Honestly, I kinda feel like there needs to be like one more stage of growth. The other stages are two 2-square-wide stages, and 2 3-square wide stages, and that feels right because the second stage is like the ‘time to finish and head back’, but with size 5, I always get stuck because I forget to ‘pre-widen’ the tunnels for the 5th, 4-square wide stage.
Rocks are still a pain in the ass, just takes longer for them to be. I’m so fucking sick of getting stuck in a cage of rocks that are just barely too close together to pass through but you can’t tell because they’re at an angle so the gap can’t be measured with your eyes. The game needs a smash rocks upgrade. That or an ‘emergency exit’ that sends you back to the start but triggers an earthquake automatically or something like that if you absolutely have to punish your player for indulging in the fetish part of the fetish game. And dynamite needs to be set IN FRONT of you, in the middle of the rock pile that’s actually in your way, and not under your fat ass so it only hits the two rocks on either side of you.
I suppose this was probably the frustration talking, but anyway, it’s definitely possible to tell whether or not you can squeeze past if you look carefully, even if the rocks are separated diagonally. As far as I’m aware, the earthquakes aren’t time-based, either, so there’s no reason not to take your time when planning your movements.
Personally, I don’t feel that the difficulty is excessive overall at this point, and like I said earlier, I think the game feels fine if you simply dig 4-wide tunnels in advance. But with that said, I wouldn’t say no to buffing the 4-wide miner, if only to have more reasons to stomp around as a giant fat mole.
Also, as an anti-frustration feature, it might be nice to make an autosave whenever the player visits the shop, just to save them from themselves if they get overeager.
You are playing the latest version, yeah? I’d get the frustration with the earlier “Rock Hell” version, but the Jam release is pretty fair.
A strong tip is not get too greedy at first. Plan ahead with making three-tile wide corridors and make that your limit and signal to go back. Once you have the capacity and easy means to dig the existing tunnel one tile wider, it’s better to do it in advance so you don’t get caught short if you hadn’t planned sufficiently.
Also for rock busting, don’t forget that your size ups bust tiles around you - including rocks! Time it so that you’re next to a rock when you’re about to size up. Clever use of these rock bursts will save you a lot of time and money! @Chubberdy If you were to consider adding anything more to the game, a quick dialogue event that triggers the first time this happens, where the miner reflects on the destructive powere of her waistline, might be a useful indicator to a player unfamiliar with this mechanic.
A “Pro Gamer” move to avoid unnecessary nomming: when you let go of a movement key there’s a slight bit of travel time. The miner only eats when you press that direction key into a wall however if you bump into a wall without pressing a key you won’t eat. This is how when things are getting precariously dicey it’s safer to “coast” into the walls without any extra snacking.
It is. It’s a small dialogue snippet, so it’s easy to miss, but the shopkeeper tells you about it… Second time you talk to him, I think? He essentially tells you the dynamite won’t hurt you, but you’ll pick up all the exploded chunks. I think you can mitigate some of the gain by stepping away from the blast zone, which is easier said than done at larger sizes.
Dynamite increases your size if you get caught in the blast–which is admittedly quite likely with the new faster dynamite. If your tunnel won’t allow you to back up in a straight line, you’ll probably get hit.
On my last playthrough of the game, I think I saw… 3 earthquakes, maybe? The last one happened right after I found the croissant and went back up for supplies, which did annoy me, but I made it back fairly quickly–and, to be honest, I really did need more of a stockpile than I had when I first found the croissant. As discussed earlier in the thread, collapsed tunnels now tend to be riddled with air pockets and gems, so not only can you dig back down faster, but you’ll also get a lot of money in the process.
There are still some things that could stand to be adjusted a bit, certainly. But I still think that the difficulty is at least reasonable now.
Older version of dynamite sounds way better than current dynamite. Larger blast radius(And thus more fattening), and longer fuse? That really does sound great if we just make sure dynamite is placed in front of the player(based on player facing direction) instead of underneath them. Or heck, maybe there could be a throwing mechanic where it’ll sail forwards until it bumps into a wall, then it’ll blow up? thus encouraging players to plan around throwing it in a certain direction.
Also, hard agree with buffing the four-tiles wide size. being large enough to juuuust barely squeeze through four block wide tunnels would be great considering it’d extend the amount of viable fatassery. And I’m certain you’ve already got the sprite for it in the ending animation- Did you intend on adding that as another size stage, and end up scrapping it, or…?
The main reason the sizes stop where they are currently is because I put a hard limit on myself at six (playable) weight stages so I wouldn’t get carried away and run out of time for everything else. Fun fact: the player gets swapped out completely for a static object with the bigger sizes and no collision or animation at the end.
If I were to add more in I’d probably rework the size progression a bit to keep the increments a little more evenly spaced and more increments between going up a full tile width. Probably would make collision unsticking occur after crushing surrounding tiles as well since it’s a tool now, wasn’t really thinking about that aspect when I put it in and was more just trying to stop people getting stuck in rocks.
Old dynamite was nerfed because it was a lot more expensive, I changed it to be more of a rock removal tool than an area clearing tool, though that was before I realized smashing rocks from getting bigger would be a strat. You do gain the weight when you’re caught in the blast, that’s why I changed the fuse timer to be shorter when the radius got smaller, so that threat was still around.
There is an autosave in the latest build, it’s only when you return to the surface (with a buffer time to stop a bunch of saves when poking around at the beginning), though I didn’t have time to make an indicator for when it happens. It’s on the load screen though.
