Monday, 31st January 2011, 22:25 by smock
I'm not sure how to balance jellyfish realism with gameplay. Interesting questions. A "realist" approach would be to make jellyfish immobile, invisible and tentacles -- they don't attack, they just paralyze. I think this would be terrific and make them a bit like ballistomycetes Like paralysis traps that you can slay!
That said, I don't think it's a problem to have two monsters using tentacles. Tentacles are really fun and I wouldn't get bored with them if they saw them more than once a game.
Jellyfish tentacles could be distinguished from kraken tentacles. They could be shorter, or instead of doing damage, just poison, paralyse, or slow. Or jellyfish could have just one tentacle (I would suppose this!). Actually, paralysis is a much more more fitting/realistic jellyfish "attack."
In any case, there are only a few (IMHO) good aquatic creatures (kraken, alligators, swamp worms, probably forgetting some). I'm rooting for jellyfish, big fish, and goldfish to move to that list.