Characters
Each player begins life as a small slug like creature. In order to grow into a more useful character, he must consume various foods scattered around the battlefield.
Some can be found laying around, others may come from the corpses of other players.
There are 3 varieties of food: meat, fruit and candy. Which ever the player consumes the most of will determine which class he grows into. Meat leads to power, fruit leads to skill and candy leads to speed.
Once the player has filled his stomach, a 'Growth' take place; transforming the player into the next level of Growth. There will be 3 levels of Growth:
- Level 1 - known as Slug Form.
- Level 2 - known as Creature Form.
- Level 3 - known as Beast Form. Can be a combination of 2 classes.
A level 3 'beast form' creatures is always stronger than a level 2 'creature', however creatures tend to be smaller and thus harder to notice and hit. They also have alternate paths that only they can fit through, keeping safe from beasts. Sometimes creatures may also be chosen over beasts for their skills, which are different from their final forms and may be preferred by the player. For example, a level 2 Growl can halt enemy movement, allowing team mates to strike, whereas a level 3 Grumble can suck enemies into its mouth, instantly killing them. A player might prefer the tactical advantage of disabling enemy movement over head on attack attempts.
A player who takes the path of speed as their first growth and then power as their second will have the same level 3 class as someone who takes the path of power and then speed. Thus, there is a total of 10 characters per species
Contents
Species
The following is an in-depth run-down of each species that makes up the playable characters in the game.
3D model run-through of 9 species.
Nom
Slug Form
Nom is a tiny, slimy lizard-like creature whose body is almost entirely taken up by a big, hungry mouth. It's a pale green colour with yellow spots and a single tooth popping out of its gums. It slides along the ground and eats food with its giant mouth.
Attack Form: Physical, very short range, biting to deal damage
Special Ability: None.
Growl
Creature Form
Path: 1 x Power
Growl is a slimy, four-legged, bouncy little creature with a springy curl on his head and a wagging tail on his bottom. He moves quite slowly and attacks with big chomping jaws and sharp teeth. He can latch onto other creatures and stop them from moving with his surprising weight.
Attack Form: Physical, short range, bites to deal damage
Special Ability: Chomp - Growl bites down hard on an enemy, slowing or halting their movement for a while. Growl can't move or attack while he's chomping.
Scamper
Creature Form
Path: 1 x Speed
Scamper is a speedy, jumpy little creature with a long, flowing tail and a bumpy back. He runs around at high speeds, scouting areas with his impressive vision.
Attack Form: Physical, mid range, headbutts to deal damage (moves slightly forward)
Special Ability: Speed boost - Scamper's speed temporarily doubles, allowing him to escape predators or reach locations quicker.
Newt
Creature Form
Path: 1 x Skill
Newt is little, wobbly amphibian with tentacles on her head and little legs that don't hold her very high off the ground. She can walk along the bottom of water and travel down special, underwater paths. She constantly releases a unique chemical that heals nearby allies. She shoots little blobs of goo at enemies.
Attack Form: Range, long range, shoots from mouth to deal damage
Special Ability: Heal - Passive - Any nearby allies are slowly healed.
Grumble
Beast Form
Path: 2 x Power
Grumble is a massive, hulking and altogether unintelligent monster. His bouncy, fatty hide protects him from attacks, making him very difficult to take down. As he moves the ground shakes with enormous 'thuds'.
Attack Form: Physical, mid range, bites to attack
Special Ability: Dinner Time - Grumble lazily opens his mouth and begins inhaling powerfully. Any nearby creatures in front of Grumble's mouth are sucked in and eaten and have to respawn.
Dart
Beast Form
Path: 2 x Speed
Dart is super fast lizard with a long tail and a colourful crest that covers his eyes. Unlike Scamper, he's incredibly relaxed.
Attack Form: Physical, mid range, headbutts to attack
Special Ability: Camouflage - Dart becomes temporarily invisible from enemies.
Bubbles
Beast Form
Path: 2 x Skill
Bubbles is a large, floating fish-like amphibian with long tentacles and tiny, unused feet. She moves slowly on land but can move at a reasonable pace underwater. She can swim freely and fires large blobs of goo at enemies. She releases a powerful chemical that makes other creatures feel strong.
Attack Form: Ranged, very long range, shoots from mouth to attack
Special Ability: Invigorate - Allies near Bubbles have their attack power increased.
Toot
Beast Form
Path: 1 x Skill + 1 x Speed
One of the smallest beasts, Toot is a short lizard with a gun-shaped mouth and a spiky crest. He moves at a reasonable speed and can climb up rock faces and trees. He's also capable of walking underwater. He does a lot of damage to distant enemies by shooting tiny bones out of his mouth at his enemies.
Attack Form: Ranged, very long range, shoots from mouth to attack
Special Ability: Sharp Shoot - Toot takes a few seconds to breath in and fires a powerful shot that hits a creature's vital points, dealing great damage.
Pokey
Beast Form
Path: 1 x Speed + 1 x Power
Pokey is a large, dopey four-legged monster with horns and many curly tails. She bounds at high speeds through levels and does devastating damage when she hits, unfortunately she has a slow attack rate.
Attack Form: Physical, short range, head thrash to attack
Special Ability: Charge - Pokey lowers her horns and charges forward at full speed, covering a lot of distance. She can't be stopped while the ability is in effect unless she's killed and any creatures caught in her path are knocked back and heavily damaged.
Spiral
Beast Form
Path: 1 x Skill + 1 x Power
Spiral is a large, shy creature hiding in a massive shell. The shell is heavy and she can't move fast at all, fortunately the shell provides her with impressive defense. She fires massive blobs of exploding goo from a cannon-like spout on her head. She can't move when she's firing, however, so she has to sit down inside her shell to attack.
Attack Form: Ranged, long range, fires blobs of goo from cannon on shell to attack, blobs do area damage when they hit (like a grenade)
Special Ability: Camp - Spiral drops her shell and pops out her cannon, preventing her from moving but allowing her to attack.
Combat
Growth Chart
Classes
This is how we originally were going to break up the classes. It is somewhat redundant now.
Grow features 6 classes of characters for players to grow into:
- Guardian - 2 x power: A Guardian, as its name suggests, is useful at defending areas. It is capable of taking and dishing out large amounts of damage.
- It is restricted by slower move speeds but is well suited to defense. A Guardian is titanic in scale, and not easily taken down. Guardian abilities focus on disabling and taking out enemies that get too close.
- Specialist - 2 x skill: Specialists are experts who focus on immobilizing enemies and helping team mates. They have long range attack capability but lack the power or agility to be effective attackers,
- preferring to support team mates. Their abilities are very unique e.g. healing and laying traps.
- Speedster - 2 x speed: The speedster is best suited to completeing objectives rather than combat.
- At close range he is capable of holding his own, darting quickly past attacks and chipping away at the enemy, but at medium to long range he falls to pieces.
- His movement speed is superior to that of the other classes, however he is easier to take down than the others. His abilities focus on dodging, moving quickly and scouting.
- Charger - 1 x speed + 1 x power: The charger is most useful for pushing the front lines. With relatively high defenses, decent speed and devastating, close-range attack power, chargers are essential for
- clearing through enemy defenses. They are a true threat to guardians though often succumb to speedsters. Their abilities focus on full-powered, frontal assaults.
- Tank - 1 x skill + 1 x power: Overall, tanks are quite immobile. They don't move fast or jump high, but they can climb and are expert at long range. They're at their best set up somewhere hard to reach, dealing damage to enemies from a safe distance. They work together exceptionally well with guardians, and quite well with chargers. They're abilities focus on short bursts of high-powered medium to long range damage.
- Sneaker - 1 x skill + 1 x speed: The sneaker acts like a sniper, capable of dealing great damage at long range, but inneffective a close quarter combat.
- They have special abilities that allow them to escape pursuers. They are useful in setting up strategic offensive strikes, able to remove key targets quickly.
