Even if that is the case, the amount of downtime is still rather jarring. Maybe something being done in that time would mitigate how it feels in the context of the game.
The thing with clicker-esque games is that the pace of the game increases as the game progresses; gameplay keeps apace by continually adding more variables and mechanics. Otherwise, theyâre just button-pressing simulators.
ATM, this is interesting and I like some aspects, but it isnât a game yet. There simply isnât enough control over player actions.
Of course, thatâs hardly been disguised; it was made clear that this is a very early build.
I actually had the character visit dungeons a lot, and getting energy past 80% was still very, very difficult, and on many days it just doesnât happen, no matter how many dungeons were explored. Were you able to get better results?
The game is way too slow. The action should not have a progress bar, but just be a button click. I left the game given the excruciating slow pace.
Also found a bug, got to zero health and still killed NPCs in the dungeon.
I actually had the character visit dungeons a lot, and getting energy past 80% was still very, very difficult, and on many days it just doesnât happen, no matter how many dungeons were explored. Were you able to get better results?[/quote]
Yes, every time the character got back theyâd hit 80% energy while they were resting. Do you have the eating policy set? Youâll want to max it out to âbloatedâ, if you left it on normal that might be the problem. Itâs also worth mentioning that even doing this is very, very slow - Iâve gotten a little more than +2 in a hours Iâve had the game running.
[quote=âmadone, post:24, topic:849â]The game is way too slow. The action should not have a progress bar, but just be a button click. I left the game given the excruciating slow pace.
Also found a bug, got to zero health and still killed NPCs in the dungeon.[/quote]
Remember, this is a very early build. If I had to guess, since combat is barely in the game death hasnât been finished yet.
The pace is a bit of an issue, but that might get solved through more controllable home stuff or other events. I imagine eventually during the âdowntimeâ youâll be able to do things like set a training schedule, go places in town maybe, and personally Iâd like to see some random events that can happen, either at home or while traveling. But that means until all that content gets packed in, itâll feel pretty empty as the dev needs to leave room for it.
I have to agree with the others here. Maybe if thereâs something the character could be doing while not exploring, maybe this would get some more flavoring to it. But, there IS one neat suprise from it all: this has been the ONLY WG game from here-actually, at all, that plays on a 3DS system. So I say, mobile support is positive!
Edit from admin: Please refrain from using the red font for all of your text, it makes it difficult for other users to read your messages.
I actually had the character visit dungeons a lot, and getting energy past 80% was still very, very difficult, and on many days it just doesnât happen, no matter how many dungeons were explored. Were you able to get better results?[/quote]
Yes, every time the character got back theyâd hit 80% energy while they were resting. Do you have the eating policy set? Youâll want to max it out to âbloatedâ, if you left it on normal that might be the problem. Itâs also worth mentioning that even doing this is very, very slow - Iâve gotten a little more than +2 in a hours Iâve had the game running.[/quote]
I did set the eating policy to bloated. I think there are probably timing issues that are preventing me from seeing >80% energy levels that you are coincidentally avoiding. That might be another good reason to reexamine how this mechanic works, maybe tweak it somewhat.
Refreshing the character status every two seconds and the journal every six seconds consumes data quickly.
A rapid reload time also prevents any real interactive gameplay but there are easy workarounds.
A reduction in granularity has already been proposed. Iâd suggest having time progression set to 15 IG minutes every five seconds (ie; an IG hour every 20 seconds), with a chance to pause gameplay or slow it down if more details are added as to things you can do.
I assume calculations are client-based, rather than server-based, but if not that could prove problematic in the long-term.
They are not.
Every two seconds, the client requests the character status from the server.
Every six seconds, the client requests the journal from the server.
The client displays these values. Non-idempotent GETâs can change certain values.
Thanks for the feedback guys
I will take into account what you said; however the core idea must persist. This is supposed to be a pet style game where the character acts on its own most of the time; and the player checks on his pet from time to time. If u like direct control, there are other devs who are present on this website who develop games where users have direct control of their characters. I will continue with the original idea of a pet-genre game; and I will either make it good or fail)))))
For now I decided that the next major feature is going to be the inventory. I will make the character collect loot in dungeons. Like foods or swords. The user will have control over the inventory: equip, unequip, sell, discard, move to storage. So thats going to be another feature where the user has control over his/her character
P.S: The reason why Energy does not go up past 80% is probably because when it reaches 80% the character starts to convert energy to weight, so the energy deteriorates faster. So if energy is stuck at 80% then the character is prolly gaining weight at this time. If (digestion speed) was greater than (sustain cost + weight gain speed) combined then it would go up past 80%. All calculations in game are probably going to be rebalanced several times before they r good
I love the concept of this game, it still needs some improvement, but i thing this can get pretty amazing
Just to be clear, itâs not so much that the character doesnât stay at 80% very long or go past 80% very much, itâs that, for the most part, the character just doesnât reach 80%. Or at least, that was my experience.
Anyway, the inventory feature sounds interesting! I look forward to seeing what that looks like and how the character interacts with inventory items, and whether that alleviates some of the downtime currently in the game.
[BLOG POST]
(no release this time because the stuff is unfinished so I dont see much point in releasing it)
I realized what should be done to improve eating policy feature. Originally I made one switch to control how much the character eats. But now I added a second switch to control how often the character eats. This feature is already implemented but I need to test it for some time. Think about it: it can eat a lot but only once per day, so it wont gain weight. But now it is possible to control hunger rate, so if u set it high, then the character will eat even when it already has high energy.
I implemented inventory subsystem; or at least its basics. It is now possible to find various swords in dungeon rooms. Dungeons with higher âdifficultyâ yield better swords. It is now possible to equip, unequip items. Character can equip two swords. Swords are the only type of item currently present in game. I plan to add shields and foods. The character searches each room in attempt to gather loot, if there is any. On the inventory page there are items and they are expandable. Yeahwell.
Swords currently have no effect when equipped. This is the task I am working on right now. I have to make something sensible out of the combat subsystem. Currently it works like this: the character hits the enemies until they die. The enemies hit the character until it dies (it cant die yet though). At the end of the battle record is added to the journal. The record indicates who hits whom when, deals how much damage. A long list. The battling should be rebalanced. Maybe I should increase damages so it goes quicker, ends in less turns. The swords should help with that. Or maybe I should make something different but I do not know what. I copied combat from the Logging Quest game. It is exactly the same as I described: each battle adds a record to the journal; and the record can be further expanded to show individual turns during the battle. Suggestions? Ideas?
Journal is now loaded instantly. I removed time restriction for exploration time; the character can now go out at any time. I added weight description (thin, average, thick, whale, etc.) and hunger status (hungry, satisfied, etc). Both are displayed on the Detail page. Weight description takes into account height, so a taller character might be considered to be âaverageâ while a shorter character of the same weight is recognized as âthickâ.
I reduced number of backup files. Originally I had one backup file per hour but I later realized that its too often. I can run out of storage quickly. I now keep one backup file per day. All characters of all users go into one large backup file. If the save game file ever becomes corrupted, I will (hopefully) be able to restore it from backup files.
My friend found a better hardware for the web app. I have to test it for some time. Then I will maybe start using it. The server we initially intended to use had one core at 1 GHz. Thats not much. The new thing has 8 cores at 1.4 GHz. Should be more than enough.
Next time when I deploy a public release; I will also edit the first post of the topic. I will put in there a link to the latest instance of the game instead of the nonsense I have in there right now.
My character is just âfooling aroundâ as the game puts it, nothing else is happening, I did set for a dungeon to explore, but they just sit there.
That is most likely the result of time restriction (it was from 8:00 to 14:00) or something (in-game time).
Although in my last message I mentioned that I removed the restriction; the existing instance (0003) was not updated and it will not be updated ever. I described what I am working on but theres no public update. The new release will become a new instance (0004 or something)
Anyway guys plz stop raping instance #0003, its prolly not ready)))0 (continue if u wish but I cant guarantee its safe))) Its a demo; or maybe a prototype; what do you call it
You think you will ever add food as an enemy? I mean it would help the lack of weight gain issue.
[ PROGRESS OVERVIEW ]
The development effort continues 
[] Implemented basic marketplace: the character can now go to the marketplace to sell items. User can mark which items to sell from inventory page.
[] Implemented death from body damage. The character respawns somewhere at distance 5000 m from home with 50% health. A certain sum of money is taken from character when it respawns. Info messages appear in journal.
[] Stomach stretching implemented.
[] Basic item discarding implemented. It is now possible to throw away items from inventory.
[*] Inventory: equipped items appear on top.
To be implemented before the next release:
[] Effect screen: unlike journal/history, it shows what happens to the character right now at this precise moment: tired, bleed, loses weight, gains weight +1 per second, spends energy, stomach is being stretched, etc (thanks to MOP for pointing out that there should be such UI page) (currently in progress)
[] Marketplace: buy food; use food from inventory. (right now there are infinite cereal bowls; they r going to be removed)
[*] Part time jobs: like waitress, delivery, bodyguard; I dunno. Thats going to be something character does to earn money in time when there are no scheduled explorations
So thats it: 3 more features (+various minor features) and then perhaps I can deploy the next release
About foods & enemies: I plan to add unique traits for enemies. Right now the enemies in dungeons only differ by damage they cause. The idea is to assign a unique trait for each enemy type. For example, enemies inside first dungeon feed u; enemies of the second dungeon eat u; enemies in the last dungeon consist of jelly etc. Thats another feature for later. All features I mentioned are not very difficult to implement, but it takes time
These sound like really interesting changes. Iâm looking forward to trying the next version!