You really feel small, outnumbered, and "outgunned" essentially. When a vulture's shadow swoops across the screen, you get the same "oh shit, hide, hide now" feeling I bet an actual little animal would feelThat rain is some mind bending shit.
I love how unsettling and uncaring this world is. More so than Limbo or NaissanceE.
Definitely not this month; the devs are currently going through each region and polishing them, working on the story and setpieces, etc.Any chance of this hitting PC this month?
Wait, when did they add chupacabras to the animal roster?A look at the procedural nature of the creatures
Like the best platformers, your entire moveset is available from the start. It's up to you to learn the moves and learn how to best use them. The devs described it as a Metroidvania, but there are no keys or new abilities to unlock. The only gating is your own skill level
You really feel small, outnumbered, and "outgunned" essentially. When a vulture's shadow swoops across the screen, you get the same "oh shit, hide, hide now" feeling I bet an actual little animal would feel
But at the same time, given your moveset and tools, you feel capable enough that, with the right timing and knowledge, you can survive.
Like the best platformers, your entire moveset is available from the start. It's up to you to learn the moves and learn how to best use them. The devs described it as a Metroidvania, but there are no keys or new abilities to unlock. The only gating is your own skill level
Working on scavenger AI! They now have a super rudimentary idle behavior similar to that of the lizard, which I want to expand a bit on when they are more generally functional. Also I've started on an attacking behavior, where they will chase you if they have a spear or other weapon, and otherwise they will go retrieve a spear or other weapon - seems to work nicely!
One interesting aspect of their AI is that they will have a bit different personalities. I've gotten started on that already, by generating a personality type for each individual. The personality consists of three base stats and three derived stats. The base stats are completely independent of each other, and may thus appear in any combination. They are
Sympathy
Energy
Bravery
From these three more stats are derived. Those are
Nervous (high energy, low bravery)
Aggression (high energy and bravery, but low sympathy)
Dominance (Depends on energy, bravery and aggression)
The derived stats are heavily influenced by the base stats, but there is a little window for them to fluctuate and define their own value randomly, so occasionally you might get an off-shoot.
These stats already feed into the behaviors of the scavengers a little bit, and will have a heavier influence when I get to the more intricate behavior. For example, a nervous scavenger will have a hard time sitting still while idling, and will twitch and look around itself all the time.
Also it was low hanging fruit to feed these into the cosmetic appearance procedure, so now their looks depend a bit on these different stats. The cosmetics are allowed to fluctuate randomly but will gravitate a bit towards certain values, so while you might get the occasional lazy+skinny individual it will be more common to get lazy and chubby ones. Dominance has an impact on antler size and general body size, mean ones are more prone to the narrow pupil-less slits for eyes etc.
More details and GIFs hereApart from all this aggressive behavior stuff, I have started working on making their behavior dynamic. They are able to change their behavior towards other creatures depending on context - for example a vulture or a lizard with its jaws occupied by another poor creature is considered less dangerous as it can't bite, and one that is carrying a pack member might actually turn into a target for aggression rather than a threat to flee from depending on the individual's aggression, bravery or sympathy stats. The logic there being that if you are extraordinarily un-aggressive you won't use violence, if you're cowardly you won't take the risk of a rescue mission, and if you're terribly unsympathetic you just won't care about your friend being hauled off.
Halo 4:
Wasn't there a whole turret/mech section in the first level or am I misremembering???
This game takes place in the Halo universe???? :0
They now have some basic ability to interpret player behavior and react to it. If you're cool, they will also play it cool - if you antagonize them, they'll respond in kind. In that first gif, they go into a behavior where they're threatening me (they're pointing spears at me, but that animation might need a little work to bring the spear out of the body's silhouette), and by not moving, I show that I've given up. If I would've continued jumping around, harassing them, they would probably have given me a spear to the gut.
Their behavior is not always the same - it's influenced by their personality stats, the group, and the group leader. As the group leader has an influence on all the others, coming across a squad with an unsympathetic or aggressive leader might end up worse than one which has a nice chieftain.
They each track an individual relationship to you, and there also exists a number which is sort of your general reputation among the scavengers. If you commit violence against them or throw spears in their general direction, they will start disliking you - the specific individuals that saw you do it at first, but down the line all scavengers you come across. On the other hand, if you save the life of a scavenger, they'll start liking you more - especially that particular individual. If they're very fond of you, you can hang out as one of the pack.
Here's a recent clip i liked that illustrates the Scavenger's friend/foe system a little bit:
https://twitter.com/RainWorldGame/status/707027795449262080
This Scavenger has never encountered a Slugcat before, so is initially wary and moves to create distance. When Slugcat approaches with a spear, the Scav draws its own spear anticipating a fight, but then as no action is taken by the player, it switches to a less lethal rock.
When the vulture comes into view, it changes things up a bit, as it's considered a much more immediate threat. But you can still see the Scavenger targeting both the slugcat and the vulture with its spear as the moment-to-moment threat level changes. Then the slugcat spears the vulture behind the fleeing Scavenger and you can even see the moment of re-evaluation as the Scavenger decides "eh alright, you're cool" before they both escape underground as comrades.
A lot going on in 22 seconds!
Here's a new clip showing off slugcat/scavenger/vulture interaction
Idk, 2016 is definitely confirmed, but I've asked them and they're not sure. The game is in that final stretch of development, all regions complete, but they're adding set piece rooms, the narrative, creatures that haven't been revealed, audio and music, polish to all the regions, multiplayer etc.I cannot put into words how excited I have been and continue to be for this game. It really cannot come soon enough.
@More_Badass : any chances of this dropping before E3 ?
The map is in that style of a big open world of interconnected rooms, but there aren't any abilities to unlock. The devs described it as a skill-based gating. Once you master the moveset, you'll be able to reach more placesSometimes (especially noticeable on the flying creatures) the animations make it look like its 3D.
Its so weird in that I haven't seen such fluid 2d animation. I think a big reason is because a lot of 2d is hand drawn proportions are exaggerated whereas since this is procedurally generated it is "restrained" in how much it moves causing for a super fluid motion.
Not a knock on this game at all it helps with that alien (in every sense) vibe. This whole world is just abnormal, alien, cold and very unwelcoming. Its not familiar at all and I LOVE that.
Really feels like it got the Metroid feel right even if it may not be metroidvania (no idea if it is).
Idk, 2016 is definitely confirmed, but I've asked them and they're not sure. The game is in that final stretch of development, all regions complete, but they're adding set piece rooms, the narrative, creatures that haven't been revealed, audio and music, polish to all the regions, multiplayer etc.
So there's still a lot to be done.
But the game will be one of the biggest metroidvania-style maps ever. Around 1,427 rooms
In comparison, Shadow Complex's base was 780 rooms and Knytt Underground's main area was 1,363 rooms
Asked the devs last month. Still coming, but after the initial PC/PS4 releaseIs this coming to Vita? Not sure. Looks so damned good.
A Vita port is still planned, but it'll definitely be something we do after the initial Steam/PS4 release as there will be changes that will inevitably have to be made in order to fit that format and spec. We've kept Vita in mind for much of the development, from the screen aspect ratios we've chosen to making sure that level design, but optimizing the finished rain world for the limitations of vita CPU/GPU/RAM/shaders will be a thing that takes some time and effort for sure and we cant even guess at what it will take until we start the work.
Devs have been a bit quiet lately, but they revealed something new lurking in the ruins in a recent update
Asked the devs last month. Still coming, but after the initial PC/PS4 release
Here's oneHave thry shown any backer designed creatures? I think that was a thing. I suppose they could just be minor cameos to find though.
Quite a lot of the creature ideas are not solely mine any more, rather they're a blend of James' ideas for what would go well with the regions mixed up with the backer suggestions. We have quite a lot of backer suggestions, so we generally try to combine them with James' region-specific requests whenever possible.
Here's one
But in general, Joar said many of the creature designs are informed by backer suggestions
Besides the AI and animations, the thing that always impresses me is the shadows. They really give the environments a sense of depth, even more so in dark areas.I'm constantly amazed by the tech in this game. It's really doing stuff that no other game is attempting, 2D or polygonal.