They Grow Up So Fast

[loboLoco]

We're making good progress on the Saga!* One aspect of that, of course, is that the pups will keep growing beyond the summer season, which means we have to depict that growth. The problem is: over the first six months of their lives, wolf pups grow -- a LOT. And especially in the late summer months, they transform themselves from cute little pups to nearly-adult size and appearance. While it's technically possible to use morphs and blendshapes to gradually transform a 3D model to match this change in size and appearance, a combination of factors makes that unworkable for us. These range from legacy aspects of our pup and adult wolf model, along with the sheer complexity of the adult model. We are committed to our wolf models with their 60 coats, nearly 300 animations, and 60 (and counting) blendshapes (for different body modifications, various expressions, injuries, and more).

So instead, there will be some noticeable jumps as the pups age. We're trying to make these as incremental as we can, but to fully represent those changes from late summer to fall, it's almost impossible to make them seamless.

So for the Saga, pups will age in four stages:
- Young Pups: That's what's in the game now in May, after the pups emerge from the den.
- June Pups: Also what's in the game now, after they reach 15 pounds and journey to the rendezvous site.
- July Pups: This will be a modified version of June pups, with the adult guard hairs and coat patterns starting to fade in, and a bit skinnier body.
- August (and later) Pups: This is where the change really happens -- almost overnight, pups look like small adults (albeit pretty skinny), with their adult coat. By October, age six months, they've reached adult height. They are a bit lanky in appearance, because it takes another two months to reach adult length. But they are still pretty lightweight and skinny during this time, and it'll take another year for them to fill out and reach the body mass of an adult wolf.

So by fall, you really have to study a pup to recognize it as a pup -- based on physical appearance alone. But they still behave like pups. Even yearlings act puppyish until they're about 18 months old. And our pups will still act puppyish -- playful, inquisitive, and unreliable. Don't expect a yearling to go out hunting or marking on its own -- they're just not ready for that yet. Yearlings are good as babysitters, though, for the pups of the year.

* In the upcoming WolfQuest Saga, your pups will continue to grow into the fall and beyond, learning to hunt under your supervision, and then becoming yearlings when next year's pups are born. Time will continue progressing through the years until you die. The Saga is currently in development but we do not have a release date for it.

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The WolfQuest saga will continue! Stay tuned for more news in upcoming devblogs about it and other new features!

Once the game is completed on PC/Mac, we will consider porting the game to other platforms.

We do not announce specific release dates. We will release them when they are ready.

[NotaNvmbr]

I've always thought that older wolf pups looked a lot like adults. They really do grow up fast....
The facial structure change of the August pups is quite dramatic!