(Update: 21/01/25) Endeavore: Dawn Seeker

[DarkRain]

Belly rub update is very cool but I noticed a bug in this update, if you use disposal, the character's belly disappears even if there is still a living victim inside. I also think that the disposal system in general has not been working properly since the first versions. I don't know how to describe it correctly, the character can start pooping immediately after the victim dies in the stomach, but properly the victim should be digested first. Also the volume of poop piles is not much not correct, maybe I have not figured it out, that digesting one slime can get a lot of piles until the character has not run out of stripe, it seems to me that the volume of piles should depend on the volume of digested enemies. I'd also like to be able to mute the music, not all the sounds completely. But otherwise I really like the game and the new updates!

[Ezreal]

What a great game I just found! Thank you for making and continuing to develop it Endeavoregame. The gameplay is addicting/repetitive, and of course very hot to people on this forum, so it's a perfect formula. The main character is exceptionally well made.

I'd like to offer some feedback that I think would make a big improvement, without needing to add assets, that will increase gameplay replayability.

Obviously you're going for a Diablo like game here, where you farm the same monsters over and over, getting stronger by talents and finding RNG generated items. Eventually you find items that fit your build, and you get to test it on harder mobs to see if your build works. The hunt for better items is the core gameplay that Blizzard invented many years ago and proved it works.

However in this game there is nowhere to properly test your item build and talents. For example, I have half purple (level 4-5) items, some green, have only part of the main circle and a few points in the next circle (so still tons of talents missing and I'm low level). But this lets me clear the 4th stage easily. If I perfected my build, and got many many more talent points, I would be insanely overleveled, as I am already stronger than the final level now.

To fix this, simply add a "nightmare" mode to each current level. Add an option to enter the nightmare version of the level (with darker screen tint or evil music maybe), which can only be unlocked after completing all non-nightmare versions. I'd recommend keeping everything in the level the same, no need to re-code them, and just going through to each mob and increasing their stats by some large multiplier you are comfortable with. It should feel like entering the next level in Diablo, which is brutal. You don't even need to add new items, just have the nightmare levels have the same mob stats/levels across each stage (that way you get replayability out of all stages, people can play on their favorite stages and test their end game builds.) You can also just make all the drops across all stages be the same level 4-5 items (the ones currently dropping from stage 4), that way you don't need to design new game items/balance for the player.

Then folks like me can level their character further and enjoy testing end game builds, instead of just playing stage 4 forever insanely over leveled.

Thank you for considering! (Oh and if you can add a toggle to change the weight from KG to lbs that would be great. I don't know KG so it's hard to understand for american players.)

[Flame_Valxsarion]

Said it in your discord but I'm gonna say it here too:
This game is amazing. I can't stay away from it. Took some getting used to with the basic combos, but if anything it taught me to decide between aggressive attack and parrying.

The music was very nice too. Really added to the sci-fi feel of things. Especially loved the stage 3 theme. Did you make these yourself?

MC is super cute and the art cut ins are a neat feature.
As a fellow sprite artist I have to ask: are those all hand drawn? Or did you use some kind of tool or technique to pixilate them? Because they look really good and I'm very impressed.

I am utterly marveled at the freedom to dispose wherever you like! I'm so curious about how you coded that to work the way it does. Amazing job

The belly rub feature is very well done imo, even if there's no unique sprites for it. I didn't know about it at first but reading that devlog changed everything. Even though I was technically still waiting around for digestion, I still felt like I was doing something. It's also really useful when you're goofing around waiting for the stage 4 boss to spawn more enemies because you want to see just how many huge piles you can make~

I dont really have any major suggestions other than a couple movement mechanics.
1. Maybe a double jump as an unlock? But I understand if that would break levels a little bit, namely the Labyrinth.
2. If a double jump is too much an ask, I suggest some "coyote time" to help with jump frustration. Basically it adds a couple frames of grace time after falling from a ledge where you can still jump. If not to make the jump, the at least to recover and get back to the platform you fell from.
Other than those two, I'm completely in love with everything else

TL;DR: Incredible work, I can't wait to see it grow!

[EndeavourGame]

The busy part of the holiday season is finished for me so soon I will be back to working on the game.
I haven't done anything since my last update, so it'll probably be quite a while before the next update. I also want to move towards slower but bigger updates from now on.
As always, news about updates will be posted in the Discord whenever I have something to show.

Finally had a chance to sit down and play the 2 new updates, so here are my thoughts

Countdown to escape. It's a very nice quality of life, its very useful and I like it as an addition. I do think there should maybe be a change to it when an enemy is close to escaping. like a red exclamation point added to the end of the countdown, or something similar that can draw attention in a small minor way when its important while keeping it a passive element.

Cut-ins. Pretty sure I noticed they were way more uniform in all aspects, which made their appearances a lot smoother and cleaner looking. If this was indeed changed great job!

Now the main new feature, belly rubs. Currently, I think they're a neat addition to the game, and mostly quality of life to speed up waiting on digestion, which mainly helps out high capacity/low acid builds a fair bit (while also providing a bit of flavor to boot.) My only real concrete feedback would be a request for sounds, with all the particle effects and the hearts and the faster digestion speed its a little eerily quiet as it stands, there should definitely be some very loud gurgles at the very least.

But if you'd allow me to go venturing off into wild speculation/daydreaming territory for a second, I think this could be a main/primary mechanic of the game with the addition of talents to support it. Like substantial health regen during rubs, or rubs dealing damage to alive prey is an obvious one (albeit at a reduced rate compared to dead ones) Rubs giving cooldown reduction for their duration (for more of that "getting back in the fight" feel) Hell maybe some of the talents for debuff prevention could be implemented here (Rupture and indigestion get sped up by 2, 3, 4x speed during rubs) The list goes on (genuinely it does, like maybe implementing rubs on a bind-able button but as a talent or capstone), but I hope these are enough to prove my point that this could, and I think should, definitely be a fun build-crafting mechanic to play around with via talents.

Anyway, thats all. Hope you have a happy holiday break! Awesome work on the game, can't wait to see how it'll continue to grow in 2025!

I like the idea about the 'alert' when an enemy is close to escaping and shouldn't be hard to add either.
I did think about adding sounds when belly-rubbing, but it was going to take a little more effort than I wanted for an update that only took a couple hours I had spare.
There was going to be issues if, for instance, you had indigestion at the same time. You would be getting the sounds from regular digestion, indigestion and belly-rubbing at the same time and it'd probably end up being quite cacophonous.
But now that I've got a little more time, I can set something up so that it won't be so crazy in the worst-case scenario, and I'll be able to add sounds to belly-rubbing.

I'm not sure how far I'll go with supporting belly-rubbing as a mechanic with talents and stuff, but a few here and there is a cool idea.

Belly rub update is very cool but I noticed a bug in this update, if you use disposal, the character's belly disappears even if there is still a living victim inside. I also think that the disposal system in general has not been working properly since the first versions. I don't know how to describe it correctly, the character can start pooping immediately after the victim dies in the stomach, but properly the victim should be digested first. Also the volume of poop piles is not much not correct, maybe I have not figured it out, that digesting one slime can get a lot of piles until the character has not run out of stripe, it seems to me that the volume of piles should depend on the volume of digested enemies. I'd also like to be able to mute the music, not all the sounds completely. But otherwise I really like the game and the new updates!

That's odd, I've never had the characters belly disappear during disposal, I'm not sure why that'd be happening to you. I could add a buffer time before prey is digested enough for disposal but it'd probably cause issues in other places that I'm not sure I want to deal with. I can try it out and see how feasible it is. There was a bug before that allowed you to make larger than normal piles by defecating immediately after an enemy died but that should be fixed, and from my testing it is. You will be able to create a lot of little piles if you move between each but adding to one pile should remain accurate. The issue with having a minimum amount of waste required before you can defecate would mean that you'd never be able to get back to 0 capacity in some situations. More audio controls is something that has been requested and it'll be a little bit of work to update all audio code to support it, but it is something I can do at some point.

What a great game I just found! Thank you for making and continuing to develop it Endeavoregame. The gameplay is addicting/repetitive, and of course very hot to people on this forum, so it's a perfect formula. The main character is exceptionally well made.

I'd like to offer some feedback that I think would make a big improvement, without needing to add assets, that will increase gameplay replayability.

Obviously you're going for a Diablo like game here, where you farm the same monsters over and over, getting stronger by talents and finding RNG generated items. Eventually you find items that fit your build, and you get to test it on harder mobs to see if your build works. The hunt for better items is the core gameplay that Blizzard invented many years ago and proved it works.

However in this game there is nowhere to properly test your item build and talents. For example, I have half purple (level 4-5) items, some green, have only part of the main circle and a few points in the next circle (so still tons of talents missing and I'm low level). But this lets me clear the 4th stage easily. If I perfected my build, and got many many more talent points, I would be insanely overleveled, as I am already stronger than the final level now.

To fix this, simply add a "nightmare" mode to each current level. Add an option to enter the nightmare version of the level (with darker screen tint or evil music maybe), which can only be unlocked after completing all non-nightmare versions. I'd recommend keeping everything in the level the same, no need to re-code them, and just going through to each mob and increasing their stats by some large multiplier you are comfortable with. It should feel like entering the next level in Diablo, which is brutal. You don't even need to add new items, just have the nightmare levels have the same mob stats/levels across each stage (that way you get replayability out of all stages, people can play on their favorite stages and test their end game builds.) You can also just make all the drops across all stages be the same level 4-5 items (the ones currently dropping from stage 4), that way you don't need to design new game items/balance for the player.

Then folks like me can level their character further and enjoy testing end game builds, instead of just playing stage 4 forever insanely over leveled.

Thank you for considering! (Oh and if you can add a toggle to change the weight from KG to lbs that would be great. I don't know KG so it's hard to understand for american players.)

I do want to have some kind of scaling endgame once I'm done with story mode, but I might add some kind of difficulty select for stages as well.
Shouldn't be hard at all to add a kg-lbs toggle, I didn't think of that, but it'll be nice to have!

Said it in your discord but I'm gonna say it here too:
This game is amazing. I can't stay away from it. Took some getting used to with the basic combos, but if anything it taught me to decide between aggressive attack and parrying.

The music was very nice too. Really added to the sci-fi feel of things. Especially loved the stage 3 theme. Did you make these yourself?

MC is super cute and the art cut ins are a neat feature.
As a fellow sprite artist I have to ask: are those all hand drawn? Or did you use some kind of tool or technique to pixilate them? Because they look really good and I'm very impressed.

I am utterly marveled at the freedom to dispose wherever you like! I'm so curious about how you coded that to work the way it does. Amazing job

The belly rub feature is very well done imo, even if there's no unique sprites for it. I didn't know about it at first but reading that devlog changed everything. Even though I was technically still waiting around for digestion, I still felt like I was doing something. It's also really useful when you're goofing around waiting for the stage 4 boss to spawn more enemies because you want to see just how many huge piles you can make~

I dont really have any major suggestions other than a couple movement mechanics.
1. Maybe a double jump as an unlock? But I understand if that would break levels a little bit, namely the Labyrinth.
2. If a double jump is too much an ask, I suggest some "coyote time" to help with jump frustration. Basically it adds a couple frames of grace time after falling from a ledge where you can still jump. If not to make the jump, the at least to recover and get back to the platform you fell from.
Other than those two, I'm completely in love with everything else

TL;DR: Incredible work, I can't wait to see it grow!

Unfortunately, I did not make the music, they're sourced from free to use samples. One day I'd like to learn how to compose music but for now I've got more than enough to learn with programming and art
Sprites are hand made in Aseprite (https://www.aseprite.org/) and sometimes I use Smack Studio (https://smackstudio.com/) to help me animate them. And I'm glad you like them!

I definitely should add Coyote Time to make platforming feel better, a double-jump is something that might come along later in the story.


Big thanks to all of you for the kind words and well wishes. I hope you all had a good holidays and I look forward to working with you all into the new year!

[Flame_Valxsarion]

Unfortunately, I did not make the music, they're sourced from free to use samples. One day I'd like to learn how to compose music but for now I've got more than enough to learn with programming and art

Man, I feel this in my soul. It doesn't help that a synthesizer alone is anywhere from 300-3500 USD. Maybe one day...

Sprites are hand made in Aseprite (https://www.aseprite.org/) and sometimes I use Smack Studio (https://smackstudio.com/) to help me animate them. And I'm glad you like them!

Then I'm even more impressed. I was hoping you had some secret technique, but I forget there is no shortcut for good art. That SmackStudio though... That looks interesting.

Well, I'm back to my own gamedev funsies so I may be silent. Good luck with everything! I'll be watching with great interest!

[Nothing0Here0]

Happy new year!
The last year witnessed your efforts on this game.Wish you more creativity and a smooth life in the new year.(✿^‿^)

[EndeavourGame]

First update of 2025
New year, new update.

Devlog: https://endeavoregame.itch.io/endeavore ... te-of-2025

Update consists of a few little things and some bugfixes.
Highlight of the update is a new weight stage for those who enjoy weight gain and a 4th big belly size for those who like to eat a little too much.

Patreon
I've started the process of creating a Patreon page for those who want to support me financially in exchange for early access to updates.
I didn't want to hold this update hostage just to try and coerce people into joining a Patreon so there won't be anything to get access to for a little while even when I'm done getting it set up, but I'm hopeful about getting started on the new tutorial/1st world of missions.

In the meantime, please enjoy the new update! Thank you for playing and I'm looking forward to what this year brings!

[CatKnight21]

Played new update and it's really cool. I think it's neat. By the way, is our protagonist having any name?

[ArtanisMattias]

Patreon
I've started the process of creating a Patreon page for those who want to support me financially in exchange for early access to updates.

*there should be a lot of text here, but I changed my mind about publishing it so as not to offend anyone*
Sad.

[EndeavourGame]

Played new update and it's really cool. I think it's neat. By the way, is our protagonist having any name?

I'm glad you're enjoying the update. And no, I haven't named the explorer, I just haven't seen a real reason to yet.

Patreon
I've started the process of creating a Patreon page for those who want to support me financially in exchange for early access to updates.

*there should be a lot of text here, but I changed my mind about publishing it so as not to offend anyone*
Sad.

If you have concerns, feel free to send me a DM either on here or Discord. I'd be willing to hear any issues you have.

[Ranacha]

First update of 2025
Highlight of the update is a new weight stage for those who enjoy weight gain and a 4th big belly size for those who like to eat a little too much.

If you add more belly sizes in the future, you might want to consider adding stages between the ones you already have and generally depicting smaller bellies for a given weight swallowed. Currently you do the common thing of depicting bellies that are far larger than they would be for a given amount eaten. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that, however I can see it becoming an issue if you wanted to allow players to create builds that could swallow far more than we can currently. I.e. If the character's belly is dragging on the floor after 4-peoples worth, how are you going to depict it when it has 10?
After roughly estimating volumes, I'd say your ~95kg/3rd stage belly is big enough for at least 2 peoples worth, while the ~170kg/4th stage is big enough for at least 6. By trying to keep to somewhat realistic sizes, you could allow players to swallow over ~400kg worth without needing a bigger belly and allow players to eat even more than that without needing to depict impractically large bellies that fill half the screen!

That said, this suggestion is also born out of my personal preference for sensibly sized bellies! It bothers me when a character swallows 3 people and gets a belly that could fit 30!

[Men8Men]

If you add more belly sizes in the future, you might want to consider adding stages between the ones you already have and generally depicting smaller bellies for a given weight swallowed. Currently you do the common thing of depicting bellies that are far larger than they would be for a given amount eaten. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that, however I can see it becoming an issue if you wanted to allow players to create builds that could swallow far more than we can currently. I.e. If the character's belly is dragging on the floor after 4-peoples worth, how are you going to depict it when it has 10?
After roughly estimating volumes, I'd say your ~95kg/3rd stage belly is big enough for at least 2 peoples worth, while the ~170kg/4th stage is big enough for at least 6. By trying to keep to somewhat realistic sizes, you could allow players to swallow over ~400kg worth without needing a bigger belly and allow players to eat even more than that without needing to depict impractically large bellies that fill half the screen!

That said, this suggestion is also born out of my personal preference for sensibly sized bellies! It bothers me when a character swallows 3 people and gets a belly that could fit 30!

Seconded.

[EndeavourGame]

First update of 2025
Highlight of the update is a new weight stage for those who enjoy weight gain and a 4th big belly size for those who like to eat a little too much.

If you add more belly sizes in the future, you might want to consider adding stages between the ones you already have and generally depicting smaller bellies for a given weight swallowed. Currently you do the common thing of depicting bellies that are far larger than they would be for a given amount eaten. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that, however I can see it becoming an issue if you wanted to allow players to create builds that could swallow far more than we can currently. I.e. If the character's belly is dragging on the floor after 4-peoples worth, how are you going to depict it when it has 10?
After roughly estimating volumes, I'd say your ~95kg/3rd stage belly is big enough for at least 2 peoples worth, while the ~170kg/4th stage is big enough for at least 6. By trying to keep to somewhat realistic sizes, you could allow players to swallow over ~400kg worth without needing a bigger belly and allow players to eat even more than that without needing to depict impractically large bellies that fill half the screen!

That said, this suggestion is also born out of my personal preference for sensibly sized bellies! It bothers me when a character swallows 3 people and gets a belly that could fit 30!

I can for sure mess around with the numbers required for each belly size, I've erred towards lower requirements so people can see them without having to play for too long.
While I would like more belly sizes to add in between each of the current stages, each one is a complete new set of sprites so it's quite the undertaking for me, so it might be a while before I do another set.

There's probably always going to be a bit of a gulf between the realistic capacity of the belly's size as compared to the explorer's in-game capacity stat, which is unfortunate, but I don't think it's worth stressing about.

I'll for sure be taking your estimations into account when I change the values!

[Ranacha]

First update of 2025
I can for sure mess around with the numbers required for each belly size, I've erred towards lower requirements so people can see them without having to play for too long.
While I would like more belly sizes to add in between each of the current stages, each one is a complete new set of sprites so it's quite the undertaking for me, so it might be a while before I do another set.

There's probably always going to be a bit of a gulf between the realistic capacity of the belly's size as compared to the explorer's in-game capacity stat, which is unfortunate, but I don't think it's worth stressing about.

I'll for sure be taking your estimations into account when I change the values!

Yeah understandable.

Wild suggestion: You might be able to interpolate your "keyframes" to generate in-between stages. I was able to Flowframes to interpolate between your 2nd and 3rd stage bellies for example:
https://imgur.com/a/OyxT00S
Obviously it's not perfect and would need cleaning up, but it's perhaps worth exploring.

[EndeavourGame]

Yeah understandable.

Wild suggestion: You might be able to interpolate your "keyframes" to generate in-between stages. I was able to Flowframes to interpolate between your 2nd and 3rd stage bellies for example:
https://imgur.com/a/OyxT00S
Obviously it's not perfect and would need cleaning up, but it's perhaps worth exploring.

That's some pretty cool tech, I'll have to take a look at that at some point. Thanks for the suggestion!

[Ranacha]

Yeah understandable.

Wild suggestion: You might be able to interpolate your "keyframes" to generate in-between stages. I was able to Flowframes to interpolate between your 2nd and 3rd stage bellies for example:
https://imgur.com/a/OyxT00S
Obviously it's not perfect and would need cleaning up, but it's perhaps worth exploring.

That's some pretty cool tech, I'll have to take a look at that at some point. Thanks for the suggestion!

Yeah I was surprised that something like this actually existed and actually worked decently in the manner I was imagining. It's fun to play around with. Also, I found unchecking "Fix Scene Changes" in the Quick Settings encouraged it to interpolate all-new frames instead of a blend of two. Hopefully you can use it and it proves helpful, or at least fun!

Oh yeah, please enjoy the result of me playing around with it and your artwork: Rapid Digestion.gif

[Flame_Valxsarion]

Oh yeah, please enjoy the result of me playing around with it and your artwork: Rapid Digestion.gif

Omg what incredible tech! I need to write this down...

[SquishySofty]

Oh yeah, please enjoy the result of me playing around with it and your artwork: Rapid Digestion.gif

This is FlowFrames, right!? How come I didn't even heard of that before!?
This is actually helpful to interpolate frames, but I wish I have a powerful enough computer to run it.

[Gymmerical]

One of the best games I have played on this platform. Many of these games are very very reliant on the fetish itself to carry the weight. With this game, I actually enjoyed the gameplay the most. Simple yet very effective. I can’t wait for more.

[EndeavourGame]

Progress Report
It's been a while since the last update, so I thought I'd just make a post outlining what I've been working on in the meantime for those who aren't on the Discord.

Preferential Treatment

There's now a preferences menu that appears after selecting 'New Game' so you can make adjustments from the very beginning.
After the preference menu you'll be greeted by an all new, much more informative tutorial, which better informs a new player about how to play.

On Best Behaviour
Enemy behaviours have been reworked to be more consistent.
Enemies properly telegraph their attacks, can be knocked out of attacks more consistently and don't freak out on ledges (as much(I hope)).

New Scenery

The ship has had a makeover, all the previous functionality is still present it's just a bit nicer to look at.

Playground

Currently, I am in the process of creating more levels. So far, I've created 9 new levels and reused 1 old one for a total of 10 missions completed out of a planned minimum of 15 for the next update.


Thank you for your patience and for playing!

One of the best games I have played on this platform. Many of these games are very very reliant on the fetish itself to carry the weight. With this game, I actually enjoyed the gameplay the most. Simple yet very effective. I can’t wait for more.

Thank you for the words of encouragement! I'm glad you enjoy the gameplay aspect of the game as well, and I hope the new enemy behaviour I've done makes it better.

Yeah I was surprised that something like this actually existed and actually worked decently in the manner I was imagining. It's fun to play around with. Also, I found unchecking "Fix Scene Changes" in the Quick Settings encouraged it to interpolate all-new frames instead of a blend of two. Hopefully you can use it and it proves helpful, or at least fun!

Oh yeah, please enjoy the result of me playing around with it and your artwork: Rapid Digestion.gif

That looks really great! Next time I feel up to messing around with player sprites again I'll be sure to see if FlowFrames can help me out.