WfFW Wolf Maker

This is a technical art demo for a larger game that is in development, that was worked on daily for the past month. See this post for my devblog postmortem.

Two ways to create wolves: completely at random, or inherited from two wolves you already have. Wolves can be named, marked as a favorite, and exported as a transparent background PNG image. You can also save and enter a wolf's unique genetic password to share designs with other players.

There are 80 genes that affect coloration and 24 genes that affect patterning, leading to 4.17 x 10^49 possible genotypes and many, many phenotypes!* Turn on advanced info to see more information about which genes are present in your wolves.

You can obtain melanistic and leucistic wolves, too, as an expression of rare traits.

*someone who is better at math than me would have to help me calculate the number of phenotypes. There are definitely a lot, though!

FAQ:

Q: I am stuck on the (play-in-browser) loading screen, help!

A: Web exports from the engine I'm using are still mediocre. I tried using single-threaded mode with no SharedArrayBuffer for higher compatibility, but numerous people have reported that the demo still doesn't work for them and the issue seems sadly outside of my control. Downloadable versions for Windows and Linux have been provided, which may perform better.

Q: I entered a wolf's password, but now all of the buttons are gone. How do I use this wolf?

A: You can only "use" (name, favorite, save as image, or use as a parent for inheritance) a wolf you "own" (was made through "randomize" or "inherit"). 

Q: How do I get a wolf with a specific appearance?

A: Try selecting for specific colors and patterns. There are five genetic colors and six derived colors per individual. It may take many generations of inheritance to get specific results, but keep trying!

Q: What do the pairing grades mean?

A: Pairings factor in genetic heterozygosity (the ratio between heterozygous genes and total genes for an individual) of and similarity (the ratio of genes that are the same between two individuals) between paired wolves. Higher heterozygosity is healthier and leads to higher scores. If two wolves are too similar, they cannot be paired.

Q: Genetic colors? Derived colors?

Some colors are influenced directly by genes that push the hue or lightness in directions when present. Other colors are only indirectly influenced by genes, because they are derived from genetic colors. Small changes in color genotypes lead to small changes in genetic colors, but big changes in derived colors.

Q: Where are biological sexes? Are my wolves male or female?

A: The breeding system is complex enough as-is, so this was removed because having it would increase the difficulty too much. There will be a fantasy-biology lore reason for this in the full game.

Q: Where can I report bugs?

Comments are fine, thank you! <3