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[gimymblert]

Also slug cat react to his environement by looking at things, I haven't checked if he look at flies, but he could stop when full. Also he can have physical change less extreme than in that sonic XL mod on sonic 2

[Woodledude]

Yeah, stomach ui is definitely kind of obtrusive, and I have no quarrels with a different direction. That being said, while I think the animations are a nice idea, I have trouble believing that they would convey the hunger of the slugcat well by themselves without being a bit ham-handed, not to mention not allowing you to plan your hunt in advance. I'd have to see some to really get a good idea, though. I mean, my main issue is the fact that in the midle of a hunt, my slugcat's belly rumbling doesn't tell me how many more bats I need to eat, it only tells me I'm not done. And what if I'm in a dangerous spot, I eat the last bat I need, but I don't see the animation and I don't know if I can flee back to my shelter, or I need to find more bats to eat?

It seems like anything that conveys the information well is obtrusive, and anything that's subtle doesn't convey the information well.

That being said, I do have a different idea. The animations could work if there were a little calendar in each of the shelters - Not a piece of ui, but a part of the environment, like a little panel full of rows of LEDs that tell you where you are in the rain season, and how many days are ahead of you. I'm not very confident that this would actually work, but if someone can take that concept and run with it effectively... It just seems like this is becoming a contentious issue that needs a solution, is all. 

EDIT: It occurs to me that you could have several growls indicating how many more bats you need to eat, three growls means three bats left. Maybe that works? 

[Christian]

It has to be more than just animation, I think. Like woodle said, it could be easy to miss an animation. But that, combined with distinct sound cues like stomach growling and burping, could teach the player that "this animation means this" and "these sounds mean that" through repetition and gameplay. After seeing that Shelter 2 review, I'm on team #noUI. Not even an abstract thing like the stomach.

[JLJac]

Sorry about it being a bit quiet, I'm doing level editor overhaul!

It seems like anything that conveys the information well is obtrusive, and anything that's subtle doesn't convey the information well.

Hahaha this!

The animations could work if there were a little calendar in each of the shelters - Not a piece of ui, but a part of the environment, like a little panel full of rows of LEDs that tell you where you are in the rain season, and how many days are ahead of you.

It's a very strong theme throughout that the environment was not designed for you, and the intentions and motivations of the architects are completely separate from the intentions and motivations of the protagonist, so I don't know... The shelters do seem to be specifically a rain shelter though, so it would perhaps make sense. It would become a little bit more explicit than I'd be comfortable with though - it seems so slugcat convenient that people might start hypothesizing that slugcats are actually the architects or something.

When it comes to stomach growling etc, hahaha, idk, maybe I don't want the digestive functions of the protagonist to play that big a part in the experience. Hearing constant rumbles and growls from the slugcat intestine would tilt the game stylistically away from the pixelly/cartoony style into something else.

Between James and me there's this ongoing discussion, where I tend to think that it's stylistically cleaner to Accept Defeat and include some UI stuff as long as they're not on the screen constantly, and James believes in fighting on. Generally we do tend to solve problems if we decide to keep trying, so the fighting on idea makes sense. However I don't think that the exclusion of UI is worth any price, if it skews the style or mood or has to rely on incredibly forced in-world solutions I'd prefer to just throw some white circles in the corner or something. The jury is still out on this one!

[tortoiseandcrow]

I'm reminded of the example of traffic lights in semiotics and communication theory. Technically, for stop and go, you only really need one light with a binary on/off state. Off means go, on means stop, or vice versa depending on whatever convention is chosen. The problem comes in when perhaps there is something wrong with the light, which would cause confusion since it would effectively be stuck in one meaningful state. Therefore, it is necessary to introduce a second light of a different colour to communicate the difference between stop/go/broken. The broader theoretical point here is that redundancy is a necessary part of the communicative capacity of a given sign system - if every single possible combination of sounds in a language were meaningful, that is if the language's use of sounds were 100% efficient, it would be much harder to determine if someone had simply mispronounced a word, or chosen the wrong one.

So: [Eating a bat -> grumbling noise = still hungry] / [eating a bat -> no grumbling noise = full] is a sign system that leaves room for confusion, which the addition of [eating a bat -> satisfied noise = full] would help to make the distinction clear.

All of which is to say that I do think that by providing a small constellation of cues (whatever those end up being) it would be very possible to signify hungry/full with a purely diegetic UI, and without necessarily drifting too far away from the established aesthetic.

Besides, the game kind of is about your (the slugcat's) stomach, isn't it? The core gameplay loop is centred around eating as a form of survival. I don't think it would be necessarily be all that intrusive to know whether you are still hungry or not in visceral, bodily terms. Especially if you know you'll be returning to the shelter hungry.

[theEasternDragon]

I am glad I read this forum. I hear so many interesting things.  

EDIT:

It's a very strong theme throughout that the environment was not designed for you, and the intentions and motivations of the architects are completely separate from the intentions and motivations of the protagonist, so I don't know... The shelters do seem to be specifically a rain shelter though, so it would perhaps make sense. It would become a little bit more explicit than I'd be comfortable with though - it seems so slugcat convenient that people might start hypothesizing that slugcats are actually the architects or something.

Also, I completely agree. It also suggests that you are somehow in control, which is also not good. This feeling of being part of a larger system is kind of undermined by the "indicator in the shelter" idea. It suggests a deeper understanding. Plus, again, it caters to the understanding of the player. A slugcat probably will not know what, say, a row of LEDs mean. Well, they might, but I doubt it.

A thought: say we look into what, say, weasels do in harsh weather. It is not necessarily that the creatures of rain world are based on things in real life, I know, but it might serve as some inspiration. I think I will look into that, and report back.

[jamesprimate]

hey i just want to say that this has been some really great conversation. every time i look there is a great new post worthy of in-depth response, but am too slammed with levels to do the topics justice

[fall_ark]

A thought: say we look into what, say, weasels do in harsh weather. It is not necessarily that the creatures of rain world are based on things in real life, I know, but it might serve as some inspiration. I think I will look into that, and report back.

Well, animals are pretty dumb. Squirrels horde stuff then promptly forgot where they were. Bears can't even do that and just eat as much as they can to prepare for hibernation. Most animals have no idea how much food they need, hence why you see news of both wildlife and pets getting extremly overweight simply because they have access to more food. There's no need for an animal to know if their food storage is good enough -- if it isn't, they'll simply die.

[Christian]

A thought: say we look into what, say, weasels do in harsh weather. It is not necessarily that the creatures of rain world are based on things in real life, I know, but it might serve as some inspiration. I think I will look into that, and report back.

Well, animals are pretty dumb. Squirrels horde stuff then promptly forgot where they were. Bears can't even do that and just eat as much as they can to prepare for hibernation. Most animals have no idea how much food they need, hence why you see news of both wildlife and pets getting extremly overweight simply because they have access to more food. There's no need for an animal to know if their food storage is good enough -- if it isn't, they'll simply die.

Crows are incredibly intelligent and can learn how to use tools. I read an article a while back; basically crows learned the connection between traffic and traffic lights. When the light was red and the cars were stopped, they'd place nuts in front of the tires. Then the cars would drive over the nuts when the light turned green, cracking the nut open so the crow could eat the inside

They can also replicate tools. Another study had food at the bottom of container. The only way to get to it was to use a wire hook and pull the food out. One crow was given an already bent hook and figured out how to get the food. The crow that was watching took the unbent wire and was able to extract the food. It had learned that it needed to bend the wire to succeed. This was the first time these crows had ever seen wire in their life

There's even been research showing that crows can count, and can learn to recognize faces.

As for food storage, dolphins have been known to horde part of food in their aquariums to eat at a later time.

[fall_ark]

Crows are incredibly intelligent and can learn how to use tools. I read an article a while back; basically crows learned the connection between traffic and traffic lights. When the light was red and the cars were stopped, they'd place nuts in front of the tires. Then the cars would drive over the nuts when the light turned green, cracking the nut open so the crow could eat the inside

They can also replicate tools. Another study had food at the bottom of container. The only way to get to it was to just a wire hook and pull the food out. One crow was given an already bent hook and figured out how to get the food. The crow that was watching took the unbent wire and was able to extract the food. It had learned that it needed to bend the wire to succeed. This was the first time these crows had ever seen wire in their life

There's even evidence that crows can count, and can learn to recognize faces.

They also understand the concept of exchange. Crows are basically considered near ape level now, probably too "humanlike" to base slugcats on. Same goes for dolphins.

[tortoiseandcrow]

They also understand the concept of exchange.

That's amazing! I didn't know that one.

Crows even have basic forms of culture, able to transmit knowledge such as tool use and the traffic light nutcracker trick to others, while flocks have been known to recognize specific individuals, even after long absences of that particular person over several generations of crows.

A lot of the things we think are special about ourselves as human have a habit of turning out to be pretty common in other animal species. For example, the partner of a friend of mine has been doing some interesting work studying a specific family of fish as examples of rudimentary cooperative social behaviours. The danger of course is to interpret these capacities as being possessed of some sort of telos, where tool use inexorably leads to systematized technology, and culture moves ever onward towards language and organized society, as though we're the ultimate end-point that all evolution is reaching for.

So it's perfectly plausible to imagine that, like crows or octopi, slugcats have a set of capacities that overlap with but are not identical to our own: improvised tool use, navigation and interpretation of environmental functions, basic forward planning, and anticipation of the behaviour of other animals. I mean, that seems like an adequate description of gameplay right there.

The problem seems to be more with communicating what is essentially a felt, internal state that says "if I eat approximately this much, I'll be fine" which is an inherently fuzzy sort of concept. So it's also a problem of precision. If you need to know precisely how many bats you must eat to survive a rain cycle, then I'd say that the easiest and most user-friendly way to go probably would be with a UI, lest the game feel unnecessarily punitive when you fail to eat the required amount of bats without knowing exactly how many that was. But if there's some leeway on either side, then you could probably get away with a system that has a bit more potential for ambiguity. That way, rather than putting a lot of attention on exactly how many bats it is that you need, players would learn how much they need to eat by feel. I know you don't want status effects or frequent deformations to the character silhouette, but having some sort of "danger state" that serves to lets me know that I'll die soon from chronic under-feeding seems more intuitive to me than saying "okay, gotta eat seven bats or I'll die! Let's go!"

[theEasternDragon]

Another idea, we already have the numbers appearing over the slugcat's head. Why not just have that start with how many bats you need to eat and countdown? Possibly have the numbers be red?

[Christian]

Another idea, we already have the numbers appearing over the slugcat's head. Why not just have that start with how many bats you need to eat and countdown? Possibly have the numbers be red?

The issue with that is that numbers, actual characters representing a value, are a very human construct and wouldnt mesh with the animal instinct/intelligence of a slugcat

I like tortoise's point about precise amounts. Considering that so much of the game is procedural, would it be better to make how much you need to eat a dynamic amount, that alters based on how much you ate during your last venture? Rather than needing to eat an exact amount

I still think conveying through animation would work best. Have the slugcat spit up a bat or put it to its mouth and then throw the bat away would be a pretty good indicator that it's full and doesnt want to eat anymore
You have to stop for a few seconds to eat anyway, so the player's attention is likely going to be on the slugcat for those moments. It has a clear set of animations when it eats so any different action will stand out.

[chriswearly]

Another idea, we already have the numbers appearing over the slugcat's head. Why not just have that start with how many bats you need to eat and countdown? Possibly have the numbers be red?

The issue with that is that numbers, actual characters representing a value, are a very human construct and wouldnt mesh with the animal instinct/intelligence of a slugcat

I like tortoise's point about precise amounts. Considering that so much of the game is procedural, would it be better to make how much you need to eat a dynamic amount, that alters based on how much you ate during your last venture? Rather than needing to eat an exact amount

I still think conveying through animation would work best. Have the slugcat spit up a bat or put it to its mouth and then throw the bat away would be a pretty good indicator that it's full and doesnt want to eat anymore
You have to stop for a few seconds to eat anyway, so the player's attention is likely going to be on the slugcat for those moments. It has a clear set of animations when it eats so any different action will stand out.

That sounds like the right solution right there.

Grab a bat, stop to eat it like normal, then after 5 seconds no eating- then really understand at 10 seconds, that you, for some reason, do not need to (or at the very least can not) eat.

And random thought, weird: once you're full/have reached maximum bat capacity, alter bat AI so they aren't afraid of you and will sometimes fly near you...

Ok no, I know that's bad, because THEY don't know you're full. Buuut, once you grab and release your first bat maybe they could be a tad less scared??? I was just thinking of another way to convey fullness through the game itself. This sounds good, yet I also know it sounds bad

But anyway yeah, totally loving these paragraphs of posts lately :D

[chegr]

What tasks should UI solve? Only hunger display function? You could achive it without any additional graphics. You've done so much work with with shaders, so I can't see why you can't display hunger through vision of a world around slugcat. What happens to a person when he is hungry? Feeling nervous, more sharp but more narrow, more desperate and less sure. It starts to affect how you see everything around you. You can make world look more flat, more desaturated, more chipped, more jaggy, less contrast. Use vignette, shrink view, make it be helping to find food and not very comfortable. You could make slugcat see food more pulsating, warm, needed, so when you are full it wouldn't bother you much. Be a slugcat.

[theEasternDragon]

What tasks should UI solve? Only hunger display function? You could achive it without any additional graphics. You've done so much work with with shaders, so I can't see why you can't display hunger through vision of a world around slugcat. What happens to a person when he is hungry? Feeling nervous, more sharp but more narrow, more desperate and less sure. It starts to affect how you see everything around you. You can make world look more flat, more desaturated, more chipped, more jaggy, less contrast. Use vignette, shrink view, make it be helping to find food and not very comfortable. You could make slugcat see food more pulsating, warm, needed, so when you are full it wouldn't bother you much. Be a slugcat.

  Good idea! I second this. Then again, would it really convey that the slugcat is hungry? And if this is the route that is ultimately taken, could you use it for other sensations, say fear? This would be interesting to play around with. It would be easy to misinterpret. Also, it might interfere with gameplay. Hypothetically, it could also impact the slugcats physical movements as well. Not profoundly, but say, being stunned longer, or not being able to throw rocks as hard, clambering over when you are hanging from a ledge takes slightly longer, etc. Not enough to be frustrating, but noticeable. It would have to be very well executed, however, to keep people from raging at something they don't understand.
 

It seems like anything that conveys the information well is obtrusive, and anything that's subtle doesn't convey the information well.

Above is basically tl:dr. It may not convey it well enough. Opinions everyone?

[chriswearly]

What tasks should UI solve? Only hunger display function? You could achive it without any additional graphics. You've done so much work with with shaders, so I can't see why you can't display hunger through vision of a world around slugcat. What happens to a person when he is hungry? Feeling nervous, more sharp but more narrow, more desperate and less sure. It starts to affect how you see everything around you. You can make world look more flat, more desaturated, more chipped, more jaggy, less contrast. Use vignette, shrink view, make it be helping to find food and not very comfortable. You could make slugcat see food more pulsating, warm, needed, so when you are full it wouldn't bother you much. Be a slugcat.

  Good idea! I second this. Then again, would it really convey that the slugcat is hungry? And if this is the route that is ultimately taken, could you use it for other sensations, say fear? This would be interesting to play around with. It would be easy to misinterpret. Also, it might interfere with gameplay. Hypothetically, it could also impact the slugcats physical movements as well. Not profoundly, but say, being stunned longer, or not being able to throw rocks as hard, clambering over when you are hanging from a ledge takes slightly longer, etc. Not enough to be frustrating, but noticeable. It would have to be very well executed, however, to keep people from raging at something they don't understand.
 

It seems like anything that conveys the information well is obtrusive, and anything that's subtle doesn't convey the information well.

Above is basically tl:dr. It may not convey it well enough. Opinions everyone?

That would be quite interesting. Say only being able to throw objects 1/3 their distance when you're really lethargic. Or climbing poles would take a bit longer. And sometimes while balancing on top of one, or scooting/pulling across some bars you could fall from being tired.

The way the slugcat works/interacts now in the alpha would be when you're perfectly/100% full. But at the stages of greater hunger you become more induced to the groggy/less coordinated conditions.

Man I'm loving this thread :D

[Woodledude]

I was actually thinking about those exact things reading the prevoius posts - Showing the slugcat's hunger and fullness through behavior instead of through aesthetics. However, I don't think starvation should make the game harder. Not only is that frustrating for someone who isn't doing well, it's actually not completely realistic. Sure, an animal gets weaker with starvation, but hunger also can pull out all the psychological stops. I would say that IF we went down the behavior/gameplay route, with the soft penalties for inadequate bat collection, then it should go like this:

3 states (not a spectrum, just states)

Didn't eat enough bats, starving - slower passive movement, faster movement near predators and prey, faster swimming. More aggressive; Rocks thrown harder, travel faster, hit harder and stun longer, etc. Must collect 100% of required bats to survive the next rain, and collect 150% to regain healthiness during next rain.

Ate just enough bats, okay - Normal behavior. If player eats 50% bats, they will be starving after next rain. 100%, they will be normal, 150%, they will become fat.

Ate too many bats, fat - Slower movement, more passive, slower upwards climbing and slides down on vertical poles, harder time swimming. Can land on enemies to stun them, farther fall makes for greater stun. More likely to survive certain injuries, but also more appealing to enemies. Eating less than 50% of bats will cause the slugcat to become starving, 50-100% returns the slugcat to normal, and 150% keeps the slugcat fat.

Obviously I'm just throwing this at the wall, but I imagine this as a way to give players a bit of an easier time actually getting through the game on the first run or two. It's essentially a dynamic difficulty system that is also meant to convey how much you need or needed to eat - Eating too much makes the game harder, but still gives you some interesting options, eating too little makes the game a bit easier, but it also conveys a certain amount of desperation, and eating just enough allows you to resume play normally. In theory. It also makes it harder to obtain high scores, if that's something you're interested in.

 

[Christian]

I don't like that idea of hunger affecting your movement. The consistent results of your actions is one of the foundations of the gameplay. You always know that you can climb at a consistent speed, that you can always grab a pole if you time the grab correctly. You will always jump a certain distance and height, always run at a certain speed. While the ecosystem is dynamic, you can rely on your moveset staying constant, allowing you to plan escapes and attacks accordingly.

So I wouldn't like having those crucial actions affected by hunger

I do like the idea of visual cues/"slugcat vision", but I feel like that might end up like Shelter 2, where the played would be guided by highlighted info rather than exploring on your own

[fylth]

Maybe instead of changing movement, sight or anything else that might affect gameplay the indicator could be tied to when the slugcat is idle. I imagine the player wont just be bombing around at full speed constantly and will have periods of standing around to survey an area or scope out the locals. This time could be used to show hunger through the idle animation, varying between normal (not hungry), slow swaying and contented looking (full, recently eaten) and head hung with sad expression (hungry). This might be a nice way to show the effects of hunger without explicitly telling the player, which would fit with the "show not tell" philosophy the rest of the game follows.