Yowza! That looks fantastic!
It has a very fun and inviting feel to it, and it's not cluttered, it's clear. I only have one major suggestion, and that's for the picture portion--I think it should be a black and white drawing rather than a full color photo. This will have two effects--one, it will make it somewhat more difficult for the player to find the animal or plant, since they won't have as much visual information on it, and that will make the treasure hunt a little more challenging and will draw out the player's entertainment time. Second, this way the player only gets a tiny taste of what the animal or plant looks like...so to satisfy their curiosity and their appetite for color and detail, they will have to find the animal or plant for real. (I'm pretty sure that this was the exact reason why Cyan chose to show the Negilahn animals in sillouette rather than in full color renders.) The little info blurb you have there is a great idea; it would have to be short and sweet like you have it though, 'cause I don't think small font is an option due to the fact that not everybody has great eyesight and it's no fun to squint.
So I guess I'd shoot for one "fun fact" like you had for the medusa tree and a short description of the animal or plant--color, size, differences between males and females and babies, and any flowers or berries.
In terms of the grammar, all I have to add is that the sentence, "Unfortunately, it's not very detailed because we haven't had much time to study the creatures" should be changed so that it will still make sense for the time after the Age has been released for months and a lot is actually known about the animals. Perhaps it might be replaced with "We would appreciate your help in developing the reference guide." or "If you would like to contribute to the reference guide..."
Now, one last thing that needs to be resolved...Supposing that we have 20-30 different species on the checklist. We can't fit all those on one sheet of paper with all the pictures and descriptions, so what format should we use instead?
I had the idea that perhaps the animals weren't intentionally written into the age (at least, not the unusual ones), and the ERC committee have only caught occasional glimpses of the creatures. As a result, the explorers could help find things out about them, like taking KI photos, writing the guidebook and so on. This could also include the Guild of Zoologists- it's exactly what they're around for. Another advantage of this is that when there's no new art being recieved, another creature could be 'sighted' (and placed into the age), thus creating interest and a reason to revisit the ERC! (not that there'd be no appeal to the age when there wasn't new art, of course.
That's a
really good idea... And you know, I don't even think we'd need to do totally new animals or plants, either. It would be enough just to shrink the model of an animal, change the fur style, make the eyes big, and put it on the same track with a large normal model of that animal, and people would automatically go gaga over the
cute little baby! We could also add new behaviors, change the color schemes of the animals, or have different sizes so that people can claim that they just saw the "World's Record medusa tree!" Or if you added a clutch of eggs...You know that people would visit them every day for weeks to see if they had hatched yet.
I love this idea! I'm not part of the team, I know, but I drew up the layout attached, I hope you don't mind.
Of course we don't mind; you're welcome to drop in and help with anything you'd like.
And we're happy to have you.