Rivulet

Breathes underwater, and moves through the world with ease. These adaptations are essential, as you'll be pitted against a world of increasingly frequent floods, where time is of the essence.

The Rivulet is one of five playable Slugcats in Downpour. They begin the game with a swallowed Pearl in Drainage System, and have a variety of unique mechanics, including greatly increased movement speed, swim speed and jump height, greatly extended breathing capacity underwater, and the ability to pop Bubble Fruit by holding it. Cycles are much shorter and Shelter failures are more frequent in the Rivulet campaign, making Rain much more frequent.

For the main Slugcats page, see Slugcat.

Food

5 food pips are required to hibernate, while up to 1 may be stored for the next cycle.

Opening

The Rivulet's opening fades in to show a room in Drainage System. Two explosions are heard, before a dead Scavenger and Rivulet fall into water from a shaft in the ceiling. Rivulet also opens with the Mark of Communication.

Inventory:

• The Water Green Pearl in their stomach.

World Changes

• Cycles are much shorter than usual, as little as 5 pips (2 minutes and 30 seconds) of length.
• Shelter failures occur about twice as frequently.
• Hard mode spawns are enabled. New aquatic predators are added and are more common.
• Brother Long Legs are nearly absent from Garbage Wastes.
• The water in Garbage Wastes and Shoreline is now blue.
• Five Pebbles' superstructure has been consumed so badly by the Rot that it's been renamed to The Rot. This altered and expanded region contains water sections where pipes have decayed as well as Brother and Mother Long Legs, with much of it having gravity anomalies.
• Incidentally, the Rot has spread to The Exterior as well, with Rot cysts like the Daddy Long Legs being much more common. This has made it one of the most hazardous and challenging areas in the game.
• Pieces of the Underhang have fallen into the Memory Crypts, spreading the Rot and the native fauna into the subregion, ironically making it slightly less dangerous than when the Miros Birds were around.
• The pier at the western end of Subterranean has collapsed, making the Outer Expanse inaccessible.

Abilities & Attributes

Stats

Lung Capacity (lungsFac)[*]	0.15 (6.67x Standard)
Throwing Skill[†]	1
Spear Damage	1
Run Speed	1.75
Pipe Speed	1.6
Pole Speed	1.8
Mass	0.95
Loudness	Standard
Crawling Stealth	Standard

[*] lungsFac determines how much air is drained per frame. This means lower values grant a larger lung capacity.

[†] Throwing skill affects velocity and trajectory.

Movement

Standard

Rivulet is much faster than Survivor at 1.75x speed, also possessing increased jump height, swim speed and a very high back-flip. When running at full speed, enemies cannot grab hold of Rivulet, allowing them to easily bypass enemies such as Monster Kelp and Pole Plants. Likely an unintended side effect is that this affects the climbable tendrils of proto-long legs, which are required to progress in The Exterior.

Sliding

Rivulet has a very powerful slide, being able to traverse around 2/3rds of the screen at will. This is ideal for traversing flat areas quickly. Jumping during the slide covers a great distance.

If Rivulet slides and jumps into a wall or other solid obstacle, they gain a massive burst of momentum and flings upwards with very little directional control; this is likely unintended.

Swimming

Rivulet can boost themselves through water at high speeds and has overall significantly faster swim speed. They can also eat food underwater. Contrary to several in-game descriptions, they cannot breathe underwater and merely have greatly increased lung capacity. Boosting drains Rivulet's remaining air by a large portion however, so it should be used sparingly in deeper areas. This can be toggled off in the Remix menu if desired.

Ploinking

If Rivulet enters water from a slight height and jumps out at an angle, they 'ploink':

• 

The most consistent way to achieve this is to jump from a slope and hold down while spamming jump.

Tips

• Ignore any fights that are not absolutely mandatory. Due to short cycles, running fast between shelters is the key - fighting is likely to waste valuable time. Rivulet's high speed means most predators cannot catch up and can be slipped past with ease. Enemies such as Monster Kelp and even all variants of Daddy Long Legs cannot grab a full speed Rivulet, so even they can be mostly ignored.
• Avoid The Leg and Underhang unless you are well prepared. The sheer amount of rot makes traversal extraordinarily difficult especially before running out of time, and currently Rivulet cannot consistently grab onto the tentacles that are needed to progress.
• If a shelter failure occurs, you have more time to get progress done. Beware that this prevents cycling at the same shelter. Take note of routes to previous shelters if needing to build up Karma.
• Rivulet has enough lung capacity to explore most underwater areas; however, their underwater boost swiftly drains their air supply. Use it with caution to avoid drowning.
• Scavengers standing around Scavenger Tolls flee when the rain is close, making it easy to slip past with enough time to reach the next shelter.
• Rain is much less dangerous for Rivulet than for other Slugcats. Their high air supply allows for travel in flooded areas, and flooding can be used to swim to normally hard-to-reach areas.

SPOILER WARNING: Rivulet
This section contains major plot details from Rivulet. If you have not made significant progress or completed the game as Rivulet, then read no further!

• The Rarefaction Cell can be used to greatly increase movement underwater and allows travel to normally inaccessible areas.

Spoilers end here.

Trivia

• Rivulet has the most detailed designed eyes, having a ring of magenta color surrounding the iris, although this is only reflected in official arts, not in the actual gameplay. All other Slugcats only have pure black (or white) as their eye color.
• Rivulet is based on an Axolotl. As a result they have a similar appearance to Salamanders.
• Looks to the Moon calls Rivulet "Ruffles".
• Moon now starts with 7 neurons instead of her usual 5, implying that Monk brought her more neurons before Rivulet came.

SPOILER WARNING: Rivulet
This section contains major plot details from Rivulet. If you have not made significant progress or completed the game as Rivulet, then read no further!

• Rivulet’s character portrait on the selection screen changes what they are holding based on progression: it starts as a Bubble Fruit initially but changes to a Rarefaction Cell once acquired, and back into a Bubble Fruit once brought to The Heart.
• If Rivulet enters Looks to the Moon's room from the left pipe after placing the Rarefaction Cell, they cannot move for the duration of her dialogue and so are unable to see her projections.
  • This can only happen if Rivulet uses a Passage out of Bitter Aerie and re-enters from Shoreline.
• The game may freeze during the ending Broadcast in Auxiliary Transmission Array due to the snow layer.

Spoilers end here.

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