[LOGS] crit's raster log

[skinstealer]

[CRITTER_CATCHER]:

here goes nothing

i decided to start a log now that i’m finally going to take a shot at raising one of these raster things. i had such a huge part in creating them with rags and yet ive never really taken the step of caring for one myself, to do anything but art assets for the “game”. i guess i’ve been scared of what the ramifications are going to be- but we’re already too far in to stop now. raggedy got the species licensed and we’ve got all the paperwork signed and done. starting to take on the final wave of testers, the works.

i’m not sure if i’ll publicize this log yet, but if you see this anywhere on the felid factor forums, i guess you can say hi or ask questions or something. i’ll probably be a bit more cagey than say rags or any of the other devs, and i definitely want to keep a lot of this stuff more private, but i figure logging basic stuff would be fine, at the very least up until i get to the point where this thing is actually sapient and can voice what it wants in life. i feel weird about blogging even this much with it, but if i keep things objective, it might serve well as a sort of…guide, for new people?

kind of hate the idea of being a guide, actually. i don’t want to be a role model. but i guess i’m one of the creators of this whole species, so… lead by example?

anyway. day one.

we’ve been doing a lot of debate on how modifiable a raster can be, after creation. it’s easy enough to say that people can input their own “design choices” for a raster before spawning them in, and that weird nebulous period where they’re just mimicking patterns and sounds, just game code- that should be fine, too. but it’s not a hard line, and it can be hard to tell. rags wants to release a sort of “modding software” to allow for ethical customization, but it’s been tricky figuring out a sort of consent system for it. we don’t want people going “aw hell yeah im gonna cover my raster in TEETH” when that kind of thing could distress them- but on the other hand, if that’s what a raster wants for themself because they like, watched a cool horror movie or something, we want people to be able to do that for them.

the compromise we settled on was software that does a sort of “sapience check” before allowing any kind of modifications. how we actually managed to code this, we’re not sure- just like the rest of this damn “game”. things just fall into place and connect with this shit, and we’re honestly not even sure whether we can credit ourselves to this thing as much as we do. the program itself, though- it sort of “pings” the raster in question, and if it gets a ping back, it locks you out of customization until the raster approves it. raster in question gets to shut the process down at any time, too. you may be the one editing, but they’re the ones in the real driver’s seat. eventually we want to make it possible for rasters to edit themselves too, but for now, this is guided stuff. getting them agency is pretty important to me, even if it does scare me a little- so it’s something we’re pushing for.

the point is…i did start with a modded base for my first raster. first? for now, only. i’ll get it a friend if i need to, but i’d rather start slow and have it meet the rasters raised by other people on the dev team first.

i spent a lot of time debating how much is like. weird. rags’ modded rasters, mocha, silly, and wiggles, are all really happy with the way rags designed them before adopting them. they don’t seem to have any trouble at all. but while i did want to start with something a bit more…stand out? a lot of questions came to mind about whether it’d even be okay to do that in the first place.

crush says i worry too much, especially considering if my raster doesn’t want this for themself at a later point, they can always ask for a mod job or like. Leave to go find one. i guess that’s fair and all, but i’d rather overthink these than fuck up. like, this may not be on the same level as having a kid or something but it’s definitely adjacent enough that i am taking every step extremely fucking slow. this is gonna be like. a whole guy! a whole fucking guy that will live their own life! and i’m there to teach them!

…though honestly, we’ll get to that later. for now, i spent like five hours waffling on colors and patterns and what raster species to even start with. i know i wanted a critter considering i designed those in the first place, and i guess it’s kind of egocentric to pick a hazydaze, considering those are my favorite out of the ones we decided to make available at first…

…but i did. i made a hazydaze, and they seemed friendly at first. very small. i wasn’t sure what to name them, but i realized i’d probably be raising them the same way i raised myself, with the belief that you can change your name to whatever the hell based on how you’re feeling. the name i give them will pretty much be a nickname up until then, i figure.

they were very fond of sneaking around and pouncing on things, so i decided to name them “sneaky”. kind of a goofy name that i am honestly hoping doesn’t piss them off too much, but i was kind of struggling and it’s probably temporary anyway.



here’s sneaky’s menu sprite and a little picture. as you can see, even in the menu, they’re sneaking around and presumably looking for trouble…which, we’ll see how that goes.

we didn’t exactly get on the right foot, me and sneaky…i decided to put on some background music while getting to know them and it really startled them, so i immediately turned that off and gave them some room to breathe. they didn’t seem to hold it against me at all- acting on instinct more than anything, maybe? it’s hard to tell how much rasters even have going on in their heads immediately after adoption…



they seemed to like being pet, though, and it helped calm them down. they slept for a little bit but got woken up by me dragging windows around- does that like, make a noise for rasters? or are they just a light sleeper…


i tried giving them a ball after and that also made them panic, even me holding it out to them was scary. they seem freaked out by pretty much anything and everything, and i’m. really not sure what to do there.



thankfully, they seemed to enjoy being brushed as well as pet, and that helped a bit…

the last thing i did before letting them rest for the day was try to feed them, but, as i should have expected, they ran far the fuck away from the slime bottle. with some intermittent petting i was finally able to get sneaky to eat, and they don’t seem as scared of it anymore, i guess…

…if i do publish this, i’m open for ideas on what to do to help their anxiety. i know they aren’t a person Yet, but they will be and i kind of want to figure this out. the next time i open the game i’ll try talking with them, but we’ll see how it goes…

[skinstealer]

[CRITTER_CATCHER]:

okay. been a bit since i last wrote but i have been playing with and taking care of sneaky, just...been hectic on my end. rags and i are working with some other devs to get the clothing end of FZ figured out and we're like...99% of the way there, just got one last thing. but i've been doing a lot of testing and asset making to make sure it all clicks together. usually rags is the one that handles all this stuff, but he insisted i try and help out so that i can talk to sneaky more and introduce them to stuff like clothing and speech.

so...been doing that. i'll admit that it was kind of scary opening up the game again after that first day considering how much is at stake here, but i knew deep down that sneaky is still growing as a creature...person...thing and that it'll still be some time before they're done "cooking" so to speak. and the only way for me to do that is to give them information to work with, so...

we talked a bit. mostly them mirroring back at me, but i still don't feel comfortable posting those logs yet. i want to wait until they're cognizant enough to say yes or no to me posting the things they say directly...if i didn't see it happen with rags and his rasters with my own eyes, i never would have believed it'd be possible. consider me a skeptic debunked, i guess.

in general, sneaky's doing...better. in the week or so that we were testing clothing, they were still easily spooked by objects, including food and even the faithful brush...but surprisingly, they actually love clothing. i never would have expected it.

here's some pictures of them modeling clothes for me. rags loved these pictures.



...i took a lot more. we had a lot of fun...at least, i think they did. they kept saying things like "good!" and i even taught them how to say "yay!" when they're having fun. helps a lot.


here's the final outfit we picked out together. it looks like they're as much of a stickler about matching colors as i am, and i think they're really cute, admittedly...

soon, i think i'm going to try "feeding" them the dictionary that 3D came up with, though i'm a little worried about potential information overload. maybe it'd be better to spoonfeed them the info....? lots to think about.



also, i think i may have gotten them hooked on soda. they definitely say a lot of "yay"s when not spooked by the bottle's existence. we're working on it, bit by bit.