Thoughts on Fauna - BZ Polish Suggestions
Morph_Guy
Join Date: 2016-04-21 Member: 216034Members
Join Date: 2016-04-21 Member: 216034Members
Perhaps it’s too late for a lot of these suggestions but I figured I’d put them out there anyway because it felt wrong to keep this bottled up.
Titan Holefish (and Bladderfish):
Here's two problems that I think could be solved with one change. As of now Bladderfish feel like a bit of a noticeable port from the first and somewhat prevent the early game from feeling as unique. As of now there is also an issue with the Titan Holefish being that they don't really have a reason to be here and interactable, with their oxygen-giving properties being overshadowed by Ice Bubbles and Oxygen Plants, making them feel forgettable despite how unique they are.
I propose a solution to both of these problems; Make the Titan Holefish the source of water instead. The gameplay goes from finding a fish and shoving it into the fabricator to avoiding the symbiotes, making for a nice change of pace. With this change swimming up to Titan Holefish allows to harvest a “Titan Holefish Gel” item, with a similar cool down to the current oxygen prompt. This item by itself restores +5 Food and +5 Water (maybe with a +10 to oxygen like Bladderfish), but it can be crafted into the standard Filtered Water item like the Bladderfish did.
Spikey Trap Vehicle Attack:
Spikey Traps should be able to attack vehicles. Not sure why this isn't a thing already. The Spikey Trap would grab a vehicle from afar like they do the player, and pull the vehicle into the mouth for say, 15% damage.
Crashfish:
Crash should just be removed, that's pretty much all there is to this bit. They don't fit at all and feel super forced, and with the removal of crash powder there is no reason for them to be here, especially with how buggy they are.
Fish Schools:
They don't look the best and clutter up the environment more than they enhance it, and often clip through places they shouldn't be. I'd either remove them entirely (maybe adding some tighter schooling behavior to regular fish along the way) or improve them. If I were to try and improve them instead of getting rid of them I'd probably make them whisp around the environment more in a faster snake-like form like in some concept art and early videos rather than being the vague slow-moving blobs they are now, but honestly I'd probably just remove them and focus on other things.
Sound Design:
I feel like the animal sound design while alright could use some work. I feel like in the first game there was such a harmony between the ambience and animal calls, with the whispy calls and drones of animals flowing nicely with the background ambiance. In Below Zero the animal calls are often loud, harsh, bellows that break up the ambiance in a way that's less appealing.
Animations and Effects:
I feel some animations could use tweaks, stuff like the Brute Shark, Triops, and other animals have swimming animations that don't quite make sense, and others like the Cryptosuchus have odd looking attack animations where they flail about without any grace. I guess a few examples of changes I'd make would be having the Brute Shark use their fins more while swimming like this, and make the Triops and Brinewing use less of their whole bodies and mostly just their fins like this. The Shadow Leviathan could also be made more sleek in their movement, holding their claws closer to the body and raising their neck up a bit like in the concept art.
I'd also tone down the blood cloud effects. Maybe have them be darker in color and not bioluminescent, since they feel distracting and out of place as is.
And not entirely related but it feels like fish in Alien Containment zip around far too fast, when they'd look nicer at a third their current speed, but perhaps that's a more complicated issue.
Fish Reskins:
I feel like the remaining fish directly ported from the old game, or at least some of them that don't really make sense being here, should get at the very least reskins, if not remodels like the Purple vs Red Feather Fish. My personal suggestions would be to give the Boomerang their concept art recolor, Spinefish definitely needs a replacement which I'd personally have be a Blue Discus like the unused concept art, and Hoopfish could stay but they could also get a slight reskin like the Boomerang. But there's so much concept art and potential to pull from that these replacements/reskins could be anything really.
Land Reskin:
I've said it before, but the above ground environment feels barren, only having the occasional large predator, and while that isn't a bad thing it could be switched up a bit to make things more interesting. I feel the solution would be at least one small passive animal dotting the land decently commonly like the terrestrial equivalent to a small fish, possibly edible, and while an entirely new animal certainly couldn't happen, what about a reskin? There are a couple things that could be reskinned/remodeled, being the Cave/Blood Crawler, Crabsquid, and Spinner Fish (which seem like a weird choice, but actually look surprisingly good rolling around on land, so all they'd need is appropriate physics and a new idle animation). The Crabsquid and Spinner Fish variants might be a bit much in terms of work, so I'd probably go with a shy passive Cave Crawler relative running around on the ice, maybe something box crab-ish. Honestly a "wild" Trivalve variant might work even better but I'm still not sure what the deal is there so.
I hope I haven't sounded demanding or anything with all of this. Honestly I could've made this cleaner in general but if I keep changing this instead of uploading the game will already be out by the time I've posted it.
Titan Holefish (and Bladderfish):
Here's two problems that I think could be solved with one change. As of now Bladderfish feel like a bit of a noticeable port from the first and somewhat prevent the early game from feeling as unique. As of now there is also an issue with the Titan Holefish being that they don't really have a reason to be here and interactable, with their oxygen-giving properties being overshadowed by Ice Bubbles and Oxygen Plants, making them feel forgettable despite how unique they are.
I propose a solution to both of these problems; Make the Titan Holefish the source of water instead. The gameplay goes from finding a fish and shoving it into the fabricator to avoiding the symbiotes, making for a nice change of pace. With this change swimming up to Titan Holefish allows to harvest a “Titan Holefish Gel” item, with a similar cool down to the current oxygen prompt. This item by itself restores +5 Food and +5 Water (maybe with a +10 to oxygen like Bladderfish), but it can be crafted into the standard Filtered Water item like the Bladderfish did.
Spikey Trap Vehicle Attack:
Spikey Traps should be able to attack vehicles. Not sure why this isn't a thing already. The Spikey Trap would grab a vehicle from afar like they do the player, and pull the vehicle into the mouth for say, 15% damage.
Crashfish:
Crash should just be removed, that's pretty much all there is to this bit. They don't fit at all and feel super forced, and with the removal of crash powder there is no reason for them to be here, especially with how buggy they are.
Fish Schools:
They don't look the best and clutter up the environment more than they enhance it, and often clip through places they shouldn't be. I'd either remove them entirely (maybe adding some tighter schooling behavior to regular fish along the way) or improve them. If I were to try and improve them instead of getting rid of them I'd probably make them whisp around the environment more in a faster snake-like form like in some concept art and early videos rather than being the vague slow-moving blobs they are now, but honestly I'd probably just remove them and focus on other things.
Sound Design:
I feel like the animal sound design while alright could use some work. I feel like in the first game there was such a harmony between the ambience and animal calls, with the whispy calls and drones of animals flowing nicely with the background ambiance. In Below Zero the animal calls are often loud, harsh, bellows that break up the ambiance in a way that's less appealing.
Animations and Effects:
I feel some animations could use tweaks, stuff like the Brute Shark, Triops, and other animals have swimming animations that don't quite make sense, and others like the Cryptosuchus have odd looking attack animations where they flail about without any grace. I guess a few examples of changes I'd make would be having the Brute Shark use their fins more while swimming like this, and make the Triops and Brinewing use less of their whole bodies and mostly just their fins like this. The Shadow Leviathan could also be made more sleek in their movement, holding their claws closer to the body and raising their neck up a bit like in the concept art.
I'd also tone down the blood cloud effects. Maybe have them be darker in color and not bioluminescent, since they feel distracting and out of place as is.
And not entirely related but it feels like fish in Alien Containment zip around far too fast, when they'd look nicer at a third their current speed, but perhaps that's a more complicated issue.
Fish Reskins:
I feel like the remaining fish directly ported from the old game, or at least some of them that don't really make sense being here, should get at the very least reskins, if not remodels like the Purple vs Red Feather Fish. My personal suggestions would be to give the Boomerang their concept art recolor, Spinefish definitely needs a replacement which I'd personally have be a Blue Discus like the unused concept art, and Hoopfish could stay but they could also get a slight reskin like the Boomerang. But there's so much concept art and potential to pull from that these replacements/reskins could be anything really.
Land Reskin:
I've said it before, but the above ground environment feels barren, only having the occasional large predator, and while that isn't a bad thing it could be switched up a bit to make things more interesting. I feel the solution would be at least one small passive animal dotting the land decently commonly like the terrestrial equivalent to a small fish, possibly edible, and while an entirely new animal certainly couldn't happen, what about a reskin? There are a couple things that could be reskinned/remodeled, being the Cave/Blood Crawler, Crabsquid, and Spinner Fish (which seem like a weird choice, but actually look surprisingly good rolling around on land, so all they'd need is appropriate physics and a new idle animation). The Crabsquid and Spinner Fish variants might be a bit much in terms of work, so I'd probably go with a shy passive Cave Crawler relative running around on the ice, maybe something box crab-ish. Honestly a "wild" Trivalve variant might work even better but I'm still not sure what the deal is there so.
I hope I haven't sounded demanding or anything with all of this. Honestly I could've made this cleaner in general but if I keep changing this instead of uploading the game will already be out by the time I've posted it.
Comments