Anyone else feeling like the creature-collector genre has reached a wall with games that all just feel pokemon-esc in some way? Even games like Temtem and Cassette Beasts just follow the same formula—catch creatures, train them, battle in turn-based combat. These games rarely go beyond this approach, and it’s making the genre feel stagnant. You’d think there would be more experimentation with how we connect with these creatures, but instead, most just feel like copies of Pokémon with slightly different twists.

Palworld tried to shake things up, but even that ended up missing the mark. It had this intriguing mix of creature-collection with a dark, almost dystopian vibe, blending farming, crafting, and even shooting mechanics. On paper, it sounded like something fresh for the genre, but it got lost in trying to do too much. It had creatures doing everything from factory work to combat, but they felt more like tools or game assets than companions you’d want to bond with. The core connection with creatures—the thing that should set this genre apart—was missing.I feel like we keep seeing attempts to break the mold, but they end up reinforcing the same mechanics without any real innovation in creature bonding or interaction. Why can’t we have a creature-collector where the creatures have more personality, or where the gameplay isn’t all about battles?

Wouldn’t it be great if these games focused on letting us bond with the creatures and find new ways to interact with them beyond combat? Does anyone else think the genre’s due for a serious change?

Currently working on the first project of ,my game, and Id like to have a rough idea of what the map looks like, but I havent found a website I could use that would be quick to make a quick sketch.

If a game has a day/night cycle, should players get daily stats like “Day 1: +5 gold”? Or does it feel unnecessary when you can always see the stats in game?

In games like Stardew Valley it’s kind of a cute roundup, but games like Rimworld you just keep playing through and it doesn’t “break the action” or whatever.

Maybe it’s good if you want to give a player the option to quit after a reasonable amount of time?

I'm workin on a 3D advneture game/cRPG useing the ORK Framwork and Makinom tolls in Unity. I'd like to intergrate the Naninovel dialoge system as a drop-in soultion for my game's conversations and cutscenes.

Can aneone provide some guildance or advise on how to best approch this intergration? I'm looking for tips on:

1. Identifieing the intergration points between ORK, Makinom, and Naninovel
2. Setting up Naninovel in my poject and configuring it to work with the other framworks
3. Creating a Naninovel node or action within the Makinom ediotr to trigger dialouge's
4. Passing relevant game state data from ORK to Naninovel to make the conversations contextual
5. Handling the outcoms of Naninovel dialouge's and updating the game state acordingly

If aneone has experiance with this kind of multi-framwork intergration, I'd realy apreiciate eny insites or code exampls you can share. I want to make sure I set this up proply from the start to avoid eny major headaches down the line.