Posted by jonasgo 4 years ago Report

Dropbox don't work

Posted by BizzareBlue 4 years ago Report

Okay. I think that's also fixed now. Sorry about that.

Posted by jonasgo 4 years ago Report

still not but your MediaFire works fine tho

Posted by Grapefruitvenison 4 years ago Report

This did fix a couple of bugs, but I think there are more, mostly related to digesting allies. Idk if you have a devtool to or something to quickly get to triggers, but I'd recommend testing out the different digestion scenes when the prey have different attitudes. Here are the bugs I've caught so far, but in case this matters, this was using 3.1 saves in version 3.2

sichi
Script ‘Game_interpreter’ line 1411: NameError occurred.
Undefined local variable or method `game_variables’
for #<Game_interpreter:0x144fb8d4>

Martin after temple
Script ‘Game_interpreter’ line 1411: NameError occurred.
Undefined local variable or method `game_variables’ for #<Game_interpreter:0x13eb1f3c>

Martin after temple and promise to treat him as a friend
Script ‘Game_interpreter’ line 1411: NameError occurred.
Undefined local variable or method `game_variables’ for #<Game_interpreter:0x13dc2c0c>

I'm playing through with fresh 3.2 saves, but it's a bit tedious spending the time to get everyone in the party first and testing different configurations. It would really help if there were unlimited saves or something. I'll post if I find any different bugs

Posted by Grapefruitvenison 4 years ago Report

Infinite berries in the Stoat village (bottom bush at the top)
Messel’s cage has no collision other than the door

Sichi at game start
Script ‘Game_interpreter’ line 1411: NameError occurred.
Undefined local variable or method `game_variables’ for #<Game_interpreter:0x11377218>

I've got a feeling all the digestion scenes might be bugged unless you have looked at them. Hopefully it's an easy fix and the bugs are all next to each other

Also, two things that have me curious. I remember from one of the last versions that when you collar Meeri, it implies there is some place to sell her. Is this implemented yet?

I haven't been able to find the caravan side quest, but does the Stoats village one involve a squirrel?

Posted by BizzareBlue 4 years ago Report

Okay. I think now all of those issues should be fixed except for the limited number of saves. I'll have to look and see if I can find anything about overriding the default limit.

And yeah, retrieving Messel's necklace and the squirrel in the stoat's village are the added content there. As for the sugar gliders, you should be able to find them in Dreamers Forest.

And I'll have to look at Meeri's collar dialogue again. When I was initially designing Traders Town, there was going to be an auction room where prey could be bought and sold, but I took it out. I'm still looking at adding it back in at some point, but I'm still not sure how it will work when I do, so for now there is no way to sell her there.

Thanks for catching those.

Posted by Grapefruitvenison 4 years ago Report

When you say it's fixed, do you mean if I redownload Pachas quest from your link it'll be fixed, or that it's ready for the next update?

Oh, I didn't even realise there was a side quest tied to Messel yet, I assumed she was put there so in the future Sichi can be given to her or something. I'll have to look around.

That would be interesting, sounds like a nightmare to implement though lol.

And thank you so much for fixing them!

Posted by BizzareBlue 4 years ago Report

If you redownload it now, it should let you eat party members without crashing.

And yep, Messel should have a quest to give, unless that part got messed up as well.

Posted by Grapefruitvenison 4 years ago Report

Awesome, it's looking much better! Is Messel the one in the burrow with green hair? When I speak to her, she just talks about the quest to get to the bunny village. I do keep finding planks everywhere, so I assume those are for something

Posted by BizzareBlue 4 years ago Report

Ack! Yeah, it looks like that isn't working properly either. One moment, this should be fairly quick to fix.

And the planks are relevant to one of the new quests. Currently there are more of them in the game than you need so it can be solved in several different ways, but I'm sure as I go on I can find some more things to add that will require some planks.

Posted by Grapefruitvenison 4 years ago Report

haha, I just found something that might be a bug or a feature. If you digest an ally that is wearing a prey collar, it can be regurgitated. You can then equip it for Pacha

Posted by BizzareBlue 4 years ago Report

Yep... that isn't a bug as I was eventually planning to include some content based on using that trick to get the predatory characters into prey collars. I haven't actually got round to adding that content yet though... and Pacha should probably at least note that she is doing something very foolish if she puts the collar on herself, but it's supposed to come soon. Still, once you put it on Pacha there isn't (currently) any way or removing it I'm afraid.

Also, Messel's quest should now be working in the current download.

Posted by Grapefruitvenison 4 years ago Report

I'm still struggling to find the caravan side quest. I've checked the forest for secret areas, but couldn't find any. Unless it's in the second forest, or I need to progress in the story. Sorry for all the questions lol.
Also, the only bugs I've seen are even when Sichi eats Pacha out of combat, she says 'I'll stop messing around during this fight' no big deal though
And Felgates dialogue sprite turns into the town nagas one when he talks about his apprentice being a nuisance

Posted by BizzareBlue 4 years ago Report

Ah, thanks for catching both of those. I'll try to get them fixed soon.

Also, the caravan quest only shows up if you chose to save the one in the cage. Sorry, I should have mentioned that earlier. Other than that, I can't think of any reason it wouldn't be there.

Posted by Grapefruitvenison 4 years ago Report

That was a nice little quest, kind of strange that they don't give you anything but I guess they have no more stock. Only noticed typos, no bugs.
Caravan squirrel says ‘lose his position is’ instead of if when talking about the wolf, and talking about selling alpacas, she says ‘answe’ instead of answer

Posted by BizzareBlue 4 years ago Report

They don't give anything yet, but I'm planning to add some extra content with them returning later. Thinking about it though, they probably should at least give some xp as a reward there though. I'll try to put that in and fix the typos soon.

Posted by Grapefruitvenison 4 years ago Report

Gotcha, also, there's no digestion scenes for them or the squirrel in the stoat village, or the lizard 'ball', but I'm assuming that's future content. Playing through again, it's amazing how much you've included in this game. Really nice work!
I like how you can eat their horse too lol

Posted by Grapefruitvenison 4 years ago Report

Also, the necklace quest starts, but idk if you just grind random mice until one drops it

Posted by BizzareBlue 4 years ago Report

Yeah, I'm working through the digestion scenes and still trying to catch up with the characters that need them while adding more, so those are going to take a while. Hopefully soon though. I'm really glad you are enjoying the content I've put in so far though.

And yeah, which is part of why it is at the start of the game as it's fairly likely that most players will find the necklace after eating a few mice without having to grind too much if starting a new quest. You can only find it by regurgitating it after eating a mouse though, they never actually drop it directly.

Posted by balanced-guy 4 years ago Report

On 3.1 I got an error in the Bunny Temple, when I defeated the ghost that ate Pacha's soul it crashed. I think it may have been the same error mentioned by other users on the 3.1 page.

Posted by BizzareBlue 4 years ago Report

Hmmmm, I can't get the game to crash when fighting a rabbit ghost, but if it is related to the other bug then that might be because it's fixed now. If it keeps happening in the new version let me know.

Posted by balanced-guy 4 years ago Report

Yeah I am looking into that, not gotten to that point yet. I will let you know if there's still a problem. Overall I really enjoy the game, it's definitely a quality game.

Posted by BizzareBlue 4 years ago Report

Thanks. I'm really glad you're enjoying it.

Posted by dddddd2 4 years ago Report

Bugs aside, I love the addition of the weight gain system and the random dialogues of party members commenting on each others' weight...it even has variation depends on who's fatter than who! So much fun <3

Posted by BizzareBlue 4 years ago Report

Glad you are enjoying that, and hopefully the bugs should be fixed by now.

Posted by Astronommy 4 years ago Report

My heartfelt apologies that I haven't explored the entirelty of the new content yet, but that will be my priority for the nearest spell of leisure time!

It is a crying shame that your presentation of this manifestation of your hard work and inspired invention was followed by a slew of blaring alarms about the bugs, rather than a round of applause! And still you had the strength and the thoughtfullness to rearrange your Patreon policies to be more fair to your supporters! My only hope is that as the word of this game gets around, the ranks of your audience will swell, and each new update will garner you both the sizable revenue, the criticism and the praise you deserve!

As to what I have been able to examine, the new weight gain system has truly given the game an extra dimension, and it's ever so elegant in how it incetivizes certain behaviors: the lower end of the (delightfully unique!) descriptions makes the player feel bad for keeping the party malnourished, and feeding them the more rarely encountered hostile predators is much more difficult than just filling them up with mice, and it gives more significance to the predators' argument about needing to feed; on the other hand, callously making the party gorge on everything encounterable for extra experience may well push the descripions past what fits th given character's image.

And of course, it is entirely optional, and otherwise cosmetic, and will not spoil anyone's experience while serving as an amazing treat to those who, like myself, will appreciate that sort of thing. Thank you for that inclusion!

And I have heard that there are inter-party banter lines recorded to complement this feature -- can't wait to discover them!

The addition of a "Vore" command option was a dazzlingly gorgeous as well, despite the coding issues, and I can't imagine the full size of the match table for all intersecting possibilites for having one party member devour another -- it even supplies a suitably sly slew of responses for characters being ordered to use the command on themselves! And now that the Vore command has been added, the sky's the limit of how many more types of interactions -- possibly, non-lethal -- that it can facilitate in the future! And even when exploring the available options for comradely cannibalism leads to irrevokable consequences and game crashes, the dialogue involved has done enough work for characterizing each character as to rival the amount of character development up until this update. It's glorious!

Speaking specifically, I have to once again admire the way you write Felgate, and his interactions with Sichi. At first, I didn't think much of Felgate as a character either in the story or in combat, but he has really grown on me with his unfaling politeness combined with chilling pragmatism. And while some of the teammate devouring options are quite mean and cruel, Felgate's are all either amazingly entertaining, or pleasantly respectful.

Have only found one of the new NPC's -- the mouse in Traders Town -- but even that one extra character with their herbivore-centered dialogue has both made that settlment feel less empty, more diverse, and better rooted in its setting. Bravo for that kind of efficient writing!

The teasing lines upon using Mesmerize (only noticed in Mouse Warriors so far, but I haven't had the time to try it out more) are excellent, and everything I'd hoped it would be if implemented! I hope fighting the code wasn't too grueling to get this little brilliant touch to the blossoming game!

Again, thank you for your hard work and your consideration! May your future updates be that much easier now that all those new systems have been put in place and crash-tested!

Posted by BizzareBlue 4 years ago Report

Thanks. I really should have caught more of those bugs, but when playtesting I generally try to go with fairly different playstyles each time through to try to catch any potential problems (mostly balance ones more than bugs) that I may have missed on the previous playthrough. Unfortunately, on this one, I made the decision to try playing the most compassionate version of Pacha possible so never realized how badly broken the devour ally system was, and missed it when implementing it as well as it only broke when going to sleep after eating one of them. So, yeah, that was a pretty massive oversight.

I’m glad you like the weight gain system, and how it affects playstyle is an interesting point. I guess another potential affect it could have would be to encourage/discourage people to/from relying on sleeping to heal. I was thinking about making it a little less cosmetic though and am planning to apply a few small bonuses and penalties to the characters depending on their weight as well as possibly a few other things that can be affected by it.

Yeah, the vore table for the characters is pretty big and is part of the reason this update took a while. There are still a few other things I want to add to it as well, one being that it should cause problems if the player eats one of their party members, who is not wearing a collar, in front of the traders town guards. Still, I’ll have to see how that goes later. I have to admit, Felgate is one of my favorite characters to write as well.

Glad you liked the mouse, I’m going to try to add a few more details like that to the next update. There is another similar addition just a little south of Traders Town, but they only just up pretty infrequently and under specific circumstances so they are very easy to miss.

Apart from the mice, Pacha can make mesmerism comments on Vir, Martin, Masky, and the male frogs, while Martin sometimes has his own dialogue when facing the naga.

Glad you are still enjoying it, and thanks for all the suggestions you made for this update. They have really helped get the game into the shape I wanted.

Posted by Astronommy 4 years ago Report

Apologies for taking so long to reply!

And a counter-apology to your expressed regrets about the ally-devouring bugs -- there is no reason you should be justifying yourself, other than perhaps professional pride, given the jarring disparity of resources you can be assumed to possess, and what a project of this scope would normally call for! Every step forward along the plotline, every added mechanic is a trial for the integrity of the entire thing, and as you mentioned, the very nature of this game, the phenomenal mutability of its playthrough experience, means that the playtesting requirements also go up. Getting the game to this stage of development has been feat already, and you all the support in the world is owed to you, be it the Patreon version or the free one!

Of all the new additions you've mentioned, I believe I've discovered most, and naturally, they were all stupendous! For each instance, mesmerism worked differently: it's dark intense manipulation for Martin, subtle insinuation for Masky, and sulry seduction for the mice. Martin's own foray into the field is also unique and interesting, and fits his type of self-doubting priest very neatly; if Sichi's is a plucky, pushy proselytizer, Martin's more of a traditional Christian saint figure of humble origins, strong character and oratory talent. Oh, and the way Pacha's compelling voice is presented reminded me how close thematically the vore genre's predators to the classic fictional vampires in tone and substance.

The sugarglider caravan quest continuation was very pleasant throughout; it took me a while (I thought about the wreckage of the original caravan first), but I did make the connection to the otter carpenter eventually, and sure enough, he was the key -- one of the keys, anyway! The dialogue justifying selling the materials to Pacha was pretty nice, as well. The Otter Village in general is a home to a lot of brilliant atmospheric bickering between the self-interested sides of the local democracy. And even though apparently the last of that quest yielded the player nothing except another chance to grab that one angelic sugarglider, it still made for a very warm closure. Loved the self-serving wolf mercenary! Hated the person, but loved the character concept.

Sichi's debut as a patron of the crops was both surprising, flashy, and very pleasing in every way! Same with her earlier-included attempts to break the petrifying curse. Although her vitriolic interactions with Felgate can't be beat, I also love seeing the more passive-aggressive god-measuring contests with Martin.

On the weight gain system, I've been able to explore it more fully, and marvel at all the additional situational character interactions based around it, and the tavern visits have definitely become a larger part of the gaming experience -- something no daytime change system could have achieved that well. There are also new things to consider during combat, as mentioned before, and I am over the moon about the whole thing. Looking forward to your inventions for tangling the game mechanics with the aesthetic of the new system!

I have been wondering about the mechanics behind it, incidentally: is one prey for each character processed stack-by-stack upon resting in bed, with a corresponding increase in weight for those who still have prey remaining, or a decrease for those who are empty? Or do you use some kind of a proportional equation? It's all perfectly predictable when all characters have their meals equally distributed, but when someone in the party has had significantly larger haul of prey, taking a nap may result in the rest of the team actually going down a level in their weight chart -- presumably because they had long been done with their meal by the time the more gluttonous teammate had finished theirs. It makes perfects sense, and the weight system is the least priority for overhaul while it's still largely cosmetic, and still a bright, shiny and beloved addition to the game, but given the ease with which forcing the team to lose weight can be done through repeated naps, I was wondering whether the characters with modest appetites could be made to retain their added weight better when teamed up with someone hungrier? Presently, it's possible to avoid the issue by leaving someone behind at the tavern, as they have their weight value insured against the effect of naps, so even on top of being a small concern fundamentally, it's a smaller concern still when viewed purely functionally.

While still on subject of the proposed changes far, far in the future, I've had some thoughts for the expansion of the Vore command that would serve the same purpose of showing off the characters' personalities and titillating the player, stay within the boundaries of the existing mechanic, and allow for repeated usage without irreversible consequences, as dramatically impactful as those are. The idea is insultingly simple: to add a couple more commands alongside Devour Ally that would facilitate conversations on the same theme, but that would be less demanding in terms of necessary writing by limiting those options to specific character categories, or it could be a catch-all Gossip/Muse/Discuss/Bond command that would allow any party member to share their feelings on their assigned ecological role with any other one, or just soliloquy introspectively.

For a more compartmentalized approach, predators could have a command to Appraise/Tease/Torment, making them voice their appetite for other teammates, or a command to Boast/Conspire to share their hunting notes and preferences with another predator. Possibly Sympathize/Console for the gentler predators, like all the prey class transgressors and possibly Ti.

For the herbivores, the commands could be to Bond/Share with fellow non-preds over their plight, Guilt/Chastise the predators for their dietary habits, or to Plead/Insure with the same to give some assurance they wouldn't eat them.

This is a clumsy to use, brutish concept that would take away from the more integrated and elegant way the characters play out those interactions as the story unfolds, and I cannot stress it enough that this is *not* a change I would love to see the way I describe it, this is just a raw speculation on how the new Vore command could be further developed.

To confess my ulterior personal interest in this, I love the vore-romance narrative in general, wherein a predator character harbors a strong hunger for another character that's mixed with affection and other feelings, but is prevented by law, duty or friendship to act upon it, so they are forced to do the Jane Austen-style repressed anguishing about it for a while, and some of the Devour Ally dialogue hinted (perhaps, purely to expedite the scene) at similar situations with some of the party members like Sichi and Martin, and I thought expanding on the ally-consuming system would help bring about more of the same. So, alternatively to implementing that unwieldy technical idea, I should just humbly express my liking for the storytelling along these lines.

To top off my contributions to the endless gaping void of audience greed, Mesmerize-type abilities could also be dragged under the Vore command, as well as abilities like Bite and possible future abilities allowing to devour enemies on the spot, but enough of sweeping mechanical changes have been introduced recently, I feel, it's just something to unearth and possibly entertain later on.

Apologies for creating a yet another towering barricade of rambling for you to pick apart in addition to working on the game and enjoying life outside of it!

Posted by Astronommy 4 years ago Report

Oh, and the new additions in Pacha's home village expanded the life and culture of that place so much, especially Pacha's neighbor who give updated on what the rest of the stoats are doing as the story progresses, and opines on said progress!

I've noticed the new character scurrying around the statue-bracketed entrance to the mouse village, but haven't been able to catch them so far. The first time around, there was the slow-motion mode scene that I managed to fumble, with the slow motion effect following me to other screens, and only wearing off once I reached the area outside of the Stoats' Village, and all consequent encounters had that mouse roaming the same area, but without the slow-motion, and reaching the entrance too quickly to be caught. I'll try saving before the first encounter next time I run through the game, and catching the elusive newcomer through the power of save game-rewinding!

Posted by BizzareBlue 4 years ago Report

There’s definitely an aspect of pride in having the game at least mostly bug free by the time I upload a version, especially as my current system means each update overrides the previous version and there is never a working copy for people to fall back on if I break something. Still, hopefully an update schedule that isn’t fixed to the months will let me test the content a little more thoroughly before uploading it in future.

I’m glad you liked the voices for each character when using the mesmerism attacks. Martin isn’t really a priest though. He has family who are, but he himself is just a farmer… which I guess plays into the humble aspects of his character. I also think that one aspect in which Sichi deviates from the typical evangelist archtype is that she generally approves of (most) of the other gods. To her, Araya is obviously the best, but all the others definitely exist and, with a few exceptions, generally have a positive influence on the world. Still, other gods might be fine with her, but Pacha’s aggressively dis-reverent attitude to anything anyone else considers sacred and Felgate’s hostility to Araya definitely do bring out her more dogmatic side.

The concept of Pacha as having vampire like abilities is interesting, and I guess to many of those she encounters that predatory creature with a compelling voice would definitely evoke those kind of images. It plays interestingly when compared to a real-life stoat’s ability to mesmerize their prey.

Glad you liked the sugar gliders. Your proposed solution actually does sound a good deal more likely than the ones I put in. I might have to add an explanation for why that wouldn’t work or figure something else out relating to that. I probably should add some better rewards for it as well, even if it’s only an xp boost. I was planning to add some more stuff later that is only available if they are rescued a second time, but that probably won’t come up for a good while yet, and in the mean time there really should be a better reward for all that.

Yeah, prior to that, I was worried that Araya was more coming across as a god of light and healing so I really wanted to show Sichi using her for her god’s speciality for a change.

Hmmmm, the mechanic is supposed to be that anytime a pred (or pred capable herbivore) that is in the party goes to bed with no food they lose 5 weight points. On the other hand, if they have eaten at least one person then they gain (number of people – 1) points, so breaking even if sleeping off just 1 meal and with the potential to grow heavier if they ate multiple people in a single day. After that, their weight is reduced to 3/4 of its value, making it harder for heavy characters to gain weight or starving characters to lose it, and for them to drift slowly back towards neutral if stuck on a diet of approximately 1 person per day. Prey characters never gain or lose weight as they are assumed to be eating a fairly balanced vegetarian diet until Pacha shows them what they have been missing, and characters that are not in the party when Pacha goes to sleep are assumed to have found enough time to hunt and maintain their current weight.

Still, if the characters are losing weight (or gaining it) based on what the others are eating, then something is not working as intended and I’ll have to look into what could be causing that. Making it easier to maintain a character’s weight by choosing who else is in the party is an interesting idea, but I’m not sure about how that should work yet. One other idea for something similar would be to have the prey-turned-pred characters lose weight slower if they haven’t eaten many people (although I still haven’t added global trackers for number of people each character has eaten). This would mean that in cases where the prey eats one person but then no one else (eg Martin decides that he can justify eating the dryad but no one else counts as food) it could be assumed that they are still mostly on a herbivore diet and only if they change to start hunting more frequently do they find themselves losing weight should they suddenly stop.

The additional option for the vore conversations do sound appealing, but as you pointed out might also be a little clunky. One of the things that made me uncertain about including the devour ally mechanic in the first place was that it results in generic dialogue that needs to be written in a way that lets it come up at almost any point in the game. If something triggers a scene that gives the player the option to feed one party member to another then the resulting discussion can be tailored specifically around the circumstances that triggered it. Instead, Martin devouring Sichi plays out in exactly the same way, regardless of whether the player is fighting a mouse, a snake, the octopus, a bee, or any other enemy, which I found kind of unsatisfying.

I will consider adding something like that, but instead it feels more natural to include a few random dialogue paths that result in the characters having the option to discuss these kind of topics as part of their general conversation with each other.

Mesmerize and Bite are vorish abilities, so I can see the logic of including them in that category, but part of the reason for giving that one its own folder in the menu was to minimize the chance of anyone accidentally clicking on it. I wanted to avoid anyone having to scroll past the devour ally ability while trying to get to a more frequently used power. Insta-swallow attacks for the player are also something I was initially planning to include but then rejected. It was hard to balance them partly because it would have been very tricky to introduce an escape mechanic for enemies so that ability would have been instant defeat for the swallowed enemy when it worked. I couldn’t find a good way of adding something like that as a general ability, but if I see a good place to include it (such as when fighting a horde of small weak enemies, it might be possible to add an insta-swallow power as a one off ability to a few specific battles.

Glad you liked the added content in the stoat village, and that you found the new character below Traders Town. That sounds like another bug though I’m afraid. They are supposed to trigger a slow-mo scene every time they spot and run from you, and it is probably not really possible to catch them once spotted if they don’t. I’ll have to look into it to see why that is not working correctly. On the bright side, their ability to spot Pacha works similarly to the bees (just with a very different reaction when they do notice her) so if you stay behind them you should be able to reach them without triggering the slow-mo scene at all. Saving and loading might not work as well, however, as the game decides whether they have appeared or not randomly each time you enter the map and, unfortunately, reloading the game counts as reentering the map and usually makes them vanish. I still need to work out a way of fixing this.

Posted by Astronommy 4 years ago Report

May the new schedule give you the peace of mind you need!

It's understood that Martin isn't formally a clergybunny, I was referring more to his character archetype -- a person of common origin surrounded by hostility, who is most likely to make an emphatic appeal to common decency, who is motivated by compassion for his people, who can make peace with his mortal enemies, who can convince and who humbly dismisses a grand title imposed on him. He has all the makings of an old school Abrahamic saint (not that there haven't been scores of heroic religious workers belonging to other religions), especially since he's never too safe from the prospect of attaining martyrdom.

And I view Sichi as acknowledging the polytheistic nature of the game's world, therefore not seeking to promote her goddess over any other, but who is prepared to assert the values associated with her patron deity, even when it means antagonizing large predators, so there's definitely some fire in her personality and her reverence for the divine, but no desire for spiritual conquest of others.

Thank you for explaining the weight gain system in detail! I believe that 0.75 modifier might be the cause of what I observed with the strange value disparities after resting. It's a very thoughtfully designed system, and I could have suggested the same diminishing returns mechanism for going too far in either direction on the weight scale, although I will admit I'd be content with a flat stacking of weight points, too. Some individual metabolism-describing modifiers could be added for different characters, or different versions of the same characters, it could be interesting.

I'd noticed the unawakened prey characters having a set weight value, and it made perfect sense to me upon first testing the system out. You could unchain their weight, then pour in massive amount of effort working in some basic menu-based meal distributing system at the inns, or changing food-based consumables so they would affect the weight points, but the self-sufficient herbivore solution is far more elegant!

Appreciate you supplying your view on the proposed inter-party conversation mechanism, and I'm happy to see you share my doubts about adding something like that into a game that has so far thrived on natural, spontaneous exchanges among its flavorful cast and the supporting characters.

I'll try slow-mo-running that mouse down next time! Thank you for explaining how that little encounter is supposed to work!

Posted by BizzareBlue 4 years ago Report

Thanks I’m really enjoying feeling less pressured already and think I’m actually making better progress with it now that I’m not trying to work to a deadline.

Ah, I see your point. That’s an interesting take on his character and was not one that I had really considered until now. I actually had a different archetype in mind when working out Martin, although I can’t really go into it yet as it contains spoilers for the next part of the game. I quite like that take on him though and will have to look into the ways he could fit into it. I guess the one major aspect he is missing that most religious figures have would be any followers. He has no people to lead and, with the possible exception of Nahata, most of the party tends to push him around.

Yes. That sums up the way I was trying to write Sichi really well, although I’m not sure if she has no desire for spiritual conquest, so much as having it tempered by her self-doubt and constant double guessing. She does at points start conversations with the intent of showing-others-the-error-of-their-ways, but the moment their responses start deviating from what she was expecting she tends to flounder a little and start questioning her own assumptions, which I think is at least part of why she tends to do so badly in ethics debates against Pacha and Felgate.

Different metabolisms might be worth adding at some point. There kind of is the start of that already there in that Martin’s rest weight at one meal a day describes him as pudgy while Pacha’s describes her as lean, suggesting that the two just naturally head towards different points. Still, there are definitely some advantages a more complex system could bring.

Yeah, managing the weight of non-carnivorous characters could be interesting but is probably too fiddly for now. Plus I suspect that a lot of players don’t make much use of the berries so it would be easy to end up with a party of prey complaining that they were starving without a clear explanation as to why.

I’m still going to look out for other things to include in the vore section of the skills menu, but other that some special abilities that only become available in select fights, I don’t have many ideas right now. Also, I’m glad you like the spontaneous dialogue system. I was slightly apprehensive about adding that as I was worried it might get annoying to have the characters randomly stop and interrupt whatever the player is doing to discuss random events in the game. Still, I decided the extra world building was worth it, and there were aspects of character’s back stories that I wanted to include but couldn’t find a trigger for any other way.

And yeah… hopefully in the next update he’ll actually stay in slow-mo the way he is supposed to.

Posted by Astronommy 4 years ago Report

I didn't mean to pigeonhole Martin as one thing or another, to be clear -- this early into the story there's still a lot of room for future revelations, and Martin's behavior has hinted at many different paths might go, too, and there is the question of the player's choice. And yes, he is still a shepherd without a flock in my priestly interpretation of him, just one frustratingly insistent disciple.

And Sichi's self-doubt is one of her most emphasized traits, surfacing particularly strongly during her fortune telling scene, and it wonderfully complements her devotion to a higher cause, and her present incredibly dangerous situation.

I love how unexpectedly those little conversations occur, and not knowing if you've exhausted all the potential for those coming up adds to the incentive to try out different party compositions. A less intriguing way to accomplish the same would be to concentrate all those dialogue vignettes in the taverns, since those screens necessarily house all the recruited characters, and binding the trigger for those interactions to a player prompt, possibly by approaching an idle character, but obviously that would have stripped away all the benefits of your system that I mentioned. It's good game design when the game keeps the player guessing, and anticipating things, the way I see it.

On the subject of the weight gain system, I've only just realized that fractional modifier is applied to the value that zeroes on, well, 0, so it's the absolute value of weight/malnourishment that's being curbed! I see how that works now, very prudent! So my experience with characters going down a weight level was due to some of the characters having only had a few meals, meaning the modifier burned off more than they'd put on, while those There's a more clunky and primitive way of doing that by simply spacing out the threshold values farther apart, so something like 5/20/50+ points in either direction for the respective distinct states (going by the -5/+(Nprey-1) increment method). It's less elegant than your solution, obviously, but it does make the whole thing more predictable, and puts less of a fine point on the limitless capacity of everyone's stomachs, because as it stands in order to move a character all the way up the weight ladder (if one can imagine a player doing something like that deliberately!), it requires either a massive dedicated feast of I don't know how many mice and nagas, or several hunting runs each bringing in dozens of prey. Which, admittedly, is quite fun and stimulating to visualize!

Posted by BizzareBlue 4 years ago Report

Yeah. I’m looking forward to getting to uncover a little more of Martin’s story, especially in this next update. Sichi also has a good bit more to explore but, unfortunately, it’s going to take a good while longer than Martin before I get to the parts where her main plot starts to take off.

Yeah, I quite like the mystery of having unclear dialogue triggers and letting the conversations just pop up at random. Admittedly, there are ways to cheat with that and force any possible dialogue options that can trigger to do so. I considered trying to remove that, but on the other hand if someone was that determined to see all the dialogue they could get it even easier by rummaging through the game files. I really need to add some more dialogue triggers though. One thing that I’m realizing with this is that when writing a story every word counts and if something doesn’t advance the plot or develop the characters it needs to be cut, but with a game like this, including various random conversations about not much makes the world feel much more immersive.

Yeah… I might tweak the weight gain mechanic a little at some point to make the far bounds (especially for putting on large amounts of weight) more reachable. I think my thoughts were that getting someone to max or min weight should not be easy as those are the furthest extremes possible and therefore should only be reached by players doing something fairly extreme… but on reflection, I probably shouldn’t have included custom scenes for reaching those extremes if wasn’t supposed to happen in most playthroughs.

Posted by Astronommy 4 years ago Report

Well, those various random conversations do help a lot with developing the characters, so those would have had a place in a regular story, too!

I fully accept the rationale for making it a challenge to reach those weight extremes, it's good game design! This particular case may be ill-suited for that sort of challenge, I feel, as the weight gain genre commonly expects the eponymous process to be gradual and persistent, but there are exceptions to that rule, of course, so it may be one more case of me substituting personal preferences for prudent observations. Besides, the system in its present state does provide a handy way to get all characters to any desired weight and comfortably keep them there, and the acknowledging conversations certainly feel rewarding.

Linking our other conversation to this less developed thread, and apologies if it's too much of an obvious thing to state, but realism -- or at least, what is commonly accepted as realistic for the in the story's setting -- could be a good compass for balancing things out for enemy strength as well as for the predators' dietary requirements; it may not matter as much if the next set of obstacles is leveled to provide challenge, as long as it makes sense for the setting. This is my slightly eccentric inclinations showing again, but I'd much rather have virtually invincible dragon encounters early in the game that teaches the wisdom of timely retreat, and pushover town guards met later on that allow the player to power trip a bit, if that's what the plot calls for at those junctures, instead of a perfectly steady progression of difficulty.

For example, unless they are stated specifically to be a demigod/dragon in disguise, a humanoid should more or less equal another humanoid in basic durability and strength, before things like armaments, training and species-specific flavor is added, and in Pacha's Quest, you've done just that, with most person-sized enemies never exceeding a two hundred hit point mark (excluding the player characters). The thing with the bees was that their choice of gimmick was surprising: toughness and devouring capabilities instead of the more naturally expected poison/mobbing (justified by the engine's limitations); the wind powers and honey attacks were perfectly on point, and otherwise the Hive denizens were golden.

Posted by BizzareBlue 4 years ago Report

Yeah, character development conversations get a pass, but I meant more just general rambling from the various npcs, especially if the player chose to talk to them. Details about when the town was founded or which merchants recently passed through would be cut from a story unless they were crucial to the plot, but seem to be fine to leave in a game.

Hmmmm, yeah, making the weight gain more gradual would have been a good idea. I might look at tweaking it and see if I can add something to either cap the amount of weight that can be put on in one day, or have some sort of diminishing returns as the player eats more and more characters. Maybe keep the system where eating 1 person lets you maintain a weight (before the percentile affect moves it towards 0), going to sleep without eating anyone decreases their weight by a large amount, and digesting 2 or more people together will increase the characters weight, but have it so that each additional victim adds only half as much weight as the previous one. The effect of the percentile reduction would also have to be reduced a little to make gaining weight easier. Hmmm, I might play around with that mechanic a little and see what happens.

I sort of agree with the idea that having weak characters appear late in the game when thematically appropriate can be fun, and that having an optional side quest involving horrifically overpowered enemies that the player should never be able to beat at the time they first reach it, requiring them to return later, could be interesting… although it potentially encourages someone to sit and grind on mice until they are massively overpowered if they don’t like leaving areas unfinished. Not really keen on the idea of overpowered encounters though, especially given how temperamental rpgmaker’s escape rolls can be. Maybe if I tweaked it to have escape automatic against that enemy… but it still feels kind of pointless to put in something that cannot be fought at the point it shows up, and might be frustrating to anyone who doesn’t realize that they aren’t supposed to be able to defeat those things yet.

I also agree in theory with the idea of most humanoids being relatively close in physical ability, but it isn’t something that lends itself well to the genre. Using the game’s default level progression, a level 90 Pacha could probably stand her own unarmed against twenty armed level 1 versions of herself… which isn’t really something that training could justify in a more realistic setting. Pretty much every rpg I can think of also follows a similar theme, in which the average farmer in a late game town is far stronger than heavily trained guards in a starting area. I have kind of tried to smooth that over a little, with Pacha’s home village being a located in a fairly idyllic setting, right between two major prey settlements and with only a few snakes and allied settlements to compete with, so strength isn’t as needed in those areas, and as she goes further from home, most characters talk about the next location she will visit as a dangerous area that they tend to avoid. It doesn’t really become apparent until the next area, but the landscape is also supposed to be becoming slowly harsher as well to fit with the stronger inhabitants. Still, there are always going to be a few aspects that don’t really make sense in terms of the power levels. For example, the otters had captured a lizard. Given where the lizard village is scheduled to show up in the game, either he was by far the weakest inhabitant of the entire area or he should have been able to defeat all four of his captors with ease… or the otters toying with him would have vastly overpowered the octopus girl their whole village was carefully avoiding.

Still, I agree that, when possible, there should be at least implied balance between them. And yeah, hopefully the hive will be a little more swarmy, and less super tough made-of-steel enemies by the next update.

Posted by Astronommy 4 years ago Report

Agreed that all the optional fluff would have weighed down the story too much for comfort!

I mentioned the mismatched encounters as a general design philosophy of going by the story's expediency first, and gameplay balance second, but it's a difficult thing to implement, as illustrated by the stubborn grinding problem you brought up. And as you mentioned, it'd much easier if the player could pick their fights, and bail out on the harder ones at will, otherwise getting around the game world turns into an RNG nightmare.

Thank you for talking about the power mapping of various factions in the game, it's always a treat to be let in on the creative process from that bird's eye perspective of the whole project! My musings on mismatched encounters aside, I do appreciate that the starting areas are fairly serene and unthreatening! And in otters' defense, they didn't seem to know who the mysterious bridge vandal had been, and in a setting where putting one foot wrong may result in a terrible demise, they were prudently cautious about even investigating the incident.

About the weight gain system, thank you for taking my flighty critique so seriously, and may you strike the right balance soon! To be clear, the system as it is now is very cleverly designed to both nudge the player in a variety of ways, and to provide a good range of options for managing the actual values; there are no definite faults there, just the capricious audience (or a tiny sliver of it) bellyaching about nuance.

Posted by BizzareBlue 4 years ago Report

Yeah. So far I haven't touched the default mechanics that determine whether the player sucessfully escapes when in an encounter, but I could probably tweak it to make escape either much easier or automatic when not in a plot mandated battle (or in a situation where an ally is being digested). That might undermine the difficulty a little though so I'll have to think about it.

That's a good point with the otters. I suppose it is possible that the ball game players are all strong enough to rival characters from the late game areas and just didn't realize that they could have beaten the octopus with ease.

Hmmmm, the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced you are right. The current weight gain system isn't ideal and I could make one that works better. I'll look into that.

Posted by Astronommy 4 years ago Report

The Otter Village bridge problem is emblematic of so many fantasy quest situations: there's a deadlock of opposing interests involving risk, and a convenient disposable outsider shows up to do the require task for a lesser expense than what the arguing group could have agreed on. Judging by how lethal Vir can get while still being an apprentice water ninja, I'm sure individual otters could be quite powerful in the great scheme of things, but also vulnerable when not dealing with foes on their own terms. Oh, and they're good with poisons, so the reluctant lizard participant of the preyball game may have been temporarily sedated.

The escape mechanic is more about player convenience than reducing difficulty, I feel; taking on the enemy and seeing the fight through remains as difficult as ever (unless the combat damage and effects somehow stick between several attempts to assail the enemy), the devoured ally clause already forbids escaping, and it leaves it at the player's discretion whether to withdraw from a dicey fight to better prepare for it, leaving the actual defeat outcome to those who stick around and risk it. The one exception is the part of the game where the party is infiltrating the Hive, but escaping is penalized in that area already. Perhaps the way to balance this would be to have the enemies perform the attacks of opportunity (including the escape-breaking devouring moves) they perform now perform on failed escape rolls, before allowing the player characters a guaranteed escape as long as there are more allies mobile than incapacitated.

But this is not a real problem in Pacha's Quest.

Escaping in role-playing games has always been weird, though: the central paradox is the player would want to escape if they see the odds aren't in their favor, but in order to clearly communicate that the fight is doomed, the initial attack against the player characters should be almost, but not quite enough to wipe them all out, possibly killing a weaker party outright, otherwise the player would be encouraged to try the fight again and again. There is also the big question of logistics: losing more party members to enemy attacks gives the player more incentive to flee, but the party is also progressively less likely to escape without ditching their incapacitated comrades, resulting in some video games in situations like the party successfully escaping pursuit with only one petite halfling rogue still standing, and four bulky minotaur adventurers petrified.

And for the weight gain system, I've been really terrible at reassuring you there's no urgency or particular significance to altering it, because it was a gift to a grateful fragment of the game's following, and tweaking it shouldn't take precedence over developing the game proper, but it's up to you in the end.

Thank you for taking the time to respond, and for being willing to engage with critique, no matter how frivolous!

Posted by BizzareBlue 4 years ago Report

Yep. Pacha likely does make a fairly disposable asset to at least test how dangerous the thing down there is, especially if she goes without Vir. She possibly also serves as a way for both the otter advisors to reach a solution without having to back down to the other.

That’s true… and every time the player runs from a fight will-power will move towards its resting point a little, while devouring an enemy increases it slightly, so simply making a run for the boss of an area might actually leave the party in a worse state than engaging with the fights along the way.

True. There is definitely a massive break from reality in that aspect. Not to mention other questions about how the party copes when several members are unconscious or otherwise incapacitated. They still talk in most dialogue scenes and follow Pacha even when she is either also unconscious or otherwise unlikely to be carrying them. I guess the best interpretation is that unconscious actually means that that party member has been injured to the point that they are not likely to be able to add anything constructive to any fights anymore.

Yeah, you don’t have to worry. I am going to primarily focus on advancing the main game, so the changes to the weight gain system probably won’t show up for a while, but I do think they would improve stuff so will try to add them at some point. I’m also thinking of making low weight give penalties to attack and defense (for obvious reasons) but bonuses to magical attack and defense (on a sort of fasting improves mental skill kind of logic) and vis versa for the high weight.

And you’re welcome. Thanks for the feedback and suggestions as always. Hopefully the next update will not take too long, but probably will as there is a lot that needs to be added all together in this one.

Posted by Astronommy 4 years ago Report

Thanks for engaging so readily with your audience!

And for revealing a little more of the hidden mechanics regulating the ebb and flow of willpower in your lovely game!

It has been true for most D&D-derived games that characters who run out of hit points should be considered knocked out, rather than perished, so there's no reason why that principle shouldn't be applied here, I agree!

Following your hint, I've looked through the game's files, and it's a veritable ocean of content when viewed back to back! So much situational conversation I hadn't stumbled on! There are even clues about the upcoming new additions to Pacha's group! The wealth of content related to characters urging each other to break their fasting is as extensive as the teasing about overindulging in the same area! And the thought that has been given all the possible variations of party builds and circumstances!

I mean, it's a given that just half of the currently available party fighting a naga in isolation could have been a great little game by the standards of niche ventures found on this site, but the scope of your work that is revealed by sneaking behind the designer's curtain is truly staggering! And it's such a pity that, while it adds to the unique quality of each different playthrough, so much of this brilliant content may remain unnoticed until a robust enough fan community compiles their experiences into a dedicated encyclopedia and bunch of guides.

Pacha's Quest is something I'd expect from a small designer team working for weeks at crunch rate, really. and I wish like heck for this game to connect with as many grateful players as possible!



Happy holidays, however they are placed along this terribly year's final stretch in your part of the world!

Stay safe, and may your capacity for producing great fiction and inspiring others always be matched by opportunity, and may your drive to create never falter!

Posted by BizzareBlue 4 years ago Report

Yeah, except they aren’t quite knocked out even when the game claims they are, as they still have the capacity to wander around the map, just apparently not participate in any useful way in the fights.

Yeah, there’s a lot of hidden content in the code, either because there is no way to actually trigger it, or just because it would be nearly impossible to meet the conditions to do so. That’s actually one of the reasons this update is taking a while. A major event is supposed to happen in it, and quite a few conversations that the characters have should check if that has happened and change depending on it. However, I didn’t want to put any spoilers in the code ahead of time, so now I need to got back and find all the conversations affected by that and add the second version to them all… and I suspect I’m going to miss at least a few.

And yeah… there are plenty of little snippets that will be missed in any given play-through. Even with multiple ones, it would be very difficult to find all of them, but most of the variation doesn’t make too much difference to the plot. The smallest differences are just stuff like Pacha saying I or we, depending on whether she has anyone else in the party, but even most of the bigger ones are rarely that significant, and only a few things, such as taking Martin to the rabbit village or not have enough of a difference on the game to really change much.

I’m really flattered it gives the impression of being professionally made. The engine definitely does make it easy to put something that looks reasonably well made together, and there is an enormous amount of free scripts, art, and tutorials that other people had contributed which has also helped a lot. It doesn’t feel like it’s coming out at anything like crunch time speed from this side though. I’ve had well over a month to work on the next update, but I’m still a long way from even getting to the point where I can start playtesting and looking for bugs in it.

Thanks again for the encouragement, and yeah, I’m staying pretty careful and isolated from the virus right now, and am definitely hoping that the 2021 goes better.

Posted by Astronommy 4 years ago Report

Here's hoping for this year to be better, absolutely!

I wouldn't judge your updating rate that harshly; some of the previous updates came out quickly enough, and the slowing down of the game's development is consistent with the escalating difficulty of adding new features and advancing the story while keeping the additions consistent and compatible with what's already in the game, so each new effort recursively creates a little more work down the line.

All of that compounding on top of the game's dedication to giving the player a dizzying amount of choice, feeding into later development complexity.

And all of that, while working within the constraints of RPG Maker's capabilities, necessitating byzantine solutions to straightforward coding, and bugs seemingly our of nowhere!

Hopefully, once all the playable characters hit the stage, and all the foundational mechanisms are playtested out, adding new content would become a streamlined process that would bring more excitement than frustration, and hopefully the audience will have grown enough to compensate your efforts fairly!

That algorithm you have used for checking if certain party members are present for the conversation, and if they have a line to add, is a very elegant solution, and it is inspiring to see those conditional remarks be tailored to each character's individuality, and not neutral likes that are aired regardless of whether the speaker would have the inclination to say something like that at the time.

Someone on this site compared Pacha's Quest to BioWare games one time, presumably for the unique character interactions and attention to detail, and now that I have revisited the first Mass Effect game over the holidays, those spontaneous conversations or remarks, especially with consequence-bearing choices and finely particular conditions, are done so much better, in so much less stilted and forced manner, in your project than in the first Mass Effect. The more recent ME games got better with this, and I don't know much about the Dragon Age series, but it is a good testament to your creative prowess when your underfunded hobby game can give a massive mainstream darling a run for its money in precisely the area that it is best known for!

Posted by BizzareBlue 4 years ago Report

Yeah... the number of possible choices is slowing down the game a little, but mostly it's that I got a little over-ambitious with the battlers in this area. Most of the previous locations had two or three main enemies, and often using battlers that already existed and only need a few modifications. This one adds six or so new enemies which has taken a while to draw. I might have got a little carried away, but avians are very fun to draw.

I'm definitely hoping that the latter areas the player can visit will go quicker, but at the same time, I try to add something new to each place which means I probably won't get to the point where I can add stuff without tweaking the underlying code. On the other hand, I am getting faster at creating the battle images.

Yeah, when I first started building it, I tried to have each of the ten characters have something to say when certain things happened, but I quickly realized that wasn't a good idea. It slowed me down and ended up with me trying to come up with comments for them in places where they just wouldn't have much to say.

I've never actually played any bioware games, but wow, that is incredibly flattering and I'm really thrilled that you think so much of the dialogue in this.

Posted by Astronommy 4 years ago Report

I salute your artistic integrity and enthusiasm for your game! Really going above and beyond with every update!

The BioWare games are known for simply being the among the largest RPG projects to implement the formula of colorful characters with multilateral cultural and personal connections rounding out the cast, so the players get regularly treated to their teammates commenting on the latest plot development, each others' biographies and backgrounds. Pacha's Quest does the same, and does it really well, especially with the central cultural conflict being so ethically difficult and emotive.

Martin's most engaging interactions have been with Pacha, but he is also an important person to have in the Hive, and is often found fending off Nahata's insistent reverence, and discussing their patron deities with Sichi, who in turn has a chip on her shoulder about Felgate's necromancy, is terrified of nagas and is bitter about Ti's recent past and wary of Vir's possible ambitions; Meeri's appropriately mysterious and aloof given her origins, but I'm sure she'll be given a lot of opportunity to shine and develop in the next chapter. Even their personalities offer a good variety, with Pacha and Vir being merry socialites, Nahata being a brooding claustrophobic introvert, Felgate a cultured and charming outcast by choice, Meeri has to balance her royal duties with her scholary profession, and Martin and Sichi sharing a background of humble duty to their bustling communities, except Sichi is far more vocal about it on a regular basis, while Martin's convictions are only revealed if he is pushed far enough -- that's a higher order of complexity than can be normally found in fiction, interactive or otherwise.

In my latest playthrough, I've been hanging onto Vir more than I had before, and I have to say she's excellent, a fine combination of vicious and cultured, to complement Pacha's more down-to-earth mannerisms hiding a sharp and cunning mind, and she provides so much clever dialogue in her home village, and elsewhere in the world; her encounters with her master and with the stoats' village innkeeper are particularly delightful, and I've already mentioned her friendly derailment of the fortuneteller's routine.

Oh, and I've finally managed to both catch Sichi's apprentice (he just stood there, no slow motion, no running away script, so I guess the glitches had cancelled each other out after all), and to discover Messel's necklace! I also have for the first time gotten into the armory in the Hive; it'd been too far out of the way on earlier playthroughs, and I didn't know that the key could be obtained without having to devour the wandering guards. Incidentally, going through the Hive with a decently levelled party was a pleasure, and the bees' power felt more exciting than intimidating this time around. And the change of the background theme for the alarm mode is a really nice touch, and adds a great deal of urgency!

I've witnessed the combat route with the sugar glider caravan, and I have to thank you for the effort drawing the unique sprites for such an inconspicuous and optional encounter! For their differences of personality and interests, they make for a good team taking on Pacha's party.

Looking forward to the next update, but still happy to have so much untapped material to explore in the current version!

Posted by BizzareBlue 4 years ago Report

Thanks again. I’m really glad you’re enjoying that aspect, and I am hoping to add some more random dialogue soon. As you said, Meeri definitely needs more topics for her to talk about, and she does get a few of those in the coming update, but is still going to be a little behind the others for a while due to having missed the start of the adventure. Nahata is also someone I need to work on more. For a character who’s has to be at least encountered and is fairly easy to unlock, he so far gets a pretty small role in the story and he’s one of the characters I struggle most to add content for. Glad you are enjoying Vir’s role in the story, though.

Nice work on catching that mouse. Clearly he needs a lot more bug testing though. Hopefully I’ll get him working properly by the time the next update is ready. And well done on finding Messel’s necklace. I also just realized that there was a bug with regurgitated items that was making them far less frequent than they should have been. After the next update, it should be much easier to get random drops from devoured prey. I’m glad the hive felt like it worked better this time and that the alarm adds to it. It still doesn’t trigger properly every time it should, but I’m looking into what causes that as well.

Yeah, I have been getting better at working out how to draw the battle sprites much faster. The bee ones took a long time, but since then I’ve been getting faster and really wanted that battle to be interesting.

Really happy to hear that you are still enjoying it and finding new things to explore, and yeah I’m really looking forward to getting the next update ready as well.

Posted by Astronommy 4 years ago Report

Making Nahata relevant is doubly difficult because his personality normally assigns his to the back of the proceedings, brooding silently until the use of his outdoorsman skills is called for, or his life debt to Pacha or his allegiance to Martin come up. He does get his moment in the spotlight when he potentially saves the group in the forest that one time, though.

One very labor-intensive way of making those characters who do not get an easy feature in the main plot would be to give each a short sidequest centered on them, or give few of the already planned sidequests special alternative dialogue and gameplay options if a certain character is present (as is the case with Nahata and the sugar glider rescue, and Vir returning to her home village and meeting her mentor), but that's just extrapolating how it has already been handled. Perhaps more spontaneous dialogue exchanges could be used for the later-acquired party members upon visiting earlier locations, or talking to early game NPC's, but it all comes down to how much effort is it worth when the rest of the game is still in the works; perhaps polishing things like that is something best saved for after most of the main quest has been added to the game, especially since those later characters would have had the opportunity to be fully fleshed out and developed, potentially removing the need for that supplementary early stage content.

Thank you for your steady diligence and attentiveness to all aspects of the game's development, it is very much appreciated!

Posted by Grapefruitvenison 4 years ago Report

I like your idea about the dialogue from earlier locations. So much opportunity for teasing, like explaining to a pred how this is a good place to hunt mice in the area you chase Sichi, or prey freaking out if you bring them near Pacha's storage cage.

Posted by Astronommy 4 years ago Report

There is some good potential there, true, although the interaction dynamics within the party are such that the designated prey characters fairly quickly move out of the teased and tormented prisoners category, more of less becoming comrades-in-arms united by a greater goal after the huddle council scene following the Rabbit Village disaster.

In any case, it could be a fun little way of making the party feel more tightly integrated by recapping to the new teammates some of the past plot points while revisiting those earlier areas, but it's up to the game's creator whether that would be a worthwhile investment of time and effort.

Posted by Grapefruitvenison 4 years ago Report

I don't know about that, there is definitely the option to see them as equals, but unlocking Ti, trading Sichi to the Otter, or helping with the Stoat villages lack of prey all keep them in the 'food' category. Plus even if you promise to treat Martin better, you can break that promise.
Yea, of course, either way I'm super keen on seeing what comes next!

Posted by Astronommy 4 years ago Report

Oh no, the game is absolutely diversely enough designed to allow for a mean predator playthrough! More than that, Pacha could be played as a recklessly ravenous hunter, devouring everyone in her path who's not nailed down, making the world a lot emptier with no sign of remorse.

I meant that after the rabbit temple, the shared common threat of the mysterious masked mage and whatever is behind them makes the humorous (for the predator an the audience) teasing bits start feeling a little out of place, and none of the new party members taken onboard since then have the same terrorizing coercion circumstances of joining up as Martin and Sichi. There's still a lot of options for Pacha to rub her predatory dominance into her victims' faces after that, of course, even if the player chooses to minimize the unnecessary people-eating.

The short exchanges on using the Mesmerize ability on preyish enemies like the mice warriors is an excellent vehicle for delivering that teasing content after the main cast have moved out of the immediate danger zone. And of course, there is the Devour Ally ability that is a goldmine for that sort of thing.

Posted by Grapefruitvenison 4 years ago Report

Oh, I getcha. Yea, the relationship definitely changes a bit. Pacha goes from a monster to more of an antihero, and the prey go from a mindset of 'if I run away, I'll be down her throat before I make it 10 feet' to more of a 'I have to trust her because she's the best hope to stop this'.
Yea, 100%. I've loved seeing all the different combinations and factors. Like I just found out there's a whole new dialogue tree for if you run past Nahata and beat the frog queen before he gets grabbed. Amazing stuff.

Posted by Astronommy 4 years ago Report

Loved that bit happening after running ahead of Nahata, too! The depth and thoroughness on display in this game is just stunning!

Posted by BizzareBlue 4 years ago Report

Thanks both of you. I’m really flattered you have been enjoying the game and characters’ interactions so much. Interactions based on bringing a late game character back to an earlier location is an interesting idea. I’ll have to look into it some more. Right now, the random dialogue never takes into account where the players are when it gets triggered… and it can only happen in fairly neutral locations because of that. Having discussions that can only take place in certain locations would be interesting.

Also, hopefully the next version will be ready soon. I’m just adding a few last bits and then I’ll start playtesting to make sure I haven’t introduced too many bugs.

Posted by Grapefruitvenison 4 years ago Report

Awesome, looking forward to it! You could probably just use a trigger that only activates when that late game character is there. That way it wouldn't activate early game. Idk if you'd be able to tie it into the random dialogue system though, but idk lol

Posted by BizzareBlue 4 years ago Report

Yeah. I’m planning for the next update to be focused more on fleshing out the content already added so I’ll look for places to include some of those comments. The rabbit temple might be a good place.

Posted by Astronommy 4 years ago Report

Great news, thank you for the update! Can't wait for the next update, in the sense that it shouldn't come a moment sooner than you'd be comfortable with its state!

Posted by BizzareBlue 4 years ago Report

Well, I have good news on that topic....