Umbrapets, 3D virtual pet site

[Cauldron]

Hi all! I'm making Umbrapets, a virtual pet site with 3D pets! I hadn't seen one of those before so thought I'd give it a go and I've always wanted to make one of these. My background is in game art and technical art which is why I can do a lot of it by myself! The team is currently me and a friend who's doing the backend coding.

TLDR: You and your spirit pets try to regrow a dead world! What will you find?

The game is in prototype stage, and I would love to hear what you think of it so far!

Footage of prototype:

Features already prototyped include:
🌱Fully recolorable 3D model
🌱Aesthetic that aims to look painterly and not "obviously 3D"
🌱Ability to switch coat/pattern
🌱Ability to dress up
🌱Ability to switch foreground/background independently
🌱Ability to add items you have earned to the pet display (not all items will be eligible)
🌱Forum

Upcoming features:
🌱Shops
🌱Minigames featuring the 3d pet itself in some capacity
🌱Explorable areas where you control your pet
🌱Ability to customize wearables

The story so far:

Umbra is a dead world, almost entirely wasteland inhabited by chaotic malevolent ghosts! The only forest left is Astra, home of the luna deer spirits and the last cradle of life on the planet.

The Astra spirits would call out to the universe for help, and that's when the lifeship appeared and our story begins! The lifeship and its population of various helpers has a mission to support life and defeat chaos, and serves as the main resource and support hub. By teaming up with forest spirits and lifeship crew you're tasked with taking back the planet and regrowing umbra!

Now that you know the start of the story, important upcoming features:
🌱Mechanics for regrowing the world over time. This is how new content will be unlocked and the story will progress
🌱You tell the story with me! Roleplaying is encouraged! What kind of areas will we find and regrow? Will we find new pet types? The decisions of the players will matter!

Please leave me a comment if you like what you see so far, I am not a big creator or established online artist (have spent my years working on other people's games rather quietly) but I think I can do this thing. Your support, if you like the project, will be everything. Not monetary support mind you, I just want to know if anyone is interested in playing my game! I have a devlog here: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/umbrapets for random progress posting, and that's probably where updates will be posted in the future.

🌱Pleas ask any questions you have and thank you for your time!

[BlueberryBirdie]

This already looks so awesome!!! I'm very interested, I've never seen a 3D pet site before! The models look really good to me
A couple questions, will there be more then just spirit deer creatures to collect?
Also, will there be like various markings/patterns? (Looking now I noticed on Bismuth there's some swirly/splotchy patterns)
Will they be breedable?
And lastly, how will you get the spirit creatures? Or is that undecided?
Anyways this already looks really awesome! I would love to play it when its open

[Cauldron]

This already looks so awesome!!! I'm very interested, I've never seen a 3D pet site before! The models look really good to me
A couple questions, will there be more then just spirit deer creatures to collect?
Also, will there be like various markings/patterns? (Looking now I noticed on Bismuth there's some swirly/splotchy patterns)
Will they be breedable?
And lastly, how will you get the spirit creatures? Or is that undecided?
Anyways this already looks really awesome! I would love to play it when its open

Thank you for your kind words!! 💖

🌱 I plan on having two pet species on launch, the second being a ferret/sable inspired model. Making the base models does take quite a long time so there probably won't be that many but I do plan on rolling out more than two if I manage to launch and be somewhat successful! Another thing I have planned is variations on current pets; a variation being a model that is similar enough that the wearables for that model still fits, but with maybe a different face or tail. A good example for the deer would be an alpaca version or a winged version.

🌱 Yes, there will be more different patterns! Eidolon and Adhafera actually has the exact same colors, but different coats, so there's 3 different coat examples shown in the preview! Coats will always have dynamic colors (and these can be changed) but I have planned for an additional layer of detail on top that is purely painted detail (like accents in FR).

🌱 Spirits do not need to procreate, so they don't breed, but there will be a feature that will allow two spirits to, say merge their essences? when a new spirit is summoned, but this feature is mostly for roleplay purposes or just liking the idea of two spirits being parents, and is not intended as a way to get a lot of new spirits (it will probably be kind of expensive in terms of in game resources). To put it another way, breeding is not a core gameplay element in this game like it is in other games! This is because I couldn't find a good way to handle the idea of "spares" (the unwanted members of a litter) that makes sense in my world. I do know that people love breeding mechanics though, so there might be a minigame/feature related to breeding and mutating plants as part of the regrowth/biodiversity themes in the game. People who aren't into plants don't necessarily know that one plant can turn into free plants forever through propagation, or that new plant varieties can be discovered through cross breeding, and that's something that I think would be cool to make into gameplay.

🌱 How you get them: Nature spirits are bound to the land, and needs to be believed in in order to take solid form. That's where the player comes in! As new areas of the world are regrown players will be able to solidify spirits and anchor them to the land as protectors of that land. Spirits can move around to other areas after they are summoned, but will always retain the name of their original territory as a kind of surname, which is why mine are all called Astra (the name of the last forest and the first area). The area/biome system is a whole thing and also the backbone of the game, I can go into more details about it if you like but this post is already an essay haha!

[OrionOffbeat]

Oh this looks absolutely amazing!!!

[Gummy Maggots]

Looks and sounds amazing so far!! I am most definitely interested!

[wildheart2002]

This is SO cool I love deer so much!! I'm keeping up with this one from now on omg

[Cauldron]

Thank you all! I will post in this thread when I got a big update! Your encouragement fuels me! 🤩

[GraySpider]

This looks super cool! Any idea when it’ll be out? (Sorry if I missed something lol)

Also, adding: will there will be set NPCs? And will we be able to go to the spaceship? Very curious about the exploration aspect wondering if it’ll be like Pokémon go where if enough people catch enough together we all get to see the next part? Hope that makes sense lol

[66799c]

Looks super fun /gen I would love to play it when it comes out!

[Cauldron]

This looks super cool! Any idea when it’ll be out? (Sorry if I missed something lol)

Also, adding: will there will be set NPCs? And will we be able to go to the spaceship? Very curious about the exploration aspect wondering if it’ll be like Pokémon go where if enough people catch enough together we all get to see the next part? Hope that makes sense lol

You did not miss something, I don't have a hard release date unfortunately! My plan for this year is either take time off and work on umbra, in which case there might be an alpha test this year already, or I find an opportunity in this hellish game industry landscape. If I find an opportunity I will have to take it because I need to eat, ha ha

There will be set NPCs!

Here's another example of one of the same alien species as the one in the original post. They are super into biology and cataloguing and finding the right life for the right biome! This pic also includes a closer look at the lifeship but its design might change a little bit. It will be the main hub for shops and crafting at least in the beginning so you will absolutely visit it! I do not know if I will make it in full 3d yet though but it's definitely something I've thought about.

Here's a couple that runs material research and the forge, for certain crafting materials!

This one's a field scout. Her wings are magically tucked away right now but her people are distant relatives of the earth bat and she flies faster and quieter than most hovercraft. When deciding on new areas to regrow the scout reports are very important!

My plan for the exploration part right now is that a new biome/area will stay open for 2-4 real life months and it will regrow in that time no matter what (because spirits are there), but the amount of rewards everyone gets will be dependent on the players. I have only designed the rough outline for this system and I have not prototyped it yet, so this might change if I run into big issues with it. Basically I gotta make the system and then I need to time myself on how fast I can make new assets for a new biome. If this proves to be too much work then I might have to redesign it. Ah, game development!

Looks super fun /gen I would love to play it when it comes out!

Thank you! Also, I love your signature Keep doing that! haha!