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I'm imagining scenarios - similar to previous shelter games - where you may lose herd members, such as a baby elephant being washed away while the herd is crossing a river, or a herd member becoming injured and you have to make the decision to leave them behind so you can move on to find food, or stay with them and risk the rest of the herd becoming hungry. Just a couple of ideas in my head :) Thanks and good luck with the game!
-Rainy And Dry Seasons
Elephants of all kinds, live in places where instead of Spring, Summer,Autumn and Winter, they have dry seasons, and wet seasons. The wet season brings water and a large amount of plant and animal life. I feel like Shelter 3 could somehow imitate this, for example, plants and grasses could be less plentiful in the dry seasons, and during the wet season, more predators and plants will grow.
-Migration
Elephants, African and Asiatic and some more, migrate in the dry season to find water and food. Elephant calves have to follow their mother and herd through desolate arid lands to the water, often they need more time to catch up with the herd, stop for breaks, and nurse, which their mother will certainly wait for them.
-Nursing
Elephant calves need to drink a lot of their mothers milk, the calf will suckle for up to 3 years. I feel like playing as a mother elephant cow, we could be able to nurse a calf. Maybe for a couple of moments or a longer period of time that will show an intimate glimpse into motherhood.
-Other Care
Unlike badgers and lynxes, elephant calves will be cared for by aunts and older sisters. This could be reflected in Shelter 3. Aunts and sisters could take time to protect the calf or even nurse the calf if their own has died or simply as a gesture of kindness and concern. If migration does appear in the game, other female elephants will help out the mother with nursing the calf and helping them to continue the trek.
-Pregnancy
Shelter 1 didn't show the pregnant mother and in Shelter 2, we only saw the pregnant mother lynx for a short time. Elephant mothers will gestate for 18-22 months. Maybe in Shelter 3 we could play as a pregnant mother for a longer time. It may be a opportunity to show the controls and basics of the game and letting the player get used to playing the game, like in shelter 2.
-Characters
Shelter 1 didn't have a naming system or a name for the mother, Shelter 2 had a name for the mother, Inna and her kittens, Kir,Vavi,Solda and Bova, and her mother, Lo.Maybe in Shelter 3, the original/first mother you play as can be given a canon name, along with other herd members and the calf and the father.
-Naming System
Shelter 2 gave the player the option to change the names of the kittens you give birth to, with a limit of 6 characters. Shelter 3 players could be given the chance to change the name of the calf. It could also give the option of choosing the gender of the calf, which although could disrupt any sort of family tree because I assume this game only follows a female/mother elephant.
-Colours
The badgers in shelter 1 all had different markings and shades on their coats, the kits and the mother, Shelter 2 also had different fur colours, each kitten in a litter being black,ginger,brown and white along with the mother, Inna who has a white-beige coat and her daughter's coats, which can vary at the first five generations. Mother elephants often give birth to one calf at a time, which in the game could be a different colour than the mother, maybe white,browns,greys and some spots of amber or ginger on the skin.
I apologise for putting in so many, I don't want it to seem as though I'm judging this game, I'm just a big fan of the shelter games and I'm so hyped for Shelter 3! Some of these may seem like too much to put in, I love animals and elephants are a fun topic to talk about, and these are simply suggestions on how to make the game realistic, which may not be what you guys are looking for.
If Meadow proves anything to me, is that it can be fun to just wander around with someone else, not much gameplay needed. If a full co-op is too hard to implement (such as the whole campaign playable, or all the mechanics), a simpler co-op experience of one player having control of everything (the main player) and another player just controling one single individual (be it an adult or a calf) and having a limited range of actions such as being able to walk around, use sounds/emoticons/communication of any sorts, and either defend/attack or interact (defend/attack for an adult, interact for a calf) would be more than enough for me and for a lot of other players to have a magical and fun experience.
If co-op is possible and even expanded upon, it would be almost a dream to see something like a game server option where you can form a herd made entirely of players, and have it be sort of sandbox-ish/a survival. Although this last one is sort of a reach; a simpler co-op or local co-op is already enough, hahah.
Regardless of co-op, I'm really happy to see this game <3
Either way I’m excited and will be happy to play the game no matter what.
Of course, at this stage, we do not have a lot of information on how the system will be like, but considering elements from past Shelter (and related) games, I think it might be beneficial to include more than two movement speeds (i.e., walking and running) in Shelter 3. Especially for an animal so large, and quite slow compared to other animals, it might be more difficult to strike a balance - should the walk animation be slower and more casual, or more like they are rushing in order to keep some players from getting bored? I think a sort of trot or faster walk toggle could be a useful feature to satisfy both ends of this.
Taking from Meadow experiences, where some animals are larger and therefore have longer strides, of course we don't know this about Shelter 3 yet, but it may also be useful for keeping pace or catching up to herd members without wasting stamina. A compromise some other games use for middle speeds are things like slower or no stamina regeneration when trotting, if game balance is a concern.
It's known that elephants have a common ritual for the burial of their dead relatives (and even strangers). Starting from attempts to “help” a dead animal to wake up, and ending with a mass grief that lasts for several days, elephants can compete in an emotional bind to each other even with the chimpanzees.
It would be interesting to see such thing in the game. Death of members of the herd could affect the atmosphere inside it and create tension.
For Shelter 3, maybe a series of large open-world type levels could follow one another in a larger level-type layout, with each area having its own visual style like in Paws; since the game seems to be all about migration this could work really well.
I’m not a game developer though, so I trust whatever you guys come up with!
EDIT: oh and give the ambient npc animals babies! If tigers are going to be hunting our baby elephants, have some tiger cubs so that we feel a connection to the “antagonist” animals as well.
I'm assuming like with shelter 1&2 you will have a set group size at the start that can possibly decrease with future risks? (although I'm not sure elephants have any natural predators besides man?)
But basically you can co-op in a player host style on a players save. So no like a dedicated server. And basically the size of your herd dictates the amount of players who can join. So if you have 5 adults in the herd counting yourself you can invite 4 players to play and they will take control of that herd-mate. If you play the save while 1 or more of your friends can't play the herd member just resumes the normal AI behavior.
This idea could be tweaked to fit how the herd system will work better but generally speaking the co-op and single player work the same and on the same kind of file its just your herd will either be ai or a player. And so of course if a herd mate dies that is 1 less slot for co-op friends to join.
Though at the very least I would say 1-2 friends host co-op would be enjoyable. You could possibly make the co-op an unlockable. Like how shelter 2 your babies would reach adulthood maybe you have to get your calf to adulthood single player to unlock co-op.
I would also add that it would be really nice, as someone else suggested, to see slight variation in the elephants. While I know irl they don't have fancy patterns for identification some form of variation in appearance besides size would be helpful in telling herd mates apart. Possibly make some dark and lighter more brown or more grey tones. Maybe some males have broken tusks or the older ones have old battle scars. Something to be able to identify and connect to individuals with.
Oh, and also because In Shelter 2, with dangers like bears, you and your cubs start getting paranoid, and also every noise stops and scary drums begin to play.
Anyways I was thinking that maybe the calves, or at least a few calves, depending on the individual, could have fuzz. That's it haha. Baby Asian elephants (specifically very young ones) are pretty hairy and some have adorable little mohawks. In short, I'd love to have fuzzy babies lol
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/three-myths-about-elephants-you-probably-believed-and-three-amazing-facts-you-ll-be-glad-to-know-8990796.html
Taking this into account, I have a few basic gameplay suggestions; the first two are to do with movement, and the others to do with survival.
-No jump ability, as adult elephants cannot jump. This could be interesting when designing obstacles to navigate around!
-Also, an elephant cannot lift all four of its feet off the ground while running. So when planning the elephant's running animation, be aware of this.
In terms of the "survival" side of the game, there should probably be quite a heavy focus on getting enough food and drink. Elephants need to eat and drink a huge amount each day (according to the article, they drink 140-230 litres of water every day, and spend 16-18 hours each day eating).
-When drinking, they should use their trunk to take in the water and then "spray" it from there into their mouth. Apparently, there is a myth that elephants use their trunk as a straw, which isn't *completely* accurate! (It makes it sound like they simply drink through their trunk without the water ever touching their mouth.)
Just a few basic ideas that I think will really help to realistically portray the animals. Thanks so much for continuing the Shelter franchise, and good luck with the production of your game. I look forward to seeing the end result!