An Action-RPG in which Creatures Adapt and Evolve: "Where Beasts Were Born" DevLog 3

[@brandonsaffell4100]

Enemies that respond to your play style and continuously challenge you is what everyone wants from a video game. You could use this technology in so many genres, looking forward to what you're able to make with it.

[@DaveRune]

Absolutely! I wonder if creatures that evolve based off the entire playerbase rather than just one player will be harder or easier to fight. If they evolve to counter specifically one players strategy, that player will have to adapt. If they evolve to deal with an entire playerbase of strategies.. can they be that smart? or would they become a 'jack of all trades' then? Perhaps have both implementations in the final game? Have certain evolution stragegies per cave you enter.

[@brandonsaffell4100]

@@DaveRune You would have meta's and niche's. Would be a lot of fun, I'd love to see it in MMO's in a variety of manners from world mobs to raid bosses.

[@rmt3589]

Really? Everyone wants this? 😰 Guess I should plan on putting something like this in the engine itself...

[@gearandalthefirst7027]

@@rmt3589 Everyone on the video for an evolution game wants evolution in their games. Sample bias is a thing

[@rmt3589]

@@gearandalthefirst7027 True. Forgot about that, ngl.

[@FiveJungYetNoSmite]

A pet companion that you can feed certain enemies to guide its evolution the way you want could be pretty cool

[@littlebeasty5839]

maybe different categories even, like one's on behaviour while the other gains and uses traits ( just spit balling )

[@ShankarSivarajan]

A little like Kirby?

[@francobernaldodequiros9509]

i would be great in farm animals, like "cows" so you make the best breed. if the player eat creatures and has a way to carry them this beheavor can be created by the players without having to code it directly

[@Slightquills]

Maybe if he develops a class based around that. Otherwise it may be too strong.

[@NeoEvanA.R.T]

​@@ShankarSivarajan no, more like domestication

[@zerb6621]

you know it's a good day when a devlog of this game gets released

[@rmt3589]

This comment convinced me to subscribe.

[@flaredesel3425]

@@CorporateGameOfficialWell now you do, welcome

[@TimmyMicBobbins]

Yo! Following and showing to my buddies

[@ThespianDevil]

@RepentandbelieveinJesusChrist5nah

[@tiagogarcia4900]

I still love how the monsters are not even trying to be realistic. Give the game such a cool style.

[@RetrowaveVisions]

This game concept is honestly fascinating, there's something incredibly haunting about seeing such creepy creatures evolving in response to the environment and player! It's an entirely separate system to your procedural creature creator, but I would love to see more of the behavioural evolution and possibly even learning through neural network representation and reinforcement learning (as demonstrated in the creatures evolution video by davidrandallmiller)

[@Germanunkol]

That's the plan! In fact, behaviour adaptation/learning over time is one of the main goals I have for this project. But yes, it'll be a different system, and encoding the current (very dynamic and 3D) surrounding of the creature into something the brain can work with is not trivial. But I have some ideas, and hope to get started on this soon!

[@phantom_blade555]

@@Germanunkol when I read the title of this game I thought you were also a creature that can just roam the world and evolves but I now realize that’s not the case

[@mystrynane5841]

I love this concept and I have a couple ideas to complete the game loop for the single client solution 1. Instead of turrets what if you're creating tribe members that fight for you 2. In order to upgrade your tribe and subsequently your tribe mates you'd need to gather some basic point resource from hunting the creatures (This encourages combat) 3. Instead of killing all enemies to finish the round you and your tribe have to survive as many days as possible with a day and night cycle (To avoid the feeling of grinding) 4. In the daytime you could have defensive "herbivores" who are negatively reinforced for not surviving and compete for plants with the player character in the nighttime you could have aggressive "predators" at night that are negatively reinforced when other creatures survive the night and positively reinforced for how many tribe mates and herbivores they kill. (This would lead to different styles of enemies instead of one optimal one) Good work so far can't wait to see more in the future

[@tomigodoy9853]

Bro being modest about his evolution program while not only that alone is super impressive, also the creatures AI looks amazing, the way they move and how they use their limbs its super impressive. You are incredibly talented mate, and your game prototype looks like it actually has lot of future as a game rather than just a funny interesting project. RPGs always work and if you keep true to the evolutions your game could be a diamond amongst the sea of rpg; very similar to rain world, both with a incredibly innovative enviroment.

[@lulute8]

The time of creature generation between each round could be used by players to change/update specs and status, get gear and have a time to prepare for the next "Raid" the time of creature generation could even be display on the top as the time until the next raid

[@bramvanduijn8086]

Yeah, make it part of the gameplay, push the player to make their choices before time runs out.

[@littlebeasty5839]

​@RepentandbelieveinJesusChrist5Oh fools of the for the endless nine, ignorance buried with tenfolds of soil. We do not believe in such past time believes, we praise only reviewbruh. The report of the week, and unchanged form. Now do you feel like a arse or do we need another review-chant?

[@Human-tn5qq]

Sincerely lately the only devvlog I'm interested in

[@KryyssTV]

It may be possible to address three issues at once. Firstly you're relying upon a mesh morphing approach to change their appearence but it may be better to actually use a kitbashed approach with genes adding or removing parts as they pass certain thresholds and then simply having those individual parts grow or shrink. Along with this approach you could have the type of locomotion reflect how fast they are. Critters with no legs are slow, those with legs are average and the fastest hover using wings. This helps to telegraph traits to the player much earlier to set expectation. Other distinct phyiscal charactertistics could also be used for other stats too.

[@ryannygard3661]

I like to support natural selection based video games and have bought many of them. There are a few common problems games like these can run into. 1. If your fitness function is: how much damage the creature deals to the player. This will definitely work and the creatures will become very strong very fast, but that is not always fun for the player. I think it's good to do a fitness function that's also takes into account the fun the player is having. 2. If all creatures use a single fitness function then it's common that one species will dominate leading to the player only fighting a single creature type. This can be quite boring for the player because the game leads variety. Using a server to download creatures would solve this problem. I'm very excited to see where this project goes and will be watching!

[@Germanunkol]

Totally agree with your points. I currently plan on not having the target function fixed, so users could adopt it before playing... maybe with a few sensible defaults to choose from. That should keep things entertaining for a while!

[@bobbic3011]

This is the first time I've seen an indie game with an idea that is out there, but I actually think is amazing. Honestly, I'm waiting in anticipation to see the final product, however long it will take.

[@ironmaiden12369]

"Rujik the Comatose" game is the exact same idea but its really pretty 2D sprites.

[@Germanunkol]

It has a lot of similarities, yes. But if I understand his plans correctly, his game will be more pokemon-like. Also, he merges the bodies directly and doesn't seem to have the underlying DNA structure. But definitely a very cool project! :)

[@kkrup5395]

@@ironmaiden12369 I'm pretty sure those aren't sprites, but 3d models and shader that makes them look like pixelart

[@turking25]

What’s interesting about a game with evolving enemies like this is that by adding more mechanical depth to the characters, you change how the player can play, which influences how the creatures can evolve, in turn, adding more mechanical depth. So character design and balance will be integral to the game.

[@Slightquills]

Maybe rather then a class system allow the player to select skills they wish to use or have a random option for the ambitious. That way characters wouldn't always be the same either.

[@Zyconi]

One of favorite things is games that continue to make you think out of the box and change your play style to overcome new enemies. This is a great take on that idea and would be amazing to see fully fleshed out

[@shiwid]

bro ngl this looks very fun to play, a system that "learns" with the actions of each player and adapts to his play style is incredible, sounds like a never ending challenge for real. usually what sticks me to a game is the variety of weapons available, would be cool if that was the case of WBWB, a game with THIS kind of variety of monsters and gameplay, with a great variety of weapons would be a game i would play for thousands of hours no cap. Good job with the game! very excited to try it out

[@dziku2222]

Fantastic project, I love when people add some fresh air to the gaming, unlike A+++ gaming which consists of reheating the same old cutlets without really adding anything innovative. Can't wait for you to release the game on steam so I can buy it!

[@patrickwilliams251]

initial gut feeling is that this is gonna be huge in the future

[@gusfring96]

Its gonna go the Rain Wirld royute. Pretty niche in its first few years and then suddenly explode in popularity.

[@haven6455]

@@gusfring96 never heard of that game.

[@finnbol-yk3uz]

​@@haven6455try it out its a great game were it feels like you arent the central point of the game.

[@Volcano22207]

It’s called “rain world” he was just having a stroke

[@airaneon]

Single Client would probably be the most fun, since it would be a tailored experience for each player, but a bit of Central server could fit well. It would be interesting to have a central database ,like Spore, that the game "suggests" a few creatures from the central to the game, those creatures would be some high scores from other players game. That way you can have an unique tailored experience but also adding a bigger variation pool to the game.

[@samuelesanfilippo222]

ok this look genuinly amazing, it's rare to see so much potential in an idea. biomes, pack hunting and group behavior, like and dislike, with the idea of a "fast evolving" creature there are so many thing that could be applied to the playable character too like introducing weapon based on dead creature body parts and so on.

[@knuxuki1013]

I'm not game dev but I had a similar idea though the way it is different but I'm soooo glad someone has an idea like this, I wish you immense fortune on this project!

[@tornado3007]

I like the "Single client solution" the most because the player can see how the creatures react to his choices and it forces the player to choose some new tactics to kill new enemies

[@Crowley_Grimsbane]

You know what would be such a cool feature? The ability to name the various creatures you discover throughout your own journey

[@FictionCautious]

Finally. Someone woke up and decided he has a working imagination which can actually develop interesting games. About time.

[@baitposter]

Y'know, I'd be hyped to see a good evolution simulator for a Spore-like game Crowdsource/distribute the processing to aid the evolutionary arms race

[@yiannchrst]

This is one of my favorite projects to follow! It is such a great idea. I hope you make the game as good as it deserves to be!

[@IsaacShay]

PLEASE POST MORE OFTEN this game has the biggest potential I have seen out of hundreds of devlogs from different creators!!!

[@solsystem1342]

Edit: just realized that most of these could be solved by running different batches and sampling from different ones for each run. Say like one batch every 12 hours and it samples from a few that are about as tough as your level of character. This would lend itself to a more "adventurer" style of game where you are helping with different infestations every run rather than fighting in the same cave every time. As a crazy idea I just had perma death might work quite well in this game. With that style because it provides a strong encentive for players to book it if they are in trouble. The harsher the punishment for death the more risky staying in a fight you might lose is. Whereas the lighter the pentaly the more you can act recklessly. Leading to very different game feels. One concern with the central server idea is that if it converges to a local optimum the whole player base won't get to explore any of the rest of the possibilities. Similarly if it finds a few relitively decent builds. It could also cause scaling issues where the enemies are too hard for new characters and too easy for experienced ones because they all draw from the same pool.

[@kharijordan6426]

Could there be a way to have both. You have your cave that has evolved monsters and you have other peoples cave that has their monster. A cave they ran away from maybe? Or maybe both cave one were people won and ran away from. Maybe players can leave nots telling others players what exactly is waiting for them ..like a from soft game.....noo never mind... can't trust people....or maybe not trusting people would be the fun of it?

[@Germanunkol]

@kharijordan6426 I really like the idea of having people leave comments on creatures they've fought. I think this might be a way to keep track of fun creatures to play against (that aren't necessarily the "best" or "strongest", but just have cool behavior).

[@theburgerbox9576]

Very cool to see some actual gameplay, even if it is a prototype! It looks a lot more high-paced than I expected, but I think that's a good thing :D

[@antimeme5545]

I love this so much, I've been thinking of making a similar game but kept running into the wall of "what if the game made a perfect enemy?"

[@MeatbalMommy]

It would be cool if you added some type of foliage that could act as a hide/stealth mechanic. Monsters could still find you but they would have to search. Think of a bunny running away from a dog into tall grass.

[@Slightquills]

I like this. It fits into my thoughts about having a living environment for the player as well. (Early No Man's Sky being the opposite.) Also, it allows for another vector of evolution through the environment.

[@Phantom-bh5ru]

I really like how the creatures evolved. A giant super tanky, slow but high damaging creature and the other became a small, fast and hard to hit and annoying creature

[@ababypettarrasque4048]

This game looks sooooo promising! I think it could be very cool to have lots of ways to interact with the creatures and depending on their evolution, some of them don't work (like the light spell not working on creature with the light resistance trait). I wish listed it on steam immediately. I'll follow this closely!

[@YouWinILose]

Love this idea! For the creature generation times, I can also imagine a survival mode using a day/night cycle à la Kingdom, or tower defence. An evolving menace that comes at night, learning based on how you survived the night before would be a harrowing experience! It would also provide the system and the player(s) time to generate, organize, repair, and explore. Absolutely fascinated by your process!

[@xdsloth5199]

only been a viewer for like 30 minutes and I'm already completely invested, can't wait for the next devlog, game is looking awesome!

[@ossyx]

I see you've got a nice idea and interest for it, keep it up

[@evilskelton]

This game is so interesting! I'm excited to see how it evolves...

[@steamingpileofspaghetti9755]

ive watched a lot of evolution simulator type videos on youtube, and these creatures are some of the best looking ones ive seen.

[@alejolab]

A great update 😀 So cool that you could already see two different species coexisting with your current play style.

[@gabe8763]

this us my first exoerince to this game and it gives me the chills. also nice work.

[@sirreginaldfishingtonxvii6149]

Ahh, I can't believe someone is making this! I had more or less this idea as a kid, but having no coding knowledge (and middling at best biology knowledge) I obviously couldn't make it myself so I just ended up hoping for someone to implement that evolution mechanic into an rpg. My child self's wish is at long last sated... Looks freaky. Real cool stuff!

[@Germanunkol]

Very glad to hear this! But... wait... are you saying I should know something about biology? :D

[@sirreginaldfishingtonxvii6149]

@@Germanunkol nahh animal bad = no reproduce animal good = reproduce (more animal) I think that's about all you need for this project, and you've got that part down pat! :D Best of luck with the project, man!

[@magickz16]

some ideas I have you could use 1) ability to evolve senses like sight/smell/hearing so we would have to adapt our aproach differently each time 2) evolve defences or attacks against different elements- example if we use the crossbow with a fire bolt it could evolve stronger defence against fire 3) these creatures should not all fight us, they should also have different personalitys- so they may attack each other, or be agressive/defensive/ attack in packs or solo etc

[@wenry9961]

Just found your channel; love the unique idea

[@somdudewillson]

Depending on how flexible you can make the performance load of creature generation, it might be possible to speculatively pre-generate new creatures during a run. Also, depending on the topology (esp. smoothness) of the possible genomes, it might be possible to accelerate evolution using gradient estimation and/or a small neural network that can estimate the expected fitness of a given genome against a given player.

[@johnnyklash5883]

I love the games art design, I hope it wont change much. It feels like a stop motion film, great job.

[@JHawke12]

This looks really cool! Wishlisted and can't wait to see what you got planned next

[@andreaghirlanda1343]

bro insane work, imagine one day game like monster hunter with a similar évolution system would be bonker, keep it up!

[@MyriadSkies]

Perhaps a solution to the long generation times of the creatures, is to have some downtime between levels. So basically, rather than encountering beasts, killing them all, and immediately going back to encountering beasts, you can make the game cycle more akin to: Encounter beasts, kill beasts, go to a hub, or a camp, and do some low (processor) intensity activities, that will take long enough for the generation process to complete in the background, before heading out on the next encounter? These sorts of downtime things could be basically anything, like equipment management (buying/crafting/maintaining/changing), or dialogue, or some other thing. Anything that fits here, and is appropriate with your vision for the game really. Besides this giving the chance for the game to generate the next batch of beasts, this also adds to an ebb and flow kind of thing, which can actually help from a design perspective to make the game more engaging. Games that are all action, all the time, can get exhausting. But if you have intense action, interrupted at regular intervals with quiet, calm periods, it can make stave off exhaustion, and make people excited for the next round =).

[@Germanunkol]

Yes, this is exactly how I imagined it! A store or equipment/skill management in a base camp before they enter the next cave. True, I hadn't thought of the fact that this might actually help the game rather than be a hindrance One issue I still have to solve is that Blender's license might be incompatible with Steam's, so I might not be able to distribute the generator through steam... I'll have to figure that out.

[@kharijordan6426]

​@@Germanunkol Oh... found this comment away down here . Guess I didn't need to say the same thing. Seems someone already suggested it.

[@angelisabroad]

Nicely done! 👏👏👏I loved the single client solution demo. It'd be interesting to have each generation also be fighting a different "generation" for the players. Meaning, narratively, they are the actual descendants of your previous players. That would give you more of a reason for the speed of the evolution in between generations. You could give some randomly generated text details during the wait you need to generate the next creatures. Keep up the good work!

[@Germanunkol]

Ha, that's cool, I could procedurally add wear and tear to player items as well, i.e. equipment gets handed down through the generations (and either worsen if you don't take care of them - or get better because of all the magic they've encountered). This would be a very natural way of changing the player equipment as well and forcing the players to always try new play-styles...

[@Germanunkol]

I placed this into the feature-suggestion channel on Discord so people can discuss it. Look forward to seeing what people think of it...

[@angelisabroad]

@@Germanunkol Good point. A very natural wear system indeed!

[@kharijordan6426]

​@@Germanunkol Maybe there can be some interesting down time to give the game some time like...monster part selling or.......npc talking....or...... weapon tuning. Dancing...music making...fis....no ..not that one. Firework watching ,clothes making.... Painting like in armored core six, Magic tuning...😡 100 push up, 100situp, and a ten kilometer run! Do each and every time you loose or succeed at killing every monster! P.s I copy pasted this from my other comment typing to another person above.

[@Germanunkol]

@kharijordan6426 All of that makes the witches sound waaaay to pleasant. The way I currently imagine them is that they're very self-centered, don't care about anyone, make others work for them and try to gain all the power they can from the magic mushrooms, without worrying about hurting others on the way. But there will have to be some down-time between rounds, so selling stuff/buying new equipment etc. is a good plan, I think.

[@user-T4PHY]

This is absolutely amazing. I've always thought it was incredibly interesting to have a game where the player had an effect on the world around them. It's definitely very hard to implicate into games, but the thought of having every game be different than the last is what I think makes it fun. I'm very excited to see where this game goes.

[@philcookies9470]

The second choice would be perfect for a rogue like dungeon game.

[@ayylmao.mp3]

This is turning out really interesting! I especially like the idea of building traps and managing the creature movement with the bright light. Perhaps the creatures could also have certain likes and hates, so some fear the light and some blind creatures don't mind at all. Senses could play a lot into this, managing e.g. player visibility and noise. Also baits? Bring a pile of meat or mushrooms and wait for the creatures to come to feast. Maybe most creatures are more standard, but then you'd get these more challenging "hunts".

[@zenchi_kami]

I really liked your idea, I've mentioned it in the idea I've also posted here. maybe check it out and give your opinion on it?

[@daniniamut1362]

Awesome to get a new devlog so soon!

[@apersimmon]

This I think this game is a very cool idea. I definitely think that the generation should have the real-time as a separate game mode from the other generation type/s. So then you could say play on a steam deck on a long car trip and other times where internet may not an option.

[@TheGameChangerLord]

Suggestion: Have the gene that determines how much damage a creature can take before it flees also determine the chance that it will flee in light. Alternatively, give it a separate gene that determines the chance if it flees in light but connect it to the other flee gene the same way the tail length gene is connected to the torso length gene. If you do the latter you could give some kind of flaw to having a high light resistance gene the same way having high armour genes gives you a flaw. Maybe it makes them not heal so much from mushrooms? So a creature might evolve to either flee at the first sign of danger and whenever it sees the light to go heal itself a lot from mushrooms or evolve to rarely flee from a fight no matter what but not be able to run and heal.

[@Germanunkol]

Yes, that is a very good thought, I will definitely consider that! In fact, I also wanted to hook this system up to the eyes - larger (or more) eyes increases the sight range but also increases the sensitivity to light (and thus to the bright light spell). An open issue that I have is that I don't know whether fleeing is always an advantage or disadvantage? So should I support it with other genes, or should I discourage it by adding some additional disadvantage...? :/

[@TheGameChangerLord]

@@Germanunkol Yeah I agree that I'm not sure if being more likely to flee is a penalty or positive, so having the more eyes/light sensitivity give a benefit the more eyes/sensitive they are might work best. If you're going the increased sight route then maybe have a behavioral gene that determines if it hides, heals or charges when it sees the player? That could lead to some exciting gameplay where some creatures evolve to blitz the players before they can react while others prefer to ambush. I'm not a game dev though so I don't know if that would be especially hard to implement.

[@Germanunkol]

@@TheGameChangerLord It's somewhat hard to implement, but I definitely want to try! In fact, I want them to evolve their brains/behavior trees alongside their bodies, so this sort of behavior could emerge - hopefully - automatically. The brain could also "know" about the current state of the environment and the creature itself, which would let it decide which of those strategies to choose depending on the situation and it's own health etc. But this is so far just a dream, I have only started coding behavior and don't know if this will work out the way I want it to.

[@TheGameChangerLord]

​@@Germanunkol That all sounds good, I hope it goes well. I can't wait for the next devlog!

[@omarsali2990]

When this game is released it's gonna be a banger

[@bobjhon7391]

It’d make sense if creatures can evolve resistance to the different effects and damage types. Like hard shells the reduce pierce and slashing but weak to bludgeon, or soft bodies which do the opposite. Or eye lids which can block the flash spell but leaves them blind. But they could also evolve alternative modes of sensing the world around them like echolocation and electromagnetic senses. With the side effect that different forms of sensing the player have different pros and cons like echolocation only showing the players last location when used and electromagnetic senses giving a very vague answer increasing their chance to miss an attack.

[@Germanunkol]

Totally agree! A lot of this is planned, and some is already implemented - for example, evolution can "decide" which parts of the creature to cover in scales (see DevLog 2). Different damage types and resistances against them are one of the next things I'll work on!

[@fusieisbsi888]

This concept is absolute gold! And it seams like you can pull it off, can't wait

[@ZuilzonDTD]

I love the idea of a 'weekly' game mode like what most games have but in this case it could be much more interesting. What I'm thinking is at the start of a week there is a creature set that is sent out to all players that opt into the weekly, and they get to fight those. The monsters then evolve in a single-client format for that player up until the end of that weekly. At the end of the weekly, the highest scored monsters re-enter the pool and are sent out to all weekly players again. This would let people see some direct interaction with the evolution process but allow for dramatic changes at expected intervals. This way no one is blind sided but everyone has to be ready to completely throw out their previous strategies to prepare for the newest generation.

[@Germanunkol]

Love the idea! The only downside is that people would have to play a certain number of times within a week, and I don't really like games that "force" you to play a lot. I'd like to let players play when they have the time... But as the mode is optional, it might be a good idea!

[@StellarNova45]

I've always wanted to see a game like this, where enemies can visibly adapt to player play style until you have to change up your game play, forcing variety and replay ability

[@rhubarb1605]

If you go with the second option you can put a shop inbetween each round which gives time to load things

[@asta3749]

Fascinating

[@blamb9977]

This test-play and demonstration is very encouraging and interesting! Well done.

[@ksalarang]

more people should see this

[@Galgamos]

And wishlisted. :) This looks very interesting.

[@Gureenu]

i already like your game, it also felt weird looking at you playing your game and being immersed

[@bakersbread104]

I think a cool way to implement this concept would be in large amounts in a survival game, like factorio but more of a focus on the creatures and faster paced, and since there are many of them it has many chances to evolve quickly to adapt. Also maybe implement some sort of resource mechanic that leaves room for cheap expendables with the huge heavy hitters.

[@Germanunkol]

I can imagine the game you're describing, and I'd love to see large numbers of creatures, but if every creature takes 5 seconds to generate and a horde is 100 creatures large you'd have to wait about 10 minutes for a round to start. That's just too long. Also, I want to add an individual brain to each creature which will take more computation resources in-game and at some point, this stops being feasible... :/

[@skop6321]

I think that would work with the more realistic approach to evolution they showed in the video. The creatures could gradually evolve. But instead of each creature computed individually there could be groups of the same varient. I would think there should be a way to optimize the generation process because we know most of the parameters will stay the same for each iteration and the changes could be to only main features. Then with lots of creatures you could optimize it by using boids, but that's outside of my knowledge range.

[@bakersbread104]

@@Germanunkol You can simplify it by spawning in groups of the same creature which also works well for the resource idea. So instead of spawning in one guy you would spawn in 20 or 100 identical ones (the amount depending on how expensive each one is) and aggregate how well they did without having to evolve 100 individuals. This would also naturally weigh the achievements of each individual with how cheap they were to make since you would add the score of everyone in that batch. You would have to then compute the actions of each individual which might be hard, but I'm sure there are simplifications to the ai that could be made that make games like total war or any other game with hordes possible. I think in total war's case they just batch them up again with group objectives which matches the idea.

[@kharijordan6426]

​@@Germanunkol I like you "Mushroom give buffs to players and heals monsters if the players are not careful" idea.

[@creepiona5460]

This souds SOOO awesome, I think every good survival game should have such a feature in furure, it just makes the world feel really alive, when even the creatures permanently change around you :o But, one thing: maybe you could also add some smaller, passive creature, that are skitterish and try to avoid the player as much as possible when discovered, but also act as prey for the bigger creatures. Then the small creatures would evolve to become better at running away/hiding or whatever, and the predators could evolve based on how good they are at hunting.

[@gr-fk8sd]

This profoundly interesting I’ve rarely felt awe when looking at something 5:05 and it’s this gross monster your amazing work gave me a flash of all the eldritch horrors I’ve enjoyed and I will be buying your game I hope you keep the medieval theme and I think a rogue like RPG system with you customizing your characters based of the creatures would make every run feel like a new journey filled with horrors for and underground kingdom

[@SpikeStudio]

This seems to have a great start! Excited to see where it goes!

[@zacharywhite7465]

We all know what time it is. Time to create a different evolution for boss monster (which can be lore for the "king" of monsters or "mother" and perhaps even have the first evolution. The boss is huge and randomly generated each run which makes games unique and the game replayable! I enjoy watching these dev-logs and i hope this game will come out soon!❤

[@GoddamnSuperhero]

This is pretty exciting. I wanted to pursue this idea a while back but never figured out how to do the animation. its cool to see someone else has!

[@Irithind]

How about using the first approach with creatures roaming, but adding a nest system? For example, the creatures will create nests when they breed and lay eggs. The eggs can also evolve to get stronger, and you can destroy the weak ones to stop the creature's offspring from being born. With this system, the creatures wouldn't run away from players, because you could make them be protective of their nest and they would stay close to it all the time so it would be like more contained areas with fights.

[@belckan549]

One idea for evolution could be to let creatures that damage the player reproduce even if they die. It could make interesting focuses such as kamikazes

[@sir_zachary8112]

I love the idea of a special game mode where each day there is a new generation of beasts for players to attempt, but I see this as more of a daily challenge than main gameplay

[@Germanunkol]

Yeah, I agree! I think this would work well as a separate game mode. I hadn't thought of it as a "daily challenge" so far - that's a new perspective that I like, might adapt that, thanks!

[@Insanity_TM]

This seriously has potential.

[@TheQuietOne937]

You should include a size and ecosystem stat where levels can support a certain amount of energy (difficulty.) Some levels might have large, elite units and others might have hordes.

[@the11382]

It's a good way to direct evolution. Enemies will outgrow the player without player progression, energy will improve pacing and difficulty.

[@zenchi_kami]

thats a good idea, maybe check the one I've posted here? it certainly would be a good integration to yours

[@aleafmusic1681]

Stumbled upon your channel, and oh my goodness I'm so glad I did! This honestly looks so interesting

[@TheMightyWej]

This concept is super interesting, I can imagine it translating well to many different genres! Best of luck to you man, can't wait to see where you go with this :)

[@wormius51]

I like the 3rd idea the best. It will make evolution go throughout the time the game is live. Players can develop a meta and so do the enemies.

[@ProperSnake]

Love to see it finally in action for a game view, keep up the amazing stuff!

[@jocosesonata]

Give this man a whole staff and studio, and at least half a million of budget! I'd like to see this shine in the future. I hope Curious Archive talks about this, or mentions it, in a future video. This is right up his alley. I actually kinda want to see something similar in Deep Rock Galactic's Deep Dives. Not so much rapid evolution, but different tactics based on how the dwarves dealt with the previous cave.

[@Germanunkol]

Would love a mention from Curious Archive of course - feel free to tell them about me :D Might be too early at this point though - maybe when there's a demo?

[@maxpower9546]

I guess it'll depend on how far you take the game but alongside the "gradual" changes you could add some "specific features" that could develop under some specific condition. Like, a species that continues to become ever faster reaches the requirements to unlock a "lunge" or something like that. That way even if you "figure out" the adaptions of a species something could still come out of left field. Regardless, wishlisted on Steam. I'll keep an eye on this.

[@sheepcommander_]

this is actually pretty epic!!

[@Pyriphlegeton]

Love the concept. Maybe attacks could also be subject to evolution, so you never know what you'll have to defend against. Barrage of toxic spit? Grapple attacks? Brute force and closeup? Etc. Might synergize really well with the other traits.

[@Germanunkol]

Yeah, I hope to develop quite a few different types of attacks! Takes quite a bit of development time, though, because each needs to come with 1) the physical action or interaction, i.e. the impact, 2) the visual effect and 3) the brain functionality to trigger the attack, including the interaction with other attacks. But I'll get there!

[@AndrewBrownK]

the rate of their adaptation is both frightening and enthralling. It looks like this game could sit in a perfect little niche blend of Devil Daggers, Spore-likes, and... idk, rogue-likes maybe. I was so impressed how you combod player abilities into one another to counter the beasts. Even if the beasts are the focus, I look forward to seeing other character concepts too

[@Germanunkol]

I'm still unsure about the character abilities (and the magic system) - so this feedback was great to hear! Very glad to see I'm on the right track, thank you! :)

[@AndrewBrownK]

​@@Germanunkolsomething you're probably already considering or thinking about is convergent evolution. There are very recognizable archetypes of animals, even if the finer details are always changing. For example: Marsupial versions of dogs and cats. Mammals trying to become fish as dolphins. Bats learning to fly like birds. I think one of the risks with this game is that "technically" all the monsters are totally open ended and you never know what you will get. However "practically" we can almost guarantee that archetypes will grow out of the woodwork. Once players start cataloguing these archetypes, the "mystique of being open ended" might die a little. It's for this reason I think you shouldn't be afraid to just throw tons of complexity into "the space of possibilities". Evolution can sort out the finer details on the beasts. Players can sort out the finer details on the RPG side. As the developer, your biggest concern will be providing enough variety, not optimization or balancing. So when it comes to magic systems or tools or whatever, if it is on the simpler/easier side to add, err on the side of adding it instead of leaving it.

[@mr.fruitcup4495]

you HAVE MY FULL ATTENTION WITH RPG AND EVOLUTION HOLY CROW

[@Wax_Man]

Super sick idea

[@andylastname566]

I love the claymation/stop motion look/vibe this game has. :)

[@cameronhunt5967]

It’s easy to make suggestions when your not the one making the game, but here are some ideas I had. Recording player actions to generate and score multiple generations at once against, but this would only work with something like a tower defense where player actions are less influenced by specific situations and monsters, and maybe not even then. Since creature generation time seems to be getting in the way of some of your ideas working on that bottleneck might be important. But having a random person on the internet tell you “make this part faster” doesn’t help much. My terrible ideas aside this is shaping up to be very cool!

[@kharijordan6426]

Maybe there can be some interesting down time to give the game some time like...monster part selling or.......npc talking....or...... weapon tuning. Dancing...music making...fis....no ..not that one. Firework watching ,clothes making.... Painting like in armored core six, Magic tuning...😡 100 push up, 100situp, and a ten kilometer run! Do each and every time you loose or succeed at killing every monster!

[@maziugomez2786]

Make like biomes where monsters also have to adapt to diferent things, like a cold wheter taht makes monster have to go for food and some kind of heat fount

[@ixioxp119]

One issue I don't think you mentioned about the central server solution is that if the evolution works, the difficulty of the game will slowly increase over time.

[@Germanunkol]

Well - yes and no. If I simply keep the rules of every match fixed and the target function the same for each match, you're totally right. But I don't have to do that! I could have seasonal events that change the rules (mushrooms give players more boosts when the moon is in first quarter?) or have the caves changing over time (rising water? less narrow paths?), or come up with a changing fitness score that somehow adapts to the current state of the server (when the beasts are already near perfect, start optimizing for something else instead?) But worst case, I reset the server every month. So it's something I have to look out for, but nothing that I'm too worried about :D

[@kharijordan6426]

​@@Germanunkol Hope there is a way to kill super fast highly armored monsters. Maybe something you could buy.

[@MrPitxardo]

Good job! And thank you for the mention!

[@Germanunkol]

Thanks! Looking forward to more updates from your game as well!

[@Maljurok]

Man with awesome logic like this I would love to see a Fantasy MMO RPG where all NPC creatures can adapt behaviorally to the actions of players. Perhaps leading to one of them becoming a world boss down the line where a quest could be made to attempt to slay such a legend.

[@natirsagohuis4062]

This concept looks amazing! I'm really looking forward to see how this project evolves! 😄

[@rylanblaior6757]

so many things can be done with this depending what kind of game/genre you want to make even for possible future projects. combat focus game could appreciate evolving adapting enemy's. fish tank games could enjoy watching creatures evolve. you could do something similar to rain world and be thrown into an ecosystem and explore survive and fight.

[@lowgraphicsgaming314]

This is some seriously cool stuff, I just found your channel and already can’t wait for your next upload. I was already addicted to games like the sapling and bibites but yours is different and in a very good way. I think I would definitely chose the single client version

[@adamvallaste3495]

The random mutation idea is a good way to force players into a new way of playing. They wont be able to play the same safe stategy if there suddenly is something brand new to face. If it benefits the monsters quite a lot, and affect the evolution big time, then it will demand a whole new play style for the rest of the campaign. Really cool game, will be watching the progress with great enthusiasm!

[@dontstopbelieving1]

These are some very cool systems. I can't wait to give this game a shot. It also seems like it could naturally spinoff into an evo sim style sequel

[@albedehombre]

Creatures could lay an egg when they meet which will be the buffer for generating a creature. And players can destroy the eggs, stopping the evolution.

[@Germanunkol]

Destroying the eggs is an interesting thought I hadn't heard before... Thanks, I'll think about it!

[@leannviolet]

This is one of the coolest ideas I've seen* thank you

[@frischestoast]

love your devlogs, keep it up