Two years into a Chao Garden-inspired game. What do you think?
I've been working on Zephyr Cloud solo for the past two years. Same core idea as the Chao Garden: you raise and train creatures, evolve them into new forms, and breed new generations. And races, of course. On top of that it's a settlement sim, and the personality side owes a lot to RimWorld.
Most of my time has gone into the zephyrs themselves. Their traits actually shape thair behavior: one panics in the rain, one steals food from the storage, one is always stalks the others. Sometimes that's all the same zephyr. They play together, chat, get into fights, and you're the one who ends up breaking those up. They form relationships with you as well.
The garden is spread across floating islands. They drift, new ones show up, and you go explore them, gather resources, settle in and craft your way up.
The zephyrs aren't just living there, they work with you. Some jobs only they can do, and some work better together.
Which brings me to what I'd like to ask. First: how do you feel about chao-like creatures having actual work to do? Does that break the relaxed atmosphere everyone loved the Chao Garden for?
The other thing is the camera. it's top-down and free moving like the Sims, with no player model on screen. Thoughts on that? Did seeing your own character next to chao matter to you?
Any thoughts or questions are welcome. It's called Zephyr Cloud if you want to take a look.