Bug Runner

[CykaBlyat]

The preview in the spoiler doesn't move, but if you click on the gif, it will work. And it's looking pretty good. Is that gonna be part of the game over screen or a cut-in when the reborn fox grabs you?

Cut in, gonna have an orgasm motion too. ^w^

Hoping to have motions for all enemy grapples, since the HD sprites are just not turning out well.

[CykaBlyat]

So, I've reworking the pause screen, as it felt too barren, and i've been working to make the game far more challenging. I've made it so until you get the second gun upgrade, your shots have a short range. I've also made it so your gun has a battery, and when you drain it, you have to resort to a very close range attack until you can find a recharge station to refill your gun's power cell. Not just that, i've made some enemies faster, i fixed enemies getting stuck above or below you, and i've given the parasite guards a stun-needle shot that if it hits you, you'll be stunned for half a second or so. it doesn't sound like much of a threat, but i made the guards faster too, so that half second can make a massive difference if you're not careful.


I'm also working on a very basic corruption mechanic. For the shambler, parasite guard, and reborn fox, if they assault the player and are breeding them while the player's stamina is 0, the player starts to very gradually become corrupted. The more corrupted you are, the less max stamina you have, and the harder it is to resist being grappled, as the foxy protagonist begins to enjoy it more and more.

Birthing larvae now stuns the player akin to being hit by a stun needle, and can spawn 1-4 larvae, as well as corrupting the player slightly.

I'm probably going to finish the pause-screen redesign, and maybe try to finish giving the enemies an animation for when you're infested, so they don't just idly sit still, and release that. I may hold back the cut ins for the moment until i have more time to plan them out and create them. Turns out getting segments to look right, and all sync up properly is legitimately difficult, especially when the editor i made for the motion files is pretty bare bones.

Oh, and the pause screen will have a status portrait window on the side, with different images for corruption, infestation, pregnancy, and any combination or lack of the three.

Spoiler: show

Edit: Also, i have no real explanation as to why she gets the markings or fur color change when fully corrupted, i just thought it made her look a little more hot. >_>

[SquishySofty]

I've made it so until you get the second gun upgrade, your shots have a short range. I've also made it so your gun has a battery, and when you drain it, you have to resort to a very close range attack until you can find a recharge station to refill your gun's power cell.(...)

Now that is very interesting. Since before you patched it, you can spam the shoot button all willy nilly with no cooldown and unlimited ammo. Because in the pre-patched version, you can basically go through the game with a level 1 weapon spamming the button without any upgrades, and it's an easy win. That's one of the points that made the game easier in the first place. At least there's an added challenge to the game.

I was wondering if there's like a random chance of enemy drops a small refill power cell? And i really hope the Short range attack can have like a small recoil to the enemy. Otherwise it would be a long hit and run, especially against the parasite guard.

I'm also working on a very basic corruption mechanic.(...)
I have no real explanation as to why she gets the markings or fur color change when fully corrupted(...)

Now this I must see, as I'm a huge fan of corruption. ❤
And I think the Markings/Fur color changes is already in effect to the Reborn fox or the Parasite guard (But not the shambler). Though, you already mentioned that you're making different images for the player's Corruption anyways. But what if the status screen for the player exists in game as well? Silly idea, I know.

It doesn't sound like much of a threat, but i made the guards faster too(...)

The guards were slow pre-patched anyways, so i assume it would be like the Shambler's speed or an average enemy's speed.

[CykaBlyat]

They are faster than pre patch shamblers.

edit: already showed that, derp. my mind is scrambled today.

[VirtuosoViking]

Ah, so basically the blaster shots are gonna work like the missiles in Metroid. Except it's your only weapon aside from the bomb. I take it the 0 ammo close range attack will still do the same damage? You just have to be in melee range now.
And for those color changes and markings, I'm all for them. It's a nice physical appearance way to see the corruption, rather than checking your stat meters. And I didn't particularly had any opinions on the difficulty, but I'm a bit excited to see how the game will play out with all the changes-to-be. Sorry to hear that you're having some difficulties with the animations and sprites, but I hope that it works out in a way you'll be satisfied with.

[CykaBlyat]

Ah, so basically the blaster shots are gonna work like the missiles in Metroid. Except it's your only weapon aside from the bomb. I take it the 0 ammo close range attack will still do the same damage? You just have to be in melee range now.
And for those color changes and markings, I'm all for them. It's a nice physical appearance way to see the corruption, rather than checking your stat meters. And I didn't particularly had any opinions on the difficulty, but I'm a bit excited to see how the game will play out with all the changes-to-be. Sorry to hear that you're having some difficulties with the animations and sprites, but I hope that it works out in a way you'll be satisfied with.

Sorry i can't cut the quotes and make my post look nice, I'm at a bar after a long day of programming, spriting, then changing tires and oil.

Yeah, your main weapon has ammunition, but the recharge stations replenish it fully at no cost. The melee weapon currently has no knockback, you have to skillfully hit and run as it's meant to be a last resort, though if people play it after the overhaul is released and feel they need knockback, I'll add it.

I'm trying to come up with ways to make being corrupted affect actual gameplay more than just having more willing grapple animations, though it's tricky to figure it out.

As for the animation, I'll get it, it's just gonna take time and a lot of do-overs. It's why I'm not going to even try to include the motion engines in this overhaul.

[CykaBlyat]

Okay, so, progress update.

I've finished two of the low res grapple animations while the player infested, i've finished an animation for the shambler while the player is corrupted, and i've finished the animation for the shambler grappling a corrupted, infested player. Larvae and shamblers both will attack an infested player, and if you can't break free, they'll increase your infestation level by 1 point. Infestation also no longer works on a timer, so if you have a thing for the cute parasite tail, you can essentially keep it indefinitely and still finish the game, so long as enemies don't push your infestation level to 6, at which point, game over.

Pregnancy now has a simple birthing animation, so you actually see the larvae come out, the Larvae no longer just randomly appears out of nowhere, leaving you wondering "wtf".

Currently beds cure corruption, but that's just a placeholder until i can find a harder to obtain cure. The corruption transformation will likely just happen if the player reaches full corruption, and will stay until you go to the parasite removal machine in your ship. Outside of one or two alternate animations (so far), the corruption transformation/form has no real change on gameplay. Trying to figure that one out at the moment.

The corrupt form currently doesn't have animations for all enemies, so most enemy grapple animations, the player will appear uncorrupted.


The emergency timer no longer takes up the bottom of the screen and obscures any southern walls, it instead uses the top left corner of the screen.

The pause menu has been overhauled graphically.

Zappers can no longer be used on accident easily. You have to move your selection over to them akin to a canteen and press Z.

Currently some enemies are a little jank due to the new corruption system, and i'll have to work out all the jank.

[CykaBlyat]

A WIP of the overhaul has been released!

https://shellbyfox.itch.io/bug-runner/d ... ip-release

[Daea]

Very reasonable difficulty adjustments here, the shorter shot range makes combat more engaging, so you can't just snipe everything from across the room, coupled with the overall speed increase on all enemies making them pursue you much more effectively. The slowing effect from pregnancy was a nice touch, too, makes it even harder to outrun particularly aggressive enemies like the parasitized guards or the UB bugs. Save system works well enough, though maybe marking spots on the map which contain save points would be a useful feature (like a slowly blinking red dot on said spaces or something)? Overall, definitely an improvement on the first version!

[SquishySofty]

Played the Overhall WIP, re-beaten the game with 100% map completion and full stats (Except for Pregnancy, Corruption, and Infestation)

Spoiler: show

The added difficulty make sure that you have to upgrade your weapon to Level 2 in order to go to some places that are really hard. The short range on the Level 1 blaster makes a huge difference (While Level 2 and 3, you can snipe them from afar.)

As usual, the Facebug consistently gives me a Shambler ending is a little more frustrating than getting captured by the Retriever/Unbirth bug that's faster than the Shambler and Facebug speed. Especially if I want to become fully corrupted, I find it a little annoying, but that's just me.

I encountered a bit of an issue when the Reborn fox spawned pregnant (Which it's a random chance). And then when they grabbed you while you break free, it played the animation where the Reborn fox gets you infected/parasited, so there's no way to avoid it except transition to another area.

I think i found another glitch in regards to shooting at the walls (While your shot's hitbox haven't been removed, it stays there permanently until the enemy comes into contact. It's invisible, but still there.) and then luring the enemy to get multiple hits, but it's really hard to replicate it.

I'm not sure, but when you get the DNA and the scientist, it shows that every file, including the empty one, have DNA and Scientist (It's a visual bug).

Keep up the good work ❤

[CykaBlyat]

Very reasonable difficulty adjustments here, the shorter shot range makes combat more engaging, so you can't just snipe everything from across the room, coupled with the overall speed increase on all enemies making them pursue you much more effectively. The slowing effect from pregnancy was a nice touch, too, makes it even harder to outrun particularly aggressive enemies like the parasitized guards or the UB bugs. Save system works well enough, though maybe marking spots on the map which contain save points would be a useful feature (like a slowly blinking red dot on said spaces or something)? Overall, definitely an improvement on the first version!

I'll see what i can do for the save spots, yeah! good Idea!

Played the Overhall WIP, re-beaten the game with 100% map completion and full stats (Except for Pregnancy, Corruption, and Infestation)

Spoiler: show

The added difficulty make sure that you have to upgrade your weapon to Level 2 in order to go to some places that are really hard. The short range on the Level 1 blaster makes a huge difference (While Level 2 and 3, you can snipe them from afar.)

As usual, the Facebug consistently gives me a Shambler ending is a little more frustrating than getting captured by the Retriever/Unbirth bug that's faster than the Shambler and Facebug speed. Especially if I want to become fully corrupted, I find it a little annoying, but that's just me.

I encountered a bit of an issue when the Reborn fox spawned pregnant (Which it's a random chance). And then when they grabbed you while you break free, it played the animation where the Reborn fox gets you infected/parasited, so there's no way to avoid it except transition to another area.

I think i found another glitch in regards to shooting at the walls (While your shot's hitbox haven't been removed, it stays there permanently until the enemy comes into contact. It's invisible, but still there.) and then luring the enemy to get multiple hits, but it's really hard to replicate it.

I'm not sure, but when you get the DNA and the scientist, it shows that every file, including the empty one, have DNA and Scientist (It's a visual bug).

Keep up the good work ❤

Yeah, the enemies were never made with a corruption mechanic in mind, so I'm having to alter how some of their grapples fundamentally work. The facebug is on the drawing board. I couldn't get it all 100 percent figured out in time, i wanted to release something, at least a wip, today before leaving for work since I've been teasing new features and sprites for so long.

Interesting, i didn't get a chance to test the reborn fox much, I'll look into it. Thanks for the tip!


Also thats strange, the shots should be totally inactive while in that corner. The enemy-shot collision detection should have caught that. I'll look into it.

As for the scientist and dna visual bug, i might know the culprit.





Thank you very much for letting me know of all this! You're helping me make this a better game, and i can't thank you enough, all of you, for giving me this feedback!

[Daea]

Maybe another suggestion, apologies if you've already mentioned something like this, but perhaps adding an alternate ending for completing the game while corrupted? You might escape, but some of that infestation came with you (and possibly gets passed on to the scientist, if they were rescued, too)~ |3c

[CykaBlyat]

Maybe another suggestion, apologies if you've already mentioned something like this, but perhaps adding an alternate ending for completing the game while corrupted? You might escape, but some of that infestation came with you (and possibly gets passed on to the scientist, if they were rescued, too)~ |3c

I like the idea, i might try to work it into the ending somehow, but i do already have an idea for an overhauled ending that explains one or two events after the mission was completed, and that leads into the Sequel in the works.

[Nouvi]

Definitely a very VERY good example that a good game doesn't need great amounts of HD assets, overly convoluted stories, 5 dozen characters or other overreaching issues. Very much liked this one, and can honestly barely wait for the extra enemies and sequel.

So far I've gotten all but one thing in the experimental version, and that's the scientist. Does he only appear in the escape phase or somesuch? Or perhaps only after dna is picked up?

[SquishySofty]

So far I've gotten all but one thing in the experimental version, and that's the scientist. Does he only appear in the escape phase or somesuch? Or perhaps only after dna is picked up?

The Scientist is available to be rescued all the time, it doesn't matter if you collect the DNA first or Escape phase.

Spoiler: show

The Scientist location is located at the very top of the map, which is far north. Just make sure not to accidentally go in the Queen Bug location. You must clear all enemies in the room to rescue the scientist.

[Nouvi]

SquishySofty, Thanks. Now I feel super silly though... I thought that was... *cough* a damsel in distress rather than the scientist. Yeah, current game 100% done then.

[CykaBlyat]

SquishySofty, Thanks. Now I feel super silly though... I thought that was... *cough* a damsel in distress rather than the scientist. Yeah, current game 100% done then.

well, technically, it is a scientist in distress, though it's a bachelor in distress, not a damsel x3c

I tend to lean m/m or futa/m in what i make. :33

[CarnivorousVixen]

Pretty nice game! The sprites look nice and shooting the enemies is a smooth and satisfying process, and the game over art is really good~ I like this s a lot!

[CykaBlyat]

Pretty nice game! The sprites look nice and shooting the enemies is a smooth and satisfying process, and the game over art is really good~ I like this s a lot!

Thanks! I appreciate it greatly!

[CykaBlyat]

So, i've been scratching my brain today trying to think of other ways to improve the game, but i've been braindead all day, so i decided to try doing some spriting for the sequel. I'm not totally sure what the gameplay will be like, but i did make some concept player sprites.

Just as a heads up, it's not a guarantee this will in any way be finalized sprites, more just me fiddling around with concepts.

Spoiler: show

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