I’d like to ultimately have the ability to swap characters / have a character select, but that’s a “would be nice” pretty far down the line. Until I get around to replacing the current placeholder character with something more final, I can’t say for certain what will be practical to do.
3 Likes
hey, there’s always the option of having a template and letting people put their own custom players in! seems like there isn’t much to the playermodel, unless you’re planning on something fancy down the line.
2 Likes
The current player is very much a placeholder. I have plans for something a fair bit more involved once I can get to it. I’d like to make it possible for people to create custom characters, but if I’m able to get that functionality at all, it will be a bit more involved than just loading up a sprite. I’m leaning towards a paper doll sort of approach, so the character would likely be a collection of separate sprites, with fairly specific requirements.
1 Like
Added a quick start guide video.
1 Like
Added the ability to set custom keybindings. A re-download will be required.
4 Likes
What kind of character are you thinking of making?
Right now, I’m leaning towards a crocodile or alligator character.
1 Like
Front side up has the advantage of showing off the belly. Minor thing to consider.
2 Likes
With enough size, the back can show off the belly, too. 
A back view also has the advantage of not needing to figure out how to handle the belly covering the entire character, and also gives me the ability to extend some of the belly under the water, to get more control over the hitbox size and placement.
1 Like
can’t lie, i’m liking the otter a lot, but a crocodile or alligator sounds really cool, too!
3 Likes
The otter is good! @kilif drew them for another project, that ultimately was one of the inspirations for this one. There’s just some fun stuff that can be done with a croc / gator type character, that I’d like to see if I can pull off. A non-scaled character does have some benefits though, so we’ll see what happens! I’m pretty set on a face-down orientation though, so the character will need to be revamped regardless.
2 Likes
that’s understandable! i’m really excited to see where you go with this!
1 Like
Decently-significant update:
- Added custom keybind support! Even supports gamepads.
- Added a “instant drop” command (default key: up arrow)
- Streamlined the combo system
- Significantly updated the balance. The lowest wager should be easier to get now. They highest wager is doable, but quite difficult. The relative difficulty of the wagers will change as your game progresses, so choose carefully.
To access the updated version, you should be able to re-download from the link in original post. Feel free to let me know how the new balance feels, and if you run into any bugs. Have fun!
3 Likes
the balance definitely seems better. but with stomach juice overfilling i think maybe it would be better to just have the round end immediately instead of an instant game over. losing out on potential stomach stretch would be a more fitting punishment than an outright game over. but maybe it can be saved for a different/easier difficulty. i still find most if not almost of my runs ending to overfill of stomach juice than not meeting the weight goal due to accidentally setting off a combo
if being able to alter the order of the “puyos” as they go down was possible that might make things like setting off combos by accident less likely
edit: I REALLY want to like this game. and I can see the potential in it still as i said before, but it feels like the only easy part is how easy it is to game over in it with three different ways for it to happen. maybe im just bad at this. maybe it’s how the game works. i don’t know.
2 Likes
When really close to being full of stomach juice, I find it helpful to keep the queue empty / basically empty. You have 15 seconds to hit something before suggestion triggers, so you can use that time to pick and choose what fish to hit / how to rotate the stomach contents. The timer resets every time you hit a fish, so you have a decent ability to take it slow if you’re careful. Just gotta make sure to not take it TOO slow, and lose too much to metabolism. You can also try being a little less aggressive when working on overstuffing the stomach. Stretching to bigger sizes is extremely powerful, but it’s also difficult and risky; when you have extremely precariously stackcked stomach contents and the juice is right at the line already, it’s sometimes better to just play it safe and accept a bit less stretch. It’s like when you’re sitting on an 18 or 19 in blackjack!
1 Like
Recorded gameplay of a very successful first round. It wasn’t perfect (especially since I picked the easiest wager), but it should at least demonstrate some of the strategies I like to try for:
On a related note: I enjoy the split-attention design of the current build, but acknoledge that it’s both difficult, and can be draining. I’m considering investigating some alternative designs. What are you guys’ thoughts on:
-
Making the game “turn-based”. Something like: The river would effectively be divided into rows and columns. You could only move your character side-to-side, i.e. choosing what column you’re in. Every time a piece lands on the stomach side, all of the fish on the river side would move down one row. There’d be no queue per se in this design, as you’re dealing with pieces one at a time.
-
Making the game alternate between “modes”. Basically, in this concept, you’d only every control the stomach side OR the river side at a given moment, with the other side effectively going on pause. You’d control the river side until your queue is full, then switch to the stomach until the queue is empty again. Something along those lines. Could be that there are no “sides” anymore, and switching to the “river side” would actually just mean zooming in on the character’s stomach, and revealing the tile matching game there.
In the end I might just want to stick with the current concept, but I think it’s important to at least think about other options. What do you guys think? Do you like the current concept? Would you prefer one of the described alternates? Do you have some other alternative approach idea?
2 Likes
maybe go for something like the alternating concept, but don’t totally freeze the opposite half of the game when you aren’t focused on it. Maybe just make it move very much in slowmo? And consider making that a separate difficulty? Like, an easy mode. Hard mode would be the way the game plays now.
I like having to juggle both, it’s a unique bit of gameplay. but it is the major contributor to how hard the game is.
3 Likes
having finally gotten the hang of this game and reached the point at which the stomach size can’t get any larger. I will try to put forth a more thought out opinion of what I think of the game, what could be done different, and what could be added in
It’s definitely difficult but not unfair. and sometimes a bit annoying with the nutrient orb rng, but taking into consideration of what you had said previous comments did help. do i still think the balance could use more tuning? kind of, it’s hard to say without knowing exactly how the combo system works, becuase there were some combos that had had a 5 chain or higher, but didn’t yield nearly as much as i hoped due to one segment having a vast number of the nutrients cleared in one segment of the chain while the others had much smaller one
do i look forward to updated visuals? also yes, i agree with the player facing down? yes i think that would work well for this game if the main body and not the belly were to be the hitbox for gathering nutrients.
more often than not however i found the green pieces to be more of a nuisance than a help for cleaning out mistakes especially when they ended up in the queue while i was busy with placing nutrients. i do appreciate with the new balance it’s more clear when you are close to overfull and stomach juice even has small amount of wiggle room at the red line.
as for what could be done differently? I’m not entirely sure. maybe make the nutrients just a bit less “sticky” i understand it’s like that because of the katamari aspect you wanted to incorporate. but when making combos that stickiness can hinder well laid out plans for a combo and was what ultimately killed a run after getting several rounds in to the point the minimum wager was 40-50 pounds and the max wager was in the triple digits. hopefully the variable wagers you mentioned eventually implementing will have a weight loss penalty or stomach shrink instead of a game over for not meeting the weight goal
and finally for what could be added in? some sort of bonus for getting what is known in puyo puyo games as an all clear, when you manage to clean the board out of all pieces. be it an even bigger combo bonus, or even reducing a bit of the stomach juice to get more in. even in a game like this doing that is fairly difficult to accomplish and would be something worth trying to get if there was a reward for doing it.
also please, video settings! a means to put the game in windowed mode!
in regards to you mentioned about the split attention design, i think it can work fine as it is. what MK.IIB said is something i agree with, slowing down one side or the might work in theory. but it could also work as a different difficulty level for newer folks. the way it is now does indeed lead to a unique bit of gameplay. but it is also what makes it difficult.
I hope this is a much more constructive and useful comment/criticism than my previous comments. i admit i was a tad frustrated with the game when I had made most of them. I do honestly mean it when I say this game has good potential. and much like the stomach of the player, room to grow as well.
2 Likes
Thanks for the feedback. Good to here you’re getting a feel for the game! The way the combo system works now is strictly based on the total number of nutrients involved. It doesn’t matter if you get a set of five chain reacting to another set of five, or if you just get a single set of ten: they’re both just “ten nutrients” as far as your multiplier is concerned. In the old system there was a difference between the two, but it was weird, hard to quickly predict as a player, and hard to balance as the dev. The current streamlined / simplified version feels more appropriate imo. If you’re seeing variability in your combos of the same size, it’s likely due to different concentrations of nutrients; fat is worth a fair amount more than protein or sugar.
I have been meaning to add in a full clear bonus, but just haven’t got around to it yet. It’s pretty satisfying when you manage to match everything, so getting some sort of point bonus for it would be fun.
I’m not sure what to do about the “stickiness”. It can certainly get you in trouble, but being too slippery can be a problem, too. Probably need to just keep tweaking it by small amounts. The instant-drop can be handy in the mean time. The piece instantly teleports to where the ghost / preview of it is, so you know right where it’s going to end up before you press the button. Up arrow (or north button on gamepad) by default.
1 Like
Hey I’ve downloaded the game but I can’t get it to actually start, do you need any special stuff to play it? Like a unity player or something? Whenever I try to download it I get a file that asks what I want to open it with. Thanks for listening.