This week at Mutant, did ya miss us? We missed you.
I’m back after a too-long “break.” Took some time off to move to a new apartment, which ended up a lot more chaotic and exhausting (and expensive) than I wanted it to be. It was a long week of calling a million apartment listings and then an even longer weekend of driving hundreds of miles in the moving truck and lifting heavy things on both sides of the trip. My back, arms, legs, and brain are all tired… and possibly injured.
But hey! The team has been kicking butt even in my absence, so let’s catch up with some of their progress. We’ve got art and waterfall things to dive into so let’s get started.
ICE, ICE, BABY
Have I used that title before? Maybe. Is that gonna stop me from using it now? No.
We’re ramping up to get our ice realm underway and while we’re nailing down plans for the environment, Sarah’s been touching up the designs for our ice fish. Remember, each region has unique fish for you to catch and collect. Let’s take a peek!
First up, this bulbous-brained small fry.
Next, a shy little crustacean. He just wants a friend. Or two.
Now we get up to the mediums, like this hard-scaled, six-eyed fish with… ice spikes? God that’s cool. How does she come up with these?
And finally, a wizened turtle. Loving the beard, bro!
THE WATERFALL PARADOX
“To put loot behind the waterfall… or to not put loot behind the waterfall?” - Shakespeare, probably.
For millennia, game designers have struggled with the impossible question of whether to be predictable and put a treasure behind a waterfall or leave it empty. Gamers have longer wondered why calling something predictable has led to a shortage of loot hidden behind said waterfalls. The discussion is a circle. The debate wages on and always will, but for us the answer is… play the game and find out. There will probably be some fish in those caves at the very least…
We are excited to include waterfalls around our different areas either way. Zach did some research into the viability and have some early proof-of-concept concepts that I just couldn’t wait to share. Check it out!
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That’s all we got for ya this week. I’m glad to be back. My wife and I are still living out of boxes because, well, does anyone ever really unpack all of the things you move with? (If you say yes, I'm just gonna assume you're a liar.) Anyways. I’m ready to get back to it and eager to share all the fun new things with all of you. We have a busy summer planned, so stay tuned!
Thanks for stopping by, have a great weekend.
Be sure to check out the Demo and share the game with your friends! Every little bit helps. You can also join our Discord if you want to share your best catches amongst our community, give us feedback, and get access to the newest test builds. We love seeing all the new faces (well, usernames) who are playing the game and we can’t wait to give you more!
As always, thanks for reading! Stay safe out there. <3 If you want to stay up to date with KAIJU FISHING, you can Wishlist the game on Steam, join our Discord or follow us on Twitter @MutantStudios.
Crafting Update
Demo Update
After testing in the Beta Branch, Crafting is now ready to roll into the default demo
Bait Crafting
Bug Fixes
QoL improvements
Other stuff: We're currently doing a massive pass at Fish AI to really bring the world to life. A large VFX pass (more and better water effects). More fish are in the art pipeline. And the big boi Kaiju Fights are in progress. Can't wait to show you all the cool stuff we're cooking up!
This week at Mutant, our fish have a mind of their own!? That can’t be right… Is it?
Well now I’m just worried.
THIS JUST SAYS “I DO WHAT I WANT”?
Sometimes game development has its mysteries. Sometimes a bug happens and you don’t know what caused it and you have to dig for a while to find the root. And sometimes… things fix themselves. And that can be more alarming sometimes. But in this case, it’s actually more like finding life on Mars.
Our artist was setting up some new fish for our movement and “life” systems and one of them wasn’t quite behaving. The rig, the set-up, it just wasn't moving the way she wanted. So, like any good dev knows, sometimes you just move on to something else and plan to come back to it later.
Except when she came back to it... it was working. Consider us both impressed and spooked. Our fish are learning. We'll try to give a heads up if they start talking about world domination.
While we figure out what to do with our sentient fish, enjoy these short GIFs of some new fish in motion.
BACK TO SCHOOL
Since our fish are getting smarter, we’re also adjusting how they group and react around the world. We're sending them to schools so they can hone their newfound intelligence. What this actually means is that we’re adding new schooling/grouping behaviors so they can move around and interact with each other. Our goal here is to liven up the world a bit more so that the fish scatter when you sail by or when a nearby fish gets hooked.
No visuals on that this week, but stay tuned and we’ll show off more soon.
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That’s all we got for ya this week. Thanks for stopping by, have a great weekend!
Be sure to check out the Demo and share the game with your friends! Every little bit helps. You can also join our Discord if you want to share your best catches amongst our community, give us feedback, and get access to the newest test builds. We love seeing all the new faces (well, usernames) who are playing the game and we can’t wait to give you more!
As always, thanks for reading! Stay safe out there. <3 If you want to stay up to date with KAIJU FISHING, you can Wishlist the game on Steam, join our Discord or follow us on Twitter @MutantStudios.
LET. ME. UPDATE. THE. CLAMPJAW!
Weekly Dev Update #70 Week of March 21, 2022
This week at Mutant, let’s talk about fishing as “combat” and look at a sneak peak of an update heading directly to the Kaiju Fishing Demo.
FISHING AS COMBAT
We’ve spent a lot of time trying to make the fishing feel alive and appropriately difficult but we know we can push this boundary further. We want fishing to act as our game’s “combat” system and to reach that goal, there are a couple of angles we want to tackle.
Our current system primarily focuses on “reaction” moves. The fish does a move and you react, either with a button press/hold or a movement counter. To us, this was a natural starting point as fishing has a lot of reactionary actions in real life. But in our fantasy adventure game, we can do more! We’ve had ideas to give players more abilities and tools in the back pocket for a while now and this shift in philosophy is going to give us the room to play with those.
These abilities are going to start at the larger end, at least from a development perspective, but we want to be able to apply these actions all the way down to small fish. One idea that we’re bringing back from an old, old version of this project is a dodge… so we’ll let you imagine how we might apply that.
We also want to double back to our fish AI, in a few ways. We want them to feel more alive and give them more responses to your actions too. If you want them to go somewhere, they should counter you. If you throw an attack at them, they should be able to dodge or resist.
And that’s all you get for now… we’ll share more as we get further along. Let’s get to the immediate Demo stuff!
LET. ME. UPDATE. THE. CLAMPJAW!!!
“Please let me update this fish!” Our artist is a driven and proud person and while we always think her creations are wonderful, she is determined to keep her work evolving. The Clampjaw is a classic example of this. This medium fish was one of the first designs we approved and one of the first she modeled for the game. It’s also been one of the only medium fish in the Demo, so it’s the one we look at most often while testing.
In her eyes, this makes the Clampjaw a prime candidate for “I can make it better now.” And y’know what? We believe her. We’ve finally made space in our schedule and she leapt at the chance! So here he is: the updated Clampjaw.
New colors, new effects, and a new rig. The detail and effects should be obvious but where this lil fella will shine is in the rig. We’ve got big plans for all of our fish and hope you enjoy the update. We have other visual updates planned for the Demo, including some effects and visual quality things we’ve been working on but I’ll unveil them another day. Have a great weekend.
FOLLOW US FOR MORE
Be sure to check out the Demo and share the game with your friends! Every little bit helps. You can also join our Discord if you want to share your best catches amongst our community, give us feedback, and get access to the newest test builds. We love seeing all the new faces (well, usernames) who are playing the game and we can’t wait to give you more!
As always, thanks for reading! Stay safe out there. <3 If you want to stay up to date with KAIJU FISHING, you can Wishlist the game on Steam, join our Discord or follow us on Twitter @MutantStudios.
SOME TREES FOR OUR BIGGEST FANS
Weekly Dev Update #69 Week of Feb 21, 2022
Thanks for rooting for us. Heh. First off, we wanted to give a big thanks to everyone who voted for Kaiju Fishing in the Rogue Jam event last month. We didn't end up in the top 3 for the Audience Choice but we're still in the event for other categories so we'll keep you posted with news. As always, we appreciate the support, you're the best <3
Now to this week at Mutant, a little bit of a detour. We’re doubling back to some things we feel we can improve on - both for our future development and for your gameplay enjoyment. This includes some improvements for the controls and movement and some new effects for navigating menus.
What this means this week is that we don’t have new gameplay to show off - but luckily our wonderful artist Sarah is here to fill the visual portion of this report! (We will have new things to show off soon, things that we're very excited to debut...)
MORE PLANTS, MORE ART
The oceans of Kaiju Fishing are filled with lots and lots of wild creatures, but the ocean floor and shorelines still need plenty of love. We have plans for four different environments, each with their own style. The tropics are what you’ve seen so far in the Demo and that’s what these building blocks are continuing to form.
Here we have some colorful coral pieces to add to our collection - after all, variety is the spice of life!
And finally, as promised, some trees - what a re-leaf! Okay I'm done. Here we have some concepts for trees to populate the shorelines and clifftops that surround our areas. Their models are underway and we'll hopefully have plenty of new areas to show them off in soon!
FOLLOW US FOR MORE
Be sure to check out the Demo and share the game with your friends! Every little bit helps. You can also join our Discord if you want to share your best catches amongst our community, give us feedback, and get access to the newest test builds. We love seeing all the new faces (well, usernames) who are playing the game and we can’t wait to give you more!
As always, thanks for reading! Stay safe out there. <3 If you want to stay up to date with KAIJU FISHING, you can Wishlist the game on Steam, join our Discord or follow us on Twitter @MutantStudios.
ROGUE JAM! VOTE FOR KAIJU FISHING!!
Weekly Dev Update #68 Week of Jan 31, 2022
Big news! KAIJU FISHING is in the final 36 of the Rogue Jam Audience Choice Award!!
We need your help to make Kaiju Fishing the best it can and this would be huge to our process. So go to roguejam dot com slash gametime (roguejam. com/gametime if you wanna just delete the space or you can search "Rogue Jam Gametime" in your browser of choice). We’ll also link it on our Twitter @MutantStudios but can’t directly link it here.
VOTE, VOTE, VOTE!!
That’s our main focus this week, we want your vote! If you’re new around here, Kaiju Fishing is a fishing adventure about catching amazing, unique creatures including getting pulled around by some Godzilla-sized monsters. It’s gonna be a heck of a wild ride so we hope you’ll join us!
Voting ends February 4th, so go knock that out (it’s just one click when you go to that above site!) and tell all of your friends! Plus you can tweet about it after so we can see your support <3
MORE PLANTS, MORE ART
While we’re keeping an eye on the Rogue Jam competition, we’re still working. Our artist Sarah has some new plants and environment details in the works, so here are some quick previews:
We should have a new cinematic trailer shot to show off soon so you don’t wanna miss that!
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That’s all for now. Just for good measure, here’s another reminder now to go vote for KAIJU FISHING for the Rogue Jam Audience Choice Award. We appreciate your vote and your support <3
Be sure to check out the Demo and share the game with your friends! Every little bit helps. You can also join our Discord if you want to share your best catches amongst our community, give us feedback, and get access to the newest test builds. We love seeing all the new faces (well, usernames) who are playing the game and we can’t wait to give you more!
As always, thanks for reading! Stay safe out there. <3 If you want to stay up to date with KAIJU FISHING, you can Wishlist the game on Steam, join our Discord or follow us on Twitter @MutantStudios.
CRAFTING PLAYTESTING, THIS FRIDAY
Weekly Dev Update #67 Week of Jan 17, 2022
Did ya miss us? We’re back. We’ve actually been back in the metaphorical office for a few weeks now, but we were preoccupied with a nice little opportunity. We’ll talk more about that in the near future, but we think it’ll be worth our attention.
This week, we’re finally ready for the next phase of testing!
DISCORD TESTING: CRAFTING and BAITS
It’s been a long time coming but we’re finally ready to test our next major feature and we need YOUR help! First, a quick “what” and then we’ll give you the easy “how.” And this time around, we have a rewarding “why” too.
Kaiju Fishing is going to feature some basic crafting to make unique baits. These baits will give you small bonuses for your fishing endeavors and help you get rarer bites. This first wave of testing is adding all four crafting materials and a selection of our early-game baits. We want you to get them in your hand and see which ones feel good and where we can improve ‘em.
So now you’re thinkin’: “How can I help?” First, thanks for your interest! This process should be very simple.
Step 1) Join our Mutant Entertainment Studios Discord (links on our Twitter profile @MutantStudios) and get yourself an “Alpha Tester” role. Just ask! Step 2) Watch for the Build 0.0.4.1 post to go live on FRIDAY, JANUARY 21ST, 2022. This Friday! Step 3) Play the exclusive build before anyone else. Step 4) Fill out a quick and easy feedback form about the feature.
That’s it! You just gotta play the game and tell us what you think. As we test, we'll be rolling out to Discord first, then Itch, and then finally a bigger update to Steam with some of the feedback along with some other fixes after.
You’d be an integral part of our process but we know what you’re about: games. *Free games, to be exact! So as part of this process, we’re offering free Mutant Studios game keys to everyone who gives us Feedback. At the end of the form, you’ll be asked which Key you want from us and we’ll send it over ASAP!
The options will include any of our current Steam line-up, including: I Can’t Believe It’s Not Gambling, Questr, and Astro Joust!
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And that's how we're comin' back to the New Year. We've got big plans for 2022 and we're thrilled to have you along for the ride.
Be sure to check out the Kaiju Fishing Demo on Steam and share the game with your friends! Every little bit helps. You can also join our Discord if you want to share your best catches amongst our community, give us feedback, and get access to the newest test builds. We love seeing all the new faces (well, usernames) who are playing the game and we can’t wait to give you more!
As always, thanks for reading! Stay safe out there. <3 If you want to stay up to date with KAIJU FISHING, you can Wishlist the game on Steam, join our Discord or follow us on Twitter @MutantStudios.
SEAL TEAM FIT
Weekly Dev Update #65 Week of December 6th, 2021
Happy Friday everyone. Hope this week was good to ya. We have a short but fun update for you about Kaiju Fishing. Let's get into it.
The holidays are a busy time for everyone. We took some time out last month to see families and eat way too much food; a nice break from the chaos. And now we’re ramping into our last few weeks of the year. We've had a couple things cookin' for a while now, but not much concrete to share - which is why we've been a little quiet for a few weeks. We're looking to end this year on a high though so stay tuned for big things!
MUTANT HOLIDAY GAMERS
As we sat down to get ourselves sorted for the week, we talked a little about what the group was playin’ or planning to play for the Holidays. We’ve got a couple Pokemon champions-in-the-making going through the Diamond/Pearl remakes, some HGTV host aspirations in the Animal Crossing DLC, and a web slinger going through Miles Morales - all excellent choices if I do say so myself.
SEAL TEAM FIT
Since the inception of this whole grand Kaiju Fishing world and all the many changes we’ve considered for the story and levels, there’s been one constant, one mandatory inclusion: these freaking adorable seals that Sarah concepted many moons ago.
And now. It’s time to bring them to life.
So here ya go, the first look at our in-progress NPC seal characters!
Sarah also had just a little too much fun sculpting their base form so she cursed (blessed?) us with an amazing version that we shared with our Discord. (The title of this weekly is a hint...) I think I'll leave it a secret for the Discord for now and then we'll share it on Twitter next week, but you should go check that out right now!
Either way, I love ‘em. I’m stoked to see them in action very soon and I can’t wait for you to interact with them in the game.
We’ll have more to talk about next week including some possible details about new playtests on our Discord. So if you aren’t a part of it yet, go get your tester roles so you can be there to see all the new things first!
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That’s all for now. Be sure to check out the Demo and share the game with your friends! Every little bit helps. You can also join our Discord if you want to share your best catches amongst our community, give us feedback, and get access to the newest test builds. We love seeing all the new faces (well, usernames) who are playing the game and we can’t wait to give you more!
As always, thanks for reading! Stay safe out there. <3 If you want to stay up to date with KAIJU FISHING, you can Wishlist the game on Steam, join our Discord or follow us on Twitter @MutantStudios.
