Biscuits and Brimstone

[Lewdlotl]

Biscuits and Brimstone is a Hades/TBoI inspired roguelike where you collect food in order to fatten up your goddesses and grow stronger! Between the time you spend in your bakery leveling up your stats, you delve deep into the dungeons of Hell to scavenge for food, gold and souls to upgrade your shop and satiate your goddesses!

An incredible thanks goes to @BigChonkyFrog (on Twitter) for most of the goddess sprites (e.g above), and @Nacatcrazy for the player sprites.

Current Dev Build: v0.99
NOTE: Due to game jam rules, the one on Google Drive is an older version. Please download the version from Itch for bugfixes!
Drive link: biscuits_and_brimstone_semifin.zip - Google Drive
Itch link: Biscuits and Brimstone by Lewdlotl
Notes: ‘Finished’ version. Still very rough around the edges, but should(?) work. May/may not come back to this, the project is a mess overall

Controls:
Tap or hold left click to swing/autoswing
Use WASD or arrows to move
Press right-click or space to dash. You have 3 dashes that recharge. While dashing you can move over pits and are invincible to enemy attacks.

TO PROPERLY LAUNCH THE GAME INSTEAD OF REDOWNLOADING IT:
From @.Charem:

Gdevelop automatically installs/put games at “AppData\Local\Programs”. You can go find the actual folder for Biscuits and Brimstone there and move the folder to a more reasonable location as you wish. (The game will work just fine, and the .exe in that folder doesn’t have to ‘install’ each time, hooray!)

======== Personal notes if you’re into that

I’m so glad to finally be done with this. I only spent maybe 7 or 8 days on it, but this is the hardest I’ve worked on a project so far. Gdevelop is clunky and enigmatic at times, so I can only hope that I’ve done a good job working with its quirks (and, of course, I hope that I did a good job in general).

Please let me know what you think! Within moderation, of course. UI is bound to be rough, features are bound to be a little scarce, bugs are bound to happen. This is a game jam game. Otherwise, please enjoy!

[Sixes]

There honestly isn’t a ton to comment on in it’s current state. Giving feedback on it at this state could be a lot of stating the obvious, like how enemies seemingly stop shy of the player and only do damage if you basically walk into them. It’s just hard to know what you’re aware of and working on in an early state like this.

That being said, I really dig the overall concept of this. The spritework in it currently is pretty cute, not sure if any of it is final or not. The feel of hitting enemies is solid, I like the particle spray on kill. Hitting enemies into pits is a cute feature, although more often than not they seem to teleport back out of the pit having not entered it enough to fall.

The game feel stuff is solid so far, would definitely add some way of knowing your dash cooldown, such as a UI element. (EDIT: Originally I mentioned sound as an option as well, I am only now realizing there already is sound for dash recharges. I just missed it, since I didn’t dash a ton.)

Looking forward to seeing more from this one, Gdevelop is a fun engine to mess around in.

[obeast]

i also found you can easily clip through walls by spamming dash

[Lewdlotl]

Fixed! Had to add a few contingencies for when the player goes out of bounds/limiting speed in walls.

[Lewdlotl]

Yeah! I know there isn’t much right now, I just wanted to get a page up and running so I could start getting any and all feedback

I really appreciate the comment on the AI! I added special behaviour that requires them to charge an attack before they actually spawn it, which is why they stop moving for a moment, but then keep moving when you move away. If there’s any way you think I could improve that behaviour, or if you think I should remove it entirely, please let me know! Perhaps I should make the charge period shorter?

I’m glad you like the concept! I’m having a lot of fun with it unfortunately most of the spritework isn’t mine, it’s a CC0 content pack. If I had to make all the sprites myself then I’d never finish this

I’m glad the combat feels responsive! That was my main goal I’m trying to get a good foundation, because once I start adding more enemies the gameplay is only going to get better! The particle spray was a big part of that, I want enemy kills to be fun in their own right!

Unfortunately the ‘teleporting out of the pit’ behaviour (or teleporting in general) is a bug that I’m still trying to analyze. It seems to be an issue with having so many instances of the same enemy in the scene–Gdevelop has difficulty knowing which is which and starts confusing varuables or something along those lines. I hope I can fix it soon!

I had intended to add a dash bar below the character, but managed to do it in under 10 minutes lol, I didn’t think it’d be that easy! It’ll be in tomorrow’s release :3

Thank you so much for your feedback!

[Blake]

interesting concept. the rooms i would say need more iterations or more variety because I got the same room over and over again. I would suggest that for coins that you talked about maybe you can get that if enemies fall into the pit or some enemies drop coins or drop food. You always get souls from kills would be a nice touch. I got one room where it seemed their would be a secret room in it or a secret chest and it would be cool to see stuff like that. I like seeing games get developed and get feedback from a community. Cant wait to see where this goes. Also I had a funny idea sense the enemies reminded me of like muffins maybe you can eat the enemies. just a though.

[Lewdlotl]

Thank you so much for your feedback!

Currently there are only 2 rooms ingame and they’re pretty bare bones, because I wouldn’t even consider what I have posted an ‘alpha test’ lol.

As for coins, food and souls, what you described is actually what I already had planned! That’s why they’re named souls/coins/etc you get souls guaranteed on kill, and coins as a potential bonus. There’s also a chance for bonus coins upon knocking enemies into the put, but I worry that might incentivize a “sit still and do nothing, only knock enemies into pits, min-maxing” playstyle, so I might now.

Secret rooms sounds interesting, it’s something I’ll consider if I have extra time!

Originally the game was going to have vore mechanics, but I decided to go with a more conventional combat style instead

[ObesusFoxxo]

It could be super interesting to see what the vore mechanics would have looked like, though I’m guessing that’s outside the scope of this project now

Super cool start you have, can’t wait to see how the coins and souls affect gameplay and the likes! And I definitely can’t wait to see the goddesses too

As far as feedback and ideas go, the gameplay feels quite smooth, and the controls do feel quite good to utilize. Many have mentioned a lot of the rooms feel incredibly similar, and while I do think making more that are visually different can help, I do think adding small mechanics to some of them could also increase the feeling of uniqueness. For example, some rooms could require you to snag a key from one part of it to unlock an area full of baddies to kill, or maybe there’s a switch puzzle that optional in some areas, but that could lead to extra coins and bonuses

Overall, you have a fantastic start, and I’m excited to see where you take this game

[mefiyak]

Good start! I love roguelike games and this one seems promising.

First of all the character (arrow) movement feels smooth, if I dash throught the pits I don’t feel the arrow gets stuck. For me games like this movement sensation it’s the most important, in this is very well done!
Also If I stand still in the first room when I enter the game the enemies do the claw atack, but if I do the same in the folowing rooms they just stay around me whitout attacking.
With all said, I’m looking forward for this, good luck ^^.

[Lewdlotl]

Thank you so much!

Movement is definitely one of the main things I was focusing on, so I’m glad to hear that I did a good job!

I am aware of the enemy AI bug, I’m currently trying to figure out a fix. It seems that having multiple instances of the same enemy causes errors with some of their internal timers, so I’m going to try to get that ironed out later tonight

[Lewdlotl]

Thank you so much! ;0;

When I was first drafting the game, my first idea was to have the player vore enemies, but I couldn’t figure out how to make it an interesting mechanic. Now that I’m thinking about it, perhaps you would’ve had a “stomach” on your UI, and every time you ate an enemy they would appear as a physics object in your stomach? If an enemy couldn’t fit then you’d spit them back out, etc etc. Idk, I’ll have to experiment with it some other time!

I’m glad to hear you like it! I’m definitely excited to start expanding the game now that I have the foundation down

As for rooms, again this is the very first dev build I basically did as a proof of concept for any sprite artists who might be interested lol, just so they’d know they weren’t signing onto vaporware. I intend to start adding more rooms soon!

[Shugoki]

As has been said, there’s bugger all to say because this isn’t at a stage where there’s a lot that’s useful to criticize. Nonetheless, I’m delighted to see a rogue here. I do have a couple small things:

• You can attack faster by spamming LMB than by holding it, which is a bad system because it encourages us to pursue carpal tunnel for optimal dps. This doesn’t matter right now because of enemy knockback, but I expect it to be relevant in boss fights.

• On the subject of knockback, while I do like the strategy of knocking things into the holes, it’s a bit of a pain to have to catch up to enemies after knocking them back when there AREN’T holes. To strike a balance, you could give the player an ability they can use on a cooldown, or even just a heavy attack, that knocks enemies away from you. That way, you can have an attack that you can rely on for just killing things and an option for knockback when you see an opportunity to use it. Or you can tie it to optional upgrades, like Poseidon’s boons, so you can use it as part of your playstyle if you want.

• I don’t think there’s a UI indicator for our dashes? And we get 3 ones with a separate CD from what I understand, so I think it’d be useful to show how they work in detail. (Unless you have to use all your dashes in one go, a la Hades/Skul?)

Beyond this, I don’t think I can provide anything of substance. I do look forward to seeing what comes of this, though.

[Lewdlotl]

Thank you for your feedback!

I intend to release an update either later tonight or tomorrow with some more content, I mainly just posted this here because I’m looking for sprite artists and needed an example to give them.

I’m aware that manual clicking is faster than autoswing, autoswing was mainly added as an accessibility/convenience feature. I’ll consider adding a limiter to manual clicking

Knockback is still something I’m working on, as yes, knockback in a melee-centric game is a little backwards. I’ll see what I can do! I’ll probably tie it in with the upgrades system, so you can reduce your knockback amount as you progress.

As a side note, considering those last two points I might see if I can program a system where knockback and damage amount are tied to swing speed. Spam clicking will have less damage and more knockback, autoswing will have full damage and knockback.

UI is nonexistent as this is basically a snapshot/dev build rather than a release candidate, but I’ve already got some in the editor and it’ll be present in the next release

[somefakeuser]

I ran into a bug where if I ran into the enemies trying to get myself killed and they just stopped running around. I can still run over them and make a beeping sound. Hitting them seems to wake them back up.

[Lewdlotl]

Yup, that’s a bug I’m very well aware of! I left it in when I exported it because I knew it was going to be a bit before I could make a fix. It should be patched in the next update

[Devilfang13]

I would say this is a bit barebones to be put out in this state but it is neat I suppose.

[Lewdlotl]

Yup! Mainly posted this just so I could have something to show to potential sprite artists, so that they knew I had something
Next update (hopefully later today) will be a lot more game-like!

[AlexKay]

It looks like you have a good foundation here so best of luck finding a sprite artist to assist!

[Lewdlotl]

v0.5 has been released! Among other things that I’m probably forgetting, this version boasts:

• Dynamic lighting (I’m aware rooms are a bit dark currently)
• Dynamically-generated room variants
• Increasing difficulty
• Basic points system
• Wisps mechanic
• Improved Z-ordering
• Improved pit mechanics
• UI for HP, currency and dash charges

I am aware of the following bugs:

• Enemies still occasionally teleport
• Sometimes enemies don’t get caught in pits
• Enemies sometimes stop tracking you if you stand in the bottom of the room
• The first room has a hole in it
• There’s only one room currently (this limitation is purposeful and will be removed upon next release)

If you find any others, please let me know!

I’m also looking for feedback on the following:

• Imp AI is currently programmed to ‘warm up’ their attack when they reach you. If you leave their radius during this warm up, they will stop warming up and move towards you again, rather than locking themselves into an attack. Should I keep it this way, or should imps immediately lock themselves into an attack when they reach the player?
• Are darts from dart traps too hard to see?
• Are any of the SFX or particles overwhelming?
• The player can autoswing every 0.25 seconds, or you can manually swing as fast as you want. Should I add a limiter to manual swinging?

[blimpboy]

With how easily the player can cleave through enemies maybe try looking at ARPGs like Diablo and Path of Exile. The player could unlock abilities depending on the goddess pledged to and new weapons from defeated enemies. The maps could be larger too.