CyanicEmber's Imagination Station!

[CyanicEmber]

Hello all! Welcome to CyanicEmber’s Imagination Station! This is where I will be collecting all of my ideas for Grounded as the game’s development continues. I really have been enjoying this game so far and I have put a lot of hours into it. I am super impressed with the concept and how everything has been implemented so far and can't wait to see where else the game goes!

 

As I have often heard it said that the best way to make sure an idea never gets into a game is to go into detail about it, I’ll stay light on details. But if you have any comments or would like to point something out, feel free! To start out…

 

 

Creatures I’d Love to See –

 

Lunar Moth

Monarch Butterfly

Silk Moth

Caterpillar

Praying Mantis

Wasp/Hornet

Dragonfly

 

The following creatures are not bugs persay, but their presence in the backyard could easily be explained with a broken terrarium, or some other shenanigans, and I feel like each of them would make for an interesting creature or boss. Also, not all frogs, lizards, or snakes would absolutely dwarf our characters, some species of each can get quite small.

 

Scorpion

Frog

Snake

Lizard

Mouse

House Cat

Hermit Crab

Snail

 

 

 

Items and Mechanics –

 

Equipment Quality -

I think the game could greatly benefit from an item quality system linked to an Artificer Mutation, with sensible limits that prevent you from spamming the lowest cost item possible to max the Mutation. With a Mutation like this in game, it would make sense for one player in each team to do most of the crafting, and aid in creating organic player specialization.

 

Unique Equipment –

Another thing I would love to see are rare/unique materials that could be used to make one-and-done items and armor sets which cannot be duplicated.

Examples might be, Royal Ant Armor, Lucky Clover Armor, Spiney Grub Armor, etc… Basically things that you have to put in some effort to get (defeating a boss, finding a secret, finding a rare spawn etc…) but that have unique Passives or even Actives linked to them.

Perhaps a Royal Ant Armor could come with two Actives, one which summons two worker ants, and another which summons a soldier? Or perhaps a Queen Bee Armor could have a royal jelly ability that heals the target? Things like that.

It would mix things up in a positive way and further add to organic player specialization, allowing everyone to hard spec into specific roles in their Backyard Adventures and set long-term goals for things they want to acquire!

 

Rare Spawns –

Another thing I believe would be a great addition are rare overworld spawns which produce unique variants of existing creatures, or which introduce creatures which cannot be encountered by any other means.

For example, you might have a Luna Moth spawn which only appears in specific locations, at specific times of night, and only every so many days. That would make it a sufficiently unusual thing to sight that it would produce genuine excitement, and such a creature would of course be a prime candidate for yielding the unique/rare materials for an equally unique/rare armor set, weapon, or tool.

Another example might be a Yellow Ladybug, with vastly increased defense capabilities and higher health!

 

Specialized Areas –

We already have this to some degree with the Haze, which requires a Gas Mask, and the Pond, which requires a myriad of unique equipment, but one particular zone I would love to see is a frosty one, which could easily be produced using Ominent Tech somewhere in the yard, and could make way for some adorable fluffy moth gear to keep warm in! I also saw in the concept art at one point an overturned grill with live coals everywhere, not sure how you would make an entire biome out of that, or what specialized equipment you might use to explore it, but I do think it sounds pretty cool.

 

BURG.L Wireless Comms –

One mechanic I would really like to have is a means of communicating with BURG.L without returning to the Oak Lab every single time. Being able to collect quests and make Raw Science purchases without making the trek to the oak tree every day would make me much more comfortable basing in other areas of the map and lead to more confident exploration.

Additionally, it would be nice to be able to filter out at least one type of quest, so that you can avoid ones you really don't have any intention of doing. For example, I don't generally do Explorer Quests since the world becomes really cluttered with icons over time. There are of course other ways a problem like that could be dealt with, but I still think this would be nice.

 

Insect Live-Stock –

Symbiotic relationships between players and certain insect species would be really fun as well. I know Aphids are already on the road-map to be pets, but I think it would make the mechanic even more interesting if they could also produce Honeydew for you. Other potential relationships might be Ants, using the planned pheromone system to collect resources for you, Caterpillars as meat sources, and maybe Silk Moths to provide an alternative to Spider Webs!

On the subject of the pheromone system, I think it would be cool to have some means of distinguishing each players character’s Ants from the other character’s, and one such way would be introducing a chemical to their eggs which dyes their exoskeletons in the color of the character! Green for Willow, Bright Red for Max, Yellow for Pete, and Pink for Hoops.

 

 

 

Armor Aesthetics –

 

So far each armor set has had a particular visual aesthetic and motif to it, which provides a strong thematic element to each set that I think is really cool. Right now we have:

 

The Junkrat/Scavenger – Grub Armor

The Traveler – Clover Armor

The Hermit – Acorn Armor

The Knight/Juggernaut – Ladybug Armor

The Rogue – Spider Armor

The Samurai – Ant Armor

The Ashigaru – Koi Armor

The Masked – Bee Armor

 

Here some others that I would love to see bugified! If I think of any other motifs that I think would be cool, I will add them to this list. Feel free to make your own list as well!

 

The Gunslinger

The Tribal

The Mage

The Cleric

The Assassin

The Northerner

The Jester/Fool

The Monk

The King

The Queen

 

 

 

One-Off Ideas –

 

This is just an area for extra things I thought of that I did not have room for under my other categories and contains more specific ideas that I think would be cool. I’ll add to the list if I think of more.

 

· Unique King and Queen Armor Sets with night and day related passives/actives only able to be crafted from Luna Moth and Monarch Butterfly parts respectively.

 

· Mantis Reaper Scythe, two handed weapon.

 

· Dual Wielding Passive for Mantis Armor with some unique combo attacks.

 

· Scorpion Whip, one handed weapon.

 

 

Finally, if any Devs took the time to read this I just want to say I appreciate your time and I hope you have a lovely and restful holiday season. Thank you for putting so much effort into the development of this title, your enthusiasm really shows, and it has brought me and my friends a great deal of happiness already. <3

 

-Cyanic

 

Now, time to dive into the new Test Branch!

[Ethics Gradient]

Hey, if you ever stop by the Official Grounded Discord, the team just opened up suggestion voting.  

Submit some of your ideas in #suggestions, and if it gets enough votes, it will sent to the developers for consideration in a future update.