I think that this subject is important because not many people talk about it, but the visualizations of senses is important to people who don’t have a setup in where they can use electronic simulation of the sense, or people with disabilities, because if I cant hear then I wont be able to use sound for sound and I will need a substitute, of course I have 5 working senses, but someone could come across this problem not to mention when an in game sense is better then in a human, or senses we don’t have.
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Quick stroll through the dev blog, and I’m not seeing much for disability support per say, there was some discussion on how senses were to be handled, with some quick mockups of what it would be like in game here. Granted, there’s probably some info in the earlier dev forums that I am unaware of (sad that I missed out on this earlier) but it looks like there is a general consensus on allowing flexibility of senses.
Some actual discussion on how to support disabilities would be nice, and it would make, even for those without a disability, an option for more game-play - Thrive would be interesting when played almost completely without sight, for example.
So, here’s throwing my hat in the ring with ideas, given what I’ve read:
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Eins → Full nonvisual sense replacement: More than likely a fair bit of work, allowing the player to use any sense as their main. We already have some work being put into this now, though for the most part, looks like it’s been towards porting sound and smell to visual options, which would cover hearing loss fairly well on it’s own as an option.
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Zwei → Color Blindness and Partial Vision Impairments: Vision impairment would vary, I have a friend who has color blindness (red/green) that I’ll need to go bug about how he manages, but I know in some cases a color filter could work and would be a simple solution. Moving on… it would depend on how common software to support said issues is, and whether we could integrate something similar into the game. IF it is as simple as a color filter, we could probably just add an option in the graphics tab, though I need to do some research on that before I can say anything definitively…
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Drei → As you go further towards blindness it would get significantly harder: while gameplay in and of itself could be modeled just via an audio setup, actual editing would be significantly harder. Maybe have it so there’s a setting for voice descriptions on all the different parts? Hmmmm… Probably take quite a bit of support, especially as we get further on into the game, but at the same time it would be interesting to have the option to play without a screen entirely. Thrive Challenge run anyone?
This is probably not at exhaustive list, but my thoughts on things we could do and ideas on what to research for disability support. Thoughts welcome!
EDIT So, I completely forgot this was on community forums, but there was some ideas on this thread for hearing and echolochation options.
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Yeah I was checking to see if anyone had mentioned that thread or if I was going to have to be less lazy and find it.
I’ve heard that you can’t give out visual to every sense or else it will become difficoultous to see anything, but that could be fixed by using different “modes” that make you visualize different senses?
I was thinking something like a priority list so maybe the top 3 or 2 would be visual and the ones down the list will only appear if your creature doesn’t have a sense higher on the list as for disability support I’m clueless and that is a reason why I made this thread
yes, but animals usually have more than 3 senses (and use them all, even minors one)
so a system that has “modes” bound to hotkeys (like 1, 2, 3 etc) that can be customizable (es. I add to mode 1 smell and the sense that makes you sense magnetic fields) in my opinion makes more sense (pun not intended). Maybe the major senses could be constantly visualized and only have minor senses in the “modes”?
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yeah that’s also a cool idea ill give you credit
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So, there was also some talk here about electroreception and I think some on magnetoreception later on in the thread, if you want to see some talk that’s already occurred.
I rather like that idea though, and it lets you filter down senses you still use for specific purposes while reducing the clutter otherwise.
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How should they be simulated? Different degrees of eyesight wouldn’t be hard - limiting vision to ocular cones, having it be more sharp and colorful if eyes are better, etc. But is this fun? I don’t know. And all the other senses are really weird.
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Well, I made a post about how five of them could be visualized here Visualization of the five senses - Future Game and I personally think that if the varying senses are done right the game could become quiet visually interesting. like if the game could become more stylized, with a flatter more lineless art style, the lower depth perception your species has.
but I never really considered how those senses could be gained. I think eyes are arguably the easiest since, at least from the explanations I hear (correct me if I’m wrong),
eyes first start out as light sensitive cells, then there’s a divot added to give depth perception, then a lens is formed over the eye, while different cones effect the colors your creature can see, in the most simplest terms.
this can be simulated through sculpting and possibly editing cells, the lens and cones could possibly be modifications.
taste, and touch, could go similar routes, taste is modified skin on some part of your creature, touch is inherent to the outside of your creature already, but parts of the skin could be modified to become more specialized i.e. electroreception, thermoreception etc.
hearing and smell are a bit more difficult, hearing requires a place for sound to go to while also using bones that vibrate in order to detect the sound, and the sensory organs required for smell are found in the nose which is a whole other complex organ that a would be difficult to simplify, while still staying general enough for me to be satisfied.
hearing could probably just be a template that could be modified as the player wishes but if anyone knows how ears evolved and has a better idea that would be greatly appreciated.
smell could probably be modified cells placed either on whatever surface the player likes or in canals in the creature that connects to the lungs, or any other apparatus that can move air through it.
placing the modified cells in a place that can’t breathe well or doesn’t get a lot of wind will tank the ability of the creature’s smell.
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I thought that electroreception was it’s own thing.
Would echolocation just be hearing specialized to mimic sight? If so it could just reuse the code for sight.
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Echolocation shows you colorless, patternless shapes. If you’ve ever watched The Last Airbender, its the water version of how Toph and later benders see with earthbending through their feet.
Electroreception is “seeing” electricity (but not with your eyes, with your skin), as opposed to electrogenesis, which is generating electricity.
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Should there be a distinction between water echolocation and air echolocation?
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Edit: Scratch that.
I forgot that works both on land and in water.
Edit: Although I think you would need to pick one, sound moves differently through air and water, so while you can have echolocation that works in water and echolocation that works in the air, they would likely need to be 2 different versions of echolocation, meaning one creature that wanted to use both would probably need to evolve it twice.
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Pretty sure that each of the two specializations cannot function in it’s counterpart’s environment. Water echolocation has a different set of organs from air echolocation.
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I mean… the organs are basically good ears, consistent beep-y sounds, and a good auditory processing chunk of your brain. Those would all need to be reworked to work above/below water, if you’ve ever tried to hear someone talk underwater, you know humans are not build to use our hearing underwater, but there’s no reason you couldn’t use the same organs for both, they’d just need to be evolved to work in specifically both scenarios. But yeah you would need to evolve both, but they wouldn’t necessarily need 100% separate costs, you could evolve one and just evolve to adopt it to the other environment.
Plus that’s not even unique, sight is almost always better in either air or water, taste on land is just as good underwater but can also be used for smell, ect.
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How should electroreception be visualized? By some symbols around organisms in it’s range?
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Its my understanding that electoreception allows for seeing electrical impulses when normal visibility is too low. It might be too dark to see the organism in the traditional sense, but the electrical signals being sent through their nervous system still could be.
Maybe glowing lines in the shape of whichever parts of its nervous system are in use, which disappear if the target stops moving?
Although if your creature has a strong enough electroreceptor and the target is scared, its brain might still show, neuron firing as it thinks of how to best hide from you making it easier for you to see it. Hammerhead sharks are supposed to be able to see a human though, though most electroreceptors are likely not THAT strong.
Edit: I do wonder though, if its light enough to see normally as well, how the two would look overlapped.
Edit: Electorgenesis, on the other hand, in addition to, in some cases, allowing the user to shock something that touches it, allows the user to create a field and detect things based on resistance. Electricity passes through a plant differently than it does a rock, so an electrogenesis creature sees them differently when it chooses to use this ability.
Its my understanding that passive electroreception only works on animals while active electrogenesis works on a variety of materials. I’m not entirely sure how seeing the different distortions caused by different amounts of resistance would work though. Electrogenesis, and I believe electroreception as well, work better in water due to its conductivity.
Edit: Lets define a few things real quick.
Electrolocation: Locating thing by seeing electric fields.
Electroreception: AKA Passive Electrolocation: Being able to see the electric fields generated by anything that has a nervous system. The more the nerves are working at that moment, the stronger the field. This is how a hammerhead shark can see a human thought.
Weak Electrogenesis: AKA Active Electrolocation: The ability to generate an electric field and detect when it passes through different resistances. Water, Organic Life, and Inorganic Material all have different electrical resistances.
Strong Electrogenesis: How an Electric Eel shocks other creatures.
Note to self: Think through posts before editing them 9 times in an hour.
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I always thought that muscles working also generated some electric forces which can be detected by creatures with electroreception
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It does; if you’re underwater since there’s enough electrolytes to transmit it. Out of luck if you’re trying in air as far as I’m aware though.
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