When RujiK first performed Dragon Quest Monsters, they have been dissatisfied that the outcomes of monster cross-breeding have been so… predictable. Each mixture was predetermined: set formulation of slimes, drackys, and orcs produced set outcomes, with little name for experimentation.
Years later and now a developer, RujiK is making an attempt to rectify that childhood disappointment with a sport named Socket Beast (working title), whose huge draw over different monster catchers is its vibrant, GBA-esque artwork fashion coupled with a singular animation system which helps combining the sport’s creatures into probably 1000’s of distinctive offspring. One in every of RuijiK’s WIP demonstrations of the sport exploded on Twitter, with a GIF of the sport’s cheeky little critters exploring its vibrant environments retweeted nicely over 15,000 instances in only a day.
Childhood Dream completed: totally procedural CROSS BREEDING of two monsters. Nothing is pre-rigged. #gamedev #GameMaker pic.twitter.com/eKDUhM16ZCApril 25, 2022
RujiK has created animation cycles for a bunch of various animals and developed a course of to seamlessly mix them collectively. For those who mix a scuttling insect with a slithering serpent, the outcome shall be a brand new creature mixing the bodily traits and motion of each, a scuttle-slither bug lizard that manages to keep away from being too terrifying because of the sport’s charming artwork route.
RujiK can be drawing from an expert-level data of biology and genetics: they beforehand labored for 5 years as a CRISPR lab tech making genetically engineered mice. To cite the developer, “that is form of associated to monster mixing, I suppose.”
In an early devlog, RujiK compares the method of animating these creatures to the kind of “observe the chief” social gathering trains of basic JRPGS: “What if I take that very same means of observe the chief and glue all people collectively like a large centipede?!”
Whereas the seamless monster mixture bears greater than passing resemblance to the “Creature Stage” of Maxis’ basic god sport, Spore, RujiK claims to have derived extra inspiration from 2003’s Inconceivable Creatures, with the artwork route owing rather a lot to Earthbound and Pokemon.
RujiK’s final imaginative and prescient for the mission is a “small open world with NPCs to fulfill and monsters to catch, increase, and breed” with a real-time battle system, and so they hope to carry the mission to Steam. In the meanwhile, progress on Socket Beast might be adopted on the developer’s Twitter and YouTube accounts.
