Welcome to NomaiGen, a mod for the warrior cats fan-game Clangen that replaces the cats with Nomai, a fictional alien species from the game Outer Wilds. This pinned post will have a quick rundown of the scope of the project and some important links to find out more.
Clangen is a free, open source fan-game for Warrior Cats. It’s primarily text-based with some sprites for the cats themselves. It works sort of like a colony builder, where you randomly generate a set of cats to make a clan, then time skip one moon at a time to watch them progress and grow, with relationships between the cats, random events, injuries & sicknesses, food and herbs to keep track of, patrols to go on, kits born between cats, etc. etc.
What is NomaiGen?
NomaiGen is a standalone, modded version of Clangen, as opposed to being an add-on to the base game. It will replace the cat sprites with Nomai sprites and change key parts of the game to make it seem more like a bipedal, advanced society vs. a wild group of four-legged animals. Aside from the obvious changes like replacing the sprites and all cat mentions to more Nomai-y things, NomaiGen will feature:
Ages expanded into more human-like lifespans
Moons printed as years and moons (instead of just moons)
New clothing variable added; works like accessories but just for 1 type of clothes
Prefixes made into Nomai names (i.e. derived from latin plant names)
Suffixes made into various roles in the clan (i.e. Captain, Medic, Teacher, etc.)
I have lots of other things planned as well to actually change the meat of the game (i.e. new roles, overhaul to border patrols, etc.) but won’t go into detail about that until I start actually working on them, don’t wanna make empty promises! For now, the project is focused on replacing the cat sprites and implementing the above features.
Is it downloadable yet?/Where is the download?/When can I download it?
As of now, the first phase of the project is not yet done, so there is no download available. I’ve made this blog to post updates as I slowly make progress on it, since mod threads are closed in the discord and may not open up again for a while. There’s also no ETA on when I plan to have it done, it’ll simply be ready when it’s ready (i.e. all phase one features are implemented well enough to play with).
Once it’s ready for download, I’ll definitely be announcing it here with the Github link, so keep an eye on this blog if you’re interested!
Will this game have spoilers for Outer Wilds?
Seeing as this mod centers around the Nomai and their way of life, there are some “spoilers” that simply can’t be avoided, such as the appearance of the Nomai under their spacesuits (which I,, admittedly took some creative liberties with) and the general goal of Nomai clans themselves.
Beyond that, once we get past phase one, there will be small nods to content from the game here and there, in the form of thoughts, patrol events, etc. None of it will be big spoilers since most of that pertains to the actual narrative of Outer Wilds itself, which this mod is pretty far removed from. I’ve been thinking about adding a spoilers toggle in the settings to maybe disable this content if you don’t want to see any of it but am unsure if I’ll actually do that/how complicated that would be, so for now, just be cautious going into it if you really want to avoid any and all spoilers.
This BLOG will likely end up having a lot of spoilers though, as I share my future plans for the game and ramble about my influences on certain decisions. I'll be tagging all posts with the spoiler tag just to be safe.
Just a little baby post to test my webhooks, as I'm working on a discord server for Nomaigen! Figured it would be nice to have a proper community space where people can keep up to date on the mod's progress, talk about their opinions and suggestions, and discuss outer wilds and clangen as well! I'm still getting everything set up so it's not ready to be shared yet, and would like to get clearance from clangen mods before posting it as well, so it might be a while before it's ready, but it's in the works~
As for an actual mod update, I'm almost done with the base drawing on the classic clothes; just need to add those white accent lines on the clothes now. After that'll it'll just be a matter of recoloring and compiling into spritesheets... then setting up my actual code again so the clothes actually work. I'll post pictures here soon once it's ready to go!
Heya Nomaigen, long time no post! This is still very much in the works don't you worry. Just had some life changes happen over the course of the past couple months (nothing serious but things that did impact my time and productivity).
Done with my first pass on the Classic clothes; now I just need to go back to refine them; e.g. flip em to make sure they look good both ways, make them look more consistent/inline with the cannon designs, add those decorative lines to them, etc. After that I'm planning out all the colors then importing them to clip studio to compile and recolor.
I know I originally planned to to release 4 different clothing types for initial release to replace all 4 collar types but in the interest of possibly getting the mod out sooner, I may hold off on the other 3 for a future release.
Code wise there have been some setbacks unfortunately. Clangen has been going through a LOT of changes on the backend, to the point that even my new fork of it that I was working on bringing my changes to became rapidly out of date very fast. I tried to update it using the merge and rebase features of git but I'm a noob and wasn't 100% sure what I was doing, so I messed it up a few times and tried to revert the changes to try again, but didn't do it properly, so everything basically got to a point where it was a chaotic mash up of both new and outdated code that just didn't work together. Because trying to revert it was how it GOT to this state, suffice to say, I can't really properly revert it to go back and try again, so this copy is just.. borked, I'm better off scraping it and starting again.
Thankfully I hadn't really added that many of my changes to the fork so I didn't lose a ton of work, and the actually meat of the project so far (i.e. the list of new names, the artwork itself, etc.) will be easy to just copy and paste over to a new fork, so starting over will be annoying but it's not like I've really lost anything. Just know that's thrown a little spanner in the works. Now that I'm more familiar with the merge, pull, rebase, etc. features this... hopefully won't happen again.
Small update, progress shot on the classic Nomai clothes I'm working on, + 2 accessories I'm planning: blueberries (from og clangen) and bells, both which will be horn accessories.
I'm thinking there will be ear accessories, horn accessories, and face accessories, and the horns are gonna need to be split up into a couple different layers so everything overlays correctly. Would've liked to also have hair accessories but I can't right now for r e a s o n s.
On the side I'm also working on the shaders and cleaning up the markings (which will include doing the last two).
New Make a Clan sprites are finished! Since it's quite a few sprites and looks better in action anyway, I recorded a video to show it off instead of taking screenshots. Also took the time to rearrange the names and show the leader, deputy, and medic titles (and also show the very minor way I've rearranged the screen elements so bigger sprites fit better).
Ignore the clashing light blue bg with brown UI elements. I plan to do my own color scheme and just changed the bg color because it's the easiest thing to change. Which means i will have to revisit these Make a Clan sprites to color them better, but,, not right now. XD
No progress to share on the individual spritesheet yet - thinking my next goal will be to hop between getting the classic clothes done, working on accessories, and working on the shaders - but I have been chipping away at art for the Make a Clan screen!
Rather than cat heads they will all be Nomai statues with their eyes closed, which will open as you choose Nomai for your clan (as if you're connecting the Nomai to those statues).
Eventually once it's done I'll port it over to Procreate to give them a glowey effect around the eyes, don't really have the tools to do that in pixel studio lol
So excited to announce the white patches are done, in the game, and working perfectly! Here's a biiiig wall of some examples, from top to bottom, left to right: ART, BANDED, HALFIE, MOTLEY, CHAMOIS, SOCKS, TWOTONE, GOULET, SPRINGBOK, APPALOOSA, PILGOR, POWDER, SPLASH, SPOTTY, and SWISSMARK.
And these three show the additions of point patches and vitiligo, which are two different categories of white patch that can be combined with regular patches!
First example has the HEL face marking (named after my own Nomai oc hehe) and the STARDUST vitiligo patch, second is the IRISH white patch + the POINTS point patch, and the third is a somewhat close attempt at a canon nomai, with the CANON point patch given a darkcream tint (you can get closer than this with golden eyes and red skin but I just chose this one randomly to edit).
There are more patches than this but I find this a decent amount of examples.
Uncertain what I'll funnel my focus into next; I still need to finish all the markings then go back and touch them up a little (they look,, bad in some places, I was kind of rushing when I first did them), have already started clothing and accessories so could pick those up, etc. but for now this is the update!
Also want to take a moment to thank you all for all of the likes, reblogs, follows, and enthusiastic comments, it's incredibly motivating and makes me excited to share this project with the community. <33333
Updates have been pretty sporadic as I've just been trying to keep my head down, pecking away at these white patches. Excited to announce the end is in sight!! I've finished the last white patch in the Mostly White category, so now there's only 3 left: 2 vit patches and 1 more point marking. Then I just need to go through and give them all a once over, flip the canvas the other way and make sure they look good, etc.
I plan to showcase a bunch of the patches once i have them all done and officially in the game, but here's this one little preview of BLOTCHY, which was a pain in the ass but is finally done now lol.
Took a little break from monotonous white patches to finish up my prototype for the Classic clothes and experiment with colors! Featuring canon sage (which I might replace lime with in game), crimson, white, and most difficult of all, rainbow.
As pride merch of years past has shown, designing rainbow clothes that don't look like dog shit is a bit challenging but I feel this sort of subtle, prismatic effect looks the best, if a bit complicated to replicate. XD
Would love to hear feedback on these; do you like the rainbow effect? I might change it to make it a more uniform gradient per piece of clothing vs. the current individual gradients each line. Should I change the red arm bands on white to a more greyish tone to match how its changing with rainbow, or keep it red to match the canon design?
We are currently in Phase One of NomaiGen. I will edit this post as I make changes and probably reblog it once we get a substantial number of new edits.
-- Add displays in profiles and other places to read age as years and moons [ ]
-- Change event screen to read in years and moons [ ]
-- Adjust relationship and xp values to fit longer lifespans [ ]
Clothing Variable [0/5]
-- Create new “clothes” variable [ ]
-- Remove collar gen from accessories, only in clothes [ ]
-- Create new toggles in Sprite Inspection and Clan Creation to turn clothes on and off [ ]
-- Create Reroll Clothes button on profiles to randomly change clothes [ ]
-- Create display on profiles that says what clothes they have on [ ]
Pregnancy Adjustments [0/3]
-- Change pregnancy length from 2 to 3 moons [ ]
-- Adjust max brood size to 3 and make singles/twins far more likely [ ]
-- Decrease odds of getting pregnant to account for longer lifespans [ ]
Adjust sprite displays to look better with larger sprites [ ]
Note: All of these systems are actually done, I just need to recode them into a fresh, properly compiled and git’d version of clangen (I made the silly mistake of not forking my original version and now it’s incredibly out of date)
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Completed 7 white patches, finishing off the HighWhite category and bringing us to 38/50 total done
Updated the percentage on Sprite Progress to be more accurate; don't know... what math I was doing before where I thought we were only 20% done with sprites but we're actually well over half (65%) done XD
Also update overall, I suspect I didn't calculate that right either rip, we're 52% of the way done with Phase One in general!
still pluggin ahead on those white patches, just finished one of the more difficult ones so now we're at 34/50; after this, only one more will be a pain to do, then the rest should be easier and faster i hope
here's a few for preview: APPALOOSA, POWDER, SPOTTY, and SHATTER
Live on Twitch rn working on white patch sprites! No mic, soft animal crossing music in the background, mostly doing this as a chill first test stream. [link]
Edit 5:57pm: gotta stop to eat, but will be back!
Edit 7:36pm: we're back! gonna try to finish one more patch if i can tonight
Last Edit 9:42 pm: annnd done for tonight, managed to get 2 patches done, so we are now 50% done with High White white patches. This was chill and fun and actually pretty motivating for getting them done? So I'll probably stream again sometime.
We are currently in Phase One of NomaiGen. I will edit this post as I make changes and probably reblog it once we get a substantial number of new edits.
-- Add displays in profiles and other places to read age as years and moons [ ]
-- Change event screen to read in years and moons [ ]
-- Adjust relationship and xp values to fit longer lifespans [ ]
Clothing Variable [0/5]
-- Create new “clothes” variable [ ]
-- Remove collar gen from accessories, only in clothes [ ]
-- Create new toggles in Sprite Inspection and Clan Creation to turn clothes on and off [ ]
-- Create Reroll Clothes button on profiles to randomly change clothes [ ]
-- Create display on profiles that says what clothes they have on [ ]
Pregnancy Adjustments [0/3]
-- Change pregnancy length from 2 to 3 moons [ ]
-- Adjust max brood size to 3 and make singles/twins far more likely [ ]
-- Decrease odds of getting pregnant to account for longer lifespans [ ]
Adjust sprite displays to look better with larger sprites [ ]
Note: All of these systems are actually done, I just need to recode them into a fresh, properly compiled and git’d version of clangen (I made the silly mistake of not forking my original version and now it’s incredibly out of date)
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Progress photos of some white patches I'm working on! Gonna be posting the official progress tracking post soonish but rn this is where I'm focusing my energy. There's gonna be 10 white patches in each category + 5 in points and 5 in vit, for 50 patches total.
It's,,, a lot to work through and quite tedious, but better than Clangen's 100+ patches. Eventually I'll add more to each category in batches of 5.
All patches are based on goat pictures I found online. One of these is even a reference if you can spot it kek (without cheating and looking at the image name).
Your clan, like most Nomai clans, has primarily spent its days roaming across the universe, exploring anything and everything that piques their curiosity, flitting from one point of interest to the next. Eventually they come across this particular planet in this particular little solar system. Here, in an attempt to learn every possible thing they can about it, they choose to put down roots and start a little colony. It was never intended to be permanent, the plan being to hop back in the vessel once they’ve explored every nook and cranny of this place, but for one reason or another, they end up staying a little longer than they were expecting…
The clan is small in its early stages. Maybe they’re a new clan, maybe they’re a fractured off piece of a larger clan, maybe there were many more members at one point but something went horribly wrong in the process of trying to settle here. The in-universe justification for that will be your own (though as I write this out, I’m thinking about adding some clan start options for different backstories, so there will be in-game reflections of this, like starting with some dead or missing Nomai, etc.).
I also see the biome you choose for your clan as being the state of the entire planet, similar to how all of Ember Twin is a desert planet, all of Giant’s Deep is a stormy ocean planet, etc.
How will the Nomai look compared to canon?
So in the canon game itself, we really only see two images of the living Nomai beneath their space suits - the of course iconic statues giving us a 3D view of their faces, and some colored murals. From the murals it seems Nomai had one skin tone (potentially all an orange color) on their face and ears and the rest of their bodies were covered in fur (potentially all an off-white color). Since it’s just one mural and we don’t really have any other idea what Nomai looked like as far as diversity goes, it’s hard to discern how they “should” look other than this one image.
Which, let’s be honest, isn’t very fun! And many fans have their own interesting interpretations of the Nomai, usually giving them far more diverse skin and fur colors, different hairstyles, etc. As well as different interpretations on just how their anatomy works, some leaning more into the canon flat-faced alien look, others leaning into a more muzzle-y, goatish appearance.
Stylistically I leaned towards a slightly more goatish appearance in the face, giving them the small hints of a muzzle, while trying to keep everything else mostly in line with canon. They are apparently also sloth-inspired so in addition to referencing the skeletons in game, I took inspiration from sloths for general body shape and fur/skin distribution (which is entirely covered in fur except for the hands and feet).
Here’s a picture of the full spritesheet to start things off:
For those not familiar with clangen, in order from left to right, top to bottom, these are: 3 child sprites, 3 apprentice/adolescent sprites, 6 adult sprites (3 short hair, 3 long hair), 3 elder sprites, 3 paralyzed sprites, 2 sick sprites (1 for adult, 1 for children), and 1 newborn/infant sprite. All the sprites have to fit comfortably within a 200x200 box as that’s the max sprite size clangen can handle without slowing down, so proportions and poses had to be adjusted for what looks best. There’s also additional headshot close ups so face markings can be seen better.
They’re digitigrade with very long arms, very small hands (based on a silly explanation from the designer on why they have such visual based technology), and 4 toed feet, 3 splayed in the front-ish and one in the back for balance, as that’s what their shoes and skeletons looked like to me. They also have little tails, though they aren’t visible in most poses.
All of their horns are fairly identical save for the kids, whose head horns don’t connect in the back, and infants, who only have little stubs for theirs, with fur concealing the ones on their face. They just looked a little silly to me with their horns fully grown in, and I don’t really wanna think about them being born like THAT, so I personally headcannon that they’re born with small, bony buds covered in velvet instead. Over the course of their youth they grow rapidly, and around puberty reach together, fuse in the back, and harden into bone. Infants also have their third eye shut, which I also headcannon opens a little later than the other two.
In the above art they’re depicted in their canon colors just so you can see the vision, but in the game itself they will actually display a wide variety of full body markings, all inspired by goats and antelope, with little distinction between their face and fur. In my mind, the face is actually covered in much shorter fur, like other sleek-coated animals, instead of just skin, so any markings and such naturally carry over. They can also have a variety of white patches layered over atop, again inspired mostly by goats, which this classic white-furred look will be categorized as (so still possible to get a more canon look but not forcing all to look like that).
Here’s a few examples of some markings and colors (Chamoisee, Light Face, Single Colour, Masked, Sable, and Cou Clair), including one that features heterochromia:
Nomai will have clothes generated on top as well, with options both in the Create a Clan screen and Sprite Inspection screens to toggle on and off, so you can see the full body design underneath, in addition to other clangen things like scars and natural accessories.
How will Warrior Cats lore/Clangen mechanics be changed to fit the Nomai?
This will be a bit of a slow process since the animalistic, battle-hungry nature of warrior cats is pretty polar opposite to the advanced, pacifistic nature of Nomai; It basically means changing almost everything about the game. The core of the game will be the same, starting a clan and watching them grow and progress through the years (afterall that’s the whole point of making this a clangen mod), but I’ll be trying to change how specific elements work as we progress through further phases of the mod.
The first changes will be small and mostly cosmetic; changing all mentions of cats to Nomai, kits to kids, den names to more Nomai city sounding things like Medical Center instead of Medicine Den, etc. Role names will be changed to vaguely reflect a ship’s rank structure- Leader to Captain, Deputy to Lieutenant, Medicine Cat to Medic. Warriors will become Clanmates, and Apprentices will stay the same because that actually fits. ::) Same for Mediators and Elders. Loners and Rogues will stay the same, each implying a lone Nomai who split off from their clan, either by choice or exile for being a bad egg.
Kittypets will be… weird, because there isn’t really any sensible thing I can change them to. They’re outsiders who live a drastically different yet pampered life, are often abandoned by the higher beings that take care of them (usually for being sick or injured), and are HEAVILY looked down upon by a lot of clan cats, none of which really aligns with anything Nomai-like. So for now they’ll just… exist. Eventually I want to remove them from the game entirely.
Lifespans will be expanded to be more human-like, but the rate at which time passes and Nomai age will be a little… different. As it is, it takes WAY too long in-game for things to happen if they just age 1 month at a time with human lifespans compared to the much more fast-paced, shorter lived life of a cat. SO, my way of fixing this is to have the rate at which Nomai age be a little faster than the rate time actually passes in game; for every moon that passes in-game, the Nomai will age 3 moons, meaning for every 4 moons that passes in-game, the Nomai will age a year. In universe I explain this discrepancy as the Nomai simply aging like humans in earth years, but in this solar system on this planet, months and years are 3 times as long. Their profiles will show both their ages, in earth years (e.y.) and in-game years (i.g.y.), and of course their files will only go off of in-game moons.
In a similar vein to changing ages, pregnancy will be expanded into 3 moons instead of 2, to fit the earthly 9 month timespan, and the max “litter” (or brood) size will be 3 kids, with 1 or 2 being more common. Relationship value changes and XP ranges have also been adjusted to account for the longer lifespans, so your Nomai don’t have all maxed relationships with each other and fully mastered skill levels by year 4.
There are many other changes I plan to make - changing hunting patrols to gathering patrols so they’re proper herbivores, getting rid of neighboring clans (since that doesn’t really make sense if yours is the only one settled on this planet) and eliminating wars/raids, adding some more roles and things to do with your Nomai to fill the gaps longer lifespans have made between major events, reevaluating how the afterlife system works, etc. - but all that will be further down the road, and I’ll expand on my thought process as we get there.
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Ending this post here because hoo boy it got long.
