Upheaval

A bestiary, in progress.

Every creature is modelled as stacked rings of vertices bound to at most 32 bones, compiled by the same reference implementation that defines what the console's silicon must produce, and rendered one frame at a time at 384 by 240 inside a 256-colour ceiling. The camera makes exactly one orbit per loop.

Zixxtrixx

snake

The first creature. Built from two concept sheets by S. Hofer, with three departures asked for at the outset: much bigger eyes than drawn, blockier tail prongs, and a head exaggerated until it reads as its own object at 240p. Twenty-eight bones, ten of them spine joints, which is what sets how smoothly it bends.

Zixxtrixx, a green and pink serpent, slithering across dry ground while the camera orbits
Slither, 32 keys, two waves on the body at once

Ten spine joints carry the same sinusoid, each phase-shifted a fifth of a turn, so two complete lateral waves live on the animal at any moment. The head cancels most of its own joint's sway and holds its line instead of whipping. It travels as it goes; the camera makes one full orbit over the loop.

Zixxtrixx rearing and throwing its forked tail over its head to stab downward
Tail strike, 48 keys, contact on key 23

It does not bite. It rears, throws its tail up and over its own head and drives the three prongs down into what is in front of it. The arc is per-joint pitch weighted toward the rear, so the far end of the animal travels furthest, and the head ducks under the passing tail before pressing down with the strike.