#collarva

[buginacup]

I just played through essentially all of what was available in the playtest, and as someone who IMMEDIATELY loved Collarva (which I believe you said you worked on?) on sight in both moves and visual design (I LOVE that wiped pose out in the field of pulling down their silk hoodie, and using hunker/grit is just kind of insane tbh) I'm curious what parts exactly you worked on (I don't even know if you got to work on its not-evolutions [metamorphs?] tbh) Also, any favorite beasties of yours that were in the Playtest?

I did the whole metamorph line! There was a while in development where we could pitch beasties that matched roles we were looking to fill, rather than what we do otherwise where we turn an extant concept (created by Greg or Alexis) into a design. The ones from the pitching period often had the same artist throughout, though I'd say even with the concept beasties it often worked out that way!

(Not to mention we often gave feedback to one another in the design process! Nobody is working entirely alone.)

I pitched these all at once!

We weren't super satisfied with the face of Collarva so I did a few iterative takes on new directions we could take them. As you might tell we wound up going for something around B!

With Collarva->Plumask they were looking for an early game lepidopteran (butterfly/moth) and I'm the go-to bug girl. There are a lot of moths and butterflies in monster games (bugs are the origins of the genre nobody is surprised) and I wanted to represent a type of moth that hadn't gotten much love yet. Plume moths are dusty looking creatures that don't look like they should be able to fly at a glance, it pulled me towards making something eerie and ghostly!

Image source here.

I don't want to color anyone's read of the line too much, but my general overarching theme was about picking up various personas/behaviors/aspects like a mossy rock until you find yourself as an adult and shed what you don't need. Both Axolati and Collarva are pulling from my teenage theatre kid life, uhuhu.

You can actually see the concept art for most beasties in the Beastiepedia under Morphology->Visual Studies. It even lists concept artists and sprite artists! (Research is concept/pose work and Videography refers to their in-game sprite and animation based off those poses)

In terms of mechanics/design we often don't have too much direct say. Since the color palette is often relevant we typically know what types of moves they'll specialize in. In my experience I'll pitch a concept and then give a narrative/emotional description that they use to inform stats/moves/etc. There are maybe one or two times where I lent a hand with stats/moves but I don't have a ton of time to play the game outside of work so I was always a bit too behind on the meta to contribute much, personally.

Yueffowl and Collarva are both favorites of mine! There are three or four beasties/beastie lines that are my precious babies and they're both included. They're among the ones where I really felt the most like I was expressing myself in the design. They definitely feel like designs I'll be remembered for.

[beastieballgame]

spin that girl sunday

[artseniccatnip]

various doodles :]]]

[mx-princey]

[daily-kichik]

117. Snack

Featuring Collarva

[orion-my-rion]

ok it's time to share a mere fraction of my insane thoughts about beastieball and the preview.

for starters, kichik was my favorite from the beginning but now having seen the first metamorphosis for all three starters i am even more partial to them. ostrisigh is by far my favorite of the three (by a Much larger margin than kichik was my favorite of the initial starters), although i don't rock with the name as much as i enjoy the names hopsong and handicoot. frankly i'm not immune to "cool" designs, and i also like when parts of a design are explained by the description (the fact that their leg feathers and talons overgrow bc of a refusal to use their super strong legs for anything, and they look grumpy bc of constant headaches from relying on their heads instead, is an Awesome concept). i also like the play style over the other two as i'm big on having dedicated hard-hitters and saving support roles for my other beasties.

speaking of other beasties I MISS SKIBBLE!!!! does anyone else miss skibble? it's going to kill me WHY aren't they available in the playtest?? i understand they probably moved their spawn area to the caves or something but that's literally my friend. they're soooo cute i could cry. put them back.

i've also fallen in love with a few of the newly revealed/available beasties :) the collarva line is absolutely WICKED and i love the raremorph for them. really really cool design and play style, although the defense drop at full maturity is a bit of a bummer (but understandable for balance reasons. and also that's a bug).

we saw diggum in the demo but being able to play with them has changed my entire life. i can't imagine Not using diggum in the full release. i love them. my raremorph is named tiramisu <3 my friend had a hell of a time knocking them down in pvp LOL my fluffy brown self-healing tank.

humflit is SOOOO CUTE and also surprisingly very versatile?? the defender/avenger abilities are super cool and useful (having a wiped beastie in your team raises their defense/power, respectively, by 1.5x) and the moves they learn are super good for how i play And the design and colors and alt colors are so so so cute. i cannot wait for the full set of sprites to be finished.

i also love servitt!!!! much like with kichik i looove a dedicated damage beastie and even tho its weakness to mind damage is a little scary this is fairly easily played around with strategic movement, tactical tag-ins and tag-outs, and other beasties' abilities to redirect attacks or raise defenses :) not to mention the power of healing. and also they're a little kitty cat btw if you even care.

besides the beasties and the strategies i enjoy in the actual beastieball portion of the game, i also LOVE the newly introduced characters. kaz is my favorite and basically my actual best friend (and also Extremely reminiscent of my real friend jasper? which also happens to be the name of kaz's home town?? hello? greg???). i would do anything for him. i wish the volley minigame could be replayed forever i wish you could hit him up on speed dial and meet up to play at any time. i also wish you could do exhibition rematches bc i miss his team and music. he's so awesome.

speaking of music THE MUSIC IS SO GOOD. all the new tracks are SICK i love each and every one of them. the sports king theme is especially good. kaz's themes are both excellent. riven's themes are cool. reese's theme is charming and fitting. the new town themes are cute. lena raine is just so so so incredible.

one last thing: starting the marlin fight while replaying the tutorial for stream and seeing that unidentified CREATURE looming behind his original team was the biggest jumpscare. ma there's a weird fuckin cat on the court. looks like some sort of gigantic BEAST. i really like yamyth's design and concept art but they did Not need to scare me like that lol

okay i think that's all :) play beastieball. talk to me about beastieball. i'm very regular about this game please. thank you goodnight <3

[blazeball]

muy little guys so far... katydid and mulberry and aralia and rattle. i hunted for a raremorph starter months ago when the demo was first released. so i could save this file for my first playthroygh :) and then i had to hunt for a raremorph collarva because i had one in the demo and adored it :3

[beastieballgame]

:D

[buginacup]

Learn more about Beastieball!

My buddy and collaborator Greg Lobanov is regularly doing updates on his website about Beastieball and the process of making it. As someone deeply involved in the project even I get excited reading his updates, he's really good at blog writing lol.

Recently he posted about the results of the current playtest, and featured one of my beasties! Please appreciate Collarva they are my pride and joy.

[buginacup]

really glad to see your writeup on the collarva line, i was immediately all "OMG a many-plumed moth!" as soon as i saw one. they're such weird creatures!

yueffowl and its metamorph might be some of my favorite mind-focused beasties in the game... am i right in thinking it's inspired by both barn owls and lophorinas?

Oh hi! ^_^ I saw your post about Yueffowl last night while I was lurking on the Beastieball tag and it made me so happy. It's nice to see little science communication choices pay off.

BEASTIEBALL SPOILERS BELOW:

And yes! You're 100% on the mark. Albrax's design came first. The barn owl portion stems from the general suspicion that the Flatwoods Monster sighting was a misunderstood scuffle with a barn owl (along with various other things). The idea of the line was to try and illustrate the way one thing can seem like another - and also to make a badass cool alienbird.

They're also vaguely avocado-like just because it was a fun shape direction to take the design in.

While Yueffowl definitely still has the iconic barn owl face, lophorinas obviously inspired its posture and wing shape. It's too perfect not to do! I think retroactively you could argue that Albrax's more vibrant plumage is due to this influence as well.

Thanks so much for your ask! -and for playing Beastieball! ❤