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[theEasternDragon]

Slugcat. Not squirrel, slugcat. Also, might want to read the devlog.

[Christian]

You know, it just kind of hit me that you guys took a random piece of dialogue and audio from a PAX booth and somehow transformed it into awesome music for the soundtrack.

[Hempuli‽]

This is consistently one of the best-looking indie games I've seen! Those strong shadows a few pages back were absolutely fantastic!

[DarkWanderer]

I had an idea the other day that may or may not have already been suggested. There's been discussions in the past as to whether or not there should be a visible timer for when the rain comes. I was thinking back to the backdrops of the out door areas, & how you can see the shadows of clouds crawling along the background. Well, why not have the amount of clouds, as well as the rate at which they move, slowly increasing until the entire background is engulfed in the shadow of the coming storm? This could be a subtle but entirely in game visual cue for when the rain is coming(for out door areas anyway). Has this been suggested already?

[Tuba]

Everytime I see this game it's more beautiful than before... amazing

[jamesprimate]

I had an idea the other day that may or may not have already been suggested. There's been discussions in the past as to whether or not there should be a visible timer for when the rain comes. I was thinking back to the backdrops of the out door areas, & how you can see the shadows of clouds crawling along the background. Well, why not have the amount of clouds, as well as the rate at which they move, slowly increasing until the entire background is engulfed in the shadow of the coming storm? This could be a subtle but entirely in game visual cue for when the rain is coming(for out door areas anyway). Has this been suggested already?

^ oh yes, thats in already! I wonder if its been shown yet actually? here is a shortened version of what it looks like now:



Cloud cycle becomes more intense, then it gets dark, rumbles, becomes obviously dangerous, then downpour.

I definitely think we'll want to improve on that though, especially the "death screen" aspect. Id like to see a more dynamic rain cycle happen, where you actually see some rain in the foreground and background building up while playing, and also some visible back layer fog / wind action.

this is an obviously super crude mockup i did in 5 minutes compositing stock "rain and fog" video:




now think of the two videos combined, plus some foreground rain that fades in and that should give some idea of what im thinking. I mean, the game is called "Rain World", so we really have to nail the rain dont we? BUT! This is sort of polish pass stuff. We have plenty of nuts and bolts hacking, creature design and level building stuff to get through before were there.

One thing we're still SORTA figuring out is how to telegraph the rain cycle death in various nonstandard regions like subterranean, water, aerial, etc. All the ideas are there (a flooding animation, some high winds animation, huge waves, etc etc) but we have yet to actually tackle it, so decisions on any of that might inform how we do the rest.

Anyway, im starting work on the first dark region called "shadow urban" and REALLY STOKED. The darkness mechanic has potential to be even more significant than the water mechanic IMHO, and im soooo glad it looks and works as well as it does already. PRAISE BE TO JOAR.

[Christian]

Can you share what section of the civilization "Shadow Urban" is?

And I'm curious about the thing the other poster asked: will there be backstory or lore? Do you have some story in your head of who built these places and why they're gone now? Like it would be really cool if you could gradually piece together the culture and fate of the past civilization through the environments and backgrounds.

[jamesprimate]

^ oh most definitely. but the experience we're trying to create is something we'd very much like the player to go into blind and make their own connections. so other than possibly alluding to the narrative through technical stuff we show here, we're going to try to keep this a strict spoiler-free zone. the builds wont have any overt narrative content, etc etc.

When we get closer to release im sure we'll tease the opening scenes and drop some hints, but as i mentioned above, were still chopping wood for a good while yet here! for instance i have approx 400 more rooms to do... 

[Christian]

^ oh most definitely. but the experience we're trying to create is something we'd very much like the player to go into blind and make their own connections. so other than possibly alluding to the narrative through technical stuff we show here, we're going to try to keep this a strict spoiler-free zone. the builds wont have any overt narrative content, etc etc.

When we get closer to release im sure we'll tease the opening scenes and drop some hints, but as i mentioned above, were still chopping wood for a good while yet here! for instance i have approx 400 more rooms to do... 

Ah, cool, totally understandable. Just was curious if you were going that route. I remember being blown away by the environmental storytelling in Fallout 3; things like that really elevate an open world and the general experience so much IMO.

[gimymblert]

@JLJac 



It's totally a g-buffer, they can be analogous to multiple texture in which are rendered packed into the channel data for rendering. Above is killzone 2, you can see they use 5 render targets to pass to a deferred shader in which they encode data just like you.

You use 2 "render target" (one real time for sprite second one is loaded not really a render target per see) using the grab pass as way to get active objects layered on the baked level data. That's smart!


BTW you are way better than me at applying those concept on code lol!

[fall_ark]

Speaking of narrative, there's one idea I've been playing a bit in my head. (I think it's back when we were discussing that incoming rain wasn't really obvious to the player.)

Joar mentioned that RW is supposed to be more animal-like and would rather not let the slugcat find narrative text in the world (which would be weird). But the narrative doesn't have to come from the slugcat. We can simply say that there are tons of security cameras scattered around the planet, and the game (or maybe just the tutorial part) is seen through a video feed thousands of miles away. This way we can introduce many background info without breaking the immersion.

For example. The tutorial starts with a flicker of the screen, with text narration stating that a lone space farer was just passing by this long abandoned planet ravaged by rain, and although he knows little about the civilization, he has found a way to hack into the video feed and watch some wild life through the cameras. He can then either introduce certain creatures (not necessarily by name, just that they might look like predators or prey), remark about their characteristics, muse about the industrial structures and the environment etc.. Depending on design, the security cams could have built-in rain warnings. Displaying a countdown when rain is approaching.

The best part, I guess, is that this method can actually justify the platformer view regardless of the slugcat's line of sight, i.e. we always see the entire room and can see creatures moving inside the shortcuts. Maybe even remark that the slugcat seems to have an excellent sixth-sense or spatial awareness.

Another thing is that the cam can justify certain difficulty-related options. Like the rain warning counter, or maybe alternative size of light radius/showing silhouette in dark levels, etc. Just let these stay off by default.

[Torchkas]

Slugcat. Not squirrel, slugcat. Also, might want to read the devlog.

I couldn't find a thing.

[Teod]

But the narrative doesn't have to come from the slugcat.

I strongly disagree. That would just destroy the animalistic nature of the game. It's not just about the main character being animal, but also about the player getting into that role. I would go as far as to say that any text other than end credits (maybe also options menu and multiplayer scoreboard) should be purged with fire with rain and replaced with pictures. UI should be minimalistic with as much information as possible conveyed through the environment and characters. The basic tutorial could be done with thought-bubbles above the character's head, but even solutions like that should be avoided when possible.

This discussion is conveniently timed with REroll's review of Shelter 2, which discusses the game's shortcomings with this exact animalistic feeling we want from the Rain World.

[Christian]

In regards to text, what I wouldn't mind would be something like faded art (children paintings? old graffiti? urban "cave drawings"?) in the environment. Faded from age and weather, but legible just enough for the player to make out. And it would only be needed for learning the controls.

Other stuff like your objectives and animal behavior should be able to pieced together from gameplay and observation. Any kind of narrative could be presented through environmental storytelling.

[JLJac]

It's always been my intention that the story of rain world is that of the character, rather than that of the world, and that it is produced by the game engine rather than through writing. If you decide to take down a Vulture, and actually succeed, that is the story. If you save pups, or don't, or befriend some creature or kill some creature, that is the story.

That said, we do love our environments and of course we have ideas about what's what in the world, and we would like to try some "environmental storytelling." But don't expect to get some super clear linear array of events spelled out to you haha, we'll be hinting here and there but you'll have to do most of the work yourself.

The main character is a creature that's somewhere on the edge between animal and human thinking, meaning that it can only almost make sense of what it sees around it. It can maybe understand that the symbols on the wall bear meaning, but it can't understand the meaning. It can see that one machine connects to another through pipes, but it can't decipher the functionality much beyond that. It can guess that this big place might have served some big purpose, but it can never quite reach a clear understanding of that purpose. We want to mirror this experience in the player.

Man, NYC subway rats are such an awesome source of inspiration! It's exactly the thing - they live in a huge weird environment which they have no idea about why it looks like it does, and they mind their own business. I saw one yesterday that had its home in a drain pipe between the tracks, coming out between trains to look for cheetos and whatnot people might have thrown down there. Does the rat understand what a drain pipe is? Maybe some incredibly vague notion is in there, but a full understanding of what's going on will always be beyond reach. Still the pipe works as a place to live, and the intentions of the almighty creatures that once created the drain pipe isn't all that relevant to the rat at the end of the day - cheetos are.

So, if the back story is the complete architectural blueprint of a subway station, expect to understand about as much of it as a rat living between the tracks of said station I'm joking, but yeah ~ we won't spoon feed you any back story for sure. You'll have to work really hard to piece stuff together, and even then you won't have a complete picture. Mystery is a huge part of the appeal, and if the entire back story was available on the internet a week after release that would sort of ruin the experience. Instead you'll get some scattered pieces to make your mind wander by itself 

Oh, another thing - Rain World isn't a planet lol  Or I guess it might probably be on a planet, just as Lord of The Rings, Sex And The City, Zelda and Frankenstein's Monster are probably technically on a planet, but just as in those examples the planet aspect isn't really relevant at all. Rain World is more of a fantasy world or a dream world, not somewhere you can go in a space ship ~

[oldblood]

Man, NYC subway rats are such an awesome source of inspiration! It's exactly the thing - they live in a huge weird environment which they have no idea about why it looks like it does, and they mind their own business. I saw one yesterday that had its home in a drain pipe between the tracks, coming out between trains to look for cheetos and whatnot people might have thrown down there. Does the rat understand what a drain pipe is? Maybe some incredibly vague notion is in there, but a full understanding of what's going on will always be beyond reach. Still the pipe works as a place to live, and the intentions of the almighty creatures that once created the drain pipe isn't all that relevant to the rat at the end of the day - cheetos are.

This was incredibly well-said. You could have a future in writing even if you're game wont have any...

[Christian]

I love that. I love everything about that

The way you articulate your vision is just as interesting and engaging as seeing GIFs.

[jamesprimate]

i see huge potential for a Cheetos® brand rain world DLC tie in! lemme get on the phone...

This discussion is conveniently timed with REroll's review of Shelter 2, which discusses the game's shortcomings with this exact animalistic feeling we want from the Rain World.

OHHHHHH this is a great link, thanks. i havent played any games with this sort of mechanic before, so really cool to hear such a passionate defense of that flavor. the reviewers perspective lines up exactly with my own.

as for UI and text, we're definitely going to have as little of that as possible and NONE if we can. definitely none that is in the game world. threats of predators and food scarcity should be motivation enough to push the player into the world without needing any real need for hand-holding or "go here!" signs, and once they are in it we can do all manner of things.

Right now there is only one instance of text where we dont have a solid solution for, and thats indicating to the player how many bats / foods you need for the next hibernation cycle and how many you have eaten. right now its just a little number that pops up, and while that does the job (and could be considered an acceptable design compromise as the easiest possible solution), i'd prefer a more stylish means if we can. but again, thats polish stuff down the line.

as for tutorial, im confident that we can just design early room challenges / set pieces that teach the basic controls and experience (this is a pole, you must learn to climb it to get out of this room. this is a shortcut, its the only way to the top so figure it out, etc etc) and let the player work through it. Pretty much every region adds new mechanics to learn, so the beginning rooms of each have a set of movement puzzles to introduce you to what will be needed to progress. Whats nice about having a big interconnected map is that we'll have multiple paths through the world, so if a player cant deal with the mechanics of one region, they can just find another way!

showing the most recent build at PAX was cool because for the first time we could actually just hand the controller to someone without a word and see how they made do. and even in this unfinished state it seemed like pretty much anyone who was willing to sit with it for more than a minute could figure it out just fine, which was a bit of a relief let me tell you!

[Christian]

Not sure if it could work, but how does this sound:

When you leave a shelter in search of food, the slugcat starts off a bit scrawny and the body could have a dull greyish tone. As you eat, the slugcat would grow fuller and whiter, until you reach X amount and the slugcat will shake its head and not eat another or spit out the food, indicating that it's eaten enough.

Or something along those lines

[Crispy75]

Not sure if it could work, but how does this sound:

When you leave a shelter in search of food, the slugcat starts off a bit scrawny and the body could have a dull greyish tone. As you eat, the slugcat would grow fuller and whiter, until you reach X amount and the slugcat will shake its head and not eat another or spit out the food, indicating that's it's eaten enough.

Or something along those lines

Reminds me of the scarf in Journey