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WaddleBih — Hunting for flowers
#beast #cave #crystal #flower #originalspecies
Published: 2019-10-19 23:08:19 +0000 UTC; Views: 246; Favourites: 5; Downloads: 4
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Description
Two Mau Beasts about to enter a cavern to hunt themselves some Crystal Flowers.While they are immune to the parasitic properties of the flowers themselves, a Shadow Beast can always be lurking around the corner -- going to hunt flowers alone is never a wise idea.
Mau Beasts and Crystal Flowers are mine. Please do not claim them as your own.
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Comments: 22
I bet it's not easy to subdue a Shadow Beast so you can cure it.
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Is it possible for you to share any backstory about them here?
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Yeah, sure!
The Mau Beasts are a tribe that lives in a world called the Dream Nexus, which is an amalgamation of places and creatures originating from the dreams of thousands upon thousands of creatures.
They live in an area called the Wild Plains, which is mostly composed of large open spaces (where they build their villages) along with some groves and mountains (most of which contain immense caves that go deep underground).
They are rather peaceful with strangers and live a simple life mostly consisting of hunting and tending to the village life, with the occasional help to dreamers lost in the Nexus. Even though they are not agressive, willingly attacking them will lead to long-term hostility from their part.
They mainly get their food resources from the plains and grove, but also need an element that can only be found in the caves: Crystal Flowers.
Crystal Flowers are a parasitic organism (and not plants at all despite their name) that are recognizable to the gems in their bodies that glow a pale pink light. They move around using their "roots" to crawl around on the ground, wall and ceilings and attach themselves to the back of other creatures and quickly take over, morphing the host's shape into what is known as a Shadow Beast: A creature that looks similar to a Mau Beast but with tougher, coal-black skin, longer snout, glowing pink parts on the back of their legs and a long tail (also glowing pink) that divides in two at the middle.
While the Flowers are a danger to other organisms, the Mau Beast's skin contains an enzyme that prevents Crystal Flowers from planting their roots and repels them. They hunt the Flowers and extract a substance from them that can be used as medicine for healing wounds, purifying the organism and prevents Crystal Flowers from attaching themselves to non-Mau Beasts (if a non-Mau beast creature takes the medicine).
Mau Beasts are skilled fighters, with some specializing in hand-to-hand combat (like the one with the red loincloth on the image), some using blade weapons (like the one on the right) and even some being able to use magic (non pictured here but they tend to carry staves). They often go on hunting expeditions in groups of two or three, as while they aren't too worried about the local wildlife and Crystal Flowers have no effect on them, Shadow Beasts are fast, agressive and powerful and taking on one alone is not recommended, especially those lurking in the dark, narrow caves.
While most Mau Beasts living in the Dream Nexus are natural, some of them resulted from Shadow Beasts that were parasited for too long to be able to regain their true form once freed, but not long enough for them to completely regress to a bestial level of intelligence, that were taken in and healed with the aforementionned Crystal Flower-based medicine.
That's all I have for now but I intend to continue developping this
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Reading this made me come with the idea that the protagonist could be revealed to be a human dreamer who was turned into a Shadow Beast but cured and he has no memories of his past life which recovering them is part of the plot of course.
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Hope to see a art of the shadow beasts soon and I would also love to hear the backstory of the protagonist which I bet is the one with the red loincloth. I wouldn't be surprised if the hero was actually a former Shadow Beast but he turns into a Mau/Shadow hybrid at some point that gives him the power to fight the Shadow Beasts.
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Well there's this very old and not that good artwork of a Shadow Beast
But yeah I'll probably make a new one of them so that the style is up to date
I'm still working on an eventual backstory for the protagonist, if it interests you I'll keep you up to date on it
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Awesome! And yeah, it interests me! How's the hero becoming a hybrid idea?
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I'm thinking about it but so far it sounds very interesting, there's a high chance that it will be incorporated
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Yeah, he could look a cross between the Mau and Shadow Beasts. Basically a more ugly version of the Mau Beasts (They're adorable looking yet badass looking at the same time.) with the Shadow Beast face.
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That could make an interesting game mechanic too, like having a more Shadow Beast-looking form as some sort of berserk mode linked to a power meter that could be increased by collectig items or defeating enemies or something like that (a bit like the berserk mode in Spatterhouse 3 for reference)
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I saw some fan-art in your Dream Nexus stuff, are you planning to make the game a separate continuity? I love fan-art but if you're planning to release this and make profit off it, I would suggest it. I was thinking when the hero first transforms, his loincloth gets torn and tattered from transforming and when he changes back, it stays that way for the entire game. I thought Aarbron's loincloth was part of his charm. I like monster modesty for some reason. 
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Well, there's enough original characters in the Dream Nexus (and this world is very very vast) so I don't have to use those coming from pre-existing media that I don't own 
So while not exactly being separate from the "major" continuity, it can just take place in a tiny portion of the world where there are no copyrighted characters.
Yeah, if I ever end up finishing and releasing the game, given the amount of work it will probably need (I'm not a programmer but I tend to stick with Unity for an engine, Godot looks promising but I'll wait for it to be a bit more complete) I'll probably make it a paid software.
The dev cycle is going to take quite some time though, haha
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The universe of the game versions could be a different continuity from the fan-fiction one. It's basically the same one but without the fan-fiction characters.
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Yeah I know, The game I'm planning won't enter development for a while because Tcrakman is working on Another right now. How's the loincloth getting torn during transformation and staying torn the entire game after turning back? I don't believe in the trope magic pants. tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php… It could look like the loincloth in this SOTB inspired game. i.imgur.com/1ezycSE.png I know you can finish this game! I would go for a tribal/synth style soundtrack like SOTB.
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Thank you! I'll keep note of all of that
Good luck with your project too!
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I was looking up art of the game Shadow Of The Beast and found these guys! They remind me a little of Aarbron. Hope to see more of them in the future.
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Yeah, they are heavily inspired by Aarbron -- I love Shadow of the Beast a lot (even though the gameplay is a not that good hehe), played the Amiga and Genesis/MegaDrive versions.
Mau Beasts are kind of a mix between Aarbron's designs from the Amiga original, the PC-Engine version and the PS4 remake...
And I'll definitely draw more of them in the future!
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It would be cool if they got their own web comic. I'm planning a SOTB style game is going to be a complete metroidvania that even has a beast protagonist complete with loincloth with a guy named Tcrakman who is making a action adventure zelda style game called Another where you play as a cute lizard alien. I'll send you a note containing concept pixel art of the game and there's going to be another one coming soon. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sj-9fO… www.youtube.com/watch?v=fB-8CE…
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Whoa, the game looks very promising! Love the artstyle and fluidity of the movement.
As for a webcomic with the Maus, I don't know. It would be awesome but right now I have about 7 game projects going on (not including work and study -- although those beasts are planned to appear as NPCs in one of them) so planning is a bit tight.
But I'll keep the idea in mind, and who knows, maybe when I'll have a bit of free time
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In that case, you could probably make a metroidvania of your own with a Mau as the player character. Maybe the one wearing the red loincloth could be the hero.
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My game is going to have a similar plot to SOTB with the protagonist being a human who was kidnapped as a child from his parents and transformed into a demonic slave to serve the villains but regains his human mind and rebels. It's going to have a lot of differences though. For starters, both his parents die in the beginning instead of just his father and it's going to have a much darker opening with the hero shackled in a dungeon being tortured for his betrayal. It's going to have a much more bittersweet ending. It's also to going to be longer with a length of around 10 to 20 hours. It's definitely going to have better gameplay. I hope you'll do the Mau Beast metroidvania and comic. Maybe the comic can explore more of the game's world what the game couldn't cover.
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