BeastEon Development Blog

This is a development blog of a browser game made by a 2 man indie team. Everything posted here is not set in stone. We may revamp things, change them completely, or throw them out and forget if they don't fit the concept anymore. BeastEon is a virtual pet sim / virtual world browser game featuring strategy and RPG elements, infinite procedural explorable world, self-learning pets with AI engine, dynamic coloring of pet images, extensive lore and many more! ALPHA date: TBA BETA and Release date: Unannounced

[beasteon]

Hello, I am interested in your game, can you tell me the current status of the game development? I am also interested in making some shirts with some of the characters/creatures featured on them to help promote the game and maybe generate some funding at the same time. Please let me know if you are interested.

Hi! Thank you so much for your interest! We're glad you like the concept of the game :) Unfortunately, with the war raging in Ukraine, development is currently at a halt. We hope that the war ends soon and we will be able to return to BeastEon, but for now, we're working for our own survival and the survival of our country. It's better not to promote a project with such uncertain future.

[beasteon]

A few good questions got into our inbox!

I am really excited about this game. All the other games have become rather dreary with little to actually do in the end. Well if you do some mass grinding for one stinking item. This game though seems like it has alot going on. I played the old game awhile back but didn't really continue due to not really knowing what I should do in the long run for it. Lovely game though! I would love for you to post some more about the game! Also do you have an inference on when the game could be released?

Thank you so much for your support! :) And special thanks for so many great questions! ^^

We don’t have any release date set at this moment.

Will we have to have more than one species in our game? We seemed to have to in beast keeper which was a bit of a bummer. I wasn't a fan of having a beast that I wasn't actually interested in. Beasteon seems to be a game that wants the player to enjoy all of the beasts a user has. I hope we can focus on one species if we so choose. 

You don’t have to, but it will be easier to play with several species in your manor. Species will have a few species-specific perks and abilities, like Unicorns having a starting boost in herbs, Pumas in fishing, Cockatrices in engineering etc. Some activities may be restricted for species without developed hands or wings until they get a tool or a piece of equipment to compensate this. Expect to look for workarounds and more extensive trading with other players.

Will the game be easy to play on your mobile device?

We're aiming to make it such. The gameplay itself should work nicely on any screen; we don't plan anything too complex that a touch screen won't be able to handle without interface "crutches" like an on-screen gamepad. Though some interface elements look kind of challenging for smaller screens, like above-mentioned beast profiles, but we’ll try to solve this as graceful as we can.

When did you start working on beasteon?

We got the idea to grow BeastKeeper into an interactive world centered around personalities and ecology balance in 2016. We’ve been trying different approaches since then, and the gameplay concept has changed majorly 4 times since then. So the answer could be anywhere between 2016 and 2020.

Will you make a discord for the game? Alot of other websites do that and it helps to bring in more people. It is really cool to chat about what your excited for in the game and make friendships before the game is finished.

There are just two of us, and, unfortunately, we have no staff to manage other social media. 

Do you have any other social media besides tumblr? If not will beasteon have anymore in the future? Its a great way to get people excited about the game.

No, we don't have other social media. The same problem as with Discord here.  You're absolutely correct that Discord and social media is a great way to grow a fanbase, keep people updated and establish new relations and contacts, but, unfortunately, we don't have the manpower to manage those.    

Will cross site trading be allowed?

Sure. We don't mind cross-site trading. Although we have no means to control the other party, so such trades are done at the player's own risk.

Will symurgh be one of the species you can start with?

No. We plan to start with two non-flyers, most likely the Unicorn and the Puma. Taking into account animations, procedural patterns and species-specific perks, each species takes quite a lot of resources to develop an introduce. So we’re aiming for basic content for launch which, hopefully, will allow to get enough resources for introducing more content when we’ll already have a solid game base.

Will we have something that we could note/write lore on a beasts page?

Currently we're going to integrate profiles in the game interface like usually in MMOs. So it's a "no" for extensive HTML custom profiles, but maybe a "yes" for smaller plain notes.

[beasteon]

It was announced on BK that it wouldn’t be getting any more updates because of BeastEon, but we just got a big one. What does that mean about the development of BeastEon? Is it on pause, stopped? Or was it unrelated?

Hi!

We have a bunch of pet outfits and backgrounds lying around for some time. At this point, wedecided to add them to the game. Though coding the apparel system and preparing assets requires some of our resources, the work behind the art we already have is considerably bigger. It looks like a waste not to introduce it.

[beasteon]

Sulidas are aquatic birds supposedly descending from the domestic waterfowl. Ideally adapted to the water environment and ready for the ocean life in a few hours after hatching, they still need dry land to breed. They are intelligent, playful, sociable... and have tender, nutritious meat. Though some refuse to eat these sea creatures, others happily indulge in a delicious dish whenever a lucky hunter or fisher brings home a beaked "fish".

[beasteon]

Hi! I’ve been playing beast keeper for a while and I’m so excited to watch the progress of beasteon! And I don’t know if you’ve answered already, but are there no more numbered stats? Is it instead only certain attributes or some other kind of good/bad scale?

Traits play the main role while the numbers only represent the way from one trait to another. So it’s trait-based rather than numbered. We posted this image a while ago to illustrate this concept:

For example, here everything from 400 to 600 units is considered a big body height / length. All game mechanics will take into account that this Beast is big. Other Beasts have attitude only to the trait itself and not to a certain number, daily food needs would be modified in the same way for all big Beasts, etc. The exact number shows how much work is left until reaching the next trait tier. This Beast was born small, but its keeper decided to pay some attention to its linear size and increased the size number a bit each day through specific diet and activities, until it reached the “big” category. At this point there’s no need to take care of this stat further. While the number didn’t reach its max value yet, the stat itself is already maxed.

[beasteon]

A hopper approaches you. Someone dressed the critter as a postman - it even has a cap with straps preventing the wearer from losing it. Is this a weird joke?... The animal opens its bag and handles you a newspaper, then busily leaves - probably towards the next addressee. You wonder why would anyone spend their time to train one of these unintelligent grazers instead of just asking a Beast. Maybe the newspaper contains the answer...

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Anonymous asked:

Can you show us a glimpse of the adult Lykos yet? And this looks amazing i cant wait! Also, can the beast have pets? Like a lykos have a one of those fluff balls as a pet? (Sorry, i forgot their name XD)

Adult Lykos hasn’t got its redraw yet. At this point, we don’t plan to change its posing or anatomy, just to clean up the original image a bit to match other Beast artworks.

Yes, petpets are planned, and your guess about the designation of Furriosas is completely correct! They are collectible pets for Beasts.

rawrzskythrone asked:

Hey! I've got a couple questions about the Beast mechanics. Once a Beast grows up, will you have to continually feed it? Does anything happen if you don't? Can Beasts get sick or injured and how will that condition impact them? Can a Beast choose to abandon you instead of you chasing it away? Sorry for the barrage!

Hi!

1) Each Beast needs to consume a certain number of food points each day. Food and diet management plays a big role, but at the basic level, it's pretty much automated until you want your Beasts to eat something specific. They will go and search for food themselves, be it their inventory, your warehouse, a café somewhere outside your manor, or even utilizing their skills (gathering, hunting, fishing, cooking) to obtain something edible. Without food, a Beast will gradually lose its weight, health and raise its stress level. 

2) We have an extensive diseases/injuries system in plans, but it will be pretty basic at the start. There are several statuses that raise Beast's stress level and apply disease-specific debuffs. Some examples are inability to craft with a limb fracture, increased fail chance for all actions while constantly scratching because of insect bites, reduced speed and agility for molting birds, reduced daily energy because of fever, reduced attractiveness because of rash. These statuses may fall off themselves with time or be removed through a treatment purchased from a NPC seller.

3) At a certain point, a Beast may decide to leave its keeper if its life becomes utterly unbearable. This may happen if it has a high stress level for too long, its needs are not met, it has health or personal life issues, etc. One specific need we'd like to specifically mention here is the need for freedom. It's possible to force a Beast to leave the manor by issuing too many orders and micro-managing each aspect of its life.

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We also have two very popular questions asked by a lot of our subscribers. 

Will there be deviants?

Yes, non-heritable visual mutations are planned, i.e. unusual pigmentation like erythrism or albinism, overgrown fangs, and double horn.

What is your development progress? When the game will be open to the public?

We're not giving any estimates right now, though we can assure that we're working on the game as much as possible. At this point, the team is slowed down by significant health issues and the need to earn money for living. We still have a lot to be done, but here are some things that we've been working on!

Training hoppers. We have 2D animation with Spine 2D in our scope now, potentially allowing to introduce things like mini-games, rich explore mode visuals and even animated Beasts themselves.

Repainting all terrain tiles to larger and less busy versions

Working on isometric fauna and flora

Inventing a way to create a 2D Beast "model" that may be used for 8-side isometric movement, doesn't require enormous space to store Beast images like sprite animation does, and supports easy recoloring. Currently we're remaking 3D-rendered isometric sprites into Spine animated 2D textures.

Peeking into Unity as a way to implement everything mini-game related and maybe exploration

Extending and developing the lore

Reworking Beast psychic model from the neural structure to a proprietary pattern. The neural-like structure turned out to be producing results that are hard for players to track and understand where they came from

Experimenting with Blender to create procedural striped patterns

[beasteon]

A showcase of gatherable flora. 

We also updated our terrain tileset. The old terrain tiles were too busy and distracting, had too high contrast and needed reworking direly. 3 basic biotopes (grassland, tundra, desert) got new tilesets, plus one new for badlands, resulting in a total of 270 new handpainted tiles. All objects are now clearly visible and not arguing with the terrain for attention, yay!

[beasteon]

Hey, I was wondering, will the beasts have a limited lifespan? The plans so far sound great and knowing my virtual pets aren't functionally immortal makes me more attached to them. Especially when I don't have space left for new creatures and instead of thinking "I can kick them or buy more space, cause they'll be fine" I think "They've been here so long and trust me and helped me. They won't be here forever, plus I kinda want the old grey to meet the new spawn if I can."

Hi!

Beasts are immortal.

You're absolutely right that mortal characters make you more attached to them and increase immersion. Unfortunately, this comes with a lot of negative feelings when you lose them, especially when we talk about online experience with no possibility to revert anything. Dying of age is similar to unavoidable permadeath in MMOs.

It all comes to the price you pay for death, and if you have a way to prevent it in case if the penalty is high. Besides requiring player time and dedication, each Beast is unique and can't be replaced with an identical copy which can be quickly bred or bought no matter how much in-game currency or even cash a player has. Though a Beast has a certain degree of autonomy, and a player doesn't control each its step or interact with it that close, it is closer to an MMO character than to anything else. So the price of death is considerably higher than we usually see in pet games with mortal pets. It's impossible to get a quick and easy replacement for what was lost. At the same time, dying of age - not diseases, wounds, poor living conditions or other manageable things - isn't preventable or controllable in any way, so it basically nullifies almost all the player efforts and progress from the very beginning. No matter how much skill a player has, the result is the same for everyone. BeastEon doesn't have an environment where death may feel as a progression step instead of a punishment. Making BeastEon psychologically comfortable to play means abandoning the idea of Beasts dying of age.

[beasteon]

Hello! Will the Etelias be in BeastEon, too? Also, will there be creatures that have multiple offsprings at once? I find it very strange that we don't have those in BeastKeeper, since there there's nothing wring with the pets' ferility and a lot of animals have multiple offsprings.

Hi!

1) No, Etelias aren't planned.

2) No, there won't be multiple offsprings at once. There are a few reasons for that.

Talking of BeastKeeper, Beasts are not natural. They are genetic constructs that would never evolve in a natural way, so their bodies work as designed. Single baby isn't unordinary in real world as well. Highly developed animals often give birth to a single offspring while twins are very rare. Think elephants, apes and humans, cetaceans etc. 

Beasts in BeastEon don't give birth themselves. They get "an egg" from a Fertility Shrine which takes the genetic material of parents, mixes it and applies edits according to parents' requests. There's always only one egg. After the Catastrophe of Sterilization, the AI of Shrines limits the number of Beasts and tries to make sure that each newborn is desired even before it is conceived.

[beasteon]

Bestiary - Nightgaunt

Monsters of Europa are usually universally known under their ancient names, given in the Age of Primordial Wonder by the Demigods themselves. Over the Long Dark, the Administratum preserved these names – and later, in the Discovery Age, spread them among the populace with active participation of the Sentinels and the Warlock-Rovers. These names seem to originate from some kind of prehistoric language, lost and forgotten in all other aspects (not completely, say some, because species that appeared in later ages receive such names as well). However, most of Europa’s monsters also have local nicknames. Some may have dozens of them, depending on how widespread they are through the realms. Beastlord houses and major factions care little of these aliases as they tend to change not just with the change of region but also in the course of time. This creature is thus a particularly curious exception.

There is a lot of discussion around the origins of the name "Nightgaunt". The Sentinels lead one camp, claiming Nightgaunts to be a relatively young species that takes its origins in the late Age of the Long Dark. This seems to be a logical suggestion, as these creatures remained hidden from the Explorers for quite a long time (they were discovered only in the in later eons of the Discovery Age) and no mention, even tales of them from earlier ages were found. However, there’s an opposite theory enforced by a smaller group of scientists from lesser Beastlord houses, informally supported by some of the Warlocks. They claim the Nightgaunts to be ancient creatures, as old as the Primordial Wonder itself. This hypothesis has much fewer followers, for only indirect proofs of it have been produced to this day. On the other hand, this is what actually makes it so tempting.

The thing is, the origins of the Nightgaunts is only a sort of side-project in a larger history theory. The theory claims that, during the Age of Primordial Wonder, there was an island in the southern part of the Europa Ocean. Specifically, it was located in the area called Point Nemo, the oceanic pole of inaccessibility (the place in the ocean that is farthest from land). This island was the top of a volcanic mountain erected by the Demigods. Ancient data claims it to be more than 7 000 meters high above the ocean level and over 15 000 meters if measured from the ocean bed - which makes it the tallest mountain that ever stood on Europa. However, it didn’t last to this day. Presumably, it collapsed due to certain tectonic activities of the Great Machines in the early days of the Long Dark. As the theorists have it, the reason for such a natural disaster lies in the structure of the Point Nemo mountain. And that’s where the real mystery begins.

Europa has no widespread religion, but some local cults and churches of limited influence are present on it. Their quantity and number of adherents vary over time; the same goes true for the nature of the mystical knowledge on which they are based. There is, however, one common feature that can be traced through almost all of them. Different as they are, they all tell the legend of the Underworld, a place of unspeakable horrors and grim wonders. These myths do not place the Underworld, or Shezurh, on the ethereal plane or in another dimension, but say instead that it can found somewhere in Europa. According to religious texts, one can enter it through the labyrinth of caves in an ancient volcano.

Scientists studied this religious myth and came to the conclusion that Shezurh could actually have existed at Point Nemo. If so, the mountain could be hollow, with an immense, complex system of tunnels, halls, and galleries. It is not a rare occasion for the Demigods to build large underground facilities for various purposes, and the collapse of Point Nemo could have been the result of a malfunction within the machinery that was supposed to keep it intact.

The exact purpose of Shezurh is unknown, but legends depict it as a dark and dangerous place, inhabited by the creatures of alien or even demonic nature. Actually, Nightgaunts are believed to be of these creatures - the ones who hunt, kidnap their victims and drag them into the dungeons of Shezurh.

Obviously, for most of the scientists “Nightgaunt” looks like a nickname spread among religious cults. Their opponents point at an unusual universality of the name’s origin: it is known and used by a great many communities spread throughout Europa with no connection between one another.

Nightgaunts were considered being creatures of myth for eons – until, recently, their existence was scientifically confirmed. Not much about them was discovered since that day, though, for they are dangerous and secretive predators and are anything but easy to observe and study. They are only active during the night when they stay cautious at all times. They avoid any pursuer, often outflanking and attacking them. They are swift and soundless flyers unmatched at sudden swoops, and are able to overcome a target twice as large as them. For flying they use a membrane between the tail and forelimbs (also called disk) and a large sack on the back, which a Nightgaunt can fill with lighter-than-air organic gas. Nightgaunt can produce this gas to gain lifting and release it in a short burst, like a jet engine. During the daytime, they stay in deep caves and caverns or, often in abandoned underground complexes.

The Nightgaunt origin idea of the Pole Nemo theory is that there was actually the Shezurh mountain, erected by the Demigods during the Primordial Wonder. The Nightgaunts were the inhabitants of Shezurh – perhaps just one species among others, yet undiscovered. The mountain collapsed in the wake of the Long Dark - but not entirely. Only upper levels were destroyed, and Pole Nemo became submerged and concealed until the Age of Discovery. At some point, its isolation was breached, presumably by part of the mountain raising above the sea level for a certain period of time. And the Nightgaunts broke free. As they are perfectly able to fly great distances, part of them managed to reach the nearest land and spread on Europa’s archipelagos. A small group of enthusiasts even claim there were several such liberations. Genetic analysis of different territorial groups shows that younger ones are not originating from the older, but all have one genotype of origin - which may be taken as proof that different colonies form as offspring of the original one. And as such colony is yet undiscovered, some presume it to dwell within Shezurh.

Be it as it may, Nightgaunts are creatures unique for Europa and certainly look like one of those mysteries left by the Demigods for us to solve.

[beasteon]

Bestiary - Dymetraptor

The Dymetraptor is one of the most controversial species ever studied by the scientists of Europa. Subterranean predator, it definitely shares some distinct features with Mogera,  all the while possessing clear genetic similarities with Dymetropsid, a migrating terrestrial herbivore. Another interesting yet strange thing is that Dymetraptor is a direct rival of the Mogera;  despite that, they manage to share the same territory and prey as if there were a certain kind of truce between them. All this gave birth to a variety of theories trying to explain the genetic origins and behavior of Dymetraptors.

While they spend a significant part of their active life underground, Dymetraptors, nevertheless, are quite active on the surface where they hunt during nighttime and even migrate to better territories, covering significant distances thanks to their well-developed legs and great endurance. Their migration is not seasonal, but rather coincidental - they depart only if the conditions drop below a certain level  The exact criteria for that is yet to be discovered. The ability and will to migrate is, obviously, the feature inherited from Dymetropsid (or common for genes of both species).  A large sail is another common feature and, perhaps, the main proof for the theory of Dymetropsid and Dymetraptor to be close relatives. However, sails of Dymetraptors are much more developed and have wider functionality, comparing to the ones Dymetropsids have. While the latter use them mostly for thermal regulation, this function seems to decline in Dymetraptors. At the same time, communication abilities, quite primitive in the Dymetropsid case, are, on the contrary, highly developed and complex. Dymetraptors still use sails to gain and lose heat, but their sails are, first of all, powerful hunting and communication tools. Unlike those of Dymetropsids, they are luminescent, with flexible control over intensity, color, and frequency of the radiance. This not only allows complex communications between Dymetraptors but also serves as a luring and hypnotizing hunting tool.

Unlike Mogeras, Dymetraptors usually do not dig tunnels of their own, but rather use natural caves or abandoned tunnel systems. They rarely, some even say never, invade Mogeras’ network, and neither of the species sees the other as prey - despite both not being too selective in all other cases. There is an astonishingly wide range of theories on Dymetraptors origins, but there are only a few common assumptions accepted by the majority of researchers.

Dymetraptor is one of the youngest species on Europa with its formation only being completed in the Age of Discovery. Many research papers connect the origin of Dymetraptors with the arrival of the Thousand-Faced Mother and her Fertility Shrines. How exactly they are connected is still a matter of intense discussions and arguing, not only scientific but conspirological, religious, occult and even political. Many see Dymetraptors as “the pilot project” for fertility shrines, intentional or accidental, performed by a certain faction, political force, secret group or even extraneous force (aliens, demigods or beings even more powerful).

As no unambiguous proof exist even to confirm such connection, there are at least a dozen different origin theories that claim Dymetraptors to be much older species, but as no records of the early eons of the Discovery Age have yet been found, such theories do not have as many followers. Be it as it may, there is a lot of ado around Dymetraptors, so much that already exceeds the scientific circles.

[beasteon]

Cockatrice hatchling artwork

Cockatrice hatchlings look like big ugly chicks, though some still find them adorable. Be advised that from the day they hatch, they will use any creature small enough (including humans) to train their paralyzing skills. We highly recommend avoiding young individuals until parents teach them to behave with other sentient creatures.

[beasteon]

Genetics is somewhat close to the real world model. Beasts have genotype and phenotype. Genes interact with each other and with the environment resulting in phenotypic traits. In other words, genotype represents the potential while phenotype reflects its current state.

A simple example is most of the color genes which don't depend on the environmental factors and interact only with each other. Unicorns have 2 genes defining the base body color: B (black pigment) and R (red pigment). There’s also a third gene W (white which isn’t a pigment but a suppressor for other pigments). All possible outcomes for this triad is below.

Some of the phenotypic traits express only when a certain condition is met. For example, there are 5 traits to describe the linear size of a Beast: tiny, small, average, big, giant. Let’s suppose that a baby has regular bone growth in its genetic makeup, resulting in average size. However, feeding it a lot of food rich in protein, calcium and vitamin D may increase its adult size by one tier resulting in big size, while providing it mostly with food missing those nutrients (or simply underfeeding the poor thing) may reduce the size to small.

Traits like size are time-sensitive and can’t be changed when the time expires (upbringing a baby is a big responsibility!). Other environment-dependant traits may change at any time depending on how a Beast lives its life (like weight which is tiered just like size, and species-specific abilities which turn on and off depending on the conditions being met).

Multiple alleles for a gene (more than two), pleiotropy (one gene affecting multiple traits), and polygenic traits (one trait controlled by several genes) are common.

Beasts inherit their genes using mostly classical genetics rules, taking at least one allele for each genetic trait from each parent. It's not possible to change the genetics of an existing Beast; all lifetime changes affect the phenotype only. However, all Beasts have the third "parent" - a Fertility Shrine. Not only it checks a couple to be eligible for an offspring, but it also may edit the genotype of a future baby. Usually this is a fully controllable process where a Beastlord asks for certain genes in exchange for the accumulated renown points. The more edits the lord wants and the more radical are these edits, the higher is the price. Of course, there's a certain limit for such modifications per baby, but even a few well-planned little tweaks may provide fantastic results.

[beasteon]

Do y’all have like a patron or Kickstarter or something I can support?

We're extremely pleased to have your support! :)

Unfortunately, we're not ready for any of the crowdfunding platforms as we don't have an announced release date and can't guarantee a stable development pace as well as timed updates and releases. Though we would love to launch a campaign later.

[beasteon]

this game has some beautiful art!! just curious, have any of the artists worked on howrse before? some of the style strikes me as familiar to that game. thanks!

Thank you so much for such kind words! :)

Our lead artist and at least one of the commissioned artists have made custom skins for the Black Pearl. Though as far as we know, no one was hired by Howrse team directly. 

[beasteon]

There's a bunch of different screens, but taking into account your reference to BeastKeeper, you probably mean the Beast profile . UI for such unconventional things is always a challenge, especially when you need to squeeze in that much data. Also as we know now, a tutorial is of a great importance when learning game controls, and it was literally non-existant in terms of GUI in BeastKeeper. No wonder you found it confusing! We plan to make a tutorial that takes into account this aspect of the game as well, starting simple and moving to more complex things. It's a big chunk of work itself, but it surely needs to be done.

We're still looking for the best solutions and moving things around. All crucial info is placed at the top of the screen to be available without scrolling, and detailed data goes below that. The current WIP version looks like this:

Most of the interactions with a Beast are available without scrolling. There's a context menu which appears when clicking a Beast:

It provides a quick access to all areas where you may want to do something with a Beast (issue orders, wear items, change allowance size, make gifts, craft items, check recent actions, etc.)

Dialog overlay for events waiting for player's decision:

The data&details part isn’t that minimalistic, but there’s no other nice way to get it all in one place...

Inventory and item details:

We're still looking for a good solution to represent genetic info and phenotypic traits. The system is more complex than that of BeastKeeper, so we need to find a truly effective way of representing that much of heterogenous data which is the task we haven't solved yet.

[beasteon]

I ADORE this entire thing, but I know of at least 3 sites/lands wthat are named 'Europa'; is that name set in stone?

Thank you so much! :)

Yes, definitely. It's real world Europa, Jupiter's moon.