... each of the threat music "songs" have something like this, and its kind of supposed to be as if a slugcat is singing a lonely caterwauling tune XD

James,
Is this what we would expect from the arranged OST? The full 10-layer complement of the tracks?

This track sounds amazing, by the way. Fantastic work.

probably the arranged threat music tracks, plus the other 130ish other "regular" tracks as well XD i honestly have no idea how thats going to work out yet logistically. maybe ill ship it on a hard drive or something, lol

thanks for the kind words guys!! im excited to finally be able to show some of it to you all 

[Saijin_Naib]

probably the arranged threat music tracks, plus the other 130ish other "regular" tracks as well XD i honestly have no idea how thats going to work out yet logistically. maybe ill ship it on a hard drive or something, lol

thanks for the kind words guys!! im excited to finally be able to show some of it to you all 

Honestly, that doesn't sound like a terrible idea.

Have you played Knytt Underground? Nifflas' soundtrack for that was fairly massive and was divided into something like 5 albums, haha.

Do you think you could sort the arranged OST into "moods" by album, or perhaps do an album per region which would follow some progression along the mood? Start ambient with track 1 and progress through the various moods/pieces until the climax track?

However you decide, I'm just greedy to get my hands on the music 

[JLJac]

Update 528

Scavengers can send out a "kill squad" to hunt you down if they really hate you, or if you've transgressed an outpost, or both. Kill squads are not to be played around with - they will track you region wide and wreck you once they find you.

Personally, playing with these kill squads hunting me really revived the fun to my experience by introducing a tension I haven't had from lizards etc in a long time now. The lizards used to be worthy opponents that I felt cunning and smart when I managed to trick, but I've gotten used to them. When reading the terrain I know where there might be a lizard and where there might not, and while they are still dangerous if I'm being reckless, I have a sort of "lizard safe" play style where I just move between safe spots and very rarely am surprised by them. Also because of their somewhat limited ability to track you across several rooms, I know that if I manage to put some 3 rooms between me and a lizard I can basically count it out.

Scavenger kill squads, not so much! As they use ranged combat, the safe spaces in any given terrain are way smaller - I can't just jump from pole to pole to avoid them. Rather, when setting myself up with the challenge of traversing a region while being hunted, I've found myself resorting to weird paranoid tactics such as moving stealthily between crawl spaces under the floor, or traverse the level up in the rafters rather than on the standard floor level, out of fear that they might suddenly pop up and throw a spear at me, approximately 1.2 seconds between my first spotting them and being dead.

If I'm fighting back, I have to employ some weird rambo style guerrilla warfare where I stay hidden as much as possible to suddenly pop up and take out an isolated target. I had a really intense moment where I saw the squad enter the room, so I hid under the floor. Lying perfectly still I could see something like 8 scavengers gather on the floor above me, still unaware of my exact position but spreading out in the room looking for me. They were going to see me sooner or later, so when to initiate the violent rush for the exit? Tense! And extremely difficult - just getting from one gate to another in a well known region takes some 5 tries for me, who have played the game quite a lot over the last few years 

Technically it works by the squad "magically" knowing where I am on the world map, and gravitating to that general area. They won't see me through walls once they're in the room though, so staying hidden is still a viable tactic. Originally I had a pretty purist approach to the AI not ever having access to information about anything it shouldn't actually know, but despite all my efforts the AI will always be pretty dumb compared to a human - so cutting them some slack by letting them know which general area to look in while still having to find you in the actual room felt like a good hybrid for keeping the suspension of disbelief alive while also promoting exciting gameplay.

It should be noted that this behavior from the scavengers will only be engaged in if you're consistently really bad to them, to the degree where their entire society declare you public enemy. So it's mostly a feature for experienced players who want to get some excitement out of playing a war-like run, or really really bad people who deserve the punishment 

On the brighter side, if the scavengers really like you, they can send out a "chill squad" which works basically the same, except that instead of spearing you on sight they'll hang out with you as you move through the region, and instead utilize their rocks and spears to protect you from whatever lizards and vultures might be on your tail. The chill squad is not as intense an experience, but it feels really nice to cruise around with your scavenger pack! I hope it will be a cool reward for the player that puts a lot of effort into building a good relationship to the scavengers.

[gimymblert]

Update 528

Scavengers can send out a "kill squad" to hunt you down if they really hate you, or if you've transgressed an outpost, or both. Kill squads are not to be played around with - they will track you region wide and wreck you once they find you.

Personally, playing with these kill squads hunting me really revived the fun to my experience by introducing a tension I haven't had from lizards etc in a long time now. The lizards used to be worthy opponents that I felt cunning and smart when I managed to trick, but I've gotten used to them. When reading the terrain I know where there might be a lizard and where there might not, and while they are still dangerous if I'm being reckless, I have a sort of "lizard safe" play style where I just move between safe spots and very rarely am surprised by them. Also because of their somewhat limited ability to track you across several rooms, I know that if I manage to put some 3 rooms between me and a lizard I can basically count it out.

Scavenger kill squads, not so much! As they use ranged combat, the safe spaces in any given terrain are way smaller - I can't just jump from pole to pole to avoid them. Rather, when setting myself up with the challenge of traversing a region while being hunted, I've found myself resorting to weird paranoid tactics such as moving stealthily between crawl spaces under the floor, or traverse the level up in the rafters rather than on the standard floor level, out of fear that they might suddenly pop up and throw a spear at me, approximately 1.2 seconds between my first spotting them and being dead.

If I'm fighting back, I have to employ some weird rambo style guerrilla warfare where I stay hidden as much as possible to suddenly pop up and take out an isolated target. I had a really intense moment where I saw the squad enter the room, so I hid under the floor. Lying perfectly still I could see something like 8 scavengers gather on the floor above me, still unaware of my exact position but spreading out in the room looking for me. They were going to see me sooner or later, so when to initiate the violent rush for the exit? Tense! And extremely difficult - just getting from one gate to another in a well known region takes some 5 tries for me, who have played the game quite a lot over the last few years 

Technically it works by the squad "magically" knowing where I am on the world map, and gravitating to that general area. They won't see me through walls once they're in the room though, so staying hidden is still a viable tactic. Originally I had a pretty purist approach to the AI not ever having access to information about anything it shouldn't actually know, but despite all my efforts the AI will always be pretty dumb compared to a human - so cutting them some slack by letting them know which general area to look in while still having to find you in the actual room felt like a good hybrid for keeping the suspension of disbelief alive while also promoting exciting gameplay.

It should be noted that this behavior from the scavengers will only be engaged in if you're consistently really bad to them, to the degree where their entire society declare you public enemy. So it's mostly a feature for experienced players who want to get some excitement out of playing a war-like run, or really really bad people who deserve the punishment 

On the brighter side, if the scavengers really like you, they can send out a "chill squad" which works basically the same, except that instead of spearing you on sight they'll hang out with you as you move through the region, and instead utilize their rocks and spears to protect you from whatever lizards and vultures might be on your tail. The chill squad is not as intense an experience, but it feels really nice to cruise around with your scavenger pack! I hope it will be a cool reward for the player that puts a lot of effort into building a good relationship to the scavengers.

IT'S COMING BACK 

[jamesprimate]

Joar's been in the gamedev battlefield too long, hes going commando!

[Christian]

Are stones and spears still the only means of attack? I know there are more defensive organic tools like the flare fruits and smoke pods

[jamesprimate]

They definitely look a bit like Taoist Talisman...

good eyes! there might be some kind of connection...

Are stones and spears still the only means of attack? I know there are more defensive organic tools like the flare fruits and smoke pods

i think Joar has some ideas for expanding that a little bit, but it'll be mostly the stuff that you know

[io3 creations]

i think Joar has some ideas for expanding that a little bit, but it'll be mostly the stuff that you know

For those wanting to pack some heat will have to check out the Expansion Pack:

It's RAINING BULLETS WORLD!


There will be blood RAIN!

[JLJac]

[Jinan Dangor]

You were talking about how the kill squads just magically 'gravitate' towards you, would you maybe implement a scent-based tracking system for them?

So, moving through an area covers it in your scent, if kill squads smell that scent they will gravitate towards other nearby areas with the scent. Or just rank spaces covered in scent higher than spaces without it when choosing target spaces.

Having scent registered per surface might be memory-intensive or something, but what if you just split each screen into a huge grid, and the longer you stay in a grid space the more 'scented' it becomes? Could that perhaps reduce the penalty of storing/manipulating all the scent data?

Obviously scent would fade over time, which would also help the mob gravitate towards the more recently scented areas.

Main reason I thought this would be cool is you could then have a fruit or tool that explodes into a cloud of perfume, removing scent from the area, maybe getting mobs off your trail.
Or alternatively, a ball of slugcat sweat that you could chuck onto an enemy or hide in a room to send them in the wrong direction XD
Just thought having a close encounter with a squad, retreating a few screens, then putting them off your scent would result in super-tense moments of oh-my-god-did-they-fall-for-it moments.

[Profesh]

You were talking about how the kill squads just magically 'gravitate' towards you, would you maybe implement a scent-based tracking system for them?

So, moving through an area covers it in your scent, if kill squads smell that scent they will gravitate towards other nearby areas with the scent. Or just rank spaces covered in scent higher than spaces without it when choosing target spaces.

Having scent registered per surface might be memory-intensive or something, but what if you just split each screen into a huge grid, and the longer you stay in a grid space the more 'scented' it becomes? Could that perhaps reduce the penalty of storing/manipulating all the scent data?

Obviously scent would fade over time, which would also help the mob gravitate towards the more recently scented areas.

Main reason I thought this would be cool is you could then have a fruit or tool that explodes into a cloud of perfume, removing scent from the area, maybe getting mobs off your trail.
Or alternatively, a ball of slugcat sweat that you could chuck onto an enemy or hide in a room to send them in the wrong direction XD
Just thought having a close encounter with a squad, retreating a few screens, then putting them off your scent would result in super-tense moments of oh-my-god-did-they-fall-for-it moments.

I like this.

[Christian]

You were talking about how the kill squads just magically 'gravitate' towards you, would you maybe implement a scent-based tracking system for them?

So, moving through an area covers it in your scent, if kill squads smell that scent they will gravitate towards other nearby areas with the scent. Or just rank spaces covered in scent higher than spaces without it when choosing target spaces.

Having scent registered per surface might be memory-intensive or something, but what if you just split each screen into a huge grid, and the longer you stay in a grid space the more 'scented' it becomes? Could that perhaps reduce the penalty of storing/manipulating all the scent data?

Obviously scent would fade over time, which would also help the mob gravitate towards the more recently scented areas.

Main reason I thought this would be cool is you could then have a fruit or tool that explodes into a cloud of perfume, removing scent from the area, maybe getting mobs off your trail.
Or alternatively, a ball of slugcat sweat that you could chuck onto an enemy or hide in a room to send them in the wrong direction XD
Just thought having a close encounter with a squad, retreating a few screens, then putting them off your scent would result in super-tense moments of oh-my-god-did-they-fall-for-it moments.

This could also help drive players to explore new routes because sticking to the same routes all the time would mean your scent would be very strong in those areas, and thus more easily attract scavengers

[jamesprimate]

A very nice 15min in-depth sneak peek with Gamespot from PAX East :

[JobLeonard]

Oh wow, I kinda forgot how amazing it looks in 1080p at 60fps

[luvial]

This game looks so smooth to play 

[jamesprimate]

going to bring this past the bump because its definitely the best live gameplay video we have so far 

A very nice 15min in-depth sneak peek with Gamespot from PAX East :

[Lucs]

Woah, everything is just PERFECT.

[gimymblert]

She just short of saying "rain souls" in that video.

[Teod]

Woah, everything is just PERFECT.

Quick! We must find something to nitpick on to compensate for all the perfectness!
Uhm...
Those Garbage Worms are a bit angular, they should have the curve formula from Daddy Longlegs applied to them.

In all seriousness though, this game continues to look amazing. I'm glad you're getting some good coverage.