Going Down - a twisted dungeon crawling game with a twist

Projects
1

As a shameless self promotion, i will put this link here: http://www.tfgamessite.com/index.php?module=viewgame&id=1074

Why? Because right now, only TF in that (early alpha of) game is WG & WL. I’m planning to add more different TF over time, but WG, WL, growth, expansion and this kind of TF will always be my favorite. Therefore it might be good idea to promote it here.

And also this way i would like to thank Atticus.Arc - his awesome work (and lack of progress lately ;D ) is the reason i started my own development.

Feel free to discuss any aspects of my game with me here or on TFgamessite. Feedback is always appreciated, although i know there is not much to feed back yet.

6 Likes
2

So far, what really caught my eye was the way you presented the game. Usually in the wg rpg games(That i’ve played) they don’t present it like that and also the (3-D?) modelling is nice, my gripes with it are that the walls don’t have any texture and neither do the monsters, which honestly makes the game feel much more trippy than it should IMO. But since it’s only been recently posted i can understand why it doesn’t have certain things. My suggestion is to add a tutorial of sorts to it since the adventure game design of it seemed a bit confusing(At least to me) but overall i think you’re putting the best foot forward as of right now

3

Being a fan of one’s weight affecting how they move around in the world, I had a lot of fun with this demo. One thing I have to ask though, are food drops dependent on anything? Because I seem to get a lot at the beginning and then it just kind of tapers off to almost nothing after about 10 minutes or so of clicking around.

4

I’ve been playing your game since you released it on tfgames and I’ve actually sunk like 6 hours into it. I don’t know if I just have the worst luck in the world or something, but the most I ever got to was about 200 pounds. It seems like the food drop rate is really low. As someone who likes the weight gain elements to be negative and punishing, I think it would be cool if the unhealthy doughnuts were more common than normal food, thus punishing you for eating it by making you get too big beyond your control.

5

Three separate times I tried to play this I quit about 20 minutes in and being under 25 pounds. You REALLY gotta increase the drop rate on food, because the only thing I ever found was a pair of boots I accidentaly left behind because they were too heavy to be in my inventory and I didn’t know how to equip things then. Also like 3 scrolls I STILL don’t know how to use.

6

Wow! Now that’s what i call feedback. Thanks!

food
Don’t worry, drop rates are still very unbalanced. And of course it’s RNG. Anyway, in next version i will increase chances.
Every monster type has its own chance to drop item types. That said, it is very rare to find food in chests (that will not change much, who with at least half of brain will stash his precious donut in chest inside dungeon full of hungry monsters and full of one very hungry adventurer?), but it should be quite common loot from monsters. Right now, there is only one monster - 8 feet wide Dummy. That means, it can not spawn in narrow passages. When i add more monsters, their density will increase and so will food (and everything else) drop rate. For exampe, “Rat” monster will be very small and weak, will be able to spawn even in 2ft wide passages and will most likely carry food above enything else (rat with 2-handed bludgeon will be very rare sight though).
Food itself: every food can have weight in some range and have “caloric density” or something like that. Right now, donut is most “caloric”. But it’s only placeholder to be replaced in future with something more dungeon like (roasted rat? Jelly monster jelly? dwarf bread? (that woud probably be weapon)).
In the end, there should be enough food to survive, to be overstuffed sometimes, to feel the pressure of increasing hunger sometimes (survival element) but not to starve to death ifyou are careful (you loose HP when you are starving). I’m also considering to add some kind of shop by dungeon entrance later. As for WG, right now there is only food, but don’t forget i have magic, potions and traps on my to-do list. There will be more ways to gain weight. And for TF part of game, for example alchemy will allow you to mix potion to enlarge some body parts by directly adding fat tisue to them (without this, body parts sizes are dependant on extra body fat and body shape (man/woman fat distribution - again you will be able to modify that thru TF))

controls
Everything is point and click style. To use something on something, take it and drop it there. To eat, pick up food and drop it on yourself - stats area (or your “avatar”). To use scroll, drop it on monster (spell scrolls) / yourself (enhancement, outportal) / item (identify). I will definitely add something like “GUI help screen” later (GUI is still subject of possible change).

wg element punishing
Definitely. Still subject to change (mostly calculations), but in current public version: more body mass = more HP (less is lower HP), more body mass = easier to kick door, more body mass = you can’t go thru narrow pasages. Equipment is size dependent (not really punihsing right now, but wait till i add more TF and try to find some armor for 300lbs lady with huge belly and big boobies). You can also ruin your equipment when you “outgrow” it.

inventory
Capacity is weight limited. This limit is increased by higher strength, dexterity and constitution (only strength in current public build). It is painful at first, but later you find stats bonus on equipment and will be able to carry few extra pieces of clothing in inventory. Still want to keep that at least little realistic. Ability to carry half of hardware store in some games is crazy.

I hope i covered it all. Feel free to post questions.

7

And we have an update!
Enjoy the feast (more food drops as requested) and descriptions of your body. And feel free to suggest any corrections (english is not my native language).

http://www.tfgamessite.com/index.php?module=viewgame&id=1074

8

[quote=“Mrkef, post:7, topic:1198”]And we have an update!
Enjoy the feast (more food drops as requested) and descriptions of your body. And feel free to suggest any corrections (english is not my native language).

http://www.tfgamessite.com/index.php?module=viewgame&id=1074[/quote]

Did you increase the rate at which food drops occur or the amount in a given food drop? Because if its the latter (which seems to be the case) the end result is still waiting endlessly for food to actually drop.

Also, the gluttony enhancement scroll is slightly misleading, since it empties your stomach, which seems to instantly start causing you to lose weight (despite whatever weight you may have gained from it).

Otherwise, good progress on the game. Can’t wait to see more.

9

Chance that a monster will carry food is higher. Of course you can have bad luck, but sometimes i run around with almost box donuts and bunch of bananas.
Sometimes you will be hungry, but if you don’t eat everything right when you find it (there is no point to eat when you are almost full) and don’t eat large donuts if you are not hungry, it should be managable.

Gluttony - right now, WG&WL rate is little higher than it will be. You will not loose that much weight from starvation. Anyway, i will lower “hunger” (therefore WL over time) from that scroll. But its mechanics makes sense. It makes you want to eat a lot.
There is counterpart to this scroll called “abstinence”, i guess i will leave that one as “enhancement scroll” and change gluttony to curse once i have them implemented (it is a deadly sin after all). Then there could be situations l?ke: “i dont have ID scroll, i’ll just equip this sword and see what it is… whoops, it is cursed with gluttony, luckily i have my abstinence scroll (later potions too)” and your weight will go up.

10

I spent some time with it last night and it did seem fairly ‘feast or famine’. Had a few situations where I went from 100% fullness to a long bout at 100% starvation (and running out of health) without finding any food. If gold can eventually be used to purchase things like food I imagine that will become less of a problem.

Edit: Started a new run, and again after a little while I end up going through a period of famine that results in never finding enough food to claw one’s way out from “starving” to “satiated.” Eventually found an abstinence scroll after going from 240 to 200 stuck at 0 health, which ironically was just the thing the character needed to stop losing weight.

11

I tallied the drop rates and they are still pretty appalling. Also, the drop rates decrease as the game progresses. Restarting the game and loading helps but only for a short time. Below is one set of statistics from playing your game.

Out of 90 treasure chests only 3 had items.

Out of 120 monster kills only 45 had items.

The present drop rate is still extremely low.

12

Ok, i will have to do something about that.
I did not increased overal drop rate, only chance of food drop. But i think i know where the problem is.

First of all, i will lower the rate of digestion. It will also be more realistic that way.

After that, i will change the way loot is rolled. Right now, there is chance to drop certain item types (that is what i changed in favor of food) and there is limited total “value” of loot each source can have. And that value has efect only on equipment quality now. Problem is, that game can roll very “valuable” ingredient (for example), where value does not matter (now), and prevent anything else rolling, since there is no value left. That means less drops of stuff not dependent on value. I have to change this, so that only real value of rolled item is taken out of value pool. That is logical, i dont know why i did it other way.

Chests - “value” of chest is based on multiple variables, most significant is dungeon level. Right now it is very unbalanced (not that chest on first floor have very low value, dummy has very high value) and that, plus what i said before about value of items without value, is reason why there is not much loot from chests. It should be better after changes in “value” calculations.

And of course gold. It is also substracted from loot source total value pool. So if you have few hundreds gold, that value was not used on items. Will change gold drop probability too (now there is too much gold).

I hope this is understandable (complicated subject with my broken english). Thanks for feedback. RNG is enemy of internal one man testing.

Ok. Plan for next patch: do loot the right way + more PC properties and descriptions (hair, eyes, skin…).

This is not possible, must be RNG.

13

I noticed the drop rate seeming to decrease as I played as well - I think it has to do with the total value pool you mentioned. Since there’s currently now way to spend gold, it builds up. If I understand what you’re saying about the total value pool, this would eventually lead to the player finding almost nothing as their gold approached that total pool value.

One change I’d like to see, especially now knowing that higher levels of the dungeon have more loot, is a way to back from dead ends or wander. Right now, when a character comes across a hall to narrow for them to fit through, or three walls where they can’t find a secret door, the only option is to try and leave the dungeon, which resets one’s progress completely. As is, it’s very hard to get past the first few floors without getting stuck somewhere and having to reset, particularly once one’s weight has increased some.

14

That value pool is not that much “total”. It is per loot source (single moster od chest). There is simply no way (in code) loot amount can change over time other than RNG.

As for “way to back” - i have plans for way back to dungeon once you are on surface (story related) but still have to think about some elegant and logical solution for dead ends. It is on my to-do list (got one idea already).

15

Don’t underestimate the power of a subpar Random Number Generator. it is definitely possible for LCGs to get stuck and not generate some of the available values. In fact, I’d argue that true randomness has no place deciding the scarcity of something as important as food in a WG-game. Here is an implementation of a generator that tries to avoid long runs of successes or failures. Though there might be other game mechanics you are thinking about to help solve this problem too.

16

What are the ingredients? I suspect placeholders, but it would be neat if you had unique ingredients that you could throw into the cauldron at the start point of the game to make things, potions, etc.

Also, I failed to mention in my earlier comment about the low loot frequency that I had over 300 gold. Another in the future feature request is to add a vendor at the start point that you can buy potions, scrolls, or food items. That would be cool!

17

Ingredients - exactly my plan! That is why there is a cauldron.

Vendor - yes, in a future. It will be story related. That is why there is a house (and gold).

18

Hmm- just tried the newest build, and it has some serious potential! Here are a couple thoughts of mine-

Shape select in character creation would be really nice, even if wg isn’t the game’s overall goal. I like certain shapes much more than others.

The ability to backtrack- A way to redo the last room at least without exiting the dungeon would make things feel less disjointed.

Save game- Hopefully soon. I’d assume this is a planned or less-than-obvious feature, and if not, I’d be a little confused. :stuck_out_tongue:

Anyways, I’ll be popping by every so often. Keep up the good work!

19

Shape select - Nope. Shape is determined by your body proportions. For example “apple shape” is only description saying “your belly is bigger than anything else”. You start with randomly generated character with random proportions (random disposition to gain in different body areas (or just get fat without any well developed assets)). At start, you are often “apple shaped”, because you are thin with full belly. This can change later revealing your full potential to gain as you gain. And that disposition to gain can (not yet, in future) be changed by some TF (potions, traps, curses). That will be part of game. You start with some character, but you do not know what is its potential for some time. You can only hope all that food goes to your butt… and when you find that instead of it you are going to have massive tits, you can try and change that. I want to make most of TF mechanics somehow mysterious but consistent once you discover them, so after some trial, error and time, you should be able to change youself to your likings - and share that knowledge inside

Backtracking - Working on it right now. Not really backtracking, since there is (by design) nothing like map, but ability to “choose another way”.

Save game - its already there, but since this is kind of “softcore roguelike”, you can only save game when you exit to menu from surface, not from dungeon. It should prevent “save; while (!success) {load; try;} win;” behavior.

20

v 0.0.5.8 is up and it has “backtracking” and WG/WL balanced.

WG + WL is now slower but so is digestion rate. With fixes to item generation based on item value (and more realistic food properties), that should allow you not to starve to death. In fact, during my playtests i was able to stuff myself full after some time. Also those “gluttony” & “abstinence” scrolls effects are now more valuable if you want to gain fast.

I will focus on additional content in next updates. After that, even this slower WG rate should be ok if you really focus on this aspect of game. No more balancing for now.