Others Going Deeper [Beta 2.1] [NRFB Games]

[Rosen King]

A question that I had though is Lucelle's new scene. Because the scene of Elli investigating the last team happened on my first playthrough and will not play for NG+, is there a way for this scene to be triggered since nothing seems to be getting her to actually get to that point.

You have to trigger it yourself by using the "join what the knight is doing" option while she's studying in the tent alone, after the first event where you find Coraline's note at Eschahn's shrine. Suggest for Elli to study, then check the tent to make sure it doesn't say she's studying as a group (though I'm not sure if that's even a thing), then choose to join her.

Although if you're having some kind of bug that's preventing all Coraline scenes from showing up, that could have gotten in the way of one of the prerequisites.

 

[Robotninja]

How do you get the Masochism, Rope Bunny, Easily stimulated, Exhibitionist, or Nature's reclamation curses?

 

[Rosen King]

How do you get the Masochism, Rope Bunny, Easily stimulated, Exhibitionist, or Nature's reclamation curses?

You get curses randomly by choosing to take the skill point at the end of each dungeon floor, and can also take curses from the Eschahn Shrine that starts appearing at (I think) floor 5 and higher. There might be certain requirements for certain curses to have a chance of randomly being gained from the end of the floor, but I'm not entirely sure what they'd be. Easily Stimulated probably requires having skills with the Charge tag and/or having had the Charge status multiple times, and Nature's Reclamation is probably the same thing with Thorns. But any curse can show up in shrines regardless of any other requirements.

 

[taler]

icollectsouls basically got it in one already, but yeah... So while Godot does have the ability to export to Android, I don't believe that the current UI would be great for phone play (mostly due to small text/clickable items, as I believe that ALMOST everything can be controlled via mouse). Trying to fix that would be one thing, but then there's all the extra work of supporting it (would take more time and almost certainly have more problems than supporting linux along with windows does).

So I don't hate the idea, but at this point the scale of how much work it would take to get any given port would likely be:
HTML5 - My very first export of the game was actually to HTML5. I hosted it privately on itch to a friend I was pitching the whole concept to. It did work, but they reported performance issues that I saw none of, which made me nervous about putting it out there publicly as it could cause bad first impressions that wouldn't even be my fault.
Mac OSX - Possible, but I don't know what the warning of "Notarization is not supported from this OS. The exported project will be blocked by Gatekeeper if it's downloaded from an unknown source" means. I also have no means of testing a mac version and am not going to buy one. (Also I have been told that the game works through wine so mac players could do that if they really want to)
Android - Explained above (also my phone is an old piece of garbage that hates running games so that wouldn't help either)
iOS - lmao. lol, even.

I was thinking about this earlier. Probably need to think through how sex partners are decided. Part of the thing that knights do while deciding on their plans for a camp time slot is check with the other knights to see who all would be willing to join their activity. Because they always check with everyone, in order for two characters to have sex without the third joining, that third would have to be unwilling/find their current activity more satisfying... Which would probably not happen terribly often especially in the case of a Raine/Lucette scene with no Elli.

Could also just set up the basics of such a system and say "you mod it in yourself if you want X monster in camp so badly" but then it's not like modding is set up yet either so it's all future concern stuff.

"Why Eschahn did nothing wrong"

At the very least, I believe one of Lucette's chats vaguely alludes to a "pre-conflict" something or other, but I don't believe I've gone very far into lore (some people already say the intro is too long) and don't know how far I will.

Because the Inquisitor has such a good track record of breaking the knights out of trances.

I hope so too.

The curse icons that I made earlier on are a lot more abstractly styled I think. But yeah, it's a hand.

Who plays porn games on a tiny phone screen? Like everyone else who's asking for android I have a tablet, no ui redesign necessary just make the build. To be honest html would work just as well too.

 

[NRFB]

Anonymity prevents anyone from scrying the knight. The description does not mention at all that you cannot scry them on a space. Just that it doesn't affect the space they are on. A strat I use is to scry after everyone is on the stair case so I can give them a charge for the next floor (or if I have the magic skill that takes the charge and reduces exhaustion/injury/lust it just makes it easier on the next floor). The red glow just shows around the knight and it rejects me from using the skill even if multiple knights are present.

I mean it was months ago but I THINK this is what I intended when making the curse? Scrying a room with a character who has max rank anonymity fails. I guess the wording on it is a little weird though, which is odd because I usually try to be pretty particular about how I word things that could be ambiguous.

But any curse can show up in shrines regardless of any other requirements.

There are some curses that can't. Easily Stimulated is actually one of them just because it seemed like it would be pretty shitty to get it and have it rank up to the point where it has a "have charge or bad thing" effect on a character with no charge generation. Though that's kind of inconsistent now that I look at it because Nature's Reclamation CAN appear in shrines even though it has the same thing but with thorns...

just make the build

If only it were that easy.

 

[taler]

If only it were that easy.

What about HTML then?

 

[RagueltheUFO]

I mean it was months ago but I THINK this is what I intended when making the curse? Scrying a room with a character who has max rank anonymity fails. I guess the wording on it is a little weird though, which is odd because I usually try to be pretty particular about how I word things that could be ambiguous.

This is the first time I ever embraced that curse once I saw that it syngerized with a lot of Elli's kit (dodgy + shroud + darkness fighting). I brought it up because the embolden curse that increases the ranking wasn't maxed out and she hasn't 100% embraced it and it still wouldn't be scry the staircase with all the knights on it. I did it the next time I went to camp and it didn't work at all which I know that was the effect. I think it would be better worded by scry not working at all if the knight is in that room versus having it say "doesn't affect the space she's on" because then wouldn't that mean it would still affect the other two knights who can still get the scry? And then the original affect is the chance of the room darkening again anyway.

 

[Privitarium]

There are some curses that can't. Easily Stimulated is actually one of them just because it seemed like it would be pretty shitty to get it and have it rank up to the point where it has a "have charge or bad thing" effect on a character with no charge generation. Though that's kind of inconsistent now that I look at it because Nature's Reclamation CAN appear in shrines even though it has the same thing but with thorns...

I think it's okay for the full list of curses to be offered by the shrines, given that it's the player who decides whether to take it on a character that doesn't yet have the relevant skills (and start building around it).

It only feels bad if it's forced by the random stairs-curse, and even then its a design choice whether you want to force players to change their skill building to accommodate random curses. Personally, if that WERE the case, I wouldn't like it and maybe even complain but I'd put up with it.

 

[NRFB]

So about there being no major bug that needs a new version to correct it... Actually I guess you could argue that it isn't major since not only did I not notice it while testing, nobody noticed it while playing.
Anyway it turns out there was a code typo so disarming doesn't cause an exhaustion increase.

I think it's okay for the full list of curses to be offered by the shrines, given that it's the player who decides whether to take it on a character that doesn't yet have the relevant skills (and start building around it).

It only feels bad if it's forced by the random stairs-curse, and even then its a design choice whether you want to force players to change their skill building to accommodate random curses. Personally, if that WERE the case, I wouldn't like it and maybe even complain but I'd put up with it.

You're probably right for the most part though it seems like you're also looking at it from the perspective of somebody who has the curses researched so they can see what they're getting at the shrine rather than having the shrine curses ALSO be random.

There is also the reverse issue where gaining a certain curse without the prerequisites would mean that the curse itself ends up being entirely toothless and would essentially be free corruption wave absorption. Insatiable does absolutely nothing if you never get fury. Turnabout does nothing if you don't have both masochism and sadism. That might be more of a design issue with those curses in particular though.

 

[RagueltheUFO]

And then there's Suggestive that doesn't work even when maxed out LUL

Is it intentional for Easy to be the default on the first floor the shrine is in?

 

[Rosen King]

Tweet time!

At some point you should probably just not be using the auto-turn function, but hey they're not hard requests to implement I guess.

I unironically wish there was some way to apply this to my own clicking. "Alright, let's just speed this along. Clickclickclickclickclick... Oops, Raine has been Masturbating for six turns and there's no way for any of the knights to reach her in time. :\"

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(It's a video of chests being opened with different animations depending on what type/rarity of scroll is inside.)

Information at a glance? Technology? Maybe.

...I'm hesitant to criticize this because I have a much bigger problem with excessive designs than simplistic ones, and I don't want my critique to result in this turning into something obnoxious. But this literally looks like a mock-up put together in MS Paint, and I should know, because I'm literally gonna do that later in this post. Maybe it's just the fact that it's painted over the cursor, although for practical reasons you'd think that's the way it should be. It's not like you have more need to see the cursor than the health bar, it just *feels* weird to have a moving "cursor" UI element behind a static bar element.

Hmm... Maybe... What if this was somehow worked into the border of the room? (Or at least pretended to be, by putting it exactly one layer over it.) Let me see if I can make a not-terrible mock-up of what I'm talking about...

Spoiler

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Although I'm not sure how much of a fan of that I am, simply because there's now so much stuff where there didn't used to be stuff. Also, the border around the bars isn't as visible as it was when I was making this. Twice as much of best girl, though, so that's a plus. (I copied Lucette onto a tile to show the circumstances of the "counter" bar appearing. Also, the missing "health" bar on that one trap is deliberate, to indicate a one-shot trap.)

Edit: It occurs to me that, as evidence by that stair huddle, crowding all three knights in a room would end up obstructing these health bars. Hrm.

 

[RagueltheUFO]

The only way for the knights health to be fine is if each of them are on an established side. Raine is always left Elli is always down, etc. But then the problem is if all are in the room with an enemy. I fear the game will slow down and crash too often as a result of the visible health bars. Although, the health bars would make it easier to use skills like parting shot so I know I'm killing the enemy before I go to the next room.

 

[NRFB]

And then there's Suggestive that doesn't work even when maxed out LUL

What part doesn't work and why haven't I heard about it before?

Is it intentional for Easy to be the default on the first floor the shrine is in?

No, but that is fixed now.

...I'm hesitant to criticize this because I have a much bigger problem with excessive designs than simplistic ones, and I don't want my critique to result in this turning into something obnoxious. But this literally looks like a mock-up put together in MS Paint, and I should know, because I'm literally gonna do that later in this post.

Yeah there are some problems with this current implementation. It looks okayish in game I think but I'd like it to be better. As you kind of said here though, anything to pretty it up makes everything more cluttered with detail.

Like, I really do like the information being readily available without needing to click but fitting it all in and making it readable and nice to look at is tough. I need to iterate more on it, though I don't have a great direction to go towards in mind.

I fear the game will slow down and crash too often as a result of the visible health bars.

I don't know why you would even think that???

 

[RagueltheUFO]

So with Suggestive, I make sure the curse is maxed out. Because there are more ways to fall into trance, I end up having another knight going to help someone who falls into the curse. They are always woken up and never fall into the trance state. The past 5 runs have been the same situation. Max curse. Fall into trance. Watch the knight succeed and trancing the knight trying to wake her up never happens. ;-; I might have the worst luck if it does work.

 

[Rosen King]

Like, I really do like the information being readily available without needing to click but fitting it all in and making it readable and nice to look at is tough. I need to iterate more on it, though I don't have a great direction to go towards in mind.

Well, I am getting more attached to the idea of incorporating the enemy health/rearm meter into the top part of the room, although as Raguel pointed out, the counter meter is more of an issue because each knight needs their own. Really, I can't think of any sort of implementation that doesn't end up especially cluttered when all three knights are in a room together. If it was just me, I'd skip out on the counter meter altogether, since I never pay attention to that anyway. But that doesn't help the people who do.

Maybe some sort of combination of the two? You could have the enemy health/rearm baked into the border with a rectangular meter, then (as a separately toggleable option) have the more floaty and rounded meter from the Tweet show up beneath the knight when they engage with a monster/trap that would use it.

Spoiler: Like so

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Now with thicker borders. And even more Lucette! ...This is actually making me want a clone enemy/trap now. Although maybe that would be redundant with the Doppelganger Shadow already being a thing, unless it's treated as an even more advanced version of the same enemy. I think it'd be more fun if it kept their personality and mannerisms, though, instead of just being a lewd parody of their bodies.

 

[Privitarium]

You're probably right for the most part though it seems like you're also looking at it from the perspective of somebody who has the curses researched so they can see what they're getting at the shrine rather than having the shrine curses ALSO be random.

There is also the reverse issue where gaining a certain curse without the prerequisites would mean that the curse itself ends up being entirely toothless and would essentially be free corruption wave absorption. Insatiable does absolutely nothing if you never get fury. Turnabout does nothing if you don't have both masochism and sadism. That might be more of a design issue with those curses in particular though.

Both fair points.

Concerning my perspective as having researched all curses, however, I also took unknown curses along with the witch's curse-identification every time to help me fill out the curse compendium (and get research points). It is a little sad knowing I won't be able to discover 'mama bear' and other obscure curses I've yet to collect through the shrines, because trying to roll them randomly is difficult with how big the list is now (I've save scummed for this before, but now... Whoo boy).

As for the second point, the list of curses is pretty big now so I'm not certain just how much easier the game will be by allowing it. Moreover, if it does make the game easier, I think that would make taking on more difficulty multipliers at once more doable (particularly the curse wave accelerant). But I admit, I'm in it to make curse-skill builds easier to complete too. (Stealth with Anonymous, Exhibitionist with Seeing Red, etc.)

 

[Eidolic]

Thought of something in my last run that I figured I'd share.

I notice that whenever there's a new camp event that's part of a chain (i.e., get this event, then get this one, then this one, etc..), the player needs to unlock the previous events in the chain in order to access it. Makes sense, that's what an event chain is. Thing is, because of how event chains work, you need to do the entire chain every run in order to get the last events of the chain.

Why does this matter if you just need to unlock the event once and then you can bring the log of it into NG+ whenever you wanted to watch it again? Well I imagine as the game develops further, more events will be added. For sheer variety's sake, these events will have different, potentially complex, almost certainly RNG-dependent conditions. This is a recipe for frustration as the game grows more complex, some of which is already showing for myself on a personal level.

The only comparable scenario I can think of is Echoes of Lust, or whatever it's called now. The player needs to go through the same introductory content every run in order to access the new stuff. They deal with it by just skipping the early stuff because that's the premise of the story. It's Groundhog Day, of course the protagonist is going to do the right things to get back into the situation every time.

But I don't think that would work for this story, because our protagonist isn't jumping through time. As far as I know, the protagonist is very much unaware of the previous runs in every subsequent NG+ run. Not to mention, the events that require specific traits on the knights, it wouldn't make sense to be able to just trigger the follow-ups in the chains if they don't meet the requirements.

This is more of a discussion than a request or complaint because I have no idea how this issue could even be dealt with. The existence of NG+ already leans more into roguelite territory, so maybe that's the plan? I say 'maybe' because the end of the dungeon (and therefore the narrative) isn't here yet. So even though the narrative is very much in "roguelike, not lite" territory, perhaps there's already something planned to address this.

It's also possible that this will end up a non-issue by the end of development simply because event chains won't be that long, and events will be focused more on breadth (lots of short chains) instead of depth (a few long chains).

 

[NRFB]

Event chains

This is a valid concern, although I can sidestep some of it to some degree by adding new game+ rewards to start with progress for things that ends up feeling egregious to have to repeat.

Also worth saying that the game is going to be longer than 15 floors in a run, so there will be even more opportunities to do stuff than there is now (and the game is already decently long in terms of actual time to finish a run).

 

[Eidolic]

adding new game+ rewards to start with progress

But would it make sense in-universe? Maybe it wouldn't. Maybe gameplay-story integration in this regard isn't the intention. But I think it's worth thinking about.

 

[WellIGuess]

Being as half or more of the camp events require characters to be suffering from a specific curse (certainly the majority of the 'sexy' ones), either less variety of curses or a better way to 'aim' for a specific curse wouldn't go amiss. It's already fairly RNG to trigger an event even when you have all the prerequisites fullfilled (get everyone in the right mood, make sure they're not sleeping or doing something else or doing someone else thus zeroing their lust again, THEN hope they decide to do the right action or agree when you ask them to do the right action). Eschahn's shrine is a decent start but maybe make it offer a small 'variety' of curses to choose from rather than just be an extra RNG roll? It's already random whether one will spawn in a floor and whether you'll run into it if one does (yes there are ways to mitigate that but you can only have/cast so many spells at once).

Anyway, been away for a few updates, nice to see the game shaping up right. Still could use more and longer, ah, 'content' though.