It's Limb-to-Limb Combat, quite literally!
What happens when body anatomy meets some old-fashioned brawler action? See for yourself in this gameplay overview of DoN's Anatomy Combat System featuring the widely adored Jumping Spider v/s the fearsome Tiger Beetle!
How it works - Explaining DoN's Anatomy Combat System
Each creature's body is divided into major body parts; the primary limbs for locomotion, the head, thorax (or cephalothorax if they're fused together like in arachnids), abdomen, etc.
Each body part then has a unique potency in an offensive capacity (eg: sharp mandibles deal more damage) and in a defensive role (eg: Abdomens are a weak spot, target them for earning critical hits on your opponent!)
When two creatures engage in combat these bodyparts are shown to the player when they're struck and additional commentary is provided in some cases. Additional features like permanent limb damage (target the legs to limit the opponent's mobility), limb severance, etc, may be considered in the future, but for now player feedback is being monitored to first perfect the basics of this system.
What about the existing Grappling system?
The existing grappling system is not going away! In fact, it is still the ultimate decider for all creature confrontations. After you out-brawl your opponent, you gain a window of opportunity to execute a snatch. After snatching them, the familiar reflex-based "grappling system" is presented to the player and only after that, is the whole contest deemed complete.
Furthermore, only the Tiger Beetle and Jumping Spider have this system enabled. So all other confrontations still uses the old system. Depending on player feedback, more creatures may be onboarded onto the new anatomy based model over time.
The astute reader will have noted that this new combat system is in fact an extension of the Lifecycles Act 's "Playfight" system! With some added features of course, such as the ability to flee combat midway, etc. While the playfights are just that, (play fights!), for adult creatures, this is the real deal.
Remember to use Sandbox / Creative Mode!
The Nature Sandbox mode is great for fixing your favorite matchups! The combat system isn't just a duet, but also accommodates large team based brawls (the sides are auto-allocated depending on your species and proximity to a rival).
Here's a look at a horde of Jumping Spiders completely overwhelmingly a small troop of Tiger Beetles (one of which happened to be the author of this article :))
New OST soundtracks!
In addition to "Sapphire Sprint", the OST dedicated to the Tiger Beetle, a new combat soundtrack featuring Taiko Drums has also been added to spice up the ambiance.
This takes the total number of original music tracks in the game to eleven (excluding the combat track which is more of general ambiance rather than a piece per se).
Thanks for reading!
Please try out the new Anatomy Combat system and if you don't have the game already, there has never been a better time to check out DoN's ever growing Nature Simulation experience!
Here's a link to the Store page: Store.steampowered.com
Until next time!
With ❤, Venugopalan Sreedharan
(Developer of DoN, www.drunkonnectar.com)
OMG! That's the BBC fight club! :D