Welcome back, fwends!

In this episode we’ll be talking about some of the gameplay mechanics and game design of HOOMANZ (Optional, yet highly recommended: While reading this, hold your gamepad, gently caress the joysticks and imagine you’re already kicking some serious Hoomanz butt).

If you’re tuning in for the first time, we suggest reading our first 2 blog posts in this series:
Episode #1 - The Big Bang - We explore the beginning of it all, the idea.

Episode #2 - The Evolution of Shoo - We break down the creative process of developing Shoo, including early concept arts.

Let’s start with a little story of what happened not long ago. An 8-year-old girl saw one of our colleagues wearing our HOOMANZ t-shirt (*wink wink* we might be giving some out at Gamescom) the other day, and Shoo being the massively cute little creature he is, she asked them about Shoo. Our colleague gave a pretty spot on answer:

“This is Shoo and you can play as him in our game called HOOMANZ. He’s really cute huh? The Hoomanz think so too, so you better watch out – if they spot you in the light, they run at you trying to hug you and squeeze you very very hard! And Shoo reeeally doesn’t like that. So you must hide in the dark, sneak close to those pesky little Hoomanz, and WHAAA – you scare them and make them run away! Because that’s what Shoo has to do in order to protect his world from them. It’s like playing a different version of hide-and-seek… It's all about being sneaky, clever and scary – it's super fun!”

Okay, that’s the gameplay – thanks for reading! … Sike! Don’t worry, we’ll break it down a bit more for you.

THE 3 Cs

Have you heard of the 3 Cs? Well if not, you do now: it’s Cake, Cats, Crazy clowns Character, Controls, Camera.

Character - Players control Shoo, a cute forest spirit that inherently wants to be scary. While in the dark he is indeed scary and agile, but the light makes him look irresistibly cute, clumsy and slow. Strategic positioning and sneaking are key to success (scaring the Hoomanz away).

Controls - The game operates on a 3D plane without platforming or jumping, focusing on movement and tactical thinking. There will be various tools, interactions and upgrades at your disposal to trick the Hoomanz and scare them from the dark..

Camera - It’s a 45 degree top-down view, locked onto Shoo and without any rotation in space.

THE EXPERIENCE

The world is a big playground with low stakes and little consequences – no deaths and no real loss of progression.

The experience makes the player feel vulnerable at first, then slowly grows to master the environment – going from prey to predator. Like a mouse in the house, the player runs around, exploring the environment and finding creative silly ways to scare the Hoomanz off. Quickly studying their patterns and figuring out what they interact with, the players are encouraged to rely on a mix of planning and improvisation. Then, using dexterity, from navigating around a group of jumpy hoomanz to escaping one that is chasing you with heart-shaped eyes (talk about love at first sight!).

WORLD OF CONTRAST

The idea of contrast is core to HOOMANZ and has ramifications in every aspect of the game. The most prominent being in Shoo – The Dark and Light is like a dynamic dance. The only catch is that one is a master dancer executing each move perfectly with mesmerising precision… and the other one is a clumsy, first-time dancing, ape with a peg for one leg. Oh what a perfect duo!

Some of the contrasts are:

The looping feeling of going from prey to predator.
Stylized shapes but realistic textures from in game assets to the UI.
The little crude tone and humour contrasting with the charming cute world.
The ridiculous and cute characters despite their dumb or serious intentions.
Round and organic nature contrasting with geometrical and dull Hoomanz tech.

But the main contrast of them all is between the Dark and the Light – It’s in many aspects of the game, whether visual or functional, we aim for it to be 100% binary and jarring.

THE DARK

Erf, the world in our game HOOMANZ, is constantly in the dark, there is no such thing as sunlight. The whimsical nature thrives in this cold darkness and its beauty arises. Thus anything natural thrives in the dark, from Shoo to the plants.

Shoo is much more agile and blends with the environment. He is spooky! It's where he is the closest to his intended personality. He looks, sounds and acts scarier, moves faster and can’t be seen by Hoomanz.

Nature is cold yet reveals its magic. The environment colours are subtle changes of hue on a blue spectrum but the plants magically shine and bloom. Its sounds are full of life, from wind in the grass to insects and other creatures (not talking about Steve Buscemi here).

Hoomanz are lost… completely blind.

In conclusion, the dark is cold and spooky yet, it’s where Shoo, the player, feels empowered – as well as the entire planet Erf. The Dark is on nature's side.

THE LIGHT

The warm light is artificially brought by the Hoomanz and only by the Hoomanz. It’s a place of discomfort for nature on Erf and so it is for Shoo. Everything becomes more dull and plain, making it easy to comprehend for those simple minded Hoomanz.

Shoo is a lot more clumsy, slow and just acts, sounds and looks sooo irresistibly cute! So cute the Hoomanz have an uncontrollable desire to hug him. Overall, he’s as far from his intended personality as possible.

Nature is warm and colourful, yet plain and dull. The environment is warm and colourful, but they don’t look magical anymore – their default colour is simply exposed. It’s quiet… almost oppressing (like when that uninvited guest awkwardly joins the room). We can only hear Hoomanz and their tech.

Hoomanz feel comfortable, they can see and process what is happening. You could even say they got ENLIGHTENED… get it? En-light-... whatever, forget it.

In conclusion, the light is warm and cosy yet, it’s where Shoo, the player, is the most vulnerable. The Light is on the Hoomanz’ side.

THE EVOLUTION OF THE GAMEPLAY

How did all of this evolve during our development? Let us give you a little sneak peek behind the scenes of our very early development days.

We teased this a tiny bit towards the end of our first episode, “The initial concept was: Gotta scare them all! You are playing as a little mischievous monster, the aim is to go around the town and scare people so much that they pass out.” – You still Gotta scare ’em all (*Drum roll* “I wanna be the very best scariest, like no one ever…” ok enough, we’re rolling along a thin line here), you’re still mischievous but you’re also cute, there’s no town but a fictional beautiful natural environment and you still scare Hoomanz but instead of passing out, they run away.

The three most prominent changes we made in terms of gameplay mechanics were:
1) Shoo didn’t have different mechanics and play style based on dark or light
2) Shoo swallowing scared Hoomanz
3) We had stress bars for the Hoomanz you had to fill up before scaring them away.

*Psst!* We might bring this one back in future updates for some stronger enemies.

We don’t wanna spoil anything from that just yet, so instead have a small peek at our very early game development concepts below.

WHAT COMES NEXT?

Our next big milestone is meeting all of you lovely fans at Gamescom on August 21st - 25th! And get a first public playtest of our very early stage demo of HOOMANZ. This will mean a lot to us and we will be listening carefully to all your feedback. Depending on how well the game is received by you at Gamescom, and what crazy and cool ideas you will give us, we might change a few things in the game. Because after all, the game is made for you, the players… our fans. We probably won’t go adding gore, flying off and ragdolling Hoomanz – but we will listen to reasonable ideas and feedback!

So see ya at Gamescom! We will have giveaways there for all you swag collectors, so keep your eyes peeled! (And please, not in a literal Happy Tree Friends way)

For all of you online fam, that won’t be able to make it to the event, you can already wishlist us on STEAM!