I see one problem with making the office grow with number of visits:
considering leveling stats “dumps” all experience into it when you upgrade, it means you inherently need to leave the office in order to level at a specific point meaning the office is expanding far faster than a player who wants to control their leveling can scale up
unless the leveling itself can be numerically fixed (IE we type in stamina 4 to put 4 experience points into stamina) or the leveling computer can magically warp and thus appear in the offices somewhere I see the offices as becoming way larger than most people will be tolerant of if they are trying to level up in a reasonable way
I think I mentioned this earlier, but I feel like I need to change a little bit with how the office is connected. After a certain size, the office will start to open to new containment areas, like the space where The Idol of the Fecund God is stored. The reason this is a little troublesome to me is I feel like logically this should be connected to the labs. I also don’t like it because it breaks the flow of going from the office to the labs and back to the office.
I could take out the labs and put the terminal in the offices instead. That might be the right way to go. Or completely rip off SCP and just have everything be labs, but I hate to throw away the office work. Sunk cost? Yeah.
And I still need a good monster for the office hallways. The vacuum is good, even if it needs a little more work. I had a scepter figure that did damage a while back, but it wasn’t very good. A slime girl that behaves much like the vacuum but drops slimes might work. I’m just guessing at this point and not sure what makes the most sense. I probably just have to try a bunch of things and see what works.
Maybe have the office atmosphere be like a beginner area: there’s a series called “Sonic Dissected” that goes over not only story and art design, but even level design. One topic covered is how level design can be used as a type of signal to the player, like a subtle warning.
With the offices, their normalcy could be excellent for giving an intitial “okay, things might be normal” type of setup, but maybe once players hit a certain threshold somewhere, the offices no longer show up and you’re instead treated to bigger rooms, like saying “now it’s gettin’ real”.
Also, remembered how you mentioned coding certain things is difficult to figure out? There’s a playlist of Godot tutorials that might help:
Appreciate the input. Really, I’m just not well practiced at level design. Can watch a lot of videos but really I just need to get it done. A person doesn’t learn art from watching. They learn from practicing.
Also, remembered how you mentioned coding certain things is difficult to figure out?
Appreciate the link. I like Lukky’s content, but in this case it’s not difficulty around using Godot or programming in general. If you’re referring to this comment on difficulty, it’s not necessarily the systems that are difficult to figure out – though it’s really easy to obsess over building them perfectly instead of just finishing them – it’s difficult to figure out WHAT systems and things to put together. It’s the difference between not knowing what to write because you’re not fluent in a language and not knowing what to write because you don’t know what will be most interesting. In this case, I’m fluent enough in the language but trying to put together a more elegant story.
On that note, I have made a few changes but haven’t updated the itch page yet. I’m leaving it on SubscribeStar a little longer so those folks can get more value out of the alpha.
Changes:
Significant change to how stamina works. Higher stamina will not just allow you to run longer, but will decrease the rate at which a player gains exhaustion and increase recovery.
Player will now slowly deflate, slowly lose weight, and can slowly gain weight by eating.
Player’s clothes will rip slightly earlier. Fixed issue where the player would clip through clothes.
Fixed a bug where having a crowbar or item equipped after getting KO’d would cause a crash when attempting to re-equip it.
Fixed a bug where the player could use an amnestic while grappled and get stuck. Trying to use items when doing anything but standing, running, and walking now shows a message.
Sound work: randomize the ripping sound of the player clothes.
Bugfix: the purgation menu won’t hide the mouse if the user opens and closes the main menu while using it.
Fix: codex now properly show up and appear in the codex listing. Saving and loading of documents you’ve seen works.
Use the body to serialize/deserialize fills so that we can add bust fill and butt fill.
The TODO List:
(Done, but removed.) Make a stamina drink that you can get from vending machines so that the early office is less slow.
More office variety, including food that you can eat and items you can find.
The vacuum entity needs sound effects and the transition to the player grapple is too abrupt.
Still no intro sequence.
(Fixed and done!) The codex menu doesn’t update when you find new memos around the office.
There’s a broken storage room at the end of the docks.
Lab needs more stuff.
Consider having The Terminal appear in The Offices instead of the labs. Go full SCP with the procedural generation.
Oh, it’s not just Lukky’s video - that’s just the playlist’s thumbnail because his is the first video. It actually leads to a playlist of videos from multiple creators, all covering different basics of Godot. In fact, I just checked the playlist and found a video on combat:
The previous link leads to the video, but it should open a playlist off to the side covering other topics aside from Lukky’s video. Found the playlist from a video that can’t be found on YouTube anymore, which sucks. But it is more than just Lukky.
I think the Flashlight needs to be reworked a little. First of all, since you not only start with one, but can get them renewably, they need to run out of battery so it’s worth finding more. Although, since that means the Flashlight itself goes to waste once used up, instead you should be able to find Batteries for the Flashlight instead of finding more Flashlights. I just don’t want so many Flashlights, you only ever “need” the one that you start with (and it’s not much of a help, there are hardly any dark areas you’d normally encounter).
Also, can you add a tool item, which can be found later in the game, that can perhaps change the color of the ceiling lights in the Offices to mark your way, any loops, or any dead ends to avoid getting lost or rechecking an already explored area? Because the only way to know where you’ve been is whenever you left a randomly generated door open.
Eventually there will be only one flashlight and crowbar. I have code in the game to keep them from spawning after getting picked up, but it’s not enabled for now.
I like this idea. If it’s not too tricky to implement then it’s a nice compromise between a minimap and nothing.
Just wanted to make sure I’m not missing anything … is there anything to do other than eat slimes and die to the vacuum? No other progression area or big draw I am missing?
Not really. The version on itch was just a private release to find export bugs and get input on control feel (that somehow managed to get a few thousand downloads). Appreciate the input from everyone.
I might make it private again while I keep working on things.
In terms of updates (not on itch), I have two more containment zones to put together and one more office space, then it’s mostly fiddling and beta testing.
Maybe I’m just dumb but I cannot seem to get out of the loading bay area, I have found 3 flashlights, 2 crowbars and the whoopee cushion but after the next steps are unclear.
It was (is) only a small-scale alpha release with a little bit of mechanics to let a small group of people report gameplay issues and bugs.
I’ll post again when there’s more worth playing. For now I’m going to turn off the public access so that people won’t get the impression that it’s released or play something that’s not ready to play.
Oh gotcha, just wanted to see if I was missing something. Shows a lot of promise but as far as bugs the only one I found is once you go to turn your fill bar into xp the character model inverts the abdomen area.
I’ve had some problems with the vines (tentacles) glitching out, but I’m taking a break from messing with them to finish other parts of the game.
The animation when they capture you looks janky, but improving it is going to have to wait until I’m all done with the last two puzzle pieces. Then the “normal” ending will be finished.
The playtest is closed for now, but it will open again for a public release probably towards the end of April. I haven’t found an easy way to get the filesize down, too, so the version on itch is old.
There’s a SubscribeStar if you insist (or want to encourage development of these kinds of games), but I’d recommend waiting for the full release. https://subscribestar.adult/captainstupids It’s almost always better to play a game after it’s finished.
