Big hugs to the artists behind the Sea-monkey "tadpoles"

BoffBoff Sweden Join Date: 2018-08-12 Member: 242804Members
Initially, I was not a fan of the thieving sea-monkeys.
I didn't like their twisty confusing biomes, the scavenger hunts for the right "nests" / "Blueprints"
They started to gain my attention though with the last two updates which showed them being "caring" and giving things to the player with a cute display of thrill and happiness.

Last weekend was My 9 year old daughters first playtest in below zero, as with the Salad Days update the overall feel to a passers-by as the game is more "complete", which is what she has been waiting for. She was most upset that she couldn't "choose" to be a girl in the first game, so she has been waiting for the female protagonist in Below Zero for some time.
But story doesn't matter, it was boom bang, creative mode -> make a base -> make an aquarium and time to breed animals.
specifically the penglings (TOO CUTE!!!) and needed to have them in an aquarium, but then attention waned of goal achievement and she left to watch something else,
during which the Penglings matured into adult Pengwings - which we didn't know was a thing.
Then they must have been a boy and girl (again, this is news to me), as now there were two eggs. Thank's to my daughters radically different playstyle, did we detect animation bugs, and spawn/garbage collection issues with the egg-hatching, which we proudly added to the bug report ;)

But then she was on the hunt for MORE EGGS.
AND the first nest her dad could think of was....the dreaded Sea-monkey-biome-nests.
Now I just assumed, much like the original subnautica, the sea-monkey eggs would hatch and the juvenile versions would just be the same "model" as an adult, but scaled down.
Espeically since so far the pengwings and their offspring has been the focus of the PR stuff.

But no.

Out hatched the most adorable mashup between "a tadpole, a seahorse and a Seamonkey". My daughter squealed and coo'd and screamed for me to come back to the computer,
Now I'm man enough to admit that as soon I saw the creature on the screen, Instinctively, I squealed the same, (OHMYGAWDTHAT'STOOCUTE!!!) and had to get the rest of the family in :)

It was something I would have totally missed if it wasn't for my daughter (my son is too busy with FPS's as he's hitting adolescence :D )

So massive hugs to the concept artists, the model makers, Skinners, riggers, programmers, linking the life-cycle through for this magical family moment for just "this one" creature (of many).

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