Anima Synthesis Devlog 2: Spud Buddies

Welcome to the second edition of my devlog series! For this devlog, I really want to show my progress with the Anima Spud! The anima spud is the first of the anima creatures I have decided to implement as it has some interesting properties.

Anima Spud

Again, as with the sprout, for the texture I just used photoshop and cut out the plant directly from the source. This works fine for now, however that means it doesn’t have side-facing or rear-facing textures. I may end up asking around the discord to see if I can comission someone to create the other textures. Anyways, I then created a def for the spud based around the vanilla hares.

no-alignment

Implemented Items

For the first item on the list, as requested, the spuddy buddies do no damage if somehow provoked, making them completely passive. I still need to work on a spawning mechanism in-game, however for now they are spawnable from the dev menu, and that’s what I will be using to showcase them!
Second, we have the ability to drop anima seeds. For this one I added an egg layer comp to the spud and then created the anima seed item to allow it to be dropped in quantities of 1 or 2, however if the tree is well maintained, the maximum per drop increases to 4. Currently, the only usage for the seeds I have implemented is the anima crop circle, but even that is just a bare bones building atm.
As for the hunger, I have instead opted to have the anima spud use the Vanilla Expanded Framework light sustenance comp. This functions as a hediff that updates when the creature is exposed to sufficient light levels, allowing spuds to be kept alive inside with artifical lights during events such as eclipses that obscure the sun.
The lil guys have a buff called ‘Saw a spud’ that they give to pawns that are near them that gives a +3 mood boost for half a day.
Avert your eyes if you are squeamish; should the anima tree be destroyed, a cataclysmic extinction of spuds shall occurr.
On a bit of a brighter note, if instead you take care of your anima tree, you can befriend the creatures that call it home! This is the only way to tame these beings, so be sure to keep the plant happy!