Thanks, I hope I can live up to the expectations 
. One thing Iām not the most confident on is my dialogue writing, so when the I drop the stealth minigame demo Iām open to suggestions for improvement.
Also, the sprites might be familiar because I used the same template for the blob sprites (though I modified it quite a bit. I didnāt like how thick the fold lines were, so I smoothed them out at first. Then I edited them for the main cast for the weight distribution).
Got some progress done on some more unique sprites used for events. This the second one Iāve got done, a stuffed and satisfied rogue at the former half of the weight levels (the other sprite was for that plant quest). Technically its a sprite thatās just going through the stepping animations (so there is a total of three frames to it, but one of them is used twice) Itās easier to tell in-game than here in the forums. Itāll be in the stealth mini game demo if you eat the food from the food merchantās cellar.
Iām thinking of making a fatter version of the sprite for weight stages 5-8 as well.
Another idea I had for a mechanic, how much of an impact it has on the gameplay will be dependent on whether you are playing on hard mode or not. I want to add a stomach capacity system into the game (though the name is a bit of a misnomer, since it wonāt inhibit the amount of food you can eat).
The baseline effects of how the system works (in other words, how it functions in normal mode) will be detailed in this paragraph. The mage and the rogue starts the game with a base capacity of 10, and the warrior starts with a capacity of 12 (due to back story). Pretty much whenever you consume food, regardless of what it is (unless itās an event, apple, or tomato), you will lose 1 unit of remaining capacity for that day. When a character has 0 remaining capacity left they will get a status ailment, bloated (all it does on itās own is reduce their agility a fair bit. Might use it for dialogue or events though). That character can
keep eating food for the rest of the day with no further penalties beyond the bloated status. Once the day is over, the characterās capacity is reset back to their max. If the character has the bloated status at the end of the day the status is removed, that characterās max capacity is increased, and they will gain 1 additional lb. (it will also have another hidden effect that is mostly a little bit negative, but that is the mechanic Iām keeping a bit secret for now since it wonāt do much of anything until chapter 6 and onwards). At maximum capacity intervals of 5 starting at 15 max capacity, the character will be eating more then necessary (offscreen in the same way the warriorās laziness system or the rogueās gluttony system is handled) and start gaining +1 lb. after every day for each interval passed (the true cap for max capacity will be 30).
The differences on hard mode make it much easier to gain weight, making the mechanic real obstacle rather than a system with a trade off. When bloated, eating additional food will increase the weight gained from most sources by +1 lb. The intervals of daily weight gain are lowered, alternating between every 3 and every 2 additional max capacity gained instead of 5 (so for normal mode the max capacity intervals would be 15, 20, 25, 30. For hard mode it would be 15, 18, 20, 23, 25, 28, 30).
To add to the bloated/stomach capacity system, Iāve decided to make it a bit more interesting visually and audibly.
When a character gets the bloated ailment, a short āanimationā will play at the top the screen showing that respective characterās stomach being expanded. Iām not going crazy with it, so it will only depict a fairly low weight version of the character regardless of how heavy they are. The animation has three frames for the rogue and mage, and a 4 for the fighter (her armor got in the way, so she needed an extra one to show off the belly without making the plate armor magically stretch out). Iāve already sketched out the mage and fighterās animations.
I also added some stretching sound effects between each frame. I asked @PreggoPixels what sound effect they used for rapid stomach growth, and I downloaded that for scenes like this one. Once the animation is done, each character will have a generic line of dialogue afterwards, though the mage will have two depending on whether or not she has the fetish perk.
Quick update on the general state of things, an announcement, what Iāve been up to (nothing bad, just busy).
First off I want to put some potential concerns to rest about this game falling prey to feature creep, keeping it from ever coming out like so many other smaller games. Due to how I am aiming for a relatively bug free experience, to avoid things getting too complicated to correct and adjust later on. What this means is that most features that appear for longer than one chapter need to implemented now before chapter 1 (and MAYBE chapter 2) is finished. Thatās a big part of the reason why chapter 1 will take longer than the others. Although I may need to release each chapter individually with the exception of 7&8 since the scope of the game increased since I made that poll. 7&8 need to be together since the end of 7 can be an ending, and it would be kind of sucky if you had to be blue balled on the finale for a couple months or so while I made chapter 8.
I have a trip Iām going on around the second week of December-late January, but work can and will continue on the project during this time (itāll probably pick up if anything since I wonāt have much to do during the daytime of the weekdays). This includes art as well as using RPGMaker.
I have had a real drawing itch this past week or so, I have had quite a few drawings outside of the project being worked on. Most notably, just today I started WG drive (not for money though) on Deviantart to celebrate reaching 500 watchers. Iāll try not to work on things outside of the project as much for a while (exceptions being the drive and a few very small drawings for the āFeeder fantasy mod teamā if theyāre good enough). Hereās the drive for those interested:
500 Watcher Weight Gain Drive: Stella PT.0 by failmuseum on DeviantArt
I think thatās about everything for now.
You rang? Jokes aside, take your time. No one is going to hold it against you for wanting to deliver an enjoyable experience when you do deliver, and Iām sure most people are more than willing to have faith that you will deliver. I know I do!
Hereās an idea for additional replay value and player choice, I want to add a trait system to the game. Itāll be a similar system that the classic fallouts and New Vegas used, where you pick one of the traits at the start of the game, that has both negative and positive effects (or pick none at all, for a more simple/basic playthrough if none of them strike you as interesting). The traits would be unique to each character, none of them will be shared, I also want them to tie into their backstories. While they all have set backstories, the traits will change certain aspects about them. Traits will also have some effect on dialogue when appropriate, but it wonāt be very often.
Iām going to share the basics of the warriorās backstory since itāll help illustrate the point a bit better, skip to the next paragraph if you donāt want it āspoiledā (itās not that important, but just in case) or just donāt care. The warrior basically is a descendant of a minor hero a few centuries back (This doesnāt make the warrior a celebrity, as the hero is quite old now and what he did wasnāt a world changing event). Grew up in a family estate that was the original heroās reward. Most of the family takes pride in their heritage, so a lot of them follow suit and become warriors themselves. Warrior has three siblings (is the third oldest), two sisters and a brother. Older sister is followed suit and became a warrior too, the older brother joined main religion but died, and the younger sister is the typical, non leadership, noble that just takes advantage of the familyās wealth. The warrior while pretty noble and more or less pure hearted, used to be a bit arrogant about her abilities. Thus she neglected her training, but kept eating as if she was still training hard and grew fat as a result (hence why I gave her a laziness mechanic). This changed after the older, more serious, sister challenged the warrior to a duel and made fool out of the warriorās lacking skills. So the warrior after this got much more serious about training, lost the weight, and thatās where sheās at when the game starts.
So for the traits will change some of the characterās backstory as well, but mostly through flavor text that fits with the original description. I want to have three possible traits per character, so far Iāve thought of 2 for the warrior, 2 for the rogue (Iām still trying to workout the 3rd one), and 1 for the mage.
So the warrior has:
Silver Spoon: While she has made improvements, sheās still accustomed to softer living. If you donāt take her to a restaurant before going to the adventure field (order anything, even the smallest meal will be fine), sheāll be in a grouchy mood (not for dialogue, but she will have a decent buff to attack at the cost of a moderate amount of defense). Eating a restaurant also increases her max MP Sheāll also gain and lose laziness more quickly, this is more in favor of laziness then not though, since it means you have to worry about the mechanic more often then before. Finally, sheāll start with extra weight on her. Not enough to start at pudgy weight level, but sheāll be pretty close to it.
Hearty Warrior: That extra eating wasnāt just pleasure, it was a vital part to her training. When eating
any meat item, the warrior will gain an extra +1 lb. and a moderate defense buff for a few turns in combat. Becoming bloated will also give a smaller defense bonus, but that lasts until the end of the day. Eating at restaurants will increase her max HP more, but will also give an extra +1lb per meal size.
Iām also changing her normal stomach capacity to be 10 now, but with this trait she has 12 starting stomach capacity.
Mage, Troubled Scholar: Itās hard to study when thereās so much at stake. The mage will gain +2 stress everyday that the chapterās main quest has not been completed. Completing side quests for a chapter before the main quest is finished will also increase stress by 1. Once it is completed, all stress will be removed. When studying at 0 stress, she will gain extra spell xp when studying. Eating snacks while studying will reduce more stress after the chapter main quest is finished.
Rogue, Professional Thief: That old boring cleaning job had her get pretty close to some wealthy and powerful people, makes it easy to get connections to the thieves guild. All thieves guilds locations will be easier to find. The pickpocketing job from the guild pays slightly more money. When getting arrested from blowing a robbery, you will be charged money due to your awful reputation (becomes debt if you canāt cover the bill). Some higher society type characters will take issue with her in the party, making some quests more difficult.
Rouge, Snack Bandit: Stealing food that was going to be thrown out anyway shouldnāt be grounds for termination. When breaking and entering houses, you have the ability to raid kitchens for snacks. These snacks will increase your max HP by 1 and add 1lb for each snack (this will synergize with a perk she can get on her own through gameplay). For those that donāt want to steal, the rogue can also heavily scrutinize food at the restaurant to try and get a free extra meal. Starts the game with 9/60 gluttony score, and extra weight but not enough to become pudgy.
Rogue, Escapee. Working as a normal house keeper at the resort was simple enough, but after hearing whispers of the boss planning on selling her off to, somewhere, the rogue takes her small time petty theft to a full career just to stay low and on the run. Working cleaning jobs at inns wonāt take as much of her MP away. A permanent buff to agility. Not sure what else to do with it other than it can make a big difference in chapter 6 through dialogue.
Smaller update on some of the progress made.
First is that I revised the saving system a bit, mostly for hard mode, normal mode is pretty much unaffected. Now at the begining of every day you will be asked if you want to save or not. In normal mode this is only a reminder an to save, since you can save anywhere you want. In hard mode however, these will be your only time to save the game, to avoid save scumming while out in the adventure field.
Iām also making the NPCs move around a lot more now than they did before. Guards will have some patrols around town (dosenāt affect the stealth minigame), normal NPCs will wander around a bit, and NPCs will not always be in the same spot depending on time of day, usually this is just for night time but a few will have different positions for day time as well.
Iām looking to get the stealth minigame/what I currently have demo out before the 7th of next month.
Quick question, Iām not going to reveal why just yet though.
When playing games like this, where there is a focus on resource and atrition management, do/would you save scum until you got the ideal results for an optional event?
For example, an event that can opt into that has the possiblity of; giving you money, doing nothing, or taking away money.
EDIT: Redoing the poll, I made it too much of an all or nothing question. I apologize to the two other people that voted during the originalās run.
0 voters
As an X com player : SAVE SCUM for life!
I save scum only if I felt like the event was unclear or unfair, or the outcome of a forced event was unreasonably devastating.
An example of the former would be if I was given the choice to sacrifice āsome foodā, and it turned out that āsomeā was a whopping half of my total. An example of the latter would be if I was forced to negotiate with a powerful dragon, but no matter what option I picked there was always at least a 10% chance that Iād lose all of my possessions. In contrast, I wouldnāt save scum if there was a safe option that guaranteed I wouldnāt suffer more than a modest loss, and only by picking a riskier option you could suffer a huge loss, or if the encounter wasnāt actually forced and the risk of encountering the dragon was a consequence of an earlier choice.
Only if I have already played through the game normally. Otherwise, if itās my first time, Iāll take whatever outcome it is. More fun that way.
Same as NickSav
???
Iām not planning on doing anything like ripping half of your stuff away from you at random, donāt worry about that. This poll was mostly to gage if/how to go about implementing a gambling mini game. Seems minor, but it can really mess up the balancing if people save scum through it. With these results, I think I figured out how I want to go about it. Itās going to be for the Rogue only (only character who would, and it makes it so hard mode players have a difficult time doing it due to the limited saving), and while it wonāt take up her night, itāll probably be a low payout/risk that can be done a few times per day if you want.
The poll was also useful for other events with random elements to them in general, hence the āonly if I didnāt choose to do it myselfā option.
an X com player : SAVE SCUM for life!
Ironman 4 lyfe 
(Okay, thatās not entirely true because Xcom 2 was too buggy/unstable to actually use ironman mode, but Ironman in spirit.)
Is it possible force a save? If not, some games disable saving in certain locations, if the gambling is in (for example) its own map data where saving is disabled, could you make it so that you cant re enter until the next day once you leve?
for me it generally depends on the context of the scenario.
such as for example with gambling its kind of just a meh thing to save scum, because currency generally can be replaced.
but when it comes to things like āthere is 0.01% chance for super powerful item but you need to spend all of your money for one roll!ā or how zinno described it, then i will gladly save scum.
With vanilla RPG Maker MV (no plugins), I donāt think its possible to force a save. I can restrict save access, but it wouldnāt change much since people could just save outside the gambling areas, and save scum that way. I just have to bite the bullet and allow it anyway, but limit how much can be made. Itās not really a huge deal since people can play the game how they want to, but since management of time, money, and resources is a big part of the challenge, I donāt want the game to be too easy because of a busted minigame.
I was thinking of making it so you can only play a gambling game 3 or 5 times a day with a low bet and payout if you win (Iām not sure if I want to make it per game or just 3-5 attempts in general). That way the money gained would be still beneficial, money lost would still be felt, but not enough to either make or break a run. I also only want this for chapters 2 (tiny area, 1 game), 4 (small area 2 games), 6 (has a casino, will have all of the games, probably 3 or 4 total) and 7 (small area 2 games).
So far, this game looks pretty good. its like a mix of what you usually see on WG forums and another RPG game iāve played before. Iām pretty hyped, honestly.
Almost ready for the āWhat Iāve currently got and stealth minigameā demo. Just need to get a few things in order yet. Should be dropping either tommorrow or early on the 7th.
I also added some extra options for how the warrior plays in combat. You can choose what type of armor she wears as well as what kind of weapon. For armors, they are categorized by light and heavy. Light armors make her faster but offer less protection (they are also the only armor type the rogue can equip), and heavy armor does the opposite. For weapons, you can either go for the sword and shield route or you can use a two handed sword. Shields offer quite a lot of protection but make her slower. While two handed swords leave her quicker on her feet and deal more damage overall. This in tandum with the weight gain mechanicās defese buff at higher weights, you will now have some control over her role in combat.