Comments - drunkonnectar

Hey, just saw your comment now :) Yes! Praying Mantis is a high-priority creature for the game and will be taken up in 2019 most likely.

Gameplay ideas/inspirations for the Mantis are welcome! Because it lies mostly camouflaged, waiting for its food to come up to it, the gameplay may be slightly more slow-paced than some players might enjoy, so I'd love to hear about what kind of gameplay you are expecting or want to see for this iconic creature!

Thank you! :)

Thank you! That is the plan. There's a lot of territory to be covered among invertebrates/insect, but vertical excursions along the food chain are planned even during the game's early sojourn. Many players have asked for lizards/frogs/small birds so far.

Thank you!

Thank you :) Glad you enjoyed the drop sound too :D

Hehe thanks! The micro-scale is a big part of the offering, the game supports creatures as small as 1mm.

Over time as larger creatures are added that should fully drive home this effect :D

Hey, is that a question about how to lower your settings in-game? If so, you should be able to go Settings->Video and fine-tune various settings in there. There are also performance friendly world presets (maps) that do away with all the fancy props, etc to provide maximum performance.

So lots of wide jaws and long limbs? :)

Mother Amblyigids appear to carry their babies on their backs much like some other species do. Apparently they need to successfully carry their babies all the way up to their first moult for them to survive. I'm seeing some interesting gameplay mechanics here :)

Btw. Did you get a chance to try out the latest patch yet? Major camera improvements have gone in so let me know if you're still having camera issues; Adding new species will be easier if the existing camera/controls are satisfactorily to players as that will provide a solid foundation for some of the trickier long-bodied invertebrates (eg: caterpillars which are releasing soon).

Hey rh5sucho, the patch for camera improvements is out! Do try it out and if you're still having camera/control issues feel free to let me know, more than happy to add further improvements to camera/controls as they're such a huge part of experiencing the game.

Here's a link to the patch announcement:
Steamcommunity.com

I've noted your previous suggestion of scoprions/whip-scorpions btw! The former would do nicely with a desert biome although new biomes are very distant on the game's current roadmap.

No problem at all! I love your enthusiasm for the game and knowing that people like you are interested in seeing more greatly bolsters the development effort, so thank you!

Thanks! So many species, so little time!

I can't provide a specific timeline for when things like deserts/etc will make it into the game, but I can assure you that all this feedback/ideas have been carefully noted. The next few months are already jam-packed with things like animal lifecycles, multiplayer support, etc but over time hopefully many of your requests will have made it into the game :)

Rocky places/deserts will make for an amazing addition but it will take a lot of time to get that far.

Thanks for the detailed feedback! Do the "Player Cam" or "Free Cam" alternate cameras help?

The next patch has major camera improvements to the land based movement (I'm guessing Jumping Spider was species was you had issues with). The camera is no longer right next to the character so there's a lot more room visually, better FOV.

Will let you know when that patch is out, thanks for your patience.

Hey, no problem, I'm definitely interested to hear more your control issues. Are you having camera issues or is it the control scheme itself? Also is it a particular species that's hard to control? There is a known bug that causes wonky camera stuttering when the FPS goes low and that might have been affecting you (fix coming in next patch).

Re: lagging, what are your specs? Do other UE4 games that you may have run similarly? The micro-world scale of the game makes it very performance-intensive both CPU and GPU wise and over time this is only going to get even more demanding than less as it grows... things like the underground gameplay you suggested will take time especially because of performance tuning/optimizations needed to keep what's above and below running together smoothly.

Finally, centipedes... seems like a lot of people have been asking for centipedes of late! I'll need to do some more research on them to understand where these creatures best fit into DoN's roadmap and vision.

As we speak, a locomotion system for all wormy creatures is being built! This is part of the ongoing Monarch caterpillar work (https://steamcommunity.com/app/512460/discussions/0/1842367319512507143/)

Now this will make it easy for adding any wormy friend into the game in the future (there's so many creatures with that body type out there!). Specifically on snakes: Reptiles might be looked into after more species of invertebrates have been added to the game.

All the groundwork that is being laid now will make it easy to add new creatures more quickly in the long-term. Thanks so much for your enthusiasm @rh5sucho!

Thanks! Really appreciate it :)

Hey, I just saw your comment now :)

Ants are a very popular request and among ants, I think leaf-cutters are a great choice for DoN. While ants aren't part of the game's current roadmap, that could very well change, so thank your for your feedback!

On frogs: The croaking of frogs after the onset of rain is something I witness frequently and their constant reminder to be added to the game has not been forgotten :)

Thank you! You're absolutely right about performance being a huge challenge for a game like this. Fortunately the game was built with performance in mind from ground up and over the past two years of development a number of performance-friendly core systems were first built around which the rest of the game was developed.

Still, your concern is very real; a full-fledged nature game will need to scale up to several times the current scope of the game and that's going to be an interesting challenge up ahead. At the very least I'll be providing an option to disable all non-gameplay items (fancy visual props, etc) and that should help too.

Thanks Berserker, appreciate it!

Feel free to provide any feedback that I can use to improve the game between now and release.

Hey Guest, thanks for the feedback, really appreciate it! Would you say that the plants need more texture-work than the animals or both?

You're absolutely right that the areas around the plants are lacklustre. The problem is - unlike regular games that can add any visual prop they like, here it has to be a living part of the nature simulation. Eg: If I add beautiful mushrooms around the plants it would look nice, but be meaningless unless I had my Fungi growth simulation bringing it to life _and_ unless spiders, etc could crawl on to it convincingly and use it as a living battleground for survival, not just a pretty foliage cardboard that sways in the wind!

Good news is that as more and more creatures/plants are added to the game all the bland/lifeless areas will slowly gain life-forms that actually belong there and hopefully add value to both the gameplay and the simulation.

Great feedback btw -please keep more of it coming, everyone. I'd rather hear it now than after the game's been released!

Thank you!!!

Hey Beelim thanks for the feedback! Which areas would you like me to focus on for polishing? This is the right time to get this work done as I have a small window between now and release where I can take your feedback and improve whatever is possible. Please do let me know!

Late reply here again, sorry!

Great to hear you've taken up 3D modeling! It's a wonderful thing to learn and quite relaxing compared to most forms of technical-art IMO (and really improves one's spatial awareness too).

I'd recommend Blender for 3D modeling but I understand it's not for everyone (not to mention a UE4-Blender pipeline has many workflow/import issues that can quickly frustrate a beginner).

And yeah! It's really easy to underestimate how much effort goes into making even the simplest and smallest game conceivable. Most people will tell you to start off with a smaller project than a grand reconversion of a classic, but on the flip side if you don't take up a project you're really passionate about it can be hard to sustain momentum and "keep going at it".

In any case, keep going at it! There's a lot to be learnt from a project like yours and these skills can come in handy at any time.

Maybe you can even incorporate your writing into a game project some day. Thing is, With the short attention span that most of us have these days grabbing a viewer's attention through visual media is easier than plain text.

Best of luck with learning new skills and your project.

PS: You got my name right!

Hey! I didn't see this comment until now, apologies. I'm doing great, still developing my game and inching closer towards release. Some good news, Rock Paper Shotgun did an article on my game Rockpapershotgun.com so that's made me really happy!

How are you doing? I saw the new groups that you started but simply didn't have time to check them out closely. Are you still writing?

Thank you @TheHolyPilgrim! I must have missed this comment earlier. I'm grateful for your encouragement, it is deeply appreciated!

Hey geo-melody, thank you so much for tracking DoN the Nature game. Your support is deeply appreciated and goes a long way towards motivating development of the game.

Thank you!

Hey nesbit50, just wanted to leave a message saying thanks for following DoN the Nature game! Your participation is deeply appreciated by myself and I'm sure other devs too. Thank you!

Thanks a lot for the kinds words! Every bit of encouragement from all of you fuels the building of this game.

A free alpha/demo is on the way so hopefully you'll be able to try the game for yourself in a month or so.

Hey, thanks so much for following DoN the Nature game! Your support is deeply appreciated.

Hey, thanks for watching my game. Support from people like you makes the long haul worth it, so thanks for the motivation!

I saw some of your screenshots on Twitter and was drawn here - absolutely gorgeous! I especially love the snowy mountains with the clouds passing by. Maybe the settlements could use a visual upgrade - it does look picturesque, but next to the snowy mountains it stands no chance!

I haven't played your demo yet, will check it out when I get some free time.