Baby monsters' design, and how they change and grow

Concept sketches of some baby monsters from The Legend of Red Dragon Ranch

In The Legend of Red Dragon Ranch, all monsters will start as a baby (naturally!) This baby form, as I've stated before in this blog, grows and develops based on the way you raise it.

This is part of the focus on care in RDR. If you look at the illustration in this post, you'll notice at the top there are three dog-pup monsters and at the bottom there are four strange blob-like monsters.

These are not all different monsters--they are different appearances of the same monsters! The top row depicts Fen, a monstrous pup based on the legend of Fenrir. The bottom row is illustration of the slime monster Vitel, who resembles a cracked egg (the name Vitel comes from the Spanish 'vitelo').

When you first get a baby Fen, it will look like the Fen on the left. However, as you raise it, the way it looks will change. The way it changes depends on the way you take care of it. Since Fen is an active monster, the type of training it excels at will show in its appearance. The center image shows a Fen with a more muscular build, good at wrestling and sparring. If you spend a lot of time taking Fen to the gym, you might end up with a look like that. The image of Fen on the right, however, is a much more elegant Fen. If you spend a lot of time in the zen garden contemplating the meaning of life, for example, your Fen may look prettier, and its mind seed on its forehead will start to bud into a flower. All of these are still Fen, of course, just Fen looks a little different depending on how it is raised. It will not change in stat or nature or anything when these appearance changes take place.

Vitelo, on the other hand, is a more sensitive monster. Its appearance will change not based on what kind of training it practices or what facilities it uses. Its appearance is based on something else entirely. Can you guess what may cause these changes in its appearance?

The way your monster looks can also be a hint of what kind of adult it will grow up to be. While the looks of an adolescent Fen do not differ too wildly from a newborn Fen, and the same with Vitel, the adult forms will be quite different. An adult form of a monster is a completely different look, an evolution of sorts. Each monster has three different adult forms, and while the look of a monster can change many times while it's an adolescent, once it reaches adulthood it stays the same. So you can use the appearance of your adolescent as a guide to whether or not you are raising your monster properly, if you are shooting for a certain adult.

Of course, if you just want to play the game without aiming for certain kinds of training and just take care of the monsters however you feel like, you can do that, too! And you can enjoy seeing a variety of looks for the same monster as you raise it on your ranch.

A big part of The Legend of Red Dragon Ranch is that every player will have a unique experience, even though it will always take place at the same ranch. The way you build up your ranch, the monsters you raise there, how you take care of those monsters, what kinds of activities you focus on, and how you end up solving the mystery of the legend of the Red Dragon is all up to your personal playstyle. Having many different looks for a single monster helps with this 'unique experience' and allows you to experiment with the way you want to play the game.

Character Portraits!

Skitter is coming along well, guys! Recently I've been working on the art for the game, as the programming is mostly done. The game is really ugly... most screens have a solid color as the background, and most images of things are just colored boxes. It would be a big load off my back if someone else could do the art, though... It is definitely the hardest part for me, and the most time-consuming. It took me two days of constant work to finish these things:

Characters with no portrait drawn yet are just green boxes.

* Normal and sad portrait for two characters
* Eating animation for Skitter (the monster)
* Terrible half-finished "jumping" animation for Skitter (that looks really bad and he changes shape/size constantly between frames... no matter how many times I redrew them, I can't get it down...)
* Half-finished background for when you are on the ranch (facility selection screen).

Anyway, I thought I would talk a little about the characters you will encounter in Skitter. Skitter is planned to have a bit of a story, though I haven't worked out all the minor details yet. The focus will be on the pet monsters and raising them, so the story will be somewhat minimal, but it will still be there, and hopefully make the ending of the game very exciting.

Armand runs the cafeteria in town where you can buy food.

The characters are less a part of the story and more a part of the environment, however. The shops each have their own unique shopkeeper that will talk to you with their own personality. A tentative feature that may or may not be added to the final game is a friendship system that allows you to get discounts, gifts, or advice by visiting shops often and talking to the shopkeepers during their off-time (by going to a town square are where you may encounter them).

An example is the chef Armand who owns the food shop (Cafet d'Armand) in town where you can buy food for your monsters. He is very talkative and friendly, but a little confident in himself. I am trying to make the designs somewhat interesting and fantastical. He has a chef's outfit that resembles armor (the top is like chest armor and spaulders) and he has an "ammo belt" with spices and utensils on it that he uses for cooking.

Your sister will be the face of the user, as you'll never see yourself.

Another "strange" design I created was for the player's sister, who will be the source of most information for the player (she will describe features, inform you of when something has happened such as a pet illness or you've depleted your inventory, etc.) The player themselves will have no real "character." You will give yourself a name, but there's no avatar for the player in the game--the player character is actually you, the player!

Anyway, as for the sister, I am still unsure about her name. I may let the player name her, or use of the names I have picked out. But I wanted her to look kind of interesting, but not steal the show from the monsters or the player themselves. So I gave her kind of "dull-colored" clothes (brown and a mint green, with a sort of light brown/dirty blonde hair color). I wanted her to look mature, since she plays a mother-like role to the player, so I gave her a vest and tie, eyeglasses, and large bows on her clothes that were inspired by hanbok (Korean traditional dress), to make her look older and serious. However, she is still young, and even though she is 'in charge,' she is still a kid. So I gave her a cute round face, a more youthful-looking hairstyle, and some bright earrings that don't match her clothes. I think she turned out quite adorable.

So far, only Armand and the sis have portraits drawn, but there are other characters that have been designed, and a couple places where characters are needed and there's no real design for them.

I have to do some big work fixing a bug with the inventory (if you're on your last item, the 'next item' button still appears, and crashes the game if you click it... I realize the error in how I created it, but I have to do a bit of work to undo this and kind of redesign its creation...)

Oh, the eating sprite for Skitter is cute too :) I wish I could share it with you guys, but I'd have to make a video, or an animated GIF (and those are a pain to make... so maybe later?)

If you know anyone who is very talented at drawing and loves to draw 2D character portraits or paint landscapes/backgrounds who would be willing to lend a hand, feel free to send them my way! You can comment on this blog or anywhere you can find me. I can't offer any kind of compensation, but you'll get credit, and if I ever do get the game off the ground, I certainly would pay for the service!

At the moment, this is what is actually needed for the game:

About 20-25 character portraits
About 40-50 landscapes/backgrounds
About 20395820395823 frames of monster animations -________-
About 20 item pictures
Etc etc etc

So there is a lot of artwork to be done... This could easily take me like an entire year to complete on my own...! And I'm not the best of artists... Let's hope that if the game gets off the ground, I can get a kickstarter going and hire a better artist :D Or better yet, someone will offer to do it for free :DDD (I'd still end up paying them if I did get the ability to... I have about $2 to my name right now, though...)

Items

The inventory system is coming along really well! I finally finished the base for it today, so I can search through and sort items and display the current user's inventory. It's ready to be integrated into the shopping system, as well.

I have also programmed 12 items into the game, minus their image files which I have not drawn the art for yet (right now, they are all grey boxes). I can't guarantee those twelve or any I discuss here will be in the final release, of course, but I project there will be around 35-50 different consumable items you can give to your monster.

Items are, at the most basic level, categorized into two types: meals and non-meals.



This traditional Japanese dish can help your monster's Power.

Monsters need to eat meals every day in order to thrive. If you forget to feed your monster a meal, it will become hungry, which can stress it out, tire it out, and make it refuse to work. Your monster's lifespan may decrease if you often forget to feed it, and if you starve it completely, it may get sick or die. So meals are very important to monsters.

Not only do monsters need to eat to live, but how they grow also is influenced by food. Monsters eat human food in the game, and I used real-life nutritional properties of food as inspiration for the different meals you can serve your monster. I researched health benefits of many types of foods, and tried to create a world buffet of foods for your monster. For example, Japanese fermented soybeans with rice can help your monster beef up and become strong. On the other hand, if you regularly feed your monster caldo verde (a Portuguese green soup loaded with kale), your monster's brain will stay healthy and you will notice it will succeed more in intelligence training. Other foods you may see in the game include the Italian pasta dish pesto cavatappi and a spinach and feta Greek favorite of mine, spanakopita.


Can you guess which training this carb-loaded meal benefits?

There will also be "larger" meals available that may greatly help with training, but make your monster more sluggish and tire out easily from overeating. These "supermeals" can be helpful if you don't have a lot of time for training and want to get the biggest boost you can, or if you forgot to feed your monster until later in the day.

In addition to the meals you can feed your pets, there will be the non-meal items. Most of these will still be foods of some sort, but more like snacks. I am considering other consumables like soaps and balms, but right now there are no plans for such items.

One primary type of non-meal you can give your monster is tea. While meals are best for the beginning of the day, to prepare your monster for training, teas are better for afternoon or evening when your monster has been growing tired and stressed from its training, but you still have work to do. Teas can help relax and soothe your monster while offering some training bonuses. Unlike meals, they will be somewhat expensive (especially the rare teas!) so they are best used as a way to unwind on days of rigorous training rather than as training boosters.

There will also be some more risky items, like supplements to use in place of meals that can greatly help with training but may decrease your monster's overall health (since they are not getting a truly balanced diet) or junk food that makes your monster very happy but makes it do worse in its training.

And no items will train your monster for you; they will only supplement the training. No matter how many servings of natto you give your monster, they can't grow that muscle without working out! So the key to a healthy and strong monster is to eat right and exercise regularly! (And don't forget to rest when needed, too. Rest is a very important factor in Skitter!)

An overview of Project Skitter's features.

Project Skitter (working title) is a monster-raising game and virtual pet game that focuses on the care you give to your monster. Rather than a game where monsters are simply battle tools or weapons, monsters are your companions and pets which rely on you for care. Sure, you are training your monsters to be good at something, but like horse trainers or dog trainers, you also are taking care of a dependent being that needs you.

A prototype of the "barn" area where your monsters live.

Instead of going off on grand adventures with your monster-weapons, Skitter takes place on a farm where you decide to make a living by raising monsters for competition. You raise your monster in a barn, feeding it and caring for it every day. You can also build and upgrade facilities around your farm where your pet monster can work and play.

Instead of just fighting, monster competitions will come in three varieties: sparring/wrestling matches, in which the monsters battle each other to decide a champion; pageant/talent competitions in which only the most graceful and intelligent monsters may win; and track racing, a sport for the speediest of pet monsters to be victorious. There will also be a "triathalon" or "ultimate trial" where all of a monster's potential skills will be put to test, for the most serious of breeders and trainers.

The focus of the game is on care of monsters, so no two monsters are alike. Even if you raise two of the same monster species in a row, you may find they grow very differently. Each monster, regardless of its species, will have different interests and talents. Your monster may love studies even though it is very bad at them, or it might hate running and racing even if it is talented and quick.

As a player, you can choose different ways to raise your monster. You may work with its natural talents and interests to raise it in a way that comes naturally, or you may try to influence these factors as it grows, to turn it into the competitor you want.

Your farm will also grow with your choices -- you may decide to have a cash farm full of crop fields where you put your monster to work to make money. You may decide to build training facilities to produce top fighters. You may decide to expand to a large farm and develop a variety of assets to raise a well-rounded fighter or suit any need a monster may have.

In Skitter, every player will have a unique experience. Every monster will feel like "yours," your farm will feel like "yours," and you can compare your strategies and ideas with your friends who are playing, as well.

The game plays out using a turn-based system themed on time. Whenever you care for your monster, train your monster, go shopping, or do other activities, they will make some amount of hours pass during the day. As it gets later in the day, you will run out of things to do (stores will close and your monster will go to sleep) and you can choose to go to bed to progress to the next calendar day. Time will not pass if you are not doing anything, so you can think about what you would like to do each day with no pressure of wasting your day by thinking or planning.

As the days go by, seasons will change and various events can occur. You will celebrate a pet's birthday every year. Contests will be held for you to participate in. There may be events held in town for you to enjoy.

Here is a list of Skitter's prominent features, so you can see how the game compares to others in the virtual pet and monster-raising genre:

* Experience the life of your monsters from birth to passing.
* Every pet monster is an individual and has the potential to excel in any field.
* Raise your monsters for racing, sparring, showcasing, farming, or just as pet companions.
* Expand and build your ranch the way you like to suit your personal goals.
* Mostly "numberless" training so you don't get bogged down worrying about EXP points and stats.
* Monsters will change in appearance based on the way they are raised.
* Many random events and random outcomes, so you never raise the same monster twice.
* Turn-based time system incorporates thoughtful strategy into how you plan your activities.