Forum Adoptables

[Digital]

This is to continue discussion of the forum adoptable/pet game idea suggested by @SingSong

[Digital]

Since this suggestion had a strong approval overall with forum members, let's do it!

I happen to be off of work on vacation for a week, so I plan to make it my top priority to implement the start of this system. What users can expect in terms of functionality in this first pass (and it won't be the last, we will be always adding to this, much like a virtual pet game) will be:

• Ability to purchase eggs from the Store. Some pets may be premium and others are free.
• Ability to choose an active pet/egg that will absorb any posts and reputation gains. Only your currently active pet can absorb posts or reputation.
• Ability to evolve your pet into the next form at a certain level. For now I call the resource pets gain as "power" (open to suggestions). Users have to manually choose to evolve their pet, this is voluntary. New forms will be added regularly so pets are constantly being given new forms.
• Users can see all your pets on your profile.

Stretch goals (or "If Ryan has enough time"):

• Show off pets in posts using a BBCode or editor button.
• Embed codes for pets on other sites (includes pets gaining power from third party sites by users clicking them)
• Customization items
  • Backdrops to go behind the pet
  • (TBD other items of vanity appeal)
  • Potential item to allow a user to upload a customized image of their pet instead of using the default.

Obviously features can be added to, and I want to see what you guys suggest. I will try to release blocks of features every couple of weeks. This first round is to get the basics of the system in so that we can get to the more creative stuff later.

However, I do need help! I need artists who are willing to offer some pets for adoption - I am willing to pay (depending on cost) if necessary, however I want the artists here to put their heads together first. If you guys have been following my pixel art thread, you have seen that my ability to produce art is rough at best. I would love to see the artists here get together and see what they can come up with!

[Hare]

This sounds wonderful and I'm glad to hear you guys want to go through with it! What do you have in mind for the art? Is it all going to be done in one style, or many different styles? I'm open to doing some if you think my style would work for it! 

Anyway yeah, really excited to start getting little critters <3

[Digital]

I figure that since it is adoptables, and since this is a forum where we want users interacting we are bound to get some differences in art styles. Basically I would love to be open to allowing any artist willing to create and submit adoptables. What would be required would the community deciding the basic rules of what a submission should be.

This is where all the artists interested should start conversing  Meanwhile, I will be in the corner making sure it all works as a game  

[Hare]

Ooh that would be nice =D

Should there be a voting process on new submissions? 

Would free advertising for the creator of the adoptable be a helpful incentive for people to submit quality work? (maybe have their username listed somewhere on a species info page). 

Should there be any written guidelines for submissions aside from things like file size? 

Just tossing out ideas. 

[Digital]

Just now, Hare said:

Should there be a voting process on new submissions? 

I think it would encourage participation!

1 minute ago, Hare said:

Would free advertising for the creator of the adoptable be a helpful incentive for people to submit quality work? (maybe have their username listed somewhere on a species info page). 

Of course, I totally expect to provide full kudos and advertising of who submitted an adoptable. Credit belongs where it is deserved!

2 minutes ago, Hare said:

Should there be any written guidelines for submissions aside from things like file size? 

The artists here are far more experienced in such and would be more suited to be able to answer those.  Obviously there are a few basics that come to mind such as no nudity or genitalia, or any pet of a rude or suggestive nature, etc.

[Hare]

Alright yay =D Maybe the advertising would be enough later on so you guys don't have to pay out of pocket. As long as you can keep getting quality adoptables. I'm not sure how that will turn out in the longrun. 

No genitals and such sounds good. 

Would love to hear from other artists, too. 

[Digital]

Let's ping them in.

 

@SingSong @kami

[SingSong]

Some questions:

1. Do all pets gain the "power" needed to evolve from rep points and posts? I still would like to see some pets with unique ways of evolving like "this pet requires you to post 5 guides in the game development forum before it can evolve". I suppose unique pets would need to be given points manually, but I think it would still be worth the extra effort, because then users might complete those required activities which help the forum out in the long run.

2. "Users can see all your pets on your profile." Is there a possibility that we would be able to select our favorite to show beneath our avatar? I know I could just put the image in my signature, but I know some people like having large gifs or banners in their signatures instead (and I may do something like that in the future as well).

3. Is there a chance that some species have rare outcomes (meaning their evolution cycles are not just linear)? Ideally, it would be nice if some pets had random outcomes (within the set three images or whatever) and if some pets had ways of that the owner could "choose" a specific outcome by doing what was necessary to get that one instead of the others.

 

I actually like the idea of everyone being able to submit creature art. But what will make this type of adoptable set-up better than what's offered on Squiby? I know the forum is still the main thing, but I think it would be nice if there was something unique about the adoptables, too.

I think there have to be some kind of quality standards, such as a specific size for all adoptables (and maybe higher evolutions are allowed to be bigger) and all creatures should need to be transparent (especially if backgrounds may be a thing in the future).

Edited March 18, 2017 by SingSong

[Digital]

I would love to see unique ways to gain power. This cycle will probably be kept simple though until I can figure out how those unique gains can be done. For instance who gets the power gain if you post a guide in a forum - your active pet or the special pet? How do you tell the user this in a easy to understand way?

Evolution I was planning to be non linear, it is possible to have trees. If your pet is ready to evolve you might have two options on how you want to go, and you'd have to choose. I think it allows pet species to be replayable over time. I was also thinking of some item in the store akin to Pokémon stones that can also cause evolution.

Normally your active pet would show under your avatar, but I love the idea of overriding with your favorite too!

[Hare]

Not sure whether it'd be better to have just the active pet visible under avatar, or favorite. 

I'm also kinda thinking quality control would be nice. Though I don't want to leave people out for their artistic skills not being super polished, at the same time, I'd love to see TGL getting nice quality work submitted. Agreeing on transparency and a set canvas size. Maybe it should be up to the artist to draw the bigger critters to fill up more of the canvas.

[Digital]

I will have a small update on my progress in coding the system this evening. I was able to make good progress yeasterday night and can share some of it. ?

[SingSong]

On 3/18/2017 at 9:15 AM, Digital said:

Evolution I was planning to be non linear, it is possible to have trees. If your pet is ready to evolve you might have two options on how you want to go, and you'd have to choose. I think it allows pet species to be replayable over time. I was also thinking of some item in the store akin to Pokémon stones that can also cause evolution.

Okay, awesome. And would there be a thread on the forum that shows people all the different evolutions and appearances or would this be somewhat secret, and people would have to wait and see for themselves (or figure it out by looking at people's evolved pets on the board)?

 

On 3/18/2017 at 9:15 AM, Digital said:

Normally your active pet would show under your avatar, but I love the idea of overriding with your favorite too!

Makes sense. Are we going to be able to input names and have them show below our pets? I like naming my pets, because it makes them feel more unique to me even though other people have the same art.

 

On 3/18/2017 at 10:51 AM, Hare said:

Though I don't want to leave people out for their artistic skills not being super polished, at the same time, I'd love to see TGL getting nice quality work submitted. Agreeing on transparency and a set canvas size. Maybe it should be up to the artist to draw the bigger critters to fill up more of the canvas.

Yeah. I agree. I don't want to limit how many submissions come in, but as an adoptable "shopper" I don't want to wade through a bunch of sloppy sketches drawn on paper and uploaded. Maybe we can have a thread of some sort for tips on getting your adoptables accepted? Because amateur art and multiple styles should still be acceptable, but the images should need to look complete.

 

I would like it, too, if TGL had "official" adoptables done in a set style. That way if the favorite adoptable artist stops uploading stuff on TGL, there are still quality adoptables to buy. I don't like the idea of the adoptable system being completely in the hands of members, because what happens if no one posts new adoptables for a couple months? Then there's nothing for people to get excited about. But it sounds like this is something you were aiming for, Digital, because you said some may be premium?

[Digital]

6 hours ago, SingSong said:

Okay, awesome. And would there be a thread on the forum that shows people all the different evolutions and appearances or would this be somewhat secret, and people would have to wait and see for themselves (or figure it out by looking at people's evolved pets on the board)?

Either/or? Some probably want a guide, and some may want to figure it out. I am okay with either really. I personally am a fan of seeing what happens myself.

6 hours ago, SingSong said:

I would like it, too, if TGL had "official" adoptables done in a set style. That way if the favorite adoptable artist stops uploading stuff on TGL, there are still quality adoptables to buy. I don't like the idea of the adoptable system being completely in the hands of members, because what happens if no one posts new adoptables for a couple months? Then there's nothing for people to get excited about. But it sounds like this is something you were aiming for, Digital, because you said some may be premium?

I agree and had this in mind. I am open for members to submit them, and hopefully members will want to. But there will always be pets or new evolutions added by staff at the boards through either purchasing or commissioning to keep things updating.

The benefit about using a tree form of evolution is that the tree is not set, instead of a new species every week, one or two more stages can be added to existing adoptables to. As I will explain later, players will have a lot of power when it comes to evolutions and getting to the pet they want. Some of those options are easy to accomplish, some decisions will cost more to achieve, and for those so inclined to want instant gratification they can have it too. But more on that later this evening when I show the very start of the progress.

[Digital]

So here is my quick preview. Please note this is really only about 4 hours of work, and is a complete work in progress. Right now it is only front displaying of data, I still have to actually make the functionality of evolving a pet, or changing a pets name, or even getting an egg work. This is just the start of displaying database information on the front-end.

Seeing your pet on the thread:

As you can see, your active pet displays on the postbit under your avatar. Please note that I used the Pokemon Go graphics since I needed something that works closely with the idea of how things will work. You can see my little Bulbasaur egg sitting there. I called him MyBulba cause I am not original like that .

You will have an Adopted Pets tab on your Profile:

As you can see, this will display your pets in a list (I only have one at the moment), and gives you the image, the name (and current stage of evolution which is Egg in this case - and the description for that stage), current power, and some options. Right now he is my active pet, but if you had more then one, there would be a link instead to set the pet to be your active pet. Evolve will only show up if you can Evolve the pet. Evolution is based off how much Power the pet has absorbed, so it will only display if there is an evolution(s) that your pet has enough power to evolve into.

The WIP Evolution Modal:

Here you can see what happens when I click the Evolve from the previous screenshot. You see my pet in it's current form, then you can see the form (or forms if more then one next to it). When done, there will be a radio button next to the available forms to allow user choice, as well as a tooltip with a description for that form.

To explain where I am going with Evolution:

Here are my thoughts on Power and Evolution... and feedback is welcomed.

I want users to be able to choose the route of evolution, and even choose to not evolve. So that is why Evolution is this voluntary feature, and isn't necessary. Now, this can complicate matters, as if you choose not to evolve your pet, you can continue to absorb power well beyond the stages of evolution. To handle this, the evolution screen will only show you the next step in your evolution tree at a time. If you choose not to evolve for a very long time, you can always play catch up by evolving multiple times in a row. I think that is a reasonable system that won't punish users, or force skipping of stages of a pet because a user chose not to evolve a pet.

As a thought -- I am toying with ideas to provide (most likely in a premium option) items that will provide power boosts to a pet, or even allow the pet to be reset to the first stage (usually egg) for those users who wish to reset their pets. Normally, I would expect most users to just grab a new egg of the species and level it up, but for those who want to skip the time and effort, for a price and cost they can basically do so. Ideas?

[SingSong]

14 hours ago, Digital said:

The benefit about using a tree form of evolution is that the tree is not set, instead of a new species every week, one or two more stages can be added to existing adoptables to. As I will explain later, players will have a lot of power when it comes to evolutions and getting to the pet they want. Some of those options are easy to accomplish, some decisions will cost more to achieve, and for those so inclined to want instant gratification they can have it too.

Sounds very cool.

 

12 hours ago, Digital said:

Now, this can complicate matters, as if you choose not to evolve your pet, you can continue to absorb power well beyond the stages of evolution. To handle this, the evolution screen will only show you the next step in your evolution tree at a time. If you choose not to evolve for a very long time, you can always play catch up by evolving multiple times in a row.

I've played a game that allowed this. I think that's the best way to go about it!

 

12 hours ago, Digital said:

I am toying with ideas to provide (most likely in a premium option) items that will provide power boosts to a pet, or even allow the pet to be reset to the first stage (usually egg) for those users who wish to reset their pets. Normally, I would expect most users to just grab a new egg of the species and level it up, but for those who want to skip the time and effort, for a price and cost they can basically do so. Ideas?

For premium options, I think a reset option would be appealing, especially if you had adoptables that were only available through "events" on the forum. There could be ones released around times of the year to celebrate (like a TGL 1-year anniversary species for next year) or for example, a species could be awarded to people that create 10 game reviews. So for these ones, members can't just buy that species again from the standard shop, so editing the one they have would be a better option. Maybe these exclusive adoptables could even be placed in the premium shop later for those that miss out and still want them? I also like the idea of purchasable items that give points to the adoptables, though I'm not sure how many people would be interested in paying for that.

Special adoptables would probably be the most desired thing in a premium shop, though there should be a wide variety of free ones as well.

[Callum]

This is perhaps the most exciting suggestion I have read here! Absolutely brilliant idea which I really really believe is going to give these forums a unique edge and a lot of encouragement for participation etc.

I am going to be contacting as many artists as I can to get involved, especially once we have decided things such as image resolutions and some ground rules for submissions, because this is going to be such an exciting oppourtunity.

I think the idea of Premium Adoptables is a genius idea, and could also allow us to perhaps run some charity events maybe in the future? I.E Purchase this Pet which has a big pink bow on it's face and the money received will go to Breast Cancer Charity #337 etc.

Exchanging art for a bit of promotion is always a good incentive too! And the Unique Evolution system would be absolutely brilliant in getting people to do some things which may otherwise seem like far too much effort.

[Digital]

As for art, since I at a point where we need to start talking art soon if we are going to have pets at launch of the system. Right now I have been using the Pokemon Go art (for testing only), and those are 256x256 in size. Smaller I know, but the forums only have so much room in the threads, and profile space.

As for style, let's get that discussion started. 

As for my personal taste (and this is totally just me), I prefer a more cartoonish cellshading over realistic, but I understand not everyone likes that style as you lose a lot of what could be detail. I also prefer a more fantasy to a more real-life animal. Note, whether the creature is real or fantasy is a moot point here, as adoptables are an open platform.

 

As a heads up, another preview will be released today with progress, we are getting very close!

[Digital]

Created a new forum for updates under news.

Update: 

 

Discussion can continue there, as new threads will be made with updates individually to keep things more organized?