Amazing story, detailed mechanics, flesh-out characters... Overall a very solid game
I'd rate it 10/10 if only it's a little bit longer! In my opinion, the fact that it's "short" makes some (great) features barely useable. For example, I didn't remember/see any 'sleight' or 'performance' check in the whole game. And I didn't see any situation where the 'sex appeal' or 'intimidation' bonus from clothing were applicable
I know you graciously give us this amazing game for free, but for me it would make everything better if there are around 3 missions that Mio have to complete before a final ending. Did you ever have that kind of plan during the game development?
Glad you enjoyed the game! No, MERCANOID was built alongside my reusable framework for future games, so once the systems were complete I developed it further into a short but hopefully memorable game that shows off as much as I can. Dev fatigue set in, and I eventually decided I could keep working on this forever or I could get it out the door, get some eyes on me, and move on to something bigger.
A MERCANOID of 3 times the length probably wouldn't have been free!
There's a performance check to fool a voice lock near the start of the game and sleight makes the lock pick minigame easier but the 'sex appeal' and 'intimidation' for clothing were cut.
To my understanding the game was actually planned to be smaller, just a sort of short test for the engine and had a bit of scope creep instead.
Pyksies
Do you want to update us on what you are working on or do you prefer to wait till you are ready to release before talking about your next game?
Correct on those two instances of Perform. Sex Appeal and Intimidation are functioning systems, but are not present in MERCANOID itself.
I have begun work on my next game after bouncing off a few different ideas, actually. I'm not going to announce it yet, but some key points;
- Semi-urban Fantasy setting to contrast MERCANOID's Sci-fi, set in a town of monsterfolk.
- Set back on Terra, pre-Stars era, but late into the World era. Terra is a united world where the mundane and the magical have been mixed.
- MUCH larger in scale than MERCANOID, but with far greater variety of locations and situations. More lighthearted in tone.
- A change to how I approach some zones - Dungeons will utilize MERCANOID's tile-by-tile exploration, whereas safe, social areas like the main town hub utilize a more traditional text adventure link-to-link, place-to-place interface.
- It's gunna be a while before I'm close to any sort of announcement. Work is keeping me busy.
- Finally, this won't be a free game. I'm aiming to deliver a strong demo, a day 0 full-game 'update' for buyers, and then updates to expand and finish off the game. I won't be launching a 0.01 alpha, so get comfy, it'll be a while.
While I did have ambitions of releasing my games for free on a Pay-What-You-Want system, MERCANOID's shown that isn't particularly viable; I don't mind sharing that outside of money from friends, it's turned over around ~£200 since launch.
I would love to be able to do this for a living, but I can't do that without money. I don't want to do a Patreon or any such similar model. I'd rather have a game(s) I can ask for a bit of money for, that I can put on sale, and that I can hopefully start bundling once I'm further into my career/catalogue. ♥
If you're really hungry for updates, I try to post wips and progress reports on my Discord - in my sig. I'm in the boring period of laying out the game's skeleton up to a certain point, so there's not much to say at the moment.