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[JLJac]

How about this?

[fall_ark]

Regarding adrenaline rush: the trigger could be the down button when you are already crouching/crawling. It's a common "charge" button in platformer games, and visually It could be like a cat tightening its muscles and arching its back, readying itself to pounce. It would still need some way to let the player know clearly when and if the adrenaline rush is available. Simply not allowing the slugcat to enter such a "ready" state might be a bit confusing to players.

[deroesi]

well, the last one if you want to go with a ladybug alike animal but if it's supposed to be dangerous, I'd go with the segmented one.

best

[Christian]

Could you randomize the patterns like you did with the look of the lizards? Some could be plain, some could have different patterns

[jamesprimate]

^^^^ into that. Christian knows whats up

oh also there was some talk about having 2 classes of cicadas, one that stay around cicada nests and one that hunts, so perhaps that could come into play with the patterning as well.

[Teod]

The other move was suggested by ~~ I think it was Christian, and is something very natural I can't believe I didn't think of myself - the slugcat just stops pressing against the walls and drops down a chute. You trigger it by pressing down+jump, and the slugcat will continue falling for as long as you hold the down button.

I disagree. I think the fall should continue as long as the jump button pressed. That way the continuous descend with a few short drops is achieved with continuous press of down with a few jump taps. That would be a more natural solution.

How about this?

How about this?


Angryface!

And I agree, they should be procedural. I don't think there should be a big variety of different patterns, but a little bit of variation would be really nice.

[Christian]

Perhaps the patterns could resemble vulture skulls. Kind of how some moths have patterns that resemble owls to scare off predators

[DarkWanderer]

I like the idea of them being a distinct creature though, them bearing a resemblance to vultures may make people think they're some how related, because not everyone is going to draw the moth/owl connection. In fact I probably just learned of that right now thanks to you.

[Christian]

I like the idea of them being a distinct creature though, them bearing a resemblance to vultures may make people think they're some how related, because not everyone is going to draw the moth/owl connection. In fact I probably just learned of that right now thanks to you.

Nature is cool like that

That caterpillar mimics a snake to scare off predators

But yeah, that's true. People could get confused. Although considering how the vulture has tentacle-like manibals and limbs, maybe the two are related species.
This thing is related to elephants and manatees, so nature has a weird way of branching off throughout evolution

[JLJac]

Regarding adrenaline rush: the trigger could be the down button when you are already crouching/crawling. It's a common "charge" button in platformer games, and visually It could be like a cat tightening its muscles and arching its back, readying itself to pounce. It would still need some way to let the player know clearly when and if the adrenaline rush is available. Simply not allowing the slugcat to enter such a "ready" state might be a bit confusing to players.

Yep, was thinking along those lines as well. There could be a sound while holding the button that increases in pitch or something, so you hear that some sort of charging is going on, and then a sound cue when you actually reach the adrenaline stuff. I have a bit of a palette change when in adrenaline mode, the palette is desaturated a bit, so you should be able to understand when it has actually happened.

Problem is that you'd most likely want to activate it in the middle of a hectic situation where you don't have the time to sit down for 2 seconds. That could be an interesting risk/reward factor perhaps, you have to try to estimate if the situation will be dangerous and activate the adrenaline before going in. However I don't want it to be frustrating because you feel that you waste all of your charges and never get to use them when you'd actually want to.

I disagree. I think the fall should continue as long as the jump button pressed. That way the continuous descend with a few short drops is achieved with continuous press of down with a few jump taps. That would be a more natural solution.

Good idea, I'll try this out and see what works best 

This is a good look!

Procedural is cool, but I don't really know if it fits for a swarming creature? Bees etc all look the same, if they had their individual patterns they wouldn't really look like social insects, more like a haphazard band of bandits. That would be really cool for the yellow lizards though, which are also lizards so it'll come really easily. For these I think subtle color and size variations will probably be enough. Also... I've got to get a move on 

I've drawn it in 9 angles now, and think it's looking quite good:



Smaller than you think looking at it in scale 1:1!

I think I'm gonna roll plain, they already have quite a lot going on visually towards the bottom of the shape, and the wings will fold up over the body when sitting to add some interesting stuff there as well. RW's art style is heavily dependent on flat color surfaces, so I don't want to do too much with patterns etc on small critters like this or the pixels will become jumbled. For a larger creature like the vulture that would be really cool though - when doing the individual stuff for the vulture I'll def look into some random patterns.

[Woodledude]

Procedural is cool, but I don't really know if it fits for a swarming creature? Bees etc all look the same -snip-

You're definitely right about this, colonies should share colors or patterns. However, I might suggest that, were you to do different colonies, you have different aesthetics for those - Possibly have them be competing colonies, with different aesthetics and different dens. That being said, you've mentioned a lot of problems with them having patterns at all, so grain of salt for that suggestion. 

[fall_ark]

Is gradient colour a straight no? I kinda always want to see a black/grey gradient setup when I see the black/red mockups. Of course the actual color isn't decided yet, so I'm just throwing this out there.

Speaking of giving it more of an insect feel, the metallic surface of certain green beetles looks very, very cool.

[Crispy75]

If no. of bats eaten = no. of adrenaline boosts available, then at this point I think you have to have some UI to keep track of things. Even if it's just two rows of dots. It's too much information to communicate indirectly.

[vitorlanna]

In the subject of a diegetic interface of number of bats... A possibility is the Slugcat having stripes along its tail or body. The stripes can be a darker color when he hasn't eaten and become lighter once he does, and the number of stripes can be equal to number of bats he needs to eat.

I don't know if it's a good solution since it affects the look of the main character, which is pretty iconic of the game, but as I didn't see anyone suggest it yet... It's pretty non-intrusive and clear, I think.

[tortoiseandcrow]

Regarding adrenaline rush: the trigger could be the down button when you are already crouching/crawling. It's a common "charge" button in platformer games, and visually It could be like a cat tightening its muscles and arching its back, readying itself to pounce. It would still need some way to let the player know clearly when and if the adrenaline rush is available. Simply not allowing the slugcat to enter such a "ready" state might be a bit confusing to players.

Yep, was thinking along those lines as well. There could be a sound while holding the button that increases in pitch or something, so you hear that some sort of charging is going on, and then a sound cue when you actually reach the adrenaline stuff. I have a bit of a palette change when in adrenaline mode, the palette is desaturated a bit, so you should be able to understand when it has actually happened.



Problem is that you'd most likely want to activate it in the middle of a hectic situation where you don't have the time to sit down for 2 seconds. That could be an interesting risk/reward factor perhaps, you have to try to estimate if the situation will be dangerous and activate the adrenaline before going in. However I don't want it to be frustrating because you feel that you waste all of your charges and never get to use them when you'd actually want to.

An inbetween solution might be tying the "ready state" to predator proximity while still having the mode be manually triggered. The adrenaline charges up automatically the closer a predator is. That way you get an audio-visual cue that you have a charge, are also able to trigger adrenaline mode during a more hectic situation, and the mode replicates the kind of tension the player is likely to be feeling. You've mentioned having the music tied to "threat level" - perhaps this could work a similar way?

If no. of bats eaten = no. of adrenaline boosts available, then at this point I think you have to have some UI to keep track of things. Even if it's just two rows of dots. It's too much information to communicate indirectly.

Though I'm all for having a purely diegetic UI, I'm inclined to agree, now that how many bats you eat means two different things (unless you don't necessarily care if the player knows exactly how many charges they have left). Perhaps a menu button that brings up a HUD with the two rows of dots? That way checking your status is a deliberate action to pause the game and take stock, rather than being part of your ongoing experience.

[tortoiseandcrow]

Unless unless - you only get one adrenaline boost charge, and it is when you have eaten enough bats!

[jamesprimate]

as much as i love the concept, the diagetic UI question always seems to create significantly more problems than it solves. Just for the sake of testing, Joar did a UI mockup of something simple and abstract, which really fits the aesthetic style and conveys all the game info pretty much flawlessly at a glance (even for multiplayer!)

I think were going to hold out on it for a bit just in case a seamless in-game solution falls in our laps, but its nice to have a solid backup plan all ready to go 

[tortoiseandcrow]

Joar is a sweet designer, so I bet that UI is hell of elegant.

[plauk]

...if you save the life of an individual, that individual might stop hunting you...

Oh oh oh... or, if you protect a lizard from enough creatures, it would not just become neutral, but would actively befriend you, and protect you from other creatures. Imagine turning an enemy into an ally through persistent acts of kindness! Isn't that sort of how wolves became dogs?

[oahda]

...if you save the life of an individual, that individual might stop hunting you...

Oh oh oh... or, if you protect a lizard from enough creatures, it would not just become neutral, but would actively befriend you, and protect you from other creatures. Imagine turning an enemy into an ally through persistent acts of kindness! Isn't that sort of how wolves became dogs?

The details are unclear. Knock yourself out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_domestic_dog