Character

About

Character explores procedural creature animation inspired by Rain World’s physics-driven movement. Instead of frame-based sprites, creatures move through constraint solving and emergent physics. Click anywhere and the creature pathfinds its way there—jumping, falling, and walking autonomously.

Creatures

Two physics approaches are implemented:

• Verlet Worm: A segmented chain with distance constraints. The head follows waypoints while the body trails behind through constraint relaxation, creating organic flowing movement.
• Spring Blob: A soft-body with a central mass and 8 outer points connected by springs. Squishes and stretches dynamically as it moves.

Navigation

The system builds a navigation graph from level geometry with three transition types:

• Walk: Horizontal movement along platforms
• Jump: Calculated launch velocities to reach higher or distant platforms
• Fall: Gravity-assisted drops to lower surfaces

A* pathfinding finds routes through this graph, and a movement controller translates waypoints into physics commands.

Physics

• Position-based Verlet integration for stable, non-explosive simulation
• Hooke’s law springs for soft-body deformation
• Dynamic grounding via surface proximity detection
• Head pinning when grounded, physics-driven when airborne

Technical Details

• Language: Lua
• Framework: LÖVE 2D
• Physics: Verlet integration, spring-damper systems
• AI: A* graph search with automatic nav-mesh generation
• Audio: Procedural sound synthesis for jump/land feedback