I am pleased to announce that the Company Pet system has been implemented into the game.
I honestly had planned for this to be a later addition to the game during EA, due to the fact I lack any animal mesh / animations. So It would have taken me a lot of time to put something viable together to begin creating the system.
Thankfully as if they were watching me specifically, Epic gave out a very nice Dog character this month for free. Using this dog asset I was able to prototype the mechanics for the system. At a later time I will add more variety to the pets, currently there is just the one choice of the German Shepard model that I have access to. When more pets are added you have the ability to chose the type of pet you prefer, and I may alter stat caps differently for the different animal types. For now it is just the one dog and the one set of stat types / caps. Lets dig into the details.
-First things first. The company pets are only available once you reach the 3rd (Large) office. The first and second offices visually lack the space for this to make sense, but the 3rd office is designed to have a nice clean middle area perfect for pet roaming AI.
-When in the 3rd office you then have the ability to pick (no choice yet) the type of pet, as well as give him / her a name. They are gender neutral so feel free to consider it whatever you wish.
- Once you have your pet there are 3 stats and 1 specialty that you will need to train / chose. All of the stats have specific affects on your team which I will discuss below. They all have a max cap of 10. Choosing your pet's specialty (currently you can not change this, although id consider adding it for $$$ perhaps, but for now make the right choice) this will take the chosen stat's max cap up to 20. So the stat you think brings the most advantage to your play-style / team is the one you will wish to specialize in.
Here is how the stats work (note you can hit the I icon beside each stat for a display in game)
Cuteness: You have the ability to leverage your pet's cuteness on social media, this causes any new game in development to begin with extra hype ranging from 1-20% hype based on your pet's cuteness level.
Playfulness: Your workers love to play with your pet, because of this there individual work (research / training ) will be completed faster, so they can get back to playing with your company pet of course.
Tranquility: Your pet brings a comfort level to everyone in the office. This increased comfort causes workers to be more focused during game development increasing your chance to create bubbles during all stages of development to increase.
Yes I realize these are some what silly stat descriptions, but this is a video game after all. I put game play ahead of everything else, and I believe the company pets add a little something extra that you can build how you see fit adding more player choice, as well as the pets help to bring the static visual of the office to life.
Once you being training a timer of 8 weeks begins, after 8 weeks the stat you chose to train will be increased, and you may again start more training. This will take a few years for you to max a pet if you remember to do it every couple of months. Which is yet another aspect of the game you can do well or poorly or ignore all together, that is up to you.
Pet Ai: The pet Ai is pretty simple. When he is standing he picks between 3 idle animations, then after time chooses to change to lying / walking or sitting. From a lying position he will chose to sleep or get up, if he has slept after 30ish seconds he will wake up and then stand back up. From walking he will chose a random spot in the office and move there. From sitting he will chose to stay siting or stand back up. Simple clean and well optimized. It should be random enough to be interesting, but simple enough it wont take away from the game.
In conclusion, this is the first iteration of the company pet system and I am open to any and all feedback. What would you change, what would you add? I believe this is a great new mechanic, and there are lots more aspects like this coming that provide even more player choice and freedom.