Nick: One of the most challenging aspects of the quantum slime’s design is the same challenge we face with any slime: whatever we do, it can’t be so complex that it’s difficult to render or compute because the player could have HUNDREDS of them in the scene. Pip: On a related note I'd be interested to know if that's a difficult behaviour to model in the game - a projection which can become the thing itself? It’s a unique behavior and, unfortunately, it’s really difficult to manage in the game so a lot of players avoid them. Nick: No actually, that one was on a post-it note on my desk forever that was something like 'we gotta do this some day!' and one day we just felt brave enough to try it. Did you have to go through a few forms so that their abilities were easily legible to players? Pip: I'm also curious about the quantum slimes which project a ghost form as a glitchy slime it can actually take the position of. It would be a mess, but it would exist without overlapping features. It’s a huge design hurdle as it means that essentially you could make a single slime that has every single unique feature of every slime all at once. In other words, when we added wings to the phosphor, no other slime could have a feature that was attached to its body where the wings are, as a largo version would cause conflicts. The phosphor in particular followed the same rules as the other slimes: whatever element it brought to the table visually that sets it apart form a pink slime can only live in that spot on a slime body for that slime type.
And though the slimes all have unique colors, we specifically don’t rely on them as that information is less useful to those that are colorblind (1 in 12 men in the world). We often call that ‘passing the squint test’ as ideally the information you’re trying to display can still be discerned even if the player is squinting. Nick: Each slime is designed to have a different silhouette so the player can parse which slime is which at a glance. Can you tell me about the process of picking out the designs which worked and how you refined them? If it's easier we could take the phosphor slime as an example.
Pip: The basic slime is a pink ball whereas all of the rest have a modification which helps players see what they are immediately - cat ears, a radiation ring, lava cracks. You don’t expect the same behaviors of a person or animal so there is less in the game that breaks the immersion. A slime dangling upside down stuck in the branches of a tree and smiling looks 'correct' in Slime Rancher because the slimes are these goofy blobs.
And since we were going for a very physics-intensive experience, a creature that is actually just a spherical collider was the most efficient.īut additionally, slimes were a great fit since I wanted the player to be able to shoot them anywhere, get them stuck in places, etc and never look broken. In the early days of development I was the only artist and I’m a terrible animator, so limbs were out. Nick Popovich: It was always going to be slimes because they’re simple, limbless creatures. Was it a case of always wanting little blobby creatures or were they more complex but then you simplified them/placeholders you decided to keep? Pip: Let's start with the look of the slimes and how you settled on that. Let's do a slime art and design interview with game designer/Monomi Park studio co-founder Nick Popovich and find out.Īs always, you can click on an image for a super-size version to really examine the detail! I'll also include a few of my own screenshots to illustrate how a few elements look in the full-release version of the game. But how does one convert a ball into a creature with such a strong sense of spirit? How do you keep their little slime modifications from becoming a confusing mulch of wings and ears? What happened to the meteor slime? How does Gremlins figure in the design of Slime Rancher's monsters? And will anyone listen to me when I tell them puddle slimes are actually cuter than tabby slimes?
#SLIME RANCHER ALL SLIMES FREE#
I've spent a looooooot of time with my slimes in Slime Rancher and watching them bounce and coo as they wiggle free of my corrals and wobble off like determined balloon-toddlers has been a delight.
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