I personally love the little yellow lumps as you describe em, but then again I'm biased since I was partially involved in their creation! The concept behind them is to add a little humor and visual progression for each member here, but there is so much more to the idea that we didn't really elaborate on.
Here are a few things worth knowing:
1. It took over 200 hours from the initial sketches to final designs to have these little lump avatars created.
2. The level 1 avatars look sweaty and scared because most of us feel that way when we interact with a new and unknown environment. As the levels progress they get progressively less scared and more advanced.
3. The progression is meant to signify evolution in a colorful and humorous manner with even a little satire sprinkled on top. We felt approaching these changes in a humorous way was best, and liked how effective the visualization of levels was.
4. In the alpha we only had one version of the "lumps" but we received feedback that they looked too male, so we had our designer work on a 2nd set of 50 more feminine versions to correct this glaring mistake. Interestingly enough we now have complaints that we don't allow a choice of "other" when it comes to the little lumps, so we aren't exactly sure what to do next. We might just kill them off, who knows... 100 little critters though, will feel like a massacre.
At the end of the day we wanted something a little different, we figured these little guys would be fun. I guess you either love it or hate it as /u/bogdan stated :)
I personally love the little yellow lumps as you describe em, but then again I'm biased since I was partially involved in their creation! The concept behind them is to add a little humor and visual progression for each member here, but there is so much more to the idea that we didn't really elaborate on.
Here are a few things worth knowing:
1. It took over 200 hours from the initial sketches to final designs to have these little lump avatars created.
2. The level 1 avatars look sweaty and scared because most of us feel that way when we interact with a new and unknown environment. As the levels progress they get progressively less scared and more advanced.
3. The progression is meant to signify evolution in a colorful and humorous manner with even a little satire sprinkled on top. We felt approaching these changes in a humorous way was best, and liked how effective the visualization of levels was.
4. In the alpha we only had one version of the "lumps" but we received feedback that they looked too male, so we had our designer work on a 2nd set of 50 more feminine versions to correct this glaring mistake. Interestingly enough we now have complaints that we don't allow a choice of "other" when it comes to the little lumps, so we aren't exactly sure what to do next. We might just kill them off, who knows... 100 little critters though, will feel like a massacre.
At the end of the day we wanted something a little different, we figured these little guys would be fun. I guess you either love it or hate it as /u/bogdan stated :)