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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsMonstrus monstrus - monster breeding and management sim (FKA Monster Husbandry)
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whistlerat
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« Reply #40 on: September 06, 2017, 07:06:35 AM »

Haha yes, the swirly thing is a portal! It's a bit of a feature remnant from when the design was younger but I'm leaning towards keeping it, it exists in order to provide a means of progression between the individual maps. The idea will be that you 'unlock' areas in the map in order to reach the camp zones and the portals, and reaching a portal will unlock another map. I've put it in the camp 'cause... well mostly because I want structures to exist there in the future and so it's just placeholder! If the portals stay, they'll be animated to look more otherworld-ly to hopefully make their identity more obvious, but I'm not married to keeping them at all.

I could, for example, just make the map one massive sprawling one that you traverse by completing challenges and building camps... not sure how well my map-management algorithm would perform with something that large. Nor what it might look like to scroll. Might have to try it and find out!

And the map itself isn't based on anywhere in particular, it's just randomly created! I'm hoping to find a way to generate maps like them in the future... building it was a time-consuming headache and I'll have to hand-make all future ones the same way if I can't find a better way.
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« Reply #41 on: September 06, 2017, 09:36:23 AM »

Just seeing this for the first time - after reading through the past logs, I'm really impressed with the time and thought you've put into the genetic systems, etc! I think you're on the way to something really cool here. I also like the shift in game design from something more typically violent and destructive, to something a bit different. That is a trend I've been seeing quite a bit of - but it's by no means played out, or overused yet.

Really interested to see where this goes!  Beer!
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« Reply #42 on: September 07, 2017, 05:21:08 AM »

Thank you! Grin I really enjoy writing these logs and it's always nice to hear that someone else is too. Sometimes I wonder if I'm too focused on the design and not on technical stuff compared to other devlogs that I like to follow, though I do have a half-finished log about texture flattening lurking in my file system somewhere...



Just wanted to resurrect this from the bottom of the last page, 'cause I'd really like some outsider input on the whole renaming issue Hand Thumbs Up Right

I kinda liked the Guide to Monster Husbandry thing which I had a variant of early on, but have been toying with something along the lines of Domesticating Monstrus Monstrus, or maybe just Monstrus Monstrus (which would be the 'scientific' name for these creatures).
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« Reply #43 on: September 08, 2017, 04:17:50 PM »

Monstrus Monstrus definitely has the most character and impact, I think. And it's kind of...cute? I prefer this options over the longer ones!
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« Reply #44 on: September 23, 2017, 11:34:26 AM »

Monstrus Monstrus definitely has the most character and impact, I think. And it's kind of...cute? I prefer this options over the longer ones!

Duly noted, I'm still thinking about it but leaning pretty heavily towards Monstrus Monstrus Hand Thumbs Up Right



0.17 Join Requests is done, and it took... a few evenings. It was a fairly straightforward feature to add, to be fair, but it still turns out that things can go pretty quickly when you're not re-writing and overhauling everything all the time! This version can be summed up by the fact that wild monsters can now want to join your camps, which is simple but has the lovely side effect of completing the core gameplay loop Giggle

This means that it's all playable and there's even progress involved with traversing and unlocking the map! But a game needs interesting decisions and that's what it lacks right now, because the wild monsters can be anything (whereas in the future the wildlife for each camp will be limited to a subset of genes) and there are no penalties or restrictions right now on... anything, really.

But you can get wild monsters, use them to complete challenges and unlock new areas and build new camps, breed them with each other, and do it all over again with the babies!  Cheesy

Here's a list of everything added with this version:

  • Monsters have a happiness score which is affected by succeeding or failing at a challenge
  • Camps have an attractiveness score which reflects the average happiness of monsters who live there
  • At the end of each turn, per camp, there is a chance that a wild monster will initiate a join request. The higher the attractiveness of the camp, the higher the likelihood of a request
  • Join requests are visible in the camp view, where you can accept or deny them. Accepting them prompts you to name the monster before letting it move into that camp
  • A request will expire if not responded to within a certain number of turns
  • Monsters can emote! This will be used a lot more in the future, but for now monsters will show their appreciation for an accepted join request with a little love heart
  • Clicking on a monster in the camp view shows their details
  • You can rename any monster at any time via the details view
  • You can move a monster to another camp via the details view


Like normal I'm not sure what's next, but I'm tempted to make saving functionality a higher priority. The game is getting just complex enough that, even with super-cheating-dev-powers, I need to perform a lot of repetitive actions just to get to a state where I can look at monsters in a camp because of the natural restrictions of the game... like requiring you to have a camp before you can have monsters, for example, and getting a camp requires going to the map to build one. And I could stop being lazy and build a fast-forward tool which does all that at the click of a button buuuut it's probably a better use of my time to just implement saving and then test off of specific saves. Will see!
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« Reply #45 on: January 09, 2018, 12:58:55 PM »

Happy new year! I'm not normally one for resolutions, but I want 2018 to be different. We're only 9 days in, but I have a 100% unbroken no-zero-day productivity streak so far, and I'm determined to keep it that way. On with the devlog!

The game is now officially called Monstrus monstrus, and has a first version of a logo:


0.18 - Structures is also complete, and took me about a week to finish. After so long away from the project, it felt SO GOOD to be working on it again that I spent the first day just finding and fixing bugs to give myself a chance to get back into it, remember where the project was at, and decide where to go next. The camp view was the last thing that I did and seeing the monsters bounce around is so cute that I just had to keep working on that area. Buildable structures for the camp was on my roadmap and seemed like a good place to start.

The motivation behind it was that I want looking after the monsters to be a central theme of the game, and there will be a lot of different ways to facilitate that. Making sure that they have objects and buildings appropriate to their needs in their living space is one of those ways. Actually building the 'monster needs' functionality is still on the roadmap, but there is a lot of new problems associated with placing things in camps that I felt I could address ahead of time, so that plugging in monster needs afterwards would be easier. Namely, placing structures would affect the monster roaming behaviour in two major ways: 1) monsters shouldn't be able to walk through physical objects, and 2) monsters should be able to make movement decisions based on their surroundings.

1) Monsters exist on a point in a 2D place, and when they move, they pick a random spot in that plane and then just make a beeline towards it. If there are obstacles in the place, monsters should not be able to pick destinations inside of the space take up by an obstacle, and they should try to walk around obstacles in their way.
2) Certain objects will be appealing to monsters for different reasons. Until needs are implemented, this has to stay very simple for now, so I gave each structure an 'attractiveness' value. The more attractive a structure, the more likely it is that a monster will want to go walk near to it.

With these basic tenants in place, I was able to get the pathfinding working quite nicely. This debug view shows the direct way to the monster's ultimate destination in red, but its next waypoint in green. Each time the monster reaches its waypoint (but not destination), it places another waypoint. If there is nothing between the monster and its destination, the destination is the next waypoint.


But you can place structures while monsters are roaming around, so I made sure that the act of placing one down forced all moving monsters to re-evaluate their next waypoint:


All well and good so far! To let monsters care about attractive structures, I altered the 'make a movement decision' part of the monster's roaming code to include a chance to consider a random structure in their camp. They then had a chance to want to check it out, influenced by the structure's attractiveness, which would prompt them to pick a destination close to the structure. Or they could decide that the structure was boring and just carry on doing their own thing. If they do go look at it, they might decide to hang around for a while until they get bored and want to do something else. Here you can see a lot of interest in the shelter and the trough, but nobody cares at all about that nest box.


To complement the fact that monsters can now notice structures, I wanted them to know when a new one was placed. Using the attractiveness again, I allowed each monster a chance to react to a new structure. It can make them happy or not, and they can want to check it out or not. These two sets of reactions are distinct, so a monster could be happy by a new shelter but not want to look at it immediately, or a monster could feel no happiness gain by a shelter but want to go look at it anyway.

   
All these behaviours will be refined as monsters gain needs and personality, but it's all just framework for now so that I have lots of hooks to tailor monster reactions more finely in the future.

Finally, since the game is broken up by 'turns', I wanted to make sure that the structure system made sense in that context. While monsters roam around in real-time, and may make micro decisions like getting something to eat, or playing with a friend, or having a sulk, ultimately their state will not change until a turn passes and they're all updated based on their environment and state during the last turn. So it's a very low-time-pressure game, you'll have little chance to 'miss' something important unless you just neglect to check something during an entire turn. You can take all the time you want to do everything in a turn before progressing. But while new turns will bring nice things (eggs laid, babies hatched, new wild monsters wanting to join, challenges completing) they also have costs (maintenance fees like feed, unhappy monsters going back into the wild), so it felt natural to make structure building a part of that.

To that end, each structure now has a 'number of turns to build' stat. If that is zero, the structure is built automatically, as though it came pre-assembled - like the troughs and heaters in this version. But shelters take 3 turns and nests take 4, so they have a special image while in construction. Once the necessary number of turns have elapsed, the structure is built and will function as normal.


While they're very intelligent, members of Monstrus monstrus are still animals, and have little conception of what a building site means... and thus, regardless of the finished structure's attractiveness, building sites are completely unattractive to the residents.

That's it for 0.18. In order to give myself more focus and overall direction, I have been spending some time getting a serious roadmap down, breaking my vision for MM down into epics and then stories and tasks as appropriate. (I love using JIRA.) Trello has done well, but being able to grow a serious backlog will help with knowing what to do next, as well as ensuring that I don't forget any ideas.

Here's to a productive 2018  Toast Right
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Pixel Noise
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« Reply #46 on: January 10, 2018, 05:33:42 AM »

Yes! Great to see you post again - love the choice of name (obviously).

Not a bad first pass at the logo - it's stylish, but I wonder if you could make it more...Monstrous? I feel like it's the logo for a business or restaurant, vs. a game. Or keep the logo - but add a couple of monster silhouettes behind/around it? Something to give it more specific characterization.

Cheers to your productivity and a great 2018!  Beer!
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whistlerat
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« Reply #47 on: January 10, 2018, 06:29:19 AM »

Not a bad first pass at the logo - it's stylish, but I wonder if you could make it more...Monstrous? Or keep the logo - but add a couple of monster silhouettes behind/around it? Something to give it more specific characterization.

You know, I've had that exact same thoughts, and it's cool to know that it's you who I shared it with considering the name choice  Grin I really like the idea of adding some of the monsters to it in some way, but was hesitant to do so yet because a revamp of their visuals is on the cards. But possibly not a big enough change to be worth holding off... so I'll do some tests and get some feedback, if you're willing to provide more! SUPER appreciated btw Hand Thumbs Up Right

The logo satisfies a vision I've had for it for a while, though, which was to be inspired somehow by a 'scientific' look... and I couldn't figure out what that meant until recently, when I had a brainwave. In the vein of being a pioneer of the discovery of this species, the font is heavily inspired by Darwin's handwriting, and I thought it looked too neat not to use Kiss
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Pixel Noise
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« Reply #48 on: January 10, 2018, 05:48:15 PM »


The logo satisfies a vision I've had for it for a while, though, which was to be inspired somehow by a 'scientific' look... and I couldn't figure out what that meant until recently, when I had a brainwave. In the vein of being a pioneer of the discovery of this species, the font is heavily inspired by Darwin's handwriting, and I thought it looked too neat not to use Kiss

That is a very cool little tidbit! The font is definitely nice, I like it. Glad you agree about the more "monstrous" characterization though, I definitely think it will make it more impactful and memorable. Happy to provide more feedback!!
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« Reply #49 on: January 10, 2018, 07:05:12 PM »

The monster designs are looking interesting.  Will you keep the game in similar silhouette style or will the visuals be more detailed later?

Regarding the title, if adding monsters to the title doesn't work out, you can always add claw/bite marks to the letters to make it *monstery*. Grin

When I was looking at the word Monstrus, the Toys "R" Us pun Monst "R" Us came to mind. Smiley  Maybe that or Monsters "R" Us could be something in the game. Wink
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whistlerat
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« Reply #50 on: January 11, 2018, 02:26:54 AM »

That is a very cool little tidbit! The font is definitely nice, I like it. Glad you agree about the more "monstrous" characterization though, I definitely think it will make it more impactful and memorable. Happy to provide more feedback!!

I've already got a few ideas and will produce some mockups soon - I'm thinking it'll probably keep evolving a bit until the monster visuals are set in stone, but if we've got a solid concept then it won't be hard to keep it updated Smiley

The monster designs are looking interesting.  Will you keep the game in similar silhouette style or will the visuals be more detailed later?

Regarding the title, if adding monsters to the title doesn't work out, you can always add claw/bite marks to the letters to make it *monstery*. Grin

When I was looking at the word Monstrus, the Toys "R" Us pun Monst "R" Us came to mind. Smiley  Maybe that or Monsters "R" Us could be something in the game. Wink

I'm almost certain that the silhouettes will stay. It is EXTREMELY forgiving in terms of monster shape - it allows me to create some really weird combinations that still kinda work because your imagination carries the illusion. I'll probably experiment with adding simple colours, but I might have to do that on some shader-level, unless I make monster colour uniform. Just setting the colour per-body part would reveal the janky connections between some parts that are hidden by those parts being the same colour, unless I restricted colours to certain parts. Arms and legs, for example, would look okay if you saw the boundary between them and the body, but the head -> neck -> body sequence would probably look far less convincing if they were all separate. Will have to do some experiments, I could be way off the mark.

Some level of animation is on the cards, too (if you think of them like shadow puppets where the body parts are all separate but rotatable around a certain fixed point, you have an idea of where I'm hoping to go with it). I will probably be making them more 'detailed', though, by adding more body parts (spikes down the back, nose protrusions, wings, that sort of thing) to make sure that the possible combination space stays massive.

And that Monst'R'Us idea is so fun... if I decide to have any kind of non-minimal marketplace or economy, I think there has to be a shop with that name! Cheesy
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« Reply #51 on: January 11, 2018, 03:02:15 PM »

I'm almost certain that the silhouettes will stay. It is EXTREMELY forgiving in terms of monster shape - it allows me to create some really weird combinations that still kinda work because your imagination carries the illusion. I'll probably experiment with adding simple colours, but I might have to do that on some shader-level, unless I make monster colour uniform. Just setting the colour per-body part would reveal the janky connections between some parts that are hidden by those parts being the same colour, unless I restricted colours to certain parts. Arms and legs, for example, would look okay if you saw the boundary between them and the body, but the head -> neck -> body sequence would probably look far less convincing if they were all separate. Will have to do some experiments, I could be way off the mark.
Yeah, I know what you mean.  The same issue comes up if you want to animate people like shadow puppets (except instead of dark shadows, use original colors).  You need to make sure that the various parts look good when rotated.  It can be done but you have to use certain restrictions and adjustted various things as needed.

A simple possibility would be to use a single color for the body and use another color for minor details (e.g. spots, bumps).


And that Monst'R'Us idea is so fun... if I decide to have any kind of non-minimal marketplace or economy, I think there has to be a shop with that name! Cheesy
Of course!   Hand Thumbs Up LeftSmiley
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« Reply #52 on: January 13, 2018, 05:15:54 AM »

I must say I love the new name!
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whistlerat
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« Reply #53 on: January 13, 2018, 10:26:31 AM »

I'm glad the name is proving popular!

I want to start contributing to #screenshotsaturday, so this isn't a full devlog, just a snapshot of what is gonna come in the next one...


I'm also gonna try posting more in-progress mini snaps on twitter, in case anybody is interested in that sort of thing Smiley
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« Reply #54 on: January 13, 2018, 04:36:29 PM »

I like the name but i think just "Monstrus" on it's own would be more effective.

Great game so far tho, definitely following this!.
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« Reply #55 on: January 18, 2018, 05:53:41 PM »

The screenshot of saturday is a great idea.  Smiley

By the way. Is there a reason why the Monsters are moving so slow. I can imagine that a little bit faster run speed would be interesting.
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whistlerat
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« Reply #56 on: January 19, 2018, 01:36:58 AM »

Thank you both for your interest, it's always really encouraging to hear!  Grin

I like the name but i think just "Monstrus" on it's own would be more effective.

While I see your point, the game will be oriented around you as a researcher of this new and unknown species, and so the name represents the scientific name in binomial nomenclature style, hence the non-capitalisation of the second word. I'm still planning on tweaking the logo to better reflect this - for example, you're supposed to have the name italic if typed, and underlined if handwritten, so I'll do some experiments to see if I can use these as well as make sure the monstrousness of the game is shown as well Smiley

By the way. Is there a reason why the Monsters are moving so slow. I can imagine that a little bit faster run speed would be interesting.

Thank you for asking this! As of right now, monsters choose a random speed within a specified range whenever they make a movement decision, and then use that speed until they reach their destination (or are interrupted). I'm currently in the process of injecting more personality and meaningful choice into those movement decisions, and soon after that the monsters will be able to control their speed to better reflect what they are trying to do. An aimless, bored stroll, for example, might be quite slow, whereas a monster who has deliberately picked out another monster to go interact with might decide to race over there as quickly as possible. Additionally, a hyperactive monster will probably run and bounce around regardless of how urgent their current task is, while a lazy and discurious one will just calmly plod everywhere. This will just be one of the ways that monster personality and current state of mind will be displayed to the player.
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« Reply #57 on: January 19, 2018, 01:51:21 AM »

Thank you for asking this! As of right now, monsters choose a random speed within a specified range whenever they make a movement decision, and then use that speed until they reach their destination (or are interrupted). I'm currently in the process of injecting more personality and meaningful choice into those movement decisions, and soon after that the monsters will be able to control their speed to better reflect what they are trying to do. An aimless, bored stroll, for example, might be quite slow, whereas a monster who has deliberately picked out another monster to go interact with might decide to race over there as quickly as possible. Additionally, a hyperactive monster will probably run and bounce around regardless of how urgent their current task is, while a lazy and discurious one will just calmly plod everywhere. This will just be one of the ways that monster personality and current state of mind will be displayed to the player.

Alright, sounds great =) Especially the hunt aspect makes me curious. I imagine that there will be a predator who race after his prey and the prey trys to run away. Will there be herds of monsters (Like Elephants) who will even defend themselfs agains predators when they are not alone? 
Who, Me? ...
äääh, I am not totally exaggerating.

Keep on the good work  Grin

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« Reply #58 on: January 19, 2018, 02:22:19 AM »

Alright, sounds great =) Especially the hunt aspect makes me curious. I imagine that there will be a predator who race after his prey and the prey trys to run away. Will there be herds of monsters (Like Elephants) who will even defend themselfs agains predators when they are not alone? 
Who, Me? ...

This touches on something that I've known I'll need to discuss on this log, so now is as good a time as ever! Elements of what you've said are currently planned; a monster might decide to try and attack another one, for whatever reason, and if the victim realises what is happening will have a choice, and one of those choices will be to run away. Monster diets and feeding is 100% something that will be in the game, including some level of cannibalism, which I might make optional. Most of the feeding will happen via structures that you place or the monster just finding its own food (so having prey animals appear and dart about, and have carnivorous monsters chase them, could be really cool!).

However, I'm currently designing the game around the philosophy that everything happens in discrete 'turns', something that's been present since very early on. It's the way time moves on - monsters hatch, grow, run away, want to join, become ill, starve to death, everything. The 'camp view', of the monsters running about, is a snapshot of the state of the monsters during that turn. I'm trying to make it so that it is 'safe' to idle on this view. This has some nice implications for the gameplay - it means that the player can play unrushed, can take their time with turns, and don't have to feel like if they aren't watching every camp at every moment they'll miss anything. Everything important that changes will happen once a turn finishes, and will be reported to you.

The trade-off to this decision is that nothing changes while you watch it. Monsters that dislike each other will dislike each other during the entire time between turns. It's up to you to recognise that they dislike each other - through their consistent behaviour towards each other while you watch them - and separate them before the turn ends. If you end a turn and those monsters still live together, they'll become more unhappy, probably like each other even less, and maybe start being destructive. If you have realised the problem and have acted on it, however - either by moving them into different camps, or releasing one back into the wild, or selling one, or freezing one, or realising that they don't like each other because they're competing for the same limited amount of food and thus provided more food for them both) once you end the turn, their happiness won't be affected by each other anymore, and so you will have avoided that particular negative effect.

The game will be filled with these kinds of decisions. Are the monsters in a particular camp too hungry? They'll act hungry for as long as that turn lasts, but they won't act on it (by running away, or snacking on a monster's eggs, or trying to eat some other food they can't digest but happens to be available) until the turn ends. Is a particular camp too crowded? If you don't fix it before the turn end, some will probably run away. Have you been paying attention to when that monster's eggs are due to hatch? If not, suddenly you have a lot of baby monsters that need food, space and socialisation that you can't afford to look after. Did you pay attention to your pending outgoing costs that will come out of your budget once the turn ends? Did you remember to order that piece of equipment because it'll arrive in 3 turns and you definitely need it in 4 turns?

Everything is centred around the game being broken up into these turns, which is quite a game-y solution but I think it suits the management genre a lot. As a gamer, I LOVE dealing with complicated systems, making careful decisions and planning for the future. I'm not a big fan of being put under time pressure while also dealing with the above unless it's designed for that time pressure. I want Monstrus to have all of the interesting decisions with none of the franticness. Just like a game of Civ Smiley

This reply is getting longer than I expected! So I'll stop and just say that I would LOVE to make a game with more 'real-time' interactions, where the animals hunt each other, court and breed with each other, have interactions which affect their relationships and social standing, and all that stuff. Like a game of Sims left to idle, where the state changes as the AI make decisions, act on those decisions and affect the world they live in. A lot of what I'm doing for Monstrus - the movement, the personalities, the decision-making - would translate super well to that sort of thing, so I feel like, along with making progress on this particular game, I'm laying a good groundwork for future similar ones Hand Thumbs Up Right
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« Reply #59 on: January 19, 2018, 08:32:51 AM »

Thanks for the reply.

I imagine that there will be food-creatures just like mices for serpends in real-life.

An interesting idea is that you can modify the food-animals so they provide more food and that they are slower. So you choose them just for the pupose that they die for your predator-creature. MUAHAHA
Will this be possible somehow?

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