Thrith Coding Process

Coding:

For the past 7 weeks I’ve been working on my first “proper” indie game it's called “Thrith” and it is my most ambitious project yet.It started 7 weeks ago when I was looking for inspiration for my first game and that's when I came across a Youtube video called “The most complex ecosystem in any game”. The video was made by Curious Archive, a youtuber I had been watching for some time before this. The video told me about “Rain World” a game with special animation, the animation was special because it was not a preset animation cycle it was procedurally generated animation when the creatures and player animation were created based on the terrain and the actions of the creature or player making the creatures seem much more lifelike, because of this I was extremely interested in this and decided to make my game based on this concept this is where Thrith began. I started of the coding with basic movement code and made the leg of the player (which is called a “Scudle”) move, The first thing I did was making the legs seem random and it was quite easy I just made 2 different walking cycles and made a code that picked one of them randomly to created the illusion of randomness in the legs. Then I Made the jumping movement by splitting the body of the Scudle into 4 sections (clones) that all picked random animation cycles with the same movement code. I did this so I could control each section individually to create the procedurally generated animation for the Scudle. The idea I had was that in a normal sprite if you make a code that draws a line where you move and you jump and move forward (or backward) it creates a curved line and I wanted each clone to go along this line and point to the next clone to make the body of the Scudle seem like it is moving naturally. Now that I had gotten player movement out of the way I started to work on the map of Thrith now I won't get into the details of the map but I made the map in a way so that each area of the map had unique terrain for the inhabitants to use their animation to the fullest. The next thing I did was create basic movement for the creatures Palsbeed, Crickalack and Ceiling Catcher, their movement uses 2 joint inverse kinematics. 2 joint inverse kinematics starts with a pen line circling around the body of the creature until it finds the closest point to the body and some code will split this line into 2 sections with a knee joint in the middle the another piece of code will create more legs for the creature. Here is an example of 2 joint inverse kinematics: the palsbeed a 2 legs that work in this way as well a 2 small arms that instead of reaching for the nearest point they reach for the player. Next thing I did was create movement for the Wikloe (which is a large worm-like creature) I started by making rope physics (using clones) and then making a code that switches the costume of the clone so that each clone would be a section of the of the creature and then I made a code that makes the clones collide with the terrain and make them point towards the next clone (I also used this code for the tongue of the Ceiling Catcher). Next I made code for Leeches, Alsoviathin, and Water Grass. I started the making the code by creating the code for having a node (the head of the rope) and a reverse node (the tail of the rope) with this code I could create Leeches by having the node move toward player (with the leeches AI) and the reverse node follow the node in a specific way I also used this code for the gigantic Alsoviathin, then I used this code to make Water Grass where the node stays in one spot as the base of the plant and the reverse node wave around in the water. The next thing I did was make movement for the Mutant Antuvian and the Moltude, I started with the Mutant Antuvian by making a body (using ropes) and then creating a code that creates 3 to 5 nodes on random positions on the body and the creating a reverse node at the end of the rope and then making a code that makes the reverse node try to grab anything close to it. Then I made the Moltude (which is mostly the same as the Mutant Antuvian) I started making by copying the code from the Mutant Antuvian but instead of the reverse nodes grabbing the player they grab the nearest point to the body. So far that's it.
World Building:

Areas:

1. Din Caves
   Creatures:
   Small Palsbeed
   Crab-like predator, 40 HP
   Food:
   Scudle
   Normal Palsbeed
   Crab-like predator, 45 HP
   Food:
   Scudle|
   Big Palsbeed
   Crab-like predator, 50 HP
   Food:
   Scudle
   Overgrown Palsbeed
   Crab-like predator, 60 HP
   Food:
   Scudle
   Small Palsbeed
   Wildub
   Passive, hat, 10 HP
   Deity Of Life
   Passive, 2,000 HP, dead
   Deity Of Death
   Passive, 2,000 HP, dead
   Deity Of Earth
   Passive, 2,000 HP, dead
   Sethotar
   Passive, 100 HP, dead
   Food:
   Long grass
   Tall Grass

Non-harmful plant

Short Grass
Non-harmful plant
Sethotar skull
Ancient bones
Sethotar Ribcage
Ancient bones

2. Crack Tunnels
   Creatures:
   Normal Wikloe
   Worm predator, 65 HP
   Food:
   Scudle
   Big Wikloe
   Worm predator, 100 HP
   Food:
   Scudle
   Normal Wikloe
   Bilofird
   Bird predator, 75 HP
   Food:
   Scudle
   Normal Wikloe
   Goglug
   Passive, 150 HP, dead
   Food:
   Frilled Grass
   Bulfrut
   Goglug Horn
   Ancient bones
   Long Grass
   Non-harmful plant
   Frilled Grass
   Non-harmful plant
   Bulfrut
   Non-harmful berry
   Bulfrut bush
   Non-harmful plant
   Red Mushroom
   Edible mushroom
   Pink Mushroom
   Inedible mushroom
   Blue Mushroom
   Inedible mushroom
   Moss
   Non-harmful plant

3. Crystal Caverns
   Creatures:
   Crystal Kulja
   Crystal-like predator, 406 HP
   Food:
   Crystals
   Crystal Jeth
   Crystal megacreature, 1,700 HP
   Food:
   Crystal Kulja

4. Shadow Tiles
   Creatures:
   Incontagra
   Invisible predator, 400 HP
   Food:
   Smaller Incontagra
   Sometimes other things
   Lanterbulb
   Passive, light source, 20 HP
   White Mushroom
   Edible mushroom, glow in the dark
   Caramel Mushroom
   Edible mushroom, tastes good
   Huge Mushroom
   Large inedible mushroom

5. Deep Caves
   Creatures:
   Crickalack
   Spider-like predator, 295 HP
   Food
   Anything smaller than itself
   Megapede
   Centipede-like predator, 310 HP
   Food:
   Anything smaller than itself
   Crickalack
   Gigapede
   Centipede-like predator, 320 HP
   Food:
   Anything smaller than itself
   Megapede
   Crickalack
   Terapede
   Centipede-like predator, 330 HP
   Food:
   Anything smaller than itself
   Gigapede
   Megapede
   Crickalack
   Petapede
   Centipede-like predator, 340 HP
   Food:
   Anything smaller than itself
   Terapede
   Gigapede
   Megapede
   Crickalack
   Lanterbulb
   Passive, light source, 20 HP
   Green Mushroom
   Edible mushroom
   Purple Mushroom
   Inedible mushroom
   Orange Mushroom
   Edible mushroom

6. Hackloge
   Creatures:
   Ceiling Catcher
   Insect predator, 345 HP
   Food:
   Anything that eats mushrooms
   Moltude
   Magma predator, 577 HP
   Food:
   Anything
   Morglog
   Molton megacreature, 2,500 HP
   Food:
   Anything
   Moltude
   Athtol
   250,000 HP, dead or alive

7. Antuvian Civilization
   Creatures:
   Mutant Antuvian
   Antuvian predator, 600 HP
   Veedle
   Small insect, 5 HP
   Deity Of Nature (The Last Deity)
   Passive, 5 HP, had 2,000 HP
   Antuvian
   Semi-Passive, 75 HP, dead
   Mursapup
   Passive, 20 HP

8. Okl Caves
   Creatures:
   Water Wiler
   Carnivorous plant, 45 HP
   Food:
   Scudle
   Black Leech
   Red Leech
   Blue Leech
   Balku Fish
   Black Leech
   Leech predator, 70 HP
   Food:
   Balku Fish
   Red Leech
   Leech predator, 70 HP
   Food:
   Balku Fish
   Blue Leech
   Leech predator, 70 HP
   Food:
   Balku Fish
   Huge Leech
   Leech predator, 100 HP
   Food:
   Balku Fish
   Black Leech
   Red Leech
   Blue Leech
   Balku Fish
   Passive, Small fish, 50 HP
   Food:
   Water grass
   Eil
   Snake-like predator, 65 HP
   Food
   Balku Fish
   Water Grass (if starving)
   Alsoviathin
   Sea snake megacreature, 5,000 HP
   Food
   Huge Leech
   Water Wiler
   Large amounts of water
   Water Mushroom
   Edible mushroom, water breathing
   Water Grass
   Non-harmful plant, aquatic

9. Okl Tunnels
   Creatures:
   Xitenothrol
   Camouflage predator, 750 HP

10. Scudle Cavern
    Creatures:
    Scudle
    Passive, Small insect, 15 HP
    Food:
    Red Mushroom
    Green Mushroom
    Orange Mushroom
    White Mushroom
    Caramel Mushroom

11. Broken World
    Creatures:
    Timeserator
    Time warper,∞ HP

12. The Creator:
    The Ath
    Creator of thrith

Lore:

The Ath and The Deity’s:

Before Thrith existed in the beginning of reality there was one being: The Ath. The Ath created Thrith and the Deity’s: the beings of creation. There were four Deity’s: The Deity Of Nature who created all creatures on Thrith, The Deity Of Life who created all the water and food on Thrith, The Deity Of Death who created all the ways to die on Thrith to complete the ecosystem and The Deity Of Earth who created all the land and ocean on Thrith. Once all life on Thrith was complete all the Deity’s worked together to create the Antuvians.

The Antuvians:

The Antuvians were human-like creatures with all the traits or the Deity’s: they were beings made by The Deity Of Nature, they could create their own food like The Deity Of Life, they could hunt prey like The Deity Of Death and they could build and change they world around them just like The Deity Of Earth. And then they had to leave their home because of The Deity Of Death’s creation.

The Deity Of Death’s creation:

Around the same time the Antuvians were created The Deity Of Death had worked almost every day to try and create life without the other Deity’s and finally created a monstrosity that called itself Athtol. Athtol created all the horrific creatures that you see in Thrith today.

Five rocks under the moonlight:

The five rocks under the moonlight were first discovered by a small group of Antuvians in a small grove far away from civilization the first Antuvian touched the first of the rocks and their veins glowed yellow (the colour of the rock) and they started to glow and then they disappeared, because of this the rest of the Antuvians thought the rocks were creations of the gods and soon started to worship along with the Antuvian city. When a rock is touched when the full moon is out the being that touches the rock will gain a lot of the knowledge in reality , here are the names of the stones: Salkray, Kulzga, Pixil , Grinfi and Xintethol.

Mutant Antuvians:

When a being touches one of the five rocks under the moonlight its gains a small amount of the knowledge inside the rock and it will cause a small genetic mutation that is almost unnoticeable but over many generations the changes can get much more severe for example the first generation will have slightly longer fingers but the hundredth generation will have 5 tentacles this is what happened to all the Antuvians and after 250 generations they became Mutant Antuvians.

The totality:

The totality is an extremely rare event where when all the knowledge in the five rocks under the moonlight combines and causes a dying being to fall out of fall out of reality and go into a time loop which can only be escaped by surviving the incident where the being was dying before they entered the time loop and when they escape the time loop the being will fade out of existence, where their mind will be at peace…

Here is the map for Thrith colour-coded in the same way as the creature info: