Interactive koi

January 2024

The most important interaction the player can have with the game is moving koi, so I prioritized this feature early. Eventually there will probably have to be two ways of moving koi; a single koi can be moved by picking it up, or a bunch of koi can be moved by dragging a net around them. To keep it simple, I started with the first method. Clicking on a koi picks it up and moves it towards the mouse cursor until the koi hovers above the water, releasing the mouse button drops it back in again. The procedural animation system had to be extended to allow for different modes, since koi move differently in the air. It's not very pretty yet, but it will work. In the video, the koi constantly spin around their axis to give the animation system a hard time, so I can see whether it breaks under certain circumstances.

The overlay also shows the DNA of the currently held koi. This is just for debugging purposes. The DNA system was copied from a previous prototype I've made; it's very easy to extend, and allows for much more realistic mutation and inheritance than the systems in koi farm 1 did.