May 26th Update

 I have been working on the model for the new enemy. I also ran into a new issue. Some friends tried playtesting ALAWT on their old mac laptops. It crashed a whole bunch of times, so I am working on a compatibility version using the OpenGL renderer. Luckily, I think it's mainly just a few lighting tweaks and I ended up removing shadows on it. I figured if someone's laptop doesn't even support Vulkan, it'll probably struggle with shadows. 

I'm going to update with a compatibility version/low end version soon. I noticed just removing shadows made it run at nearly 60fps on my budget laptop full screen, so it should be good for lower end devices as well, though I will eventually make that an option in the Vulkan version as well. It's also really hard to notice the missing shadows simply because the maps are already filled with fog and darkness.

It's moving along

I would say this monster is based off The Thing, which is one of my favorite movies. I felt like I had to have something similar. I combined elements from lampreys, insects and fungi. The gatherer on the other hand was based off of a dolls eye plant which has always been kinda creepy. I've always liked unique creature features over any other type of horror movie so I've really tried to avoid the typical zombie or humanoid monster. I also like monsters that aren't particularly evil but just existing or maybe even benevolent but might be super creepy. Some of the design elements also draw influence from Eternal Darkness, another favorite of mine. 

Sera's arm design was heavily influenced by the creature design in an old game called The Suffering. I always found it cool when you could play as a monster/creature in a game. Some of the hp loss mechanics was also influenced by that.