PLAY THE PROTOTYPE v0.1 HERE !
https://www.bewilderedgames.com/
Eat the Dungeon is a stuffing and weight gain themed simple rpg, where a party of adventures have to eat their way through a food themed dungeon. Along the way they’ll get stuffed, get fat, and fight lots of monsters!
I hope you enjoy it!!!
Here’s some gifs from development:
The main purpose of the prototype v0.1 is to test the main concept, collect feedback, then overhaul the design. Please share all your feedback in the comments!!! I’ll take everybody’s feedback, make any redesigns that need to be made, and then implement them in the next version.
Things I’m thinking about:
-
The mechanics for enemies attacking the adventurers. Currently, there is no lose state, enemies can only slow down the player. Is this fun? I hope so! Please let me know!
-
While I like the enemy’s defense mechanic (reduce any defense to 0) a lot, I wonder if it can be visualized better? Currently its just a series of icons with numbers on them. Would it be better if they were represented with bars, or something else?
91 Likes
I’ve finished the game and I musts say even at this stage its entertaining and shows alot of potential, I especially like the weight gaining with the art and gameplay being really appealing.Though I do think that some of the timers late game are too long, both for waiting to act and waiting for stat decreases to go, its a bit ridiculous waiting 10+ seconds to do anything in a game and can get very boring and tedious if you have to do it repeatedly, their were moments where I wanted to just quit the game and do something else because I was bored with all the waiting. Though overall, good work and I can’t wait to see more from this.
6 Likes
Lowkey thought this was Enter the Gungeon themed, lmao.
But seriously this design seems pretty intriguing!
5 Likes
Hey! This was great! Simple and fun, but unique. I love the art style!
Since you’ve asked for feedback, let me address your two topics and then also ramble for a hot second:
-
The lack of a fail state does seem to be in conflict with the frantic real-time clicking. I felt like the game wanted me to be in a frenzy to dispatch enemies but I wound up mostly ignoring their attacks because the characters were in no danger. So I’d just take a leisurely pace to thump through enemies, which seemed like it was at odds a little with the RTS nature of the other mechanics?
-
The icons for resistances were sometimes hard to see and interpret at a glance. I did focus on them, but frequently found myself getting confused, so color-coded bars might be a better solution! What’s actually unreadable is enemy attacks, which, combined with the lack of a fail state, made me shrug and give up on knowing what the enemy was doing in any given room.
As for game balance, it seemed like keeping the cleric at minimum weight / reducing her timeout was the best strategy, since she just resets the other character’s timers. Especially since I was largely ignoring the enemies’ stacking debuffs and just using her to reset characters just before they attacked?
The game is very cute and I’m looking forward to see it get expanded and polished! Thank you for posting it!
3 Likes
I’m a fan so far, that was a pretty fun lil prototype. 
I like the idea of a no-loss-state game, though there could be limitations, such as time limits or reward time limits (complete faster for better rewards). you could also implement more permanent KOs, such as from eating too much overall, or maybe from an enemy that tries to stuff you to the KO point? health bars are possible, but after getting through the 5 parts, you become too slow to dispatch enemies quickly enough, so HP might just end up being frustrating…
either way, looking forward to updates.
4 Likes
I love this game! For version 0.1, you’ve got a surprisingly polished simple gameplay loop. The artwork is fantastic, and I liked the strategic choices offered.
That said, the lack of a defeat state somewhat removed the importance of damage/defense type matching. The most efficient method was to simply to keep the cleric skinny so she can recharge everyone quickly, and let them just soak up all the food. I do think there needs to be some kind of defeat; but I’m not sure what it should be. A couple of ideas:
-
Have an immobility limit for characters. Have attacks add a small amount to the affected character’s weight. If a character gets immobilized, their timers all freeze and the character can’t be recharged by the cleric. If the whole party gets immobilized, they lose, and automatically get teleported back to the adventure hub. This would let you keep the current mechanics, but incentivize picking matching damage types so characters aren’t soaking up extra pounds for ineffectual attacks.
-
Modify the overstuffing mechanic. Have enemy attacks do small stuffing damage. Instead of the KO condition, make it a two-stage effect; the first is Overfull, and acts like the current KO mechanic (extra time to recover). The second would be the actual KO stage, where the character is down completely, and unable to get back up. This means you can potentially continue on indefinitely, but if your party gets too heavy, they won’t recharge before they get KO’d.
I hope these sound interesting, or they spur your own ideas. I’m looking forward to seeing what you come up with!
3 Likes
Eh if they do have immobility, then there easily could be mechanics added that can allow immobilized characters to continue, whether via magic levitation or by some other people carrying them. That way they can get even bigger while being immobile.
6 Likes
Thank you!!! I’m thinking I might either add something to do while timers are ticking down, or fast forward if all adventurers are timed out.
3 Likes
I have been following this game as soon as it was announced on deviantart, and i gotta say, this has real potential. If this is the prototype, i can’t wait for the final product. Though i am excited to see their sprites gaining at bigger sizes, Since it seems to stop after 300. I am really excited for what’s in store here.
4 Likes
Oh absolutely. My Fighter was pushing 600 at one point, since it took me a little while to figure out you need to click the green check mark to use the slots after each level.
4 Likes
Thank you!!!
Penalizing incorrect type matches might interesting, but I really like modifying the overstuffing mechanic since it already fits thematically.
2 Likes
Definitely going to add more fat levels later on!!!
5 Likes
The UI for the out-of-combat mode needs so much reworking haha, that green button is way to small.
2 Likes
Have you thought of giving the game a overworld, so the characters can explore their world while gaining weight, then when they go into a dungeon they can go into the battle system seen in the demo?
4 Likes
hmm idea for the visual aspect for the enemies, it might be a good idea to show enemies getting more and more damaged, (ie showing more and more bite marks) and probably as the enemy gets more damaged they get slower as well
3 Likes
That would make a bit of sense, but wouldn’t they move faster since they have less weight?
4 Likes
If they’re also getting bitten and broken, then that would probably counteract any speed they gain.
3 Likes
Yeah, which I think means they shouldn’t change in speed as they take damage.
3 Likes
Hey perhaps as the adventurers grow bigger and fatter, how about having a option for them to eat bigger and bigger foes, represented by a increase in size overall, to better show their increase in both strength levels and fat levels?
4 Likes
