I should be making another post about Ark World, but nothing much has happened since the last time I posted about it. The population is still doing nothing but munching on carrots, no one has moved from the spots where my last post left them, and no one seems to be interested in breeding.
So instead, I want comments about the blog. I recently was told that the current color scheme (specifically, the black text on a dark gray background) was somewhat difficult to read. Is anyone else having problems reading the blog, or is this a one-off?
As well, I'm also wondering what everyone thinks of this blog thus far. If you have any suggestions, comments, etc. about how to make this place look nicer, be more easily accessible, etc. I am treating this place like a bona-fide website, after all - I'd like to make it the best it could possibly be.
Besides that, I also have a few projects planned. The first and biggest of them is yet another collab with Mea - The Sea Garden, which is a pack of aquatic lifeforms that should hopefully help alleviate the lack of standalone aquatic plants and critters (in case you're reading this Mea, it's okay to leave the images for that up at your blog - this isn't supposed to be a secret or anything P=).
Speaking of aquatic plants and critters, I'm also planning on completely revamping the fish + anemone from the Biodome Pack if that's alright with everyone who worked on the pack. The anemones are classified as "critter" and their spores as "animal egg" when they should be classified as "plant" and their spores as "seed" (prevents carnivorous creatures from trying to eat the anemone and getting turned off as a result, and the spores can be a valuable source of starch). Most of the fish are also in dire need of a recode (I have no idea what went wrong with them, considering the cod/mackerel in Devil's Reef use similar coding and they work perfectly fine), and the one fish who isn't also can't be eaten, which is again a bad idea from a design standpoint.
The final future project is yet another breed update - the Sea Monsters V2. For those of you unfamiliar with the breed, V1 was the first breed I ever publicly released (although they didn't receive much fanfare considering they were put up for download at Alien's Norn Adoption Center). They were amphibious grendels who were generally friendly unless slapped, crawled around on all fours, and ate critters instead of food. V1.4 was the result of my thinking the originals were badly done, and updated them to use less third-party sprites and to only lay eggs underwater. Since I was never happy with that version, a proper V2 is in order. I have no idea what I'm going to do for them besides the features in the original versions; however, with any luck they should be released sometime before the Sea Garden is.
Yay, another wall of text without pictures. P=
Risen Angel's Creatures blog, dedicated to the various ways the games can be played, altered, and sometimes completely broken.
I also find the current colour scheme difficult to read. Black on grey and the grey on grey of the top dates (for example, the "Tuesday, May 1, 2012" on the top of this post) isn't very eye-friendly.
ReplyDeleteThe Sea Garden pack sounds like it will be a valuable and beautiful addition to our oceans. :)
Real-life anemones are animals, not plants - it's more biologically accurate to the real world to leave them as critters and critter eggs, and it was something I was pleasantly surprised with. :)
Best of luck with the Sea Monsters V2!
I did mention that RL anemones were animals at one point during the making of this post, but it must of gotten left out.
DeleteIt may be biologically accurate, but I'm not concerned with biological accuracy - I'm concerned with making sure the things are instinct-friendly. In their current state, the anemones have the potential to cause massive instinct screw with the myriad aquatic creatures with instincts to eat critters.
To me, it just came off as bad design.
I can't speak to the design of the anemones, but it would also be instinct-friendly to leave the anemones as critters and critter eggs, and to let the creatures pick them up and eat them that way - pretend the norns are strong enough to rip the anemones off their pedestals. This would also help those creatures who haven't quite gotten the hang of swimming yet to survive on the ocean floor.
DeleteHi Grendel Man,
ReplyDeleteFor blog suggestions, I admittedly do have some problems reading the posts due to the color scheme. As you mentioned, it is due to the dark text on the dark grey background, and generally I need to highlight the text in order to read it without strain.
Similarly, the content at the side of the page, (blog archive, etc.) is a tad difficult on the eyes as well, due to the white text on a multi-colored background. I kind of have to scroll the page in order to position the text on the darker areas of the image to read it clearly, which makes searching for older posts a bit strenuous.
Anyways, those are my only concerns. Good luck!
Jessi
Hey, I'm not a famous member of the community but I do play creatures and frequent the blogs. I'm a fan of grendels and have a lot of your work. I wouldn't mind a section with a little more details of progress on a few of your different projects, the flesheater grendels, more current projects, etc.
ReplyDeleteA page specifically for links to all your downloads!!
ReplyDeleteThat's been on the list for a while; the only reason it hasn't happened yet is because I'm lazy. oPo
DeleteOkay, I've revamped the blog's color scheme a bit - hopefully, it should be easier to read now (although I'm still not content with it at the moment - there's still lots of potential for change).
ReplyDeleteDidn't feel like making a new post since this one was fairly recent.
Re: updating the Biodome pack objects -- go for it! :) You may want to check with Ghosthande first (as I do remember she was thinking of looking at them herself at one point), but as always anything I do or release... have at it!
ReplyDeleteIf you update the biodome pack, please check the sprites for rainbow spew. The present set while they look good in screenshots from PC users computers have spew issues on Macs.
ReplyDeleteAlso Grendel Man, love the new color for the blog.