I actually think I'd rather the player just control one character and the game be multiplayer. It just sounds really fun to go hunting beasts with the boys.

I dont know if this is just me but the game gives off a very stop-motion like artstyle that i cant really describe. Looks amazing

The companions don't have to also be witches. Familiars, summoned demons and even maybe a beast stolen as a hatchling would fit a "witch" theme, and contribute to run variety on the player side. It could even allow for some big melee units to enter the battle under player's command. Unrelated but important: the beast showcase shots use a very different camera from gameplay. Maybe the beasts' details are better seen from a high shoulder surf perspective, and we never noticed because we have seen them up close so much we fill in the details and imposing feel in the isometric view in our heads. Something to consider.

Having a little creature hunter tribe to manage could be a lot of fun. Like a stone age hunting party exploring these caves. Would let you make the creatures a lot deadlier too because one tribesman dying would mean you still have some remaining, so you could afford to give each of them less health. Real time with pause would probably be the option that requires the least amount of manual dexterity to succeed in and more about strategizing, positioning and trying to predict creature behavior, trying to keep as many of your tribespeople alive as possible.

For combat you might want to look at the original Dragon Age. I wouldn't go the turn based route, but I liked that you could automate your teammates by giving them some basic strategic options. Where to position, what enemies to target, what spells to use, etc... Then you can still swap and control individual team members directly, while the others are automated.

I think one could draw inspiration from the monster hunter series, where there are traps as tools, but also creatures get "exhausted" or hurt over time that gives windows of opportunity for side/back attacks. Also, there are more powerfull attacks (like charging), which when dodged by the player leave the weak spot open for a few seconds as a reward. In the end it really depends on how you want this to play out. I have never seen RTS-like controls on such a rogue lite, I imagine it is quite exhausting when its get faster, and rather repetitive when being slower. You could keep the current setup and just rely on it being more fun in multiplayer, similar to monster hunter, where solo missions are possible, but require more prep/traps/timing. Tile-free turn based, like Divinity 2, could also be an option, but there you loose the option for skilled aiming and reaction time to be rewarded. love the concept of the evolving creature rogue like, excited to see where you'll end up

Since the protagonist is a witch, you can focus on giving the player different abilities making it possible to target different areas of the creature. Possible spells are stun/slow, different elemental attacks, AOE, Decoy/Mirror image illusion, Teleport, Summon minions (possibly even some of your previously encountered enemies?!), summon wall/obstacle and more. All of these different types of spells would in turn allow the creatures to evolve countermeasures (either direct resistances to them or to evolve stratifies that works better against them)

You sold me on the enemy evolution and the whole claymation-like look and jittery animation. This game screams uniqueness

- Tactical Pause is a must (at least as an accessibility tool) if doiung antyhing with more than one unit to control Maybe (since we are a witch and all) grant the character a teleport spell with long recharge, or even better cast teleport-back-to-this-place spell on the ground where player is standing and after 3s teleport back to that place. It will encourage baiting monsters into specific places before 3s runs out (so pressure). That should help with positioning as part of the gameplay without needing to stealth & stuff

After being on a permanent state of pant shitting while playing rain world I can safely say this is a very exciting project

OH LORD, IT'S HERE! DEVLOG 4! THE PROPHECY CAME TRUE!

Love the look! An animation deep dive would be really interesting

Between traps and multiple characters is deployables / summmonables etc. Like throw down a turret and flank, then the creature has to decide whether to after you or the turret. Or summon a skeleton to assist you, again creature has to choose between you and it.

One thing that sticks out to me in the gameplay footage is that it's not particularly clear when a monster dies. It just kind of stops moving, which is especially unclear for enemies with that start-and-stop skittering-type movement. My first thoughts go to a visual effect like a flash or something, but that might not fit the tone of the game (maybe you could get away with something subtle) Maybe once you get sound effects sorted away for the monsters, a little death sound effect would be clear. I'm just spitballing here, but hopefully this helped a little😅

The amount of work you put into this is unthinkable, keep grinding

procedurally generated creatures in games are the most interesting way to do them. hope stuff like this becomes common place in the next 2-3 years

Not sure if you’ll see this but I’ve been watching this dev log series since the start and ahh! It’s so cool and you’ve come so far. The creatures look so sick and I’m just wishing you the best man. Top notch videos too!

I love everything about this game, from the idea, down to execution. as long as single player will be the viable option I will buy it on the spot. I wish I had brain power to do such awesome math magic :)

Glad you're back man! The game looks sick! I am still in awe how detailed the procedural generation is and how well it works together!

Hell yeah! Finally a new video. I've been following the progress on discord, and can't wait to watch this video. Great project, mate!

this video is so impressive that i see several impressive ai youtubers that i watch talking about how good it is. it is incredibly impressive and i am glad to see you succeed where i gave up

I'm SO looking forward to this game! I'd like to offer a couple of thoughts: 1. Could creatures have a couple patterns of varied attacks that could add to the tactical variety during combat? Maybe some shoot spines long range so you have to either shoot back or otherwise dodge to get around them? Or a mix of slow and powerful or quick and light attacks that will let you as a player choose what to do? Tank the attack or dodge roll to a "safe" side? 2. Real-time with pause can become cumbersome if you are thinking about the pace of the game. Sometimes there really isn't that much of a difference between setting up flanking attacks and just sending everyone in at the same time, hoping to overwhelm using numbers. The tactical decision at that point becomes when do I rush in versus where am I moving or how am I going to move...if that makes sense. Blade Prince Academy uses a real-time with pause combat system, which in theory allows for tactical control, but in practice just ends up being a slugfest. 3. You mentioned groups of enemies working together, which I think is really cool! I'm curious about what you're thinking about what those interactions could look like! 4. Control scheme wise, I think you can do simple with keyboard and mouse. No Rest for the Wicked in my opinion has a simple control scheme that responds well!

why not give the player the ability to slide under the creature if its big enough

Love these devlogs, this project is evolving very nicely! For the player movement, I could imagine using a control system similar to Project Loki. It's a game that's in closed Alpha so it's not super easy to get access to if you want to try for yourself, but basically you control the character movement with WASD and use your mouse to aim where your weapon is pointing. It feels super natural to control and avoids all the potential frustrations that could come from an RTS style of movement where the pathfinding may sometimes just walk the player straight into a beast or take them on a route that they weren't expecting. Keep up the great work, I'm always looking forward to the next devlog!!

Controlling several characters sounds like a lot of fun!!

wow the movement of the beasts looks awesome and unsettling, great job!

An interesting idea to tackle the "backside weak spot" issue you talked about could be adding a slide for the player that's only accessible in melee form. Imagine, the large monster chasing you is about to catch up. You've been kiting it for a while now taking shots at a heavily armored head and you can't bring it down before it's going to get to you. You switch to your melee weapon, charge in, slide under the beast (dodging it gobbling you up), and stab, slash, and crush its weak spot or damage its legs, slowing it.

Do not give up I'm loving your devlogs

So for the single-player multiple character control, an idea I had was you could select a key to be the swap key (Say its L Alt) and you hold the swap key and then press a different key which is designated to one of your characters (Say you use Alt+W to swap to "Warrior", Alt+A to swap to "Trapper", Alt+D to swap to "Mage", etc.). This would allow you to quickly swap between characters while maintaining finger placement for movement keys. The character's you aren't controlling would probably have a basic AI and maybe you could select a personality or task for it while it's not controlled? Like have the trapper either focus on "control" traps or supporting allies or setting up more turrets, etc.

I personally prefer the single player vibe, as I think it fits better the cave and scary creatures environment. One idea could be to add some stealth mechanics, and do more usage of the kinematics adding more obstacles, walls, tunnels... Which would led to different combat possibilities. I also think that running from a sudden group of giant mutant arachnid beasts crawling around everywhere in first person would be cool.

This is a very cool concept my guy I hope the project grows and develops and receives the support it needs.

great stuff my man, i can feel this project will be a success, the uniqueness of the evolutionary mechanic combined with a grim atmosphere makes for a great experience! best of luck to you!

I hope this goes in a horror multiplayer direction because this looks awesome, traps and weapons feel more on theme then magic and spells

I think making the players and creatures compete for resources would make for a nice gameplay goal. It can act as distractions for the player to take advantage of instead of planting traps, but also gives incentive to kill the creature and not only run away.

Those creatures you are making are positively terrifying, I am definitely going to play it once it's out, hope you do playtests/demos soon, or even early access through patreon, as this looks absolutely sick!

Ptocedural beast system is super cool. I really want to fight evolved creatures depending on my enviroment, and they are different every time. Truly a wonderful concept

I was just thinking about this game yesterday, glad to see another devlog! One thing I would like to say is how cool the beasts look when you view them up close. I think when the enemies are really small on the screen all their features blend together and it's hard to see what part is what. This would almost make me want to play in first person so I can view them better but I know that's a big design change and probably not what you want.

i think the music should be more eerie and creepy, like you're stuck in a cave with mutating monsters

Remember Clive Barker's Jericho? You can switch between your AI controlled characters on the run, giving the other two witches some simple commands while playing the main one. These commands can be in form of markers, which later on become just a map markers for your teammates in multiplayer. I think this mechanic is pretty easy to use and doesnt break the pacing unlike tactical pause. Also it plays great on WASD with mouse aiming. Over all great game idea and design, instantly wishlisted, keep on killing it!

INSTANT subscribe. This is incredibly impressive and original! As for gameplay ideas: 1) You could combine the turret/trap idea with the multiple witch idea. Instead of spawning a trap, you summon a new witch/projection/creature to fight for you. Mid-combat, the creature gets distracted by the summon, allowing the player to switch to the offensive. Or the witch can summon in anticipation of danger (for some duration), and that lets you include monsters that can sneak up or dash, bc the player can travel with some protection. 1-A) Options for the summons are limitless. Some could be specifically for drawing enemy attention. Some could dash away as they distract, making monsters turn and reveal their weak spot. Some shoot projectiles. Maybe the location of the summon is strategic (behind the enemy, in the air). Maybe some summons spawn more summons. 1-B) It's a roguelite, so you could offer different summons with each run, picking up new, more powerful ones between levels. This also gives the player something to do while the next generation of monsters load, effectively hiding the load time. 2) If the weak spot is always on the back of the monster, include attacks where the monster slashes/spins/turns, where these have sweeping AOE. Then the ProcGen can choose between balancing sweeping attacks vs protecting its weak spot. 3) Similar to #2, have attacks that turn the monster. 4) Stunning is good too. Maybe close-range attacks stun for longer, encouraging different playstyles (ranged/close). This one's the easiest suggestion to implement.

Awesome concept! I've wish listed. Am looking forward to your ongoing work.

Wait Iitteraly had this idea of evolution based roguelike like 3 month ago ! Glad someone is doing it !

Honestly, the idea of RTS controls (less personal, more tactical hunting in groups) and tactical pause (to facilitate precise aiming at parts for the subservient units) feels like it'd lead to very fun encounters. You'd still have room for personal attachment via outfitting/customizing (even if just naming) particular units.

Love the multiplayer idea. And even then, the player can control 1 to 2 Carrecter's even if they play online if the party has a low amount of players. And instead of tactical pause it can be an adrenaline rush where times slows down affecting both players. But will each individually have a set amount and have to control and communicate when and how they should use this ability.

I think it would be super cool if players could tame one creature and have it help them fight. Depending on the creature it could help as dps, tank or allrounder. Add a base where you can keep and breed captured creatures and that's a super palyable game.

I really love the idea of this game, there aren't many games where the environment adapts to you instead of the other way around. I also really like the logo!

one of the coolest games ideas I've seen. can't wait for the demo

I think since the PC is a witch and has magic, you can certainly give abilities that allow you to distract a creature or block its ability to lock onto the player. For example, you can give an invisibility ability that lasts for a couple seconds and the player can use it to circle around the creature and stab it from the side or behind. Or an ability that creates a visual duplicate that makes the creature attack the illusion, allowing the player to retreat or maneuver around the battlefield. Maybe abilities that lower the creature's attack damage, allowing the player to afford getting hit a couple more times while circling around to reach other areas on its body. Maybe an ability (or sidearm) that doesn't damage a creature but grapples or tangles some of its legs and hinders its movements temporarily. I think having a variety of abilities like these for players to choose from can also allow the player to "adapt" their tactics to the new creatures as they evolve. Or an ability that temporarily makes a creature attack another creature instead of the PC and work as a distraction. As for additional characters, I think unless you're planning on an RTWP gameplay, it might be best to allow players to control only one character but set the behavior for their companions through a menu system. Dragon Age: Origins and Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire had versions of this, though they were both RTWP cRPGs and the player could swap to and control any of the characters at any time. I'm not sure how well it would fit a Roguelike, but it may be worth checking out. Multiplayer can be cool too, but I sure hope the game would still be playable in a single-player mode.

For the algorithm! Can't wait to watch

Looks inspired by Species: ALRE, which is fantastic :D you are doing cutting edge work here!

I'm glad this is still coming along. I dunno how well it fits the theme but I definitely am hoping that there is a minion based magic path in this. I'm a sucker for em. Also, the goal of hunting and actually having to gather meat from the beasts for like a tribe seems like it would be an interesting game mechanic. Not only does it flesh out why you're in a cave fighting monsters, but it also allows for a reprieve that lets the game process the generations while the player manages the village. That could also incentivise players to go after bigger monsters as it adds an element of time to the game as now they have to find food before the village starves. It even can add some elements of certain species getting over hunted and wiped out so it makes the players choice of prey more tactical.

Im so glad you uploaded this! I was trying to find your channel for hours the other day!

I think Magicka is a perfect example of such party-based game, and it is a lot of fun!

I think one of the best ways to control multiple characters at one in a game like this is to do it kinda like the Dragon Age series: RTS, but you can pause time at any point and queue up actions on each character before resuming time. For obvious reasons, this would likely not work as well in multiplayer, but you probably wouldn’t need to control multiple characters as a player in multiplayer mode; the only exception I can think of would be 2 players each controlling 2 characters, in which case you can just make a “ready up” system for unpausing time, so that both players have to agree to unpause time before it actually does so.

Firstly, this game's overall concept is incredible and I am now subscribed. Secondly, I really like the RTS idea (with tactical pause options) with the player controlling a little party and navigating the caves. Mainly because I can't recall a fast-paced RTS like that ever existing and as someone who plays them a lot it sounds like fun. It would make multiplayer bonkers as each player has their own squad allowing them to tackle multiple objectives or team up to defeat larger foes. It's not too hard to imagine my mates screaming over Discord as their squads are overrun and we all have to make a desperate counter-offensive to rescue what few squad members remain. Or if traps/deployables are available but rare, using them to set up defensive lines manned by multiple people when particularly large hordes of beasts are approaching.

I think you could base your view over the creatures as if they were alive, if they have the goal of protecting the place and having offspring, they would probably run or rage when low hp, and also when the player is low hp. i think thats an interesting solution for the combat sistem, those behavior changes make the diference between facing the armored side only and dealing enough damage that the monster reveals the weak spots. PD: amazing work in this update :DDD

For multiple characters, I feel like the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon mechanic would fit here. What mechanic you may ask? Well, you could set your partners AI once you progressed far enough into the game, you'd unlock new commands for them (settings for their AI). Commands such as, keep your distance. Run away. Go off on your own. Even restrict what combat abilities they can use, to fit what you needed. I feel like, leveling up your comrads to unlock new commands would work really well in this. Commands such as: Keep your distance Close Combat Stay Wary (try to avoid aggro) Stay close to me Only attack my target Flank my target And such things would really add an element of strategy, and also making players change those strategies as the monsters catch on and evolve countermeasures against a comrad who had been on the same command way too long

I feel that this game will feel good with any of the control options. However, it could be cool to have different options for different game modes. Like for example, in single player mode, the player can have a tactical pause to Strategize an attack. In this pause, the player can move the camera around freely and tell the characters where it will go once the pause if finished. Then when unpaused, the player can regain control of the main character. Then of course, in multiplayer you can't pause, so they'll have to strategize in real-time combat. I also would enjoy it if this game had a combat system similar to Rim World. Either way, I love the idea of a strategy game where you control multiple characters. Maybe the player can start off without any allies, but they can hire some to aid them on these adventures through the cave by trying to gain resources to take home and sell. This will also give the monsters time and an explanation to how they evolve before the player returns. Tbh, this game has so much potential with your concepts and tools that you've created. I'm extremely excited to see what this game "evolves" into, lol

That looks amazing! You are a pro issue solver! Regarding gameplay, I always think it's important to still have a good single player experience. So, having multiple companions to the player may be a good solution, but just think about also creating friendly bots. I'd rather still focus on a mainly single player loop, that can be extended to a party optionally. To solve the combat challenges, just think about a more complex behaviour to the creatures. They can have more vulnerable states like being dizzy after receiving some attacks or being tired after spending too much energy. Their movement can also be slower in terms of angular velocity and they can have like attack/retreat states to open breaches for the player to attack them, and also make them feel more "alive". The player could also have different skills that enables him to quickly change position like dashing, flying or even teleporting, so he can reach the vulnerable parts. Also, vulnerability can change on more variables than only "hit location". You can mess around with different attack types, elements or anything that goes beyond "vulnerable parts". As a fan of shooter-like games, I do encourge you to work mostly on long distance attacks with cover points rather than classic melee close range button spamming attacks :D! Keep going!

You could add the possibility of befriending a creature

With multiple characters, I feel like the player character could be a sort of "chief" or leader, and the npcs somewhat disposable, with you able to find others hiding in the cave and recruit them, or even finding another group of npc witches that might try to attack you for whatever loot you may have, and recruiting the last one after they surrender, it would also certainly make the creatures more terrifying, as they drag one of your group away into the darkness, as well as allowing a "on kill" evolution bonus to creatures.

Since spore I’ve always dreamed of someone doing a game like this that’s awesome

Ive always liked the concept of evolving creatures and wondered how it could be used to beneift gameplay. This game has a lot of potential, Im really looking forward to what you do with it next.

I was already very impressed with the game before I saw that you were making this in panda3D lol. That was the first 3D engine I ever used, and I had no idea it could support crazy projects like this. Great work!

YIPEEEE. You weren't liying when you said that this video were going to come out soon. Awesome! You got a new wishlist!

waited for a while for this dev log

I feel like the pov takes away from a lot of the scariness and view of the amazing procedural animation

Great video again! The only thing is that I want to reiterate that I really think that an open-ended evolution algorithm would serve you better! Having a fitness function is easy, but it's very hard to balance! Instead, it's probably best to just let life be life and naturally select itself. The best fitness function is context. Life finds a way. It's also the consensus amongst scientists in the ALife community, but I really think it would also be better from a gameplay perspective My DMs are open if you want to have a chat in that direction

This game is so cool! I love the scales idea and I can't wait to try the demo!

Multi character control would be neat but it might end up feeling like a click go here and hot keys for attacking. If you use a controller the joysticks could guide movement of each character separately, the corresponding triggers could represent melee and magic attacking. And the buttons could toggle a targeting system. I'm absolutely loving the progress you have made and am excited to see a final product. It's super fun watching the whole process!! Keep it up!!❤

amazing work, looking forward to getting my hands on this asap haha. For the multiple player controlled characters, if not being controlled they could have a simple Ai running, one set up for the knights close range and the mages long range. only activates when the player isn't in control of that character. that way it leaves the game open for multiplayer, which i would throughly enjoy :P

straight up, this is the best looking evolution game on the market

Those things are scary as fuck. Amazing job!

one thing to consider.. a heavy creature is dangerous because of mass. to running over the character, charging like a bull or a bear or an elephant or a rhino would make sense. the other thing to consider is larger creatures have mass and momentum, therefore don't get going or turn or stop as fast. it's the difference between trying to target a chicken or a rabbit vs an elephant. the elephant, though nigh unstoppable, is a big easy to hit target that doesn't move or turn tremendously fast compared to a chicken, cat, dog, etcetera. and then there's things like kangaroos. I have no idea what to say about those, lol. but there are also things like snakes, which, when big can be fast in one direction, especially when *coiled to strike. or crabs that move sideways instead of fwd/back, or lobsters which mostly move backwards. so... movement, strike speed, mass and momentum. I guess those are my thoughts. :-)

Love the ideas! Can't wait vor the demo!

Both a multi character control mode and a singular control mode would be amazing.

This is my favorite devlog to follow. I am truly in awe of this, amazing :)

There was an old game I would play back in high school called Warning Forever. It was a space arcade-like shoot'em up/boss rush style where you had to fight and defeat increasingly difficult boss ships, and depending on the player's attack style (How fast or slow they fight the boss, where they attack first from the front/behind/sides, etc.), the next boss ship will be upgraded to defend against the same tactics, sometimes defending both sides or such at the same time. This would go on until the player got overwhelmed. I don't know how much of a pain that would be, but having the offspring monsters evolve both from dna of previous monsters 'parents' as well as experience it gains from the player would keep things fresh imo; but like I said I'm no dev so idk how hard that would be. Best of luck to developing this awesome looking game!

woah woah, what's this? This looks really interesting, I'd love to give this a shot one day! Looks up my alley

After watching the video, my first idea was that instead of melee spears, use throwable spears/atlatls! These would look really cool sticking out of the monster, and if thrown into a leg or joint, it would handicap the creature's movements.

A quick draft on how I think the multiple character controlling could work: At the start of each excursion the player gets 3 monster hunters. At any time they can choose one to take full control of. They can also use keys to give commands to the two you are not controlling. Out of the three one is a larger more defensive mage, one a more ranged archer, and a supportive caster with less damage. Each command is one key that applies to one hunter to do one thing, and if direction is needed it looks at where your mouse is. For example G might tell the archer to specifically target a body part of a monster determined by where your mouse is, H might tell the bulkier mage to stay a set distance from the monster your mouse is over and cast spells to distract it, J might tell the support caster to summon light between the least health hunter and the monster attacking them. I'm not sure how comprehensive the commands should be or if they should be key bindable.

another solution to the tactical problem could be changing the behavior of the beasts. in your example, there is a beast with a weak spot on its back end. this beast could come with a variety of actions that are genetically determined, such as a proclivity to pounce (requiring quick reflexes to dodge but leaving itself open to attack if it overshoots) or a more cautious, circling pattern (guarding its back end but being easy to predict or flank if its too slow). then, the behaviors that did the best get passed down to the young.

So my immediate thought after watching all four videos as of now, is like a terraria/ark/starship troopers vibe. A fun multiplayer game with friends with many different craftable items that you can spec into. It can be long or short form to; like you could have it be those 2 year mega save files against the ever changing horde or it can be made into a quicker multiplayer rougelike where just by the nature of the monster foreces unique runs

Efficiency: Have you considered using a 1 to 1 or a question equals answer table. Not really sure what you would call it but the basic idea is it may take longer to perform some of the computations your doing than to pull the answers from memory. So maybe you could make some kind of calculator that would take the inputs or the question if you rather turn it into a label, log the time, perform the computation, log the time again and calculate how long it took, store the answer or result of the computation, turn the label into a reference to the answer, log the time time, resolve the input in to a label, retrieve the answer via the label, log the time and calculate how long that took, compare the time each operation took, and if the label reference answer method is faster generate a complete table by cycling through a range of acceptable inputs and tabling the labels and answers. You would be trading memory to free up processing power assuming you can actually gain anything. If memory is a concern you could chapterize your results by dividing the total range of the inputs into smaller ranges suited to the expected rate at which you expect them to change, saving your table in smaller chunks which you could then load into ram as needed. Similarly you could apply the same strategies to evolution rather than just math. Create some kind of evolution tree generated by the possible fitness outcomes which projects the course the evolution could take, pre bake the creatures their reverse kinematics etc and save them in some sort of structure that is mapped by the tree. Then you could use the real fitness scores that occur during a session to traverse the tree and load the pre baked creatures into memory. Concept: I think its fine to get your game out there and draw some attention / support whatever as long its fun why not right. But for a full concept I feel like its kind of waste in a way. Your using all these advanced evolutionary mechanics simply to generate stuff to shoot at. Maybe down the road you want to think about breaking out of the cave and creating a world which your players live in. A world that would still have caves, so that aspect of game play would remain. But could incorporate other activities more orientated to studying your creatures, appreciating them in different ways. Like creatures could have energy requirements require food, rest etc. Energy could also play a role in there evolution there features impacting their energy needs. This could also lead to different behaviours. Your creatures hate light hence they tend to spend the day in their caves. But what do they do at night? Maybe they have to come out to forage for different kinds of flora, consume water, hunt players, attack their settlements and steal their young. Maybe they collect things, things the players need. We know the players need mushrooms for their magic, maybe the creatures have other implications in magic. Maybe they could be harvested for different items based on their evolutions, be affected by magic differently, contain ingredients for spells. Oh gross! I need that creatures stomach contents for a lotion I mean potion I'm making etc. In some cases it could be better for players to cultivate creatures? Kill off undesirable mutations, protect them from creatures that prey on them or capture them in little balls they could then throw and yell pika... ah 'creature go!' or something original like that. Anyways looking forward to seeing how this one develops and watching your devlogs.

This looks really awesome. I'd be sad if there was no way to capture and breed your own creatures with this kind of super cool evolution system though.

there's a lot of ways that top-down 2D combat can go. which of them is most fun to you? which brings out the fun of evolving creatures? there's a lot of space to figure out: getting in, getting out, ranged vs melee, swallowed one-hits, traps can be just bomb-drops, teleport hops, i-frame dashes. is it about crowd control? what interacts with the way they are evolving that brings out the fun? good luck. the insight on solving those performance challenges lead to some clever and interesting outputs, i trust you can also solve the problem of a fun core loop, which includes combat and movement VS creatures

10 seconds in and I love it!!! good job btw!!

I would love a play test of this game been wathing the game for a while and cant wait for playable version of this, great work keep it up.

So cool! Very exited to see more.

Just add a blink/teleport ability. And balance it with cooldowns or resources. A player could blink behind creatures, and the creature has to have a delayed reaction timd.

Maybe if the player relies too much on traps to slow down creatures, they start developing stronger legs with thicker armor, allowing them to shrug off traps more easily at the cost of some speed, or they could go the other direction and lose armor in order to be light enough that the traps don't trigger, or just be fast enough that by the time the trap triggers, the creature is already gone. what would be more terrifying than setting up a bunch of traps to deal with a couple of heavily armored creatures and instead getting swarmed by by dozens of creatures so small they don't set off your traps. The "speed" at which creatures breed could be a potential stat for creatures. Higher values means smaller and weaker enemies, but there will be a lot more of them, while lower values mean there will be significantly fewer of them, but they'll put up a lot more of a fight. There could also be an "invasive species" mechanic where every now and then one of the creatures will be completely randomized with no relation to the current family tree. It could either end up being completely steamrolled by the player because it was poorly adapted, or it could prove to be a completely unexpected wildcard that gives the player a run for their money, adding new traits to the gene pool that the player will have to account for.

40 seconds is all it took for me to wishlist it. Good luck on development.

this is like rain world but even more insane and 3d, i love it

The rapid small bug movement was perfectly creepy

First time hearing about this and seeing this, immediately wishlisted, this looks really cool.

I think the trap setup would only get tedious depending on the amount of monsters in each "mission", I think making the traps easy to set and always available would be the best. A multiplayer is the ideal here because of the multiple tasks to hunt or defend against the creatures. A wild idea would be to have the player also have a generation of witchs, but less random like the mosters are. Players would make potions and or study magics/rituals to bring upgrades to the witches or perhaps just for the weapons as some don't like to change their character and would rather get better weapons. And I think visual changes would be really cool depending on the "class" of the witch

One thing that it feels like it’s missing is really satisfying mobility. Like combo dodges or jumps, or riding creatures, or wall runs, or slides, or grapples. If you could really interact with the environment and do interesting mobility combos (maybe with a cooldown timer to debuff?) the flow state would be soooo satisfying. Overall I think this concept is incredible, nice work!

This game is literally my dream game almost to a T so im so glad your making it. I might make a similar game with procedual generated creatures but with a first person perspective.

I think letting one person control or command more characters will become, pretty overpowered. Whenever a game offers me a feature like that I always use it and it makes the game extremely easy. If you want to stick with the traps like you liked instead of having the players set them up. Have the players have an area where they can package a certain number of traps before every little run and since you wanted magic have them traps just be like pop-up traps that completely set themselves up as soon as you throw them down. So the player can take their time to craft them before the little run it's a lot more fun in my opinion.

a dodge or roll like dark souls would fit the gameplay extremely well and let the player get close up for melee