Space Creatures

November 05, 2001 and November 12, 2001

What kind of creatures might you encounter while exploring in Earth and Beyond?
Creatures have not been discussed in detail yet and it's time to introduce some beings that live in the skies and on the planets. Because there are so many different environmental factors the idea for creatures is limitless, though you might see a few with recognizable features. We asked Angela Ferraiolo, Dialogue Writer, and Michael Lightner, Game Designer, a few questions about how they come up with the conceptualization of monsters and creatures you might see in Earth and Beyond.

Can you describe a few of the creatures that will be appearing in Earth and Beyond?

ANGELA:
Sure. I liked fighting the crystalloids in the newbie sectors. Those are long worm-like creatures with two flat, disc shaped heads at either end of their bodies, each covered with long tentacles that tremble and waver during combat. They make a huge mess when you kill one, but they're fun to beam to bits. I'm also looking forward to fighting the space rocs -- fierce birdlike aliens which have a prehistoric feeling, the rock creatures -- a type of living rock that will probably jump out of some dark corner and surprise me, and I will spend some time looking for a shokotan reaver - a glowing medusa inspired space nightmare, hard to outmaneuver which looks pretty deadly to me right now. Actually, the designers have come up with many more monster ideas than we can include right away. It's a really imaginative team and I expect there will be a steady stream of creatures in the galaxy.

MICHAEL:
Maelstrom Hounds - These creatures have appeared as a result of a strange phenomenon that has appeared within the Vega Star System, The Mondara Maelstrom. They exhibit a pack mentality and seem to be more curious than hostile. That is until you get too close. This species attacks without any compunction anyone who gets too close to them or tries to interfere with there actions. They appear as a large eye with wings sprouting out from it. The lesser hounds sport two wings while the larger of the species have four wings.

Dzurai - The Dzurai are an organic being living solely in the Beta Hydri system. They are a migratory species that feed off of the magnetic waves that are produced by the Beta Hydri star. Male Dzurai are bag-shaped creatures with long tentacles hanging off the 'bottom' of their being. Female Dzurai are spore shaped creatures, also looking bag like. Dzurai bodies create energy from feeding off the magnetic waves and store the energy in their bag-like bodies. In addition, older Dzurai need to supplement their energy intake with nutrients found mainly in gas giants. Dzurai can be found all over the Beta Hydri system, although they mostly concentrate near Schirra and Grissom.

Alpha Worms - The creatures have been found within the Sol System itself in the asteroid fields near Mars. This species feeds off the mineral content found in the asteroids and are generally non-aggressive. When attacked these worms will defend themselves. They can generate a plasma burst by vomiting a bile/mineral mixture that ignites within the vacuum of space.

What inspirational ideas help you create creatures? Do you use any factual information?

ANGELA:
To be perfectly honest, I use people who annoy me for ideas for monsters - in a good-natured sort of way, of course. I also try to notice animals and objects people seem to fear instinctually. Both a trip to the zoo and an afternoon at the mall can be a great source of monster ideas. You can see some very frightening lifeforms at the mall. We also have fantastic artists on Earth and Beyond. Their concept drawings are another important inspiration for monsters. And designers and programmers will have ideas for what would be fun to fight in outer space. Their combat and scripting strategies are a great starting place for all kinds of creatures.

One of the challenges in writing a game that takes place in outer space is the "what if?" factor, where a designer considers a recent theory of science and elaborates on its possible consequences. For example: What if the superstring theory of particle physics is correct? What if there were originally more dimensions, as many as ten, in our galaxy? What if time did indeed crack and some of those dimensions were lost? What if those dimensions came to life in our game? What would be fun about that? What would be scary? This is how we thought of the dark matter monster.

MICHAEL:
I like to use a lot of stuff that I have in the past for inspiration and then put a unique spin/twist to them. I use shows such as the Star Treks, Babylon 5, Andromeda and others to pull from. The next step is to logically fit them into our version of the universe. On E&B we strive to keep the universe as close to logical as we can. At least we try to explain in our universe's terms why a creature would be where it is and for good reasons. It is hard to be too factual for anything alien or that may exist in space. We do try to have an ecology for most of the creatures that we come up with though. The bottom-line though when it comes to creatures in our game is that they are interesting and fun to see and interact with.

What kind of traits do you give the creatures of Earth and Beyond to make them more realistic?

ANGELA:
Monsters need to make sense in an emotional, impulsive sort of way. Other than that, they don't need to be realistic at all.

MICHAEL:
We try to flesh out their evolution from childhood to parenthood. In many regions in our game you will notice that there are young versions of a creature that progress into more adult versions as you explore the surrounding areas. The young of species will tend to be more cautious and less aggressive while protective mothers will be highly aggressive and careless when attacking. There will be situations within the game where, when you attack the young, a parent will appear in response to their children being attacked.

Will the creatures have any special abilities? How will they react to players?

ANGELA:
Yes, there are some special abilities monsters will have and use as they react to players - but I won't be the one to give those away!

MICHAEL:
The responses of creatures to players will vary from region to region. It really depends upon the player's actions. Most creatures will defend themselves if attacked but others may run no matter what, at least until they can return in force ;-) Some creatures will stand toe to toe in battle while others will stay out of combat and help from a safe range. We are just beginning to learn all the different combinations of behavior that the beings in our universe can exhibit.

How do you incorporate the storyline into the development of creatures for Earth and Beyond?

ANGELA:
Monsters are a powerful storytelling tool, often one of the best ways to bring an idea to life. Monsters clue you in on what a certain culture might fear. They let you do battle with what went wrong in this place or in this society. For instance, in our galaxy, the Jenquai have a lot of anxiety towards outsiders. As a result, some of the monsters found in Jenquai space are morphobes - changed by fear -- grotesque distortions of warriors from other races that fly around and terrorize Jenquai citizens. Sure, they have to be fun to fight. But if you think about it a little, the morphobes tell you something about the Jenquai. They tell you how scared the Jenquai are when it comes to difference, and they tell you that sometimes the Jenquai let their anxieties get a little out of control. So on one level, morphobes are just monsters. But on another level, they're monsters only the Jenquai and their xenophobia could have created. Writers can do a lot of storytelling by simply designing and choosing monsters that are appropriate to a race or location.

MICHAEL:
On the Earth & Beyond team we all contribute is some way to the storyline according to our strengths, and in doing so we closely maintain the importance of it when creating the fauna that you will see. A lot of times the story itself will dictate the need and composition of the creatures we create, alternately we sometime have creatures who beg to be incorporated into the larger structure of the story.

How does your work coincide with the development of the concept art of the creatures?

ANGELA:
There's a good amount of back and forth between story and concept art. A monster can start as a story element or as drawing or as some lines of code. There are monsters lurking in all the departments here at Earth and Beyond.

MICHAEL:
The artists on E&B have a monumental task in trying to give us everything that we need to create this rich universe of ours. In doing so they provided us some very unique and fun creatures to work with. One of our storywriters worked directly with the artists initially so that what we got in terms of art reflected the universe we as a whole envisioned. We have since taken what they created and placed them in the universe as it stands. The one problem that we face though in design and production is that we come up with new ideas and concepts every day and if we had the artists come up with something new every time we did then their job would never get done and neither would the game. Therefore we are working with the palette they have given us and are painting the picture with what we have.

What would make a certain creature exist in a certain part of space? What would be the reasoning behind it?

ANGELA:
Sometimes you'd like to give players a feeling for the place they're exploring. The experience of a gas giant should be different than the experience of an asteroid belt so the dangers hidden in a gas giant should be different than the dangers hidden in an asteroid belt. A gas giant has a lot of atmospheric layers. What type of monster would be produced by those layers? An asteroid is a chunk of rock or ice. What type of monster would you find there? These are cases where you let the terrain inform your imagination.

MICHAEL:
It really depends on the region of space and we have many of those to work with in E&B. There is Open Space, Gas Giants, Nebulae and Planetside to name some and each has its own dynamics. Take the Dzurai for example, they are floating bags of flesh that are similar to jellyfish and fly amongst the gaseous soup of a planet similar to Jupiter. A crystalline creature might exist in an exotic asteroid field that exhibits a strange energy field. When it comes to where creatures might exist two factors are looked at, first is it fun and secondly does it makes sense. As long as the creatures meet these two criteria, at least to some degree then we work with it.

What is your favorite creature and why?

ANGELA:
My favorite monster is the swarm. I'm naturally afraid of any type of swarm so the monster is truly scary to me, and I think the swarm will be hard to fight in space. I'm looking forward to encountering one in the game.

MICHAEL:
The Maelstrom Hounds, because they represent a greater mystery to the universe. These creatures are new to our region of space and people want to know why. They guard an anomaly that has never been seen before and might provide a key to understanding it or unlocking its secrets.

What are you looking forward to doing and seeing the most when the game goes live?

ANGELA:
Most of all? I'd like to see some people in here! The world is only half the game. The other half is the players. I'm looking forward to seeing the warriors, traders, explorers, and guilds that grow up in this galaxy. Seeing the game played - that's the thing I look forward to most of all.

MICHAEL:
Oh, that's easy. I can't wait to see the public's reaction to our vision of the future. As a designer it is all about how your product is received by the public. We, as designers, are here trying to entertain the public and they are the only true barometer by which we can judge ourselves. I have been blessed to have been apart of product that has changed the industry but Earth & Beyond is new ground and I hope that we can have as much of an impact as we have had in the past. This universe we are creating is deep and rich and I hope that the people enter and explore it for a long long time to come.