FutureFragments
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Powerups, an AMA question, and... an electric enemy?
🕑 Added 2016-05-19 19:57:20 +0000 UTC Hey, just wanted to get this out of the way right off the bat; Cheshire's situation seems to be OK now, the whole taxes thing is being taken care of, and we should be back to business by the weekend.Now, as far as the next few posts, I'll be showing off some more of the powerups, while getting an AMA question in there each time; let me know if you like this format OR if you'd rather have them in separate posts; trying to have something for everyone with the posts, haha.
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So first off, here's an answer to one of the AMA questions;
1)Will the game have an event/gallery mode or something, in order to "relive" the h-scenes/custcenes/h-cutscenes?
Yep! We'll have not only a gallery mode where you can just view animations as they are, but also the ability to view full cutscenes over again, and if you've done the cutscenes on subsequent playthroughs with different choices, those'll be visible also!
We'll also have a menu in the game that shows specifically which cutscenes you've found, and which ones you HAVEN'T found, and they'll be grouped by level/path, so you'll have a good idea of where to hunt to find anything you've missed.
2) Is it possible to have multiple save games, even in the form of textpad? I mean, copy/paste them somewhere? Because you said in another post that depending on the action you take, you kinda reshape things in the game. So, if I need to see the differencies, will I have to play again from the beggining?
Pretty sure we'll have this for the full game, it's just not in the demos as it's a lesser priority and such, but yeah, definitely.
For seeing the differences, you would need to play through again from the beginning in some cases, yeah; it's much like an RPG or adventure game plot wherein your choices early on can affect things later on. That said, the gallery will show you what you have and what you're missing, so if you're cutscene hunting, it'll be that much easier!
3) Estimated year of completion? (JK ^.^ )
Right now we're shooting for between September 2017 to December 2017, at the very latest (so it could be sooner!), as things should start speeding up significantly once Cheshire finishes the C++ build, and then finishes the cutscene editor/animation editor, as at that point Triangulate and I will be able to start creating content much faster for the game, allowing Cheshire to focus solely on adding in things through programming.
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And now, for the powerups! Each time I show off another 5 powerups, it'll be in the format of one "set boost" set of powerups, and then two "stand alone" powerups.
If you missed the first powerups post on how powerups work, go back and look at it patreon.com/posts/4840446 there!
To note again, these objects are not the actual physical representation of these objects; picking them up doesn't actually give Talia a paintbrush to use, etc.
The theme for the three Offense-based powerups at the top of the image (as they're a "set" of powerups), is "Art".
So, starting from the left;
#1 - Needle & Thread
This is the American powerup; yeah, I realize many cultures throughout history have used this, but in this case, we're going again with the "cultural image" of some settler family back in the day, where the woman's sewing blankets and clothes together for the family to keep warm, that sort of thing. (I realize this one's a real stretch!)
The boost it gives is "Talia's regular shots now do 20% more damage." Not really that massive of a boost, but it's probably not something you'd NOT want to have, right?
#2 - Chisel & Hammer
This is the European powerup; when you think of the chisel and hammer, most people think of the ancient statues in many places in Europe, carved with these tools.
The boost it is gives is "If Talia kills an enemy, they do 40 damage around them in an area of effect on death." This may not seem like much, but remember those small Celodst? In the full level, they'll often travel in packs, so if you kill ONE of them, given that they each have less than 40 health... or imagine killing a Berserker and there's enemies around it, so forth, etc. There's a second reason we put this in here though, and it'll be obvious when you see the set boost.
#3 - Calligraphy Brush
This is the Japanese powerup; obviously, the calligraphy brush is a really significant part of Japanese culture, and so it fits perfectly here.
The boost it gives is "Talia's regular shots are now twice as slow, but do twice as much damage." This may seem like a downfall, but again, these powerups are definitely setup for the set boost.
The Set Boost for this Set
If you manage to get all three powerups above at once (remember, Talia can only hold three powerups at once, and can't hold more than one of the same kind), then she'll get the following "Set Boost";
"Enemies damaged by Talia's abilities will be poisoned and lose 10HP health each second, but as long as they're poisoned, they'll also take 25% less damage from direct damage from Talia."
Does it make more sense now why the singular powerups do what they do? Imagine you go into a room and attack an enemy; your regular shot is going to do 2x damage + 20% extra damage on top of that, so only two or three shots will kill most enemies... but then you have the poison on top of that, so in reality, you should be able to deal with just hitting an enemy once, taking out a solid chunk of their life, and then they slowly die from the poison.
And now, for the remaining two, standalone Offense powerups for this post;
#4 - Pair of Dice
This powerup has no cultural origin that we're really assigning to it; there is a reason for this in the game's plot. All we can say is that it, along with six other powerups alongside it, they represent a certain plot point within a major plot twist in the game, so have fun trying to figure that one out :D
The boost it gives is "When Talia kills an enemy, if the next enemy she attacks is of the same type, she does 2x damage to it on her first hit on it." This is going to be great for enemies that are again in bunches and have low life, but it can also, in combination with other powerups, make certain levels easier to deal with if you intentionally target say, tanky enemies. (Note that this says the next enemy she ATTACKS; this means your charge shot qualifies for this 2x damage boost as well.)
#5 - Coral
This one's kind of an odd powerup culturally, as it represents multiple areas (essentially anywhere with a coral reef).
The boost it gives is "All of Talia's shots while crouching have 2x damage." If you didn't know, we'll be putting in a crouching shot for Talia in future versions of the game; this is to deal with certain enemies that may be too small for Talia to attack with using her normal shots.
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The progress report stuff!
I don't really want to seem lazy about this, but it's literally the same as the last post; dealing with Cheshire's tax stuff for the past few days has basically set myself and Cheshire back a few days (as we've had to do nothing but that so he doesn't get obliterated by his country's IRS), but Triangulate is continuing to push onwards and such.
Triangulate in fact just let me know he finished up the animations for two of the (multiple) sex cutscenes we've got planned for the Ice Level; one of them is a bit secret because it's a plot point thing, but the other one I can tell you about!
During the level, Talia slips up and falls down a hole, getting knocked out; when she wakes up, she finds herself strapped totally nude to a chair with holes in the bottom of the chair... and about 5 or 6 Celodst around her. If she answers correctly, using knowledge she's gleaned from prior cutscenes and databanks in the level, then she can fool the Celodst into thinking she's an undercover agent for WORM, and they not only let her go, but they give her a Future Fragment as well.
However, if she answers incorrectly... well, the Celodst all have their way with her, for a pretty long period of time. Eventually, she breaks free, whether it's of her own volition, or whether someone comes to her rescue, is up to the player's prior choices in cutscenes.
(And if you're in Egomaniac mode... well, Talia just stares down the Celodst, the questioning ends, they give her the Fragment, and they run off, scared for their lives.)
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One last cool thing!
I'm going to paste a "design document" we've got for one of the enemies in the Electricity Level here :D This enemy's decently complete, just missing one sex animation we're still debating internally. Triangulate's shown me some of the sketches/animation he's got done for it though, and it looks awesome!
Intruder Robot (Electric Enemy #3)
A short robot with a single conveyor belt made out of a slippery substance for his “legs”, a short pair of robotic arms with clamps on the end, and a gigantic “eyeball”.
The “eyeball” should be something like a large flood lamp light with an electronic eye (so it’s flat, not an actual rounded surface) where the bulb on this would normally be, if that makes sense.
Enemy Mobility:
Quite fast, but can’t jump, though.
Enemy Health:
The only invincible enemy in the game, has shielding that literally protects it from all damage types, except in Egomaniac mode, where it can be killed by a charge shot AFTER it’s disabled.
To disable it temporarily (in Egomaniac or normal gameplay, either one), Talia will need to just simply shoot it once without letting the robot see her. This will not only shut it down, but will also render it the only enemy in the game that does NOT damage Talia if she touches it while it’s in “disabled” mode.
However, if the enemy is in “alarm” mode (see below), it’ll only be shut down by firing at it and hitting it (or Talia being stunned).
Enemy Ability #1:
If Talia gets in the line of sight of the “eyeball” on the robot, it instantly switches into alarm mode, goes berserk, and starts flailing its eyeball around incredibly fast. Meanwhile, the robot starts emitting a 360 degree ripple effect from the center of it that reaches out a decent distance, ignores terrain, and if it hits Talia, it instantly stuns her without doing damage. If she’s stunned, he switches out of alarm mode and races over to her to begin sex animation #1.
Enemy Ability #2:
Any area he’s been on is covered with his slippery substance on his tracks; if Talia steps on it, her inertia on her movements is increased dramatically, causing her to slip and slide all over the place. (If this becomes annoying, we might redo this to have a different effect, like possibly locking her in place instead for enemies to have their way with her.)
Sex Animation #1:
Still deciding this one (will come back to it later).
Sex Animation #2:
He extends his arms out, pins Talia down with her legs spread and arms behind her back, and the conveyor belt grinding into her pussy, and then revs his conveyor belt on her pussy as fast as possible.
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That's it for now; I'll be doing a live stream sometime next week to just talk about what's going on with the game as well as other games we're working on and other cool stuff, I'll let you all know in advance! Please feel free to give me more AMA questions in the comments or messages too!
Comments
The Future Fragments Team
The in-between level POV animations aren't in yet, as they're a bit lower priority right now (top priority is finishing the C++ conversion, then getting the powerups code in, then getting the enemies in that we've finished that aren't in yet, then completing the cutscenes editor, then completing the enemies that're already in there, then the animation editor, etc.) We essentially wanna finish the Ice level and get the cutscene/animation editors done so Triangulate and I can start doing a lot more work on the game which'll allow Cheshire to push forward a lot faster, which will let us get the full game done faster, but getting those POV animations in will definitely be somewhere in there :P
Ben Miller
Also forgot to ask: Are the between-level POV animations in yet or did I just miss them? I remember reading in a previous post that they would be included in the demos.
The Future Fragments Team
So, to reply to a few of the concerns here (heck, I might make this a post unto itself in a few days to reply to concerns people have about it, haha); - 50 powerups is pretty small, actually. Take into account that enemies, some databanks, and some cutscenes will drop powerups, and they'll also be in hidden rooms and tucked away in maps too. Then take into account that each level will have around 20-30 rooms, x 5 levels, and that's 100-150 rooms in the whole game; I think you'll find that 50 powerups isn't even enough to prevent you from running into a few of the same ones multiple times. - Also take into account that we'll have an algorithm running constantly in real time that adjusts the probability of what powerups you get (offense, defense, or utility) based on your performance in previous areas; if you tend to have a more aggressive playstyle, you'll have a higher likelyhood of getting offense powerups, for instance. - And then on top of all of that, powerups will be tiered; some of them will be considered "common" and easy to get, and others will be much rarely showing up and will be "rare", and others will be outright hidden and not normal drops. Add all that up and you'll see that 50 powerups is actually pretty low; we wanted to prevent players from running into repeated powerups as much as possible, but with all that in play, it's inevitable. 50 powerups will at least lessen that likelyhood of how often it'll happen. The powerups are also something worked into the plot of the game, and picking them up will give you a bit of a hint at the true nature of the game/storyline, not to mention they're an actual reward for those who actually seek out databanks and cutscenes, regardless of if they're engaged in the plot or not. (All the above addresses the matching sets of three, too; you won't have much trouble being able to match sets of three. :P) There aren't really massive downsides to any of them that I've talked about so far except for the Negative ones, and they have an obvious reason why they're so punishing (as it's meant to be a hard-mode gameplay route). Ignoring the powerups isn't recommended; once powerups are implemented, after the Fire Level (aka the tutorial level), enemies will become *much* stronger. While we're going to balance the game out (plus the second algorithm going that balances out enemy HP/damage depending on how good/bad you're doing), enemies will be MUCH tougher from the Ice Level onwards, so you'll want those powerups. Finally, you don't need to match them up to get a significant power boost, as some of the stand alone powerups I'll talk about in coming days will show; the "set boost" powerups are deliberately sometimes weak, sometimes even with downsides, as generally the set boost they provide is very, very strong in most cases if you get all three. So basically you can go for 1) Get standalone, moderately strong powerups that you can mix and match to get some neat combo effects, or 2) Risk it and try for the sets of powerups, to get a very strong boost with the set boost ability for them. tl;dr we've thought this through for a while; I promise we wouldn't include it unless we were confident it'd be something that we could successfully balance out and make work to be fun and engaging for the player, instead of unneeded/cumbersome. :P
iamnuff
Honestly, 50 powerups feels like too many. Even if they come in groups of three. From the sounds of things, this is going to be a pretty minor sub-system, in the grand scheme of things. Does it really warrent that much time and effort? Actually, is matching sets of three even going to be practical with a total of 50 that could drop? (or are the drop tables separated via level, leaving you with merely two or three possible sets on each level?) Considering the massive downsides to some of them, it sounds more practical to just ignore the whole powerup matching minigame and just stick with one or two that have minimal downsides. Or just do it raw.
The Future Fragments Team
Yeah, for sure! :D
The Future Fragments Team
In-game, when you walk on top of a powerup, before picking it up, your GUI in-game will show a small summary of what it does. For instance, the Needle & Thread will simply say "Normal shots 20%+ dmg.", whereas the Chisel & Hammer might say "40 AoE dmg on enemy death". Then, when you actually do pick them up for the first time, you'll be able to go into your in-game pause menu from that point onwards (and later on even if you don't have the powerup) to see a full, detailed explanation of what the powerup does in your powerups collection/menu.
Ben Miller
What are you doing to mitigate confusion with all the powerups? I think you said there were 50? Tbh, there's absolutely no way I'm going to remember what most of them do.
HapsTheHamster
Good to heard about the game and that the tax stuff is being worked out :)
