hey! 

we're making a game about keeping a creature from death, using a ping-pong paddle.

i'm wondering, how to make the creature feel alive, and reactive to the environment?

*(orange-balled strange creature in above picture)*

The ping pong paddle lets you charge an attack, resulting in a ragdoll-ish impact & feel. 

i thought adding the eyes a close-open based in collision w/ floor, an animation for when it gets hit, and more complex stuff like updating the mesh with deformations *(i dont believe i can manage to get this for the jam)*

Any good and simple ideas? how do you manage "alive characters" in your games?

obviously we're in early prototyping, but i'd love to get a great feel-juice for this.

any ideas are wellcome! help us create a humor-toon game :)

here are some additional resources i've been through:

today got the core gameplay, and uploaded the first build of the game! tomorow we hope to hang out and test games, leave a reply and share!

about it:

1. you control a ping-pong paddle-handling adventurer, 
2. you have to help a creature eat fruits to recover from an event (subject to definition)
3. a set of eart and winged creatures try to steal the fruits. you must bang them with your paddle.
4. ???
5. profit. BOSS FIGHT!

i'm keeping the thread, as this is an experiment about game juice, and 3d unity development. we hope you dont mind

An easy base of reference would be delving into the different principles of animation. Here is a website presenting some classic examples : https://www.deedeestudio.net/en/post/principles-animation-squash-stretc