HRPG New Mechanics Experiment

[triped]

There are a lot of dynamics I'd like to see in HRPGs and RPGs. After a long time of not seeing them emerge, I decided to try to build them out.

First thing to try was a time based system, that affected both out of battle things and in battle things. For instance, if you got poisoned and that poison had a 20s duration, then, at 10s you got into battle, the poison would last for the 10 remaining seconds within that battle.

Here is my experiment using phaser 3 with a battle system that uses real time with pause for action selection.


Actions take variable time, They can be interrupted by a number of things.
I also added a body parts system. So, you'll see that actions become unavailable as the main character gets grabbed. The first grab, grabbing one wrist, disables the "double punch", because it requires two hands, and the grab also disables the the jump kick which requires free movement. The second grab disables the "punch" action because no hand is available to punch with.

You don't see it, but there's also a stat system built in that affects damage and speed and other things.

Next I'll be adding the positional grappling system,

I'm using Rex's plugins for some of the UI. I intend to make this the standard sort of top down dungeon crawling RPG.

I haven't built a full game before, though I've modded a bunch of stuff, so feel free to chime in about obvious things I might have missed.

 

[Spiderling77]

So, one thing that I would like to ask you since you like combat in HRPG so much that you even made a cool combat system for it. Mechanically, what do you think is the point of it? Personally, I think it is the reward of using your skills and brain to win a hard fight, and your reward is not only loot and numbers going up on your character sheet but, on top of all of that, a nice sex scene.

 

[triped]

So, one thing that I would like to ask you since you like combat in HRPG so much that you even made a cool combat system for it. Mechanically, what do you think is the point of it? Personally, I think it is the reward of using your skills and brain to win a hard fight, and your reward is not only loot and numbers going up on your character sheet but, on top of all of that, a nice sex scene.

"Mechanically, what do you think is the point of it?"
Dynamic progressive depravity. IE, battle-rape vs game over rape. That is, part of the mechanics I'm building includes a grappling/wrestling molest and rape system that is part of the battle. For instance, if an enemy trips the MC, the MC end ups on the ground in a laying position. The MC would have to get up through position transitions of sitting up, then standing, which each take time. It doesn't take a lot of time, so this wouldn't do well in a turn based system, where it would take two turns.

Part of what makes games interesting is the interacting dynamics. When there are so few dynamics, or when the dynamics haven't changed in a long time, the games get boring.
I think this battle system can be better than ATB depending on a lot of things including how I balance it. I like the "quick attack" actually being a quick attack.

 

[triped]

I was unaware of how poor the video would come out with google drive, so here's a progress update using streamable.


In it, I show a number of things.
- Enemies take positions and are enabled with different actions depending on their position.
- The MC can move away, so long as she is not entirely surrounded and not grabbed. This clears light gropes that would otherwise need to be swatted away.
- Enemy selection will appear when useful



There is a strategies I didn't show here just with the current dynamics:
- since the player sees the upcoming enemy attack, and the attacks also take time, the player can choose to counter attack. This will, if successful, nullify the enemy attack and use some selected attack on the enemy. However, the resulting counterattack takes time, so if two heavy attacks were coming in (from two enemies), it might make more sense to guard, since the MC may be hit with the 2nd heavy attack while countering the first.

I'll now be adding floor positions.

The plan is to re-design much of the standard HRPG including
- item management. (allow for mystery potions (each item is unique))
- complex sex and lust mechanics
- complex character relationships (trust levels, attraction, etc)
- complex hypnosis

I have designed out most of these things. The goal is to eventually make a big world game (cities, overworld map, with regular grid movement) where there are so many interacting dynamics that the outcomes are uncertain, and thereby provide continued novelty.
I, of course, will eventually be adding high quality stick figure imagery to represent all the things that the system is simulating.

 

[triped]

Here i share another riveting video of text log based combat.


Some notes:
- I added a repeat key, to repeat the last action (which is why you don't see me clicking through the menu)
- I added a cancel key, that cancels the current action (delay will occur based on action recovery time)
- AI choice of actions, positions, and position transitions now partially factored on fetishes. Eg: if AI is a tit guy, AI will seek positions where tits are more available, and will do actions involving tits
- Move transitions will dependently maintain grabs. Eg, if a trip causes MC to fall on face, grabs are lost. But, if trip causes MC to fall into kneeling position, some grabs, like breast groping, are maintained.
- Added more data to the lower right and to the upper right
- As seen, the struggle efforts are also body part dependent. IE, player can't choose "swat" to remove the tit grope if both hands are grabbed.

Although I did add fetishes, and AI selection of action based on AI's randomly generated fetishes, I also want to add a horniness factor into the AI action decisions. So, instead of continuing to add all the possible jiu jitsu positions and moves within those positions, I've started working on the desire/lust/labido/horniness/pleasure system.

 

[triped]

I was looking at the game and wondering what else does it need. And, I realized, this is an hgame after all, so It needs more visualization. So I added more meters!


This thing is getting complex. Just to give you an example, characters have a calculated decision capacity, that depends on factors pain, pleasure, sleep, sleepiness, hunger. That decision capacity is used in part of determining whether a character will dodge an attack when guarding. So, for instance, if the character is already in a lot of pain, the decision capacity goes down and so does the dodging chance.

I added a lot of interacting meters - pain, pleasure, pleasure resonance, labido, orgasmic, horniness, On top of that, I added body part sensitivities. So, for instance, the clit is always sensitive to pain, but only sensitive to pleasure as horniness goes up. There is still some balancing needed.

Next I'll be finishing the disposition system, which serves to create character preferences based on experiences, based on those meters above. Then I suppose I'll start adding map movement and UI elements.

 

[triped]

By popular demand, I give you another update


I've added a disposition system. In this way, characters can learn to like activities depending upon the context in which they occur. For instance, if the main character has good mood and high pleasure during some activity "doing taxes", the main character will eventually be disposed to like doing taxes. I will be integrating this with a morals system, that when combined with dispositions, determine what a character thinks about a thing

I also added a placeholder tilemap and character sprite. I wanted to try out giving the character momentum. When you are sprinting in real life, you can't just stop on a dime, and so, here too, if you are sprinting 1. it takes a bit to get to full speed and 2. you can't stop immediately.

 

[triped]

I don't know what was more anticipated, WW3, or another update. Well, I give you another update


I added a container system, which includes an inventory and equipped "container". Added an item system, for potions and equipment and such. Added equipping.

Currently working on:
- action dependency. IE, if you equip a weapon you can swing, you now get the "swing weapon" action in the list of actions in a battle
- armor effects on damage and molestation

I've designed the system to handle material. So, if, for instance, MC was wearing cloth of some small thickness, the sensation of a groping of the breast is not dampened much. But if MC is wearing iron armor, groping would be ineffective (and the AI wouldn't do it). Keeping it simple so far, so just added silk, cloth, and iron thus far. And these things stack, so a cloth bra + a cloth shirt will both dampen sensations.

For the damage system, I looked at Rimworld and thought, "What this game lacks is complexity". So, my damage system, like Rimworld, uses layers of armor and penetration, but my damage system uses physics - sharpness, joules of energy, etc, to determine damage.

You might wonder, what is the point of building an hgame that is more complex than any non-hgame out there? That makes two of us.

 

[lumley_gg]

Your design goals look promising. Are you making still this in Phaser?

 

[triped]

Your design goals look promising. Are you making still this in Phaser?

Yes. The flexibility of javascript and the helpfulness of jsdoc make javascript great for prototyping something this dynamic. Some years ago when I was considering making this, I started a prototype in C#, and the inflexibility compared to javascript required much more code, which slows down prototyping. AFAIK, phaser is the best javascript game engine, and javascript has been getting much faster. I already envision amusing sub games just with the movement momentum dynamic I've already built. Now the typical hentai bar waitress game becomes a game where you can sprint to meet a time goal, but you can't stop immediately or change direction immediately, so you may end up running into patrons and spilling drinks. And there are plenty of other sub games using accidental collisions.
But yeah, Phaser.

PS. I'm using React and Mobx for some of the UI though.

 

[triped]

To reveal how things get so complex, I will tell you the story of the nutrition dynamic I've added.

While balancing the rotational energy formulas and penetration formulas for accounting for different types of weapons and character strengths, I realized the actual damage of an attack, like with Rimworld, often depends on whether the attack hit an organ.
So, I added organs with bone and flesh armor. Then, when making the organ damage functions, I realized various things happen when organs are injured. For instance, if the stomach is hit when it is full, this can lead to puking.
So, in addition to having the "food" meter, I added a stomach meter which represents how full the stomach is. And, writing the code for the puking, I realized, the character shouldn't get the nutrition of the food in the stomach if it is puked.

So now, there is a stomach meter, that goes up when you eat something, and a food/nutrition meter, that goes up as the stomach empties naturally.

The key to knowing whether to add complexity is whether that complexity will satisfy some expectable scenario in your game.

Next, I will be adding vitamins and the effects of improper nutrient balancing. I can imagine a bondage scenario in which the MC is forced to consume poorly balanced multivitamins as part of the torture.