[OOC] Wattplants General

[skinstealer]

echer here! okay, let's see...

hmm. there's a lot going on here, but i think i want to finalize some things and make em set in stone, if that's okay? there's a lot of things happening and i think to progress we have to make some things Concrete. i don't know if i can satisfy everyone's wants and needs with this, but i have ideas and i think they'd be good for structure- ty all for your suggestions, it's given me a lot to think about!

let's take it from the top...

prickle is the solo dev of wattplants, and has been doing this for a couple years now- maybe like four? it started as a personal project to pass the time and learn coding after he got out of snugco, and also to explore the idea of a plant-heavy story and his relationship to them. plants became some of his only friends in snugco itself while working in an experimental garden program, and he was able to get a job at a greenhouse and escaped the facility through that.

prickle is very motivated by botany and science, which probably looks more fantastical to us than other morbitians. carnivorous plants were especially interesting to him and he grew mildly fixated on them, and wanted to make creatures that capture both their cuteness and beauty. whether people actually find them pretty or cute varies, but i like to think even with the controversy the site has, people generally really like (most of) the creatures.

note to self: design one that people think is ugly, possibly for nonsensical reasons lol

prickle is kind of at odds with the community at times, which causes a lot of stress and periods where not a lot of updates get done. his hiatuses are very controversial amongst more entitled players, but...i imagine there's still a strong foundation of dedicated players who send him nice emails and fanart and stuff. :)

ever time he feels down, he just trawls the forums and peoples' petpages for a bit, and even the ones that go against his lore help him feel better.

the game has a vague post-apoc theme, but where the world has started to recover enough that it was nebulous at first whether it was or not. i don't know if i want to go for outright "cartoony"- wattplants are very cute and cartoony, but that may just be a result of morbit being that as well...but! what i think could be cool is something vibrant in the same way that plants are vibrant- very overgrown and people living within nature. people probably had theories that something was up early on, but most people just assumed it was a wild world full of beasts, considering one of the later points...

overall, i like to think that it's a very hopeful take! prickle probably has a lot of influence from his traumatic upbringing (considering, um, snugco) but he's a very optimistic person and his love of plant life makes him feel like "the world will always regrow, no matter what".

the world is very varied a la neopets, and themed settlements exist between wild areas. these themes are a bit more grounded than neopets, but they're still very much there. i still like the idea of biome inspired stuff, but biomes are really varied in this world, and may have more in common with the vast variety of morbit zones than our own earth. settlements have lots of different little shops with different focuses, and different markings/features are more common to different areas/associated with them.

the world also has dangerous and mysterious creatures in the wilds. some of them are sapient and can give quests and such via random events, others do not and are more akin to animals/terrors. these are also majority plant themed, and some events may require players to defeat a certain amount of enemies maybe?

"people" NPCs were added later into the game, which elaborated more on the post-apoc nature of the setting, and gave more lore. this is a big part of why players didn't recognize the apoc nature of the setting. this is kind of how a lot of petsites go, i think? where stuff is added later and is a big shakeup...prickle is very proud of his characters and a lot goes into them, but i think some people see them as edgy or pretentious, or maybe clunkily written. there might be a few characters that people actually really like, but most are controversial and some are just outright hated and ignored/memed on.

i'm pretty set on all these details...but i'd love to discuss what people think can be expanded on, or if anyone has questions!