No animations for animals?

[RedBraces]

So, are there really no animations for animals the size of mammals or such? They just roll around doing endless cartwheels, which is kind of amusing, but also not really. Or did something go awry with when I downloaded it?

[ExiL0n]

The oddity of rolling animals still gets me a bit, even though I can consider me fully immersed in the game. But I guess we shouldn't be so focused on that, while we accept without a thought plants moving and rocks dancing! I can't really see the movement of the animals as a glitch, but I still have to understand *why* it is that way.

[404_Not_Found]

Publicado originalmente por Ryan Dorkoski:

Publicado originalmente por Orbnotacus:

I also found the lack of animation very off-putting.

Animals walk, these don't, that's wrong. It's simple to understand that spotting animals that do something impossible, kind of ruins exploring a world based on things in our world.

At first I saw this game and thought, "Woah, that's interesting.", but the second I saw that video and animals were flipping end over end, that was it, you lost me.

And it kind of pisses me off that people just accept it, as if that's how it should be. That lack of animation stands out so much, it's lazy, incomplete, and looks bad. Why is that okay? Just because this isn't a game in the traditional sense? That's no excuse for lack of quality control. I know some of you might be thinking that this rant is a little over the top for something so small and silly, but I could make the same arguement about why they aren't animated. It's so small and silly, why wasn't it just done? The rest of the world looks really nice. It has sort of a flow to it. That lack of animation is like a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ on a broken raft, going against the flow. You might think it doesn't really impact the game/sales, but you see those damn deer very early in that trailer, and I'm not the only one who saw that and ran. I'm just one of the extremely few to come back and say something about it.

With where steam has gone in the past few years as far as quality control, or lack thereof, especially with all the early access games, people are much more hesitant to buy games. How many times have you seen a cool trailer, bought the game, and hated it. Wether a game is good or bad, every dev is trying their best to sell us something. And as that market has grown, so has the pool of devs and the kinds of ideas they come up with. The world has been blessed with many gems we hold dear to us, and the same is also true for ♥♥♥♥ games that make our skin crawl at the thought of them. So givin the nature of gaming world and how it's evolving... you would think a guy would know that most people would HATE to see animals tumbling end over end, and take it as a serious problem. Wether this game was meant to be immersive or not is not the issue. Immersion is a thing, and people love it. You break it, and more people are less interested. I know I am, and I'm not alone.

It's just not the game you are looking for. You value picture-perfect immersion higher than what this title offers, I suppose. This is more abstract, and believe it or not - that's OK too. I don't know what else to tell you. I feel you are 'missing the forest for the trees', but thats just my 2cents. There is a beautiful experience to be had here, but if ya can't get past that one little thing - just move on.

Do I love that the animals tumble? Ummm, I really don't know because thats not what this game is about. Honestly, I would fear that there would be too many animations considering the metric ton of organisms, and maybe the tumbling is better than really poor wonky animations? Idk, just a thought.

I'm one of those "give me walking animals so I can be properly immersed in being that animal" kind of people, so, I am genuinely asking, what IS the point that we are all apparently missing if it isn't to get immersed and enjoy being things?

I have this game on PS4 btw and have logged 5 hours so, I do like the game, I just despise this one aspect of it so much that if someone were to mod proper walking for animals into the game then I would basically buy the same game twice on PC for it.

Edit: actually they don't even need to walk, I am perfectly content with the way smaller creatures look like the way children move toys around. That alone would work better for me than something that is deliberately in uncanny valley.

[Ryan Dorkoski]

Publicado originalmente por 404_Not_Found:

Publicado originalmente por Ryan Dorkoski:

It's just not the game you are looking for. You value picture-perfect immersion higher than what this title offers, I suppose. This is more abstract, and believe it or not - that's OK too. I don't know what else to tell you. I feel you are 'missing the forest for the trees', but thats just my 2cents. There is a beautiful experience to be had here, but if ya can't get past that one little thing - just move on.

Do I love that the animals tumble? Ummm, I really don't know because thats not what this game is about. Honestly, I would fear that there would be too many animations considering the metric ton of organisms, and maybe the tumbling is better than really poor wonky animations? Idk, just a thought.

I'm one of those "give me walking animals so I can be properly immersed in being that animal" kind of people, so, I am genuinely asking, what IS the point that we are all apparently missing if it isn't to get immersed and enjoy being things?

I have this game on PS4 btw and have logged 5 hours so, I do like the game, I just despise this one aspect of it so much that if someone were to mod proper walking for animals into the game then I would basically buy the same game twice on PC for it.

Edit: actually they don't even need to walk, I am perfectly content with the way smaller creatures look like the way children move toys around. That alone would work better for me than something that is deliberately in uncanny valley.

At this point, it's obvious to me that people either love it or hate it. And both sides are entrenched in their viewpoint and aren't going to be swayed. I'm not going to convince you that it works for the game, and thats fine. You aren't going to convince me that it works against the game/immersion, and that too, is fine. You either felt it near immediately or you didn't (or thats how it was for me and apparently others as per I get from this forum). I'm glad you still like the game, though.

[ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ thots and prayers ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ]

The tumbling animals is what pulled me in for this game. It's just so absurd and funny to me. Add in the whole "existential crisis simulator" thing and I'm sold. I think the tumbling is endearing, and it reminds you that you are playing a game. It's very fitting for what the game is about, imo.

[ohhwell0525]

This is a serious hiccup in what is otherwise a very unique and interesting "game". Rationalize it all you want but it is a shortcut to the tedious task of animating the mamals. It really does hurt the experience. At least they could make the mamels move like the bugsin the meantime instead of rolling around.

I have no idea how anyone can justify that it is actually good for the immersion into this world. Nothing else is so rediculous.

I am very much hoping that this is something they fix before it is complete.

[Supahz]

Publicado originalmente por Mike:

I belive the flipping animal animations are a callback to the short "The horse raised by spheres" (check it ou on YT - well worth it!) done by the games developer David O'Reilly. It's sort of his 'calling card", it's also in the Adventure Time episode "A Glitch is a Glitch" which he also animated.

+1 Holy hell, I learned something on Steam today. I should go buy a lottery ticket, it's apparently my lucky day.

Buying the (wishlisted) game thanks to your info and the Adventure Time tie-in. I'm sure my son will love it, too.

[photogcyn]

Riddle me this: If I can BE everything, why can't I be EVERYTHING that a thing is?

[ein]

After watching the long version of the trailer with the Alan Watts voiceover, it occurs to me that the flipping and rolling animals are funny, that they are intended to be funny. The disarming quality of this sort of surreal humor is a strategy for charming the player into lowering his defenses against the point being made, and the perspective he's being asked to inhabit, for the purpose of examining or accepting that point.

But how much of this voiceover is actually in the game, and does the perspective shifting amount to anything meaningful? That's an honest question, since I haven't played the game, and I'm reluctant to watch too much of it before I do.

[TrickyKitty]

Publicado originalmente por Supahz:

Publicado originalmente por Mike:

I belive the flipping animal animations are a callback to the short "The horse raised by spheres" (check it ou on YT - well worth it!) done by the games developer David O'Reilly. It's sort of his 'calling card", it's also in the Adventure Time episode "A Glitch is a Glitch" which he also animated.

+1 Holy hell, I learned something on Steam today. I should go buy a lottery ticket, it's apparently my lucky day.

Buying the (wishlisted) game thanks to your info and the Adventure Time tie-in. I'm sure my son will love it, too.

+2 - Adventure Time reference for the win!

I would like to see the game both ways, maybe as a feature in the options that can be turned off/on - one with the animals doing somersaults and the other with them gliding. The somersaults was off-putting to me when I first watched the video, but after reading through the comments on this thread I'm willing to give the game a try as-is. Some games have been known to be fun both with and without weird quirks. Cheat codes that make players tiny or fast (OMG, Tony Hawk back in the day), able to fly, always have access to a tank (GTA), etc. add additional levels to game play, and the player has the option to use them or not.

[Buffet of Lies]

Personally I find the flipping animations hilarious. That and Alan Watts are what sold me on the purchase.

[EN.DARR]

Maybe, Just maybe, it is a reference to the cyclic patterning of Mammals Rolling into themselves as in their states of being in habitual existence...

[Kiwi]

I don't know, but the rolling is what made me want the game because I found it funny.

[Bald_Cliff]

People played the ♥♥♥♥ outta Katamari Damacy - some atrocious animation in there - and that has an entire studio behind it....

I love the flipping as it adds a great wtf factor for people seeing it for the first time - looks fine in big herds - and out of all the things you can be only one class has an awkward animation - I think David did fine and people need to stop expecting everything to be spoon fed. Its called imagination and suspension of disbelief.

[Vic]

I really enjoyed this amazing game, and continue returning to it to finish all the achievements,find all Things, read Thoughts and listen to those narrations again, butireally hate the rolling animations o most animals, since i want to play as some of them, but they are just flipping around like some stupid toys or something...
BUT, not all animals do that - some DO walk, more or less normally - much like when kids play toy soldiers (they kinda hop and lean left and right). So i wonder, maybe someone can make some unofficial mod for the game that would change something in teh code to make ALL animals which have paws walk around like that...
And don't listen to people who say stuff like "it's okay, you are just not getting it, refund the game and get out" - there are always mindless fanatics that will protect anything they like, even it it's total junk or nonsense. Like those who still say that the Earth is flat, for example.
In this case it's just an "easter egg" to some of the early work of the creator of this game - some youtube cartoon where at some point some animals moved like that or something. Yeah, maybe it's original, yeah, maybe it's even fun for a while, but every joke is cool only while it's new. Then it just gets boring and stupid. Same goes here. There is another Easter Egg in this game - the dev's cat. If only it would move like that all the time - i wouldn't care, but for all animals - it's too much, unnecessary and annoying. Apart from that - the game is really something else (in a good way). Probably even those two DIFFERENT areas (if you've completed the game you know what i'm talking about) even though they are so crazy (yeah, for example, animals on the Unknown or Alien Planet could move like that and that would be cool, and also a good "Easter Egg", but not in the rest of the game's worlds, imo.
Though, anyone has a right to have their own opinion about anything and it's their choice. I'm just saying that in muy opinion, they could've at ;east make it switchable, like they did with the Disasters, because quite alot of the players dislike this feature and think it's the only bad thing in the game.

[Buffet of Lies]

Look. Watch the video. Everything will make sense after you watch the video. I swear. Really.