Taxing Thievery [Extremely Early Demo]

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Taxing Thievery (Working Title) is an RPG Maker XP adventure puzzle game about a thief trapped in an ancient ruins attempting to make her way out with as much treasure as she can find.

The game is heavily inspired by Pknad’s Prison, it’s kind of the entire reason I started the project. Although there are some differences, in this weight is meant to be a bit more of a health state. Currently you can only gain weight, and it’s implementations are light, in the future I’d like it to matter more.

Most of the work so far has been laying out a groundwork, and making graphics. Before digging any deeper into the project I wanted to share it, and hopefully get some feedback on what’s working and what isn’t. So right now the game only has a few minutes of content, honestly. In the future I’d like to include more puzzles, and enemy variety.

Regardless, if you’d like to give my little project a try, you can download it right here:

You will need RPG Maker XP’s RTP pack to play the game. It can be downloaded here:
https://dl.degica.com/rpgmakerweb/run-time-packages/xp_rtp104e.exe

Here's some screenshots.

Screenshot1
Screenshot 2021-10-15 031722
Screenshot 2021-10-15 031849

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Looks pretty interesting so far! I can’t climb down the bottom rope in the room with the hole you can crawl through, is that the end of what you’ve gotten done so far?

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I’m getting this error when I try loading up the game.

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Looks pretty interesting so far! I can’t climb down the bottom rope in the room with the hole you can crawl through, is that the end of what you’ve gotten done so far?

Yeah, right now the only place you can go from that map is the chest room through the hole. In the future you’ll be able to go through the ornate door, head down the rope, and go to the far right of the screen to reach more maps.

Parnash

I’m getting this error when I try loading up the game.

Pretty sure that’s an error caused by not having the Run Time Package for RPG Maker. You can download the RTP for XP right here: https://dl.degica.com/rpgmakerweb/run-time-packages/xp_rtp104e.exe

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I like this so far. The demo does a good job of emulating the basic mechanics and feel of the few games that artist did, and I like your spritework. My only complaint is that some animations feel slightly too slow. The animations from interacting with a save point and crawling through a hole, in particular, feel like they might be better slightly shorter, but that could be just my preference. Rope climbing makes sense to slow down at higher weights, as well as walking, so I am not referring to anything like that. The hopping down ledges via interactions is also something that could be interesting, but hopefully not as many ledges in a row unless it is a chase or something, as it takes some time.

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Ok question, is it possible to make Xp games fullscreen?
Cus if so, my dumbarse is incapable of understanding how.

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what version should i download? there is so many options!

edit: nevermind i am a total dumbass

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Love the calming essence
and vibes this game gives off : )

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Thanks for the feedback! I was actually thinking they were a little too slow right now too. I was trying to strike a good balance for showing the sprites off and emphasizing the gain largely. I’m planning to speed up crawling and climbing on the final weight level. I’ll also mess with the save point speed, it doesn’t need to be this slow by any means.

The ledges are mostly there to set the tone more for the ruined part of the ruins. In the future I’d also like to include a ledge clamber for higher walls. A lot of it is less for expedience and more for the experience.
I guess what I’m saying is that they aren’t going away but I’ll try not to over use them either.

Thank you for reminding me to add a chase sequence :slight_smile:

Yeah! Alt Enter should make it full screen, I’m not sure if there’s any other way but I think you can also pull up a settings menu with F1. My biggest complaint with XP really is the window size options. Sorry about that!

Don’t worry about it, I got confused when I went to the page the first time myself. Later I’ll try to add a direct download link for the XP RTP for convenience.

Is it actually particularly calming? I’m glad you like it regardless! I just hadn’t thought of it that way myself. Although the music I chose (which is public domain actually) is quite nice I think haha

Thanks for the comments so far! I’ll be working on the game more soon. Hopefully my next update will be a more substantial one. I’m not exactly sure what the right pacing for this kind of thing is. But I’d like it to have more content for sure!

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This looks like a really cool project. I would personally like a stage or two more of weight gain before losing, but that’s more my preference than anything. I really like the concept, and running around and collecting gold and stuff is pretty fun, while also trying to avoid enemies. The punishment of reduced mobility for being caught is a fun mechanic in my opinion that rewards you for being cautious when it comes to how you navigate, as each time you get caught makes the game more difficult. Anyways, awesome work, and I am excited to see more from this project! (Also, loved Pknad’s Prison, its definitely a good inspiration for a game.)

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Buying a copy of RPG Maker XP on a whim is finally going to pay off, because I don’t need to download the RTP anymore. Does this really matter in the long run? Not really.

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While I’d love to do that, I’m not entirely sure how much more context sensitive art I want to make, I’m already planning another animation that I’ll need to draw at all 3 current levels. It also gets hard to make the game fun if I want to keep the current progression going. Right now we’re basically on the border of what I consider the maximum amount of slowness I’d be willing to make the player with their weight. I’ll consider it for sure, but I just can’t promise anything right now. I’d say there’d be one more maximum, for gameplay reasons mostly.

There will be more unique loss animations, and bad ends, so the opportunity for more is there! This is also my first foray into weight gain artwork, so I’m still getting my footing for how I draw this stuff. The second bad end in the current demo is the biggest I’ve ever drawn and is probably what I consider my limit on what I like at all. I’d actually really like some more scenarios that keep our thief a bit chubbier while still losing too. (I hope I’m not saying too much un-needed info, I just don’t really have many people to bounce off this with :sweat_smile:)

A silver lining to everything!

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I just want to say that this looks amazing already. I quite frankly have always loved the j8867bbw-ish style games, so seeing other people make similar pieces of art makes me really happy.
I can’t wait for the next update!

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I hope you keep updating this game in the future. The style is great and I’d like to see more weight phases before a gameover. I would also like to see more gameovers as well.

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For a Demo this is good it has a good creepy feel and the art is very good.

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Kinda curious, what was the motivation behind choosing XP for the version of RPG Maker used to make the game?

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New updates are coming! I don’t intend for the game to be long but it will be multiple ending, I’m already working on new content past what was shown in my early demo. I’m still considering a new weight stage, but there is going to be more game overs.

This isn’t a great reason really, but I just kind of had it and thought it’d be fun to mess with. I actually own a few versions of RPG Maker and am making another, probably bigger, game in MV. I saw that this games inspiration, Pknad’s Prison, was made in XP, and wanted to see if I could emulate its style myself. Also the layer feature in XP is different than MV, so I thought it would be nice to mess with! (I vastly prefer it actually.)

To make short of it, I just thought it’d be fun, and the project isn’t supposed to be a huge time investment anyways. Although I am focusing on it right now.

Hope that wasn’t too drawn out of a reply! Here’s a sad Mimi for now. Mimi

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that is a very cool sad mimi

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If I draw a cookie would she get happy?

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Of course.

Also a Bit of An Update
Obviously I’m working on the game still, next update Mimi is going to have a more important role than she did initially, her game over will still be in though. That’s it for now on her.

I’m considering another weight level but I want some thoughts on mechanics first.

As the game progresses I want a stronger variety of puzzles and challenges, mostly stuff that I think most people could conquer without google or anything. Right now I’ve implemented a sort of challenge room where you need to time climbing on ropes in order to avoid being killed. I’ve been testing this room thoroughly, and right now I’m happy with it’s difficulty. At weight 1, it’s pretty easy; weight 3, the timing is tight but it’s possible.

I want each weight level to have a feedback both visually and mechanically. The issue here is mostly in XP’s limitations to player speed. If I reduce the players speed past weight 3, this room is impossible. And I don’t want to make it any easier, for fear of it being completely void at higher weights. It’s also just not super fun to move any slower than I have it set to right now. (Some things have actually been sped up since my first demo, but there are still changes at each level.)

Now this is going to be in the next update. I’m adding a way to lose weight, however it will be a finite resource, and probably tied to the ending you get. I want to space this a bit farther from the Mimic event so that the ruins don’t feel too lively, but I can assure it’s reachable without having to restart. Which comes to the question all this text was a pre amble for.

Would you still be interested in another weight stage if it was basically a walking game over in some scenarios? This means the possibility of being unable to progress through a puzzle if you don’t lose weight first. I don’t have everything planned right now, so it’s possible in the future you’ll be able to “complete” the game without any puzzles that rely on speed or being small, but it could mean locking the player out of content if they use all their resources.

I hope this isn’t too over thought or anything, I know it’s a funny fetish game at the end of the day, but I still want it to be fun. If you have any thoughts please feel free to let me know, otherwise I’ll likely just make a decision myself and pray it works out.

Edit: Oh yeah and I made a twitter if you’re into that kind of thing. Sixes (@SixesFA) / Twitter
Not sure what all I’ll use it for. Maybe if I ever do a stray fanart or anything, maybe previews?

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