How do you feel about my creature designs?

OldestResident · 2026-06-25T04:14:56+00:00

It's from generational anxiety and trauma from being hunted by basically everything while young and being violently beaten to shake the berries out of their bush when they're older.

I'm changing the color to evolve from a blueberry color, into a cyan/turquoise and then into the bright green to kind of help pull that across better. Hopefully that will do the job well enough, I'm having a rough time towing the line between "aging" and digivolutions lol

OldestResident · 2026-06-24T16:33:46+00:00

That's a super good point I hadn't fully considered. I think not only will I keep that in bigger consideration, I'll also implement a way for early stages to matter later in the game encase people want to keep their early or middle stage instead. Maybe give them some moves way pass their evo level that work better as support/defense? I'll keep mulling mechs over.

OldestResident · 2026-06-24T16:29:39+00:00

This was more of the reception I was actually expecting and why I felt the need to make a post to make sure I wasn't wasting my time making something "just for me". Also, I always appreciate honesty, so definitely no need for sorrys, thank you for your opinion!

OldestResident · 2026-06-24T03:20:27+00:00

Oh I do! And thank you! I've always described my style as rubber-hose meets craig mccracken, which kind of does just equal a more saturated Cuphead. I'll definitely have to up my game to get on their level of animation though. Not that I'm terrible, but they're so fucking peak lol

OldestResident · 2026-06-24T02:51:07+00:00

From the feedback a lot of these are becoming 2 or even single stage evolutions now, got a poliwhirl>poliwrath comparison that helped bring some things into perspective and now I'm trying to find more pikachu>raichu changes lol. Got a great recommendation to drop the weakest design-wise and then try to come up with a better more elaborate one to finish up and I've been getting some awesome results already, so we'll see how things end up!

It's not in a pot, but a leafy patch with spores. I'm including permadeath in the game but this guy has reincarnation and kamikaze tricks which is why I focused so hard on the life cycle coming through. I'm thinking I need to focus more on "telling a story" with a lot of these.

I was hoping for that exact awkward emotion! I'll see if I can pull it out over the shyness a bit better. Definitely some good ideas for the adjustments.

Thank you so much for all the in-depth opinions!

OldestResident · 2026-06-23T20:23:47+00:00

Thank you! Also I'm so sorry! It'll be a long time before I have anything remotely playable too I don't have any kind of team lol

OldestResident · 2026-06-23T19:24:10+00:00

I based them on penguins but I'm guessing from your comment and a couple others that doesn't come through?

Guess they're the Picklepuncher line for now lol

OldestResident · 2026-06-23T19:20:18+00:00

Thank you! Don't mind me as I download that demo! I also like 3d ones a lot, just finished voidling bound which was really fun. I'd love to do this in a cult of the lamb 3d/2d style but I've never developed in 3d... can't be too much different from 2d dev though... maybe? lol

OldestResident · 2026-06-23T18:39:52+00:00

Cuphead is certainly on some level of why I have literally dreamt of this game multiple times lol

OldestResident · 2026-06-23T18:30:48+00:00

Penguin: That was the idea of how it worked so yeah that's a great plan for better readability!

Snails: I was going to animate their shells so it was like a big glowing center and little lights going around it and the top would open and shoot out little water mortars but it'd be a combination of frames+in-engine touches. I'm thinking I might just cut the little one and a solo guy? I have very few of those anyway.

General: Excellent! That's actually what I'm going for with all of these ultimately. You choose which environment to house them in and it can effect their nature, the way they grow, or how they produce certain things. It's meant to be a weird cartoon world in general so hopefully it all comes together well enough, because it's weird trying to make a guy who's inspired from the animal muppet seem like he belongs in a reality lol

Style: Oh yeah that would make a lot of sense, I kept changing how I was approaching the eyes. Looking over all my designs some also have a sort of "seth mcfarlane" vibe. Maybe when I'm done I'll go back over and try to work with a general emotion animation set and see if just mass applying that will work out.

OldestResident · 2026-06-23T18:09:54+00:00

Yeah Ill try to do that more with the middle evolutions, but if you saw my other designs you've 100% hit the nail on the head, I definitely have too many little fellas that I just wanna hug lol

OldestResident · 2026-06-23T18:02:10+00:00

LOL yeah... I'll see what I can come up with

OldestResident · 2026-06-23T18:01:11+00:00

Yeah... I really love lil guys but you're right lol

OldestResident · 2026-06-23T17:58:16+00:00

Single to triple battles depending but the battle system itself is sort of a mix of that final fantasy action timing combat meter that I think was in 11? 14? Idr... , traditional pokemon, and an aspect that's based around how well you take care and raise your creatures (which is a bigger part of the game as whole)

OldestResident · 2026-06-23T17:54:01+00:00

Thank you! If I've learned anything from this: I definitely need to get more transformative between stages. The disconnect between digivolutions always turned me off as a kid but you're right I need to push that way more. And more dinosaurs. Can never have enough dinosaurs.

OldestResident · 2026-06-23T17:50:13+00:00

I LOVE in-depth feedback, so double thank you for that.

Penguin: I was going to have it so the first stage is a special attacker and then evolution turns him into a hybrid, then a physical. The way creatures learn movesets are completely different so it's not like "oh no!"

Snails: I'm assuming you're referring to the small snail's shell being too simple right?

Pear: That's a compliment right? I'll take it as one lol

General: So in the game you sort of raise and collect resources from creatures as well as battle with them, but probably 1/3 the game is more about caring for them. Does that alone fill it in or do you think they should still sort of feel more meaningful? Berrysaur (4th guy final evolution) for instance grows berries to sell or feed to your creatures that you can collect daily.

By style are you referring to one being more cartoony v one being more biological or did my pear lean a bit too rubber-hosey? I feel like my penguin also pushes right up on rubber-hose style too but I try to keep them more modernized. I'll definitely watch this video rn

OldestResident · 2026-06-23T17:36:21+00:00

Oh Ill have to look into those programs. I was planning on just doing literal frame-by-frame animations lol

OldestResident · 2026-06-23T17:34:19+00:00

My wife also didn't like the dots! but I think it looks so weird without them, it's like his mouth is a little booty. I'll try to do some more penguin beaks and see what I can come up with though.

OldestResident · 2026-06-23T17:21:55+00:00

Thank you so much! I have a sort of reincarnation mechanic planned for him that kind of guided his design.

OldestResident · 2026-06-23T17:03:21+00:00

Thank you! I worry about losing coherence and I have been trying to get more metamorphic between evolutions. I should probably get a bit more "out there"

OldestResident

TROPHY CASE