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[Christian]

Long time reader (before kickstarter), backer and first-time commenter there

I'd vote for keeping blogging in the same way. If that's what good for your productivity, you should write just what you feel you need to.

And even if there would be something that is in “spoilery” territory, Rain World is such a rich, err, world, and you post so many awesome things that it is hard to remember everything that is there, haha. I totally forgot there were garbage worms, for example. And there would always a lot of unexpected interactions of all the creatures and mechanics you put in the game. So even after reading everything you can say about Rain World, when we'd get the game in our hands we would still have that enormous living world with creatures interacting with each other creating situations you'll never describe at this forum

I have to agree with that. Reading about creatures or even seeing GIFs doesn't come close to seeing and experiencing a vulture or watching species interact in the actual game. I've played the alpha, a lot, so I say that from experience

[Woodledude]

Something along the lines of:

* There should be at least one region we know nothing about (themes, mechanics, creatures, location in the world, etc).
* In every known region there should be at least one creature we know nothing about (looks, mechanics, behavior, etc).
* Every known creature should have at least one mechanic or behavior we know nothing about. For instance, if you'll ever come around to that knocking the mask off a vulture thing, don't tell us that you did, how it's done and what it does.

Down with something along the lines of this. If you do decide to do this, don't tell us what you're keeping secret, either 

[Caspar2000]

Seeing the evolution of the game, world, creatures and creators is fascinating an beautiful. I have not played the alpha because I missed the kickstarter, but in my imagination the game will contain mostly of the interations and moments, and these you cannot spoil with a gif. I vote for a simple cards on the table. =D

[yanimstudio]

Really impresive for your devlog! Congratulations!

[jamesP]

Just wanted to pitch in and say I love how this project is going. I backed the kickstarter and love seeing it grow little by little.

Also, guys, seriously, your AI is *incredible*.

[oldblood]

Like everyone else has said, keep the devlogs flowing as-is. You guys are doing awesome. Reason why it was voted best devlog two years in a row...

[Yale]

I've loved this devlog for years, in its current form it's great so keep going with it the same as before, unless you really feel that a different way for updating us would be best.

[tortoiseandcrow]

One of the reasons why I asked about your thinking behind set-pieces was that I was curious about whether you intended to have scripted events, or whether there was some other kind of process you had in mind. Scripted events can be spoiled, but I don't think that emergent processes are necessarily so vulnerable to being drained of their surprise. From my end, I'm very interested in the cards on the table insofar as anything dynamic or emergent goes, but would prefer to be kept in the dark where one-off events or encounters are concerned (though it would be really interesting to have some insight into at least one of those as well, just to see the thought-process behind it). I'd always imagined that there would be some fraction of the game that you'd simply not tell us about, much like Teod outlined.

That said, this is your devlog, and since it is as much a productivity tool for yourself as it is a window for the curious, I think you should approach things as you think would serve you best. I don't think the game risks losing any of its fun if we go in with all this background knowledge, since as Christian points out, there's a pretty difference in experience!

[jamesprimate]

good feedback and questions!

  I'm very interested in the cards on the table insofar as anything dynamic or emergent goes, but would prefer to be kept in the dark where one-off events or encounters are concerned (though it would be really interesting to have some insight into at least one of those as well, just to see the thought-process behind it). I'd always imagined that there would be some fraction of the game that you'd simply not tell us about, much like Teod outlined.

this sounds about right. think its worth a discussion on our end about where specifically to draw the line, but probably being vague about a couple of regions and a few beasties and omitting a few others that might drop too obvious of hints would do the trick. as so much of the game is about observation and creature interaction, spelling out "this does this" would be a shame, but thats probably easy to avoid as well.

One of the reasons why I asked about your thinking behind set-pieces was that I was curious about whether you intended to have scripted events, or whether there was some other kind of process you had in mind. Scripted events can be spoiled, but I don't think that emergent processes are necessarily so vulnerable to being drained of their surprise.

interesting question! most of what we've done so far has been to organize the room geography, creature den placement, etc., in such a way that certain set piece-like outcomes are likely to occur. a simple example would be set-piece where you are first exposed to a new lizard type by having a pack of them chase you along a long bridge. easily done by having the lizards access to the player terrain be far enough away onscreen that the player has both visual alert and a running start before being in danger. it wont work perfectly, and sometimes not at all, but when it does it has a similar effect as scripting 4 lizards to spawn behind the player or something, etc etc. how feasible this is on a larger scale, we'll see. there are already plans for tools to make individual creatures more or less territorial, and then specify that territory, so that will definitely help structure set pieces while still being fuzzy enough to make the experiences unique.

a trade-off on all this that we have to be cognizant of is that there will certainly be people who get unfair / bad / boring experiences from us leaning on the cosmic dice roll, and they'll be like "this game is broken". so balancing the emergent with the static so its at least generally functional will be some WORK.

[chriswearly]

By James, on Clyp: "RW_NA25" https://clyp.it/thqyhkkh

Beautiful noise. Smooth. Like shaving a log of wood: but muffled. No, like the sound of waves crashing, and your ears are filled with water. All the while the sun chimes notes in your eyes: Sings a melody of peace. This is the sound of contemplation, relaxation, and meditation. And most of all, fully-submersed exploration.

[JLJac]

Hi! Hope everyone had a nice weekend!

So, from what I'm picking up here most people would like to keep the updates pretty much as they are. I think that means that we are not doing some total devlog blackout. Maybe we can walk some kind of golden... not middle road, but two-thirds-road? Like, I devlog pretty much everything I do, but if there is something small I think would be particularly fun to find out for yourself (and which is small enough to not be a big project that strangely keeps me quiet for several days), I omit it. Also, we want to include a lot of what we call "set piece rooms", which will be a special room with custom art and maybe a few lines of code that creates some interesting visual or interaction in that room. The reason for having these is that we have this huge world, and if you go exploring you should obviously be rewarded occasionally by finding something interesting. To me it seems like these could be a pretty perfect fit for something to keep quiet about - they're there specifically for the joy of exploration, and they are not mega projects that will take forever.

 

* There should be at least one region we know nothing about (themes, mechanics, creatures, location in the world, etc).
* In every known region there should be at least one creature we know nothing about (looks, mechanics, behavior, etc).
* Every known creature should have at least one mechanic or behavior we know nothing about. For instance, if you'll ever come around to that knocking the mask off a vulture thing, don't tell us that you did, how it's done and what it does.

Number one and three here are sort of viable! For regions, it's James making those, and though he does use the devlog he doesn't as much as I am, so it would maybe not be too big a difference for him to just do a region sneakily without letting anyone know. Number three is sort of already happening a little bit, as I mess about with the creatures I sometimes add little features and interactions that never make it to the devlog. It's not that systematic (one per creature) but there are a few things going on with most creatures that are not on the devlog, small and very small. I could perhaps be a little bit more deliberate about this! For number two, a creature is generally at least a week-long project to implement, and the region to creature ratio is currently around 1:1... Meaning that this would basically be me making an entire new RW in secret, pushing the release twice as far and create devlog blackouts for half of that time haha! But good suggestions, I'll keep this in mind 

Update 425
Puuuuuuuh it's been a very region gate weekend indeed. Here they are:


(click to expand)

The central gate mechanism will look pretty much the same for all gates, but out to the edges there will be some room for James to add a little bit of individual flavor, and maybe hint at the regions the gate is bordering to. This one is Vanilla though, why it's just plain metal on the sides, real gates bordering to regions might look a little more interesting in those areas.

And a few gifs showing the walking through them. First of all, the gate closing behind you:



Mandatory sauna:



And passing through to the other side. Ignore the cheesy palette swap at the end of this, I still haven't entirely figured out how the palette swap between regions should work, so I just slapped on a ... palette swap. Gotta come up with something better for that.



Also, James and I have been talking about how these are going to work gameplay-wise a little bit. You might notice the water cistern up top - it's more visible when it's empty after you have passed through the gate:


(click to expand)

The gates are powered by the water in that cistern, is the idea. It's not visible in the gif because I had to crop it, but there is always water running as the doors are working to make this seem plausible. The gameplay implication of this is that you can only pass through a region gate once per rain cycle. You can technically go back to the same region twice, but you'll have to circle around and find some other way in - each specific gate only opens once. When the rain returns the water replenishes. The reason why we think this could be an interesting game mechanic is because it somewhat increases your stakes. When finding a new region you will naturally experience the excitement of exploration from entering a new area, and the idea is that this will be enhanced by making the experience a little bit nervous as well. Because with the gate shutting behind you, you don't have the option to just dip a toe in the new region and opt out if it wasn't to your liking. Instead you will have to find food and shelter (or at least a way back) in the new alien region. Most of the regions actually have a shelter and an easily accessible swarm room close by the gate, but maybe not all... So walking through one of these gates will really be equal to throwing yourself into the unknown. Hopefully this nervous feeling will be enhanced by the 40 seconds of gate mechanisms clicking and clacking and you being steamed like a dumpling, haha!

I'm really happy region gates are coming together, but there are still a couple of technicalities to be taken care of. One thing I have no idea how to solve is what to do with a creature that followed you into the gate room but ended up on the outside of the gate. Then we have a realized creature with an abstract representation that should actually be hanging out in another region from the room which the realized creature is in o__0 Going to be real interesting how I solve that one!

[Christian]

That's a cool idea. Adds another element of risk to the exploration. The gate animation looks great

Since you have the cistern emptying out, water flowing from one area to another, could that open the door for stuff like flooding and rising water in other rooms and regions?

[gimymblert]

mmmm the idea that the gate open to a single animal type (implied?), in world where some animal are ambiguously half machine, and where machine hint at the disappearance of creatures with advanced intelligence, does that mean slugcat is the remnant of those advance creatures as the gates and machinery respond to him? Was slugcat the weapon they use to bring down the world /stretch speculation

[Teod]

By James, on Clyp: "RW_NA25" https://clyp.it/thqyhkkh

Beautiful noise. Smooth. Like shaving a log of wood: but muffled. No, like the sound of waves crashing, and your ears are filled with water. All the while the sun chimes notes in your eyes: Sings a melody of peace. This is the sound of contemplation, relaxation, and meditation. And most of all, fully-submersed exploration.

Those tracks remind me of... Silent Hill. I know that series is known for beautiful melodic music, but there are a few industrial-ish noize tracks too. They are really good for setting the right mood.

And passing through to the other side. Ignore the cheesy palette swap at the end of this, I still haven't entirely figured out how the palette swap between regions should work, so I just slapped on a ... palette swap. Gotta come up with something better for that.

You didn't figure out how it should work from visual (how it should look)  or technical (how to make it look that way) standpoint? If visual, I think it's kinda obvious: You have a room clearly divided into two parts with at least one closed gate at all times. So it should be one palette on one side of that gate and another - on another. And the part that transitions between regions changes color when the gate to the new region is opening, symbolizing the air and the smell of the new area. Add a sniffing animation to that moment for a little more charm. And maybe even some visual steam-like effect.

Hopefully this nervous feeling will be enhanced by the 40 seconds of gate mechanisms clicking and clacking and you being steamed like a dumpling, haha!

40 seconds? Do you take two showers there? That may be a bit of a waste of time, especially if rain cycles are planned to be short.

[jamesprimate]

these gates are going to be rad. the shelters added so much to the mood, so its exciting to imagine experiencing these for the first time as a player, not knowing whats going on. will be so cool and moody! and im quite looking forward to sound designing the hell out of them :]

past few days ive been working on the first dark region, and this talk about spoilers has made me realize that pretty much all of the dark stuff on my end will be fairly spoiler-proof already. screenshots wont show much other than a white blob, so unless we want to do a video literally running through a room or something, it'll just have to be left to the experience. which is good! but also might make for some dry spots in my contributions to the devlog tho

[SolarLune]

Yeah, this is super well-done! Great opening and closing animation!

[mokesmoe]

Moving the palette swap to during the steam might look a bit better.

You could also just hide it in the screen transition. You would have to make the region gate be assigned to one of the area's palettes, or you could just make it keep the last palette used? You could also just give the gate rooms their own separate palette.

[Woodledude]

Hi! Hope everyone had a nice weekend!

So, from what I'm picking up here most people would like to keep the updates pretty much as they are... Also, we want to include a lot of what we call "set piece rooms", which will be a special room with custom art and maybe a few lines of code that creates some interesting visual or interaction in that room... they're there specifically for the joy of exploration, and they are not mega projects that will take forever.

Definitely think this is a great idea, and I like the balance you've proposed. I can have my cake, and eat it too!

Also, region gates are totally cool! 40 seconds does seem like a lot, but it's a nice balance, I feel. It definitely makes going into another region a big decision. My only gripe about the one-way thing... What if a first-time player discovers one of these right near the end of the rain cycle? I mean, most players might be a bit intimidated by the thing, and avoid it when it starts getting dark. I suppose new playtesters will have to decide if any action should be taken. However, if it is an issue in need of resolution, perhaps they should deactivate somehow when the sun goes down? For instance, the water in the cistern ices over?

But yeah, super cool. I love the needlessly complicated animation there 

[jamesprimate]

My only gripe about the one-way thing... What if a first-time player discovers one of these right near the end of the rain cycle? I mean, most players might be a bit intimidated by the thing, and avoid it when it starts getting dark. I suppose new playtesters will have to decide if any action should be taken. However, if it is an issue in need of resolution, perhaps they should deactivate somehow when the sun goes down? For instance, the water in the cistern ices over?

i had the idea to have the water level of the cistern visually decrease over the course of the cycle, acting almost as a clock. you can go in and have an easy visual indication of if the gate trip is worth it, or if you need to rush back and find shelter. as the doors are (we assume) powered by the water, the gates simply wont open after a certain point in the rain cycle when the cistern is empty. shelters will generally be nearby though, so while it may be a scramble, it wont be *completely* unfair if you find a near empty/nonfunctional gate.

[Woodledude]

i had the idea to have the water level of the cistern visually decrease over the course of the cycle -snip-

I like that idea Perhaps with some dripping water, or gentle steam, to indicate the water loss? To let players know that there's a bit of a time limit. They'll probably have to experiment with it anyway, I just like little details like that. The observant may even be able to suss out the inner workings immediately.