Ren'Py Completed The Princess and the Tower [v0.9c Public] [y.v.]

[redle]

Reminds me of the somewhat brief BBBen game. Looks promising.

First suggestion I would make though is that the points reward rate increases or holds steady with larger single donations. As of right now a player earns more points for climbing the ladder with 100g twice than one gets from climbing the ladder with 200g once. Considering the grind for gold and points isn't really the game's draw, increasing the grind factor by making a player climb up and down to hand gold over in 100g increments (or need to grind additional dungeons to make up for the sacrificed points) should be avoided.

Lessor, second suggestion, consider adding in some QoL features for money exchange in the stash. Being able to set a "standard withdrawal" amount by the player or a quick button like "deposit all but 100g" would be nice. Assuming the goblin is actually supposed to be saving some money, needing to manually delete numbers and then manually type values in a deposit/ withdrawal daily could be made more user-friendly.

 

[yv0751]

Reminds me of the somewhat brief BBBen game. Looks promising.

First suggestion I would make though is that the points reward rate increases or holds steady with larger single donations. As of right now a player earns more points for climbing the ladder with 100g twice than one gets from climbing the ladder with 200g once. Considering the grind for gold and points isn't really the game's draw, increasing the grind factor by making a player climb up and down to hand gold over in 100g increments (or need to grind additional dungeons to make up for the sacrificed points) should be avoided.

Lessor, second suggestion, consider adding in some QoL features for money exchange in the stash. Being able to set a "standard withdrawal" amount by the player or a quick button like "deposit all but 100g" would be nice. Assuming the goblin is actually supposed to be saving some money, needing to manually delete numbers and then manually type values in a deposit/ withdrawal daily could be made more user-friendly.

Thanks for the suggestions.

• I wasn‘t even aware that the 100+ reward would cause players to „ladder grind“ I will implement a reward factor that (slightly) overproportionally scales with amount, so handing over larger sums will be better. This is a minor fix, will be in V0.4 E05
• Second one is a bit more tricky, as I would _not_ want to have 4 buttons for that in the UI. Will think about a clean way to do that (maybe last amount is always remembered as default)

 

[redle]

Thanks for the suggestions.

• I wasn‘t even aware that the 100+ reward would cause players to „ladder grind“ I will implement a reward factor that (slightly) overproportionally scales with amount, so handing over larger sums will be better. This is a minor fix, will be in V0.4 E05
• Second one is a bit more tricky, as I would _not_ want to have 4 buttons for that in the UI. Will think about a clean way to do that (maybe last amount is always remembered as default)

Just takes less player-time to ladder-grind then it takes to dungeon-grind. Without end-of-content warnings I certainly reached a point where I was grinding with no apparent gain and wanted to speed things up to figure out if there was more or not.

As for the second, it depends a bit on how the game progresses. If the ladder-grind benefit for points is removed (although even with points scaling there is still the potential mood-shift-only benefit to 100g repetitions) there is less need to continually dump and retrieve gold. But it comes down to what is the player and/or goblin "supposed" to be doing. The goblin claims he wants his own gold, but it is unclear for the player if that is simply a "story element" or if the player really should be trying to stockpile gold. If the stockpile is really just there as a way for the player to mitigate failed/poor dungeon runs (and for "realism") then there isn't such a daily need to move currency around. I agree there shouldn't be button clutter on the main UI, but several buttons being added to the data input wouldn't be a problem.

 

[yv0751]

Just takes less player-time to ladder-grind then it takes to dungeon-grind. Without end-of-content warnings I certainly reached a point where I was grinding with no apparent gain and wanted to speed things up to figure out if there was more or not.

As for the second, it depends a bit on how the game progresses. If the ladder-grind benefit for points is removed (although even with points scaling there is still the potential mood-shift-only benefit to 100g repetitions) there is less need to continually dump and retrieve gold. But it comes down to what is the player and/or goblin "supposed" to be doing. The goblin claims he wants his own gold, but it is unclear for the player if that is simply a "story element" or if the player really should be trying to stockpile gold. If the stockpile is really just there as a way for the player to mitigate failed/poor dungeon runs (and for "realism") then there isn't such a daily need to move currency around. I agree there shouldn't be button clutter on the main UI, but several buttons being added to the data input wouldn't be a problem.

Good hints regarding outlining the goblin‘s motivation wrt to gold clearer.

• He can’t leave the tower until he got the gold for his own debt
• Additionally there should be some impending threat e.g. from the Thieves Guild he owes to, to fork something over regularly or they might send unpleasant surprises (even remotely to the Tower).

This would motivate the mc to keep money for himself, lest the guild gets to him…
Have to think about how to do that (will be in v0.5)
Btw: v0.4 is 95% finished and RC will start testing end of the week. Your suggestion regarding FP/rewards is included

 

[dontcarewhateverno]

Any cheats available on this through Unren? I tried dicking around to give more gold & materials in console command and couldn't figure a way to award any.

 

[yv0751]

Any cheats available on this through Unren? I tried dicking around to give more gold & materials in console command and couldn't figure a way to award any.

GAME.mc.money=…. puts money in the stash
irith.fp = gives favour points

 

[Acrodin]

Love the game so far, really enjoy the art style.

Here's a little fan art (I don't have all the assets or correct morphs, it will have to do)

Spoiler

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[yv0751]

Here is the final version of the crafting screen as a small preview. It has one click selection, recipes, item explanations...

 

[redle]

Here is the final version of the crafting screen as a small preview. It has one click selection, recipes, item explanations...

View attachment 1813938

So if I understand this post correctly, you are removing all randomness from the chest? Now it is crafting and results are known?

Some possible additions:
Basic filters (the item list might get a bit long and hard to find specific items)
Legend (for what the color coding of the text means)
Indicator of item usage (this is what I would have guessed the text color was used for, but a bomb and bottle of wine being the same color would seem to negate that possibility)

 

[yv0751]

So if I understand this post correctly, you are removing all randomness from the chest? Now it is crafting and results are known?

Some possible additions:
Basic filters (the item list might get a bit long and hard to find specific items)
Legend (for what the color coding of the text means)
Indicator of item usage (this is what I would have guessed the text color was used for, but a bomb and bottle of wine being the same color would seem to negate that possibility)

In principal yes. Recipes can be found in book research or are discovered and recorded if „accidentally“ found out.
Randomness occurs only when using non-recipe combinations.
Colors are certain categories (brown: normal item, yellow: quest item, blue: magic, …)

 

[redle]

In principal yes. Recipes can be found in book research or are discovered and recorded if „accidentally“ found out.
Randomness occurs only when using non-recipe combinations.
Colors are certain categories (brown: normal item, yellow: quest item, blue: magic, …)

Just my opinion, but quest items should not appear in the list at all. If you plan to have lots of any single quest item (meaning you can find the same item repeatedly and eventually have 100 of them stockpiled) then it's just a normal item like any other, although with a specific usefullness to the story. But the demo playthrough seemed to indicate that quest items were single-existence/never sell/never craft items. Crafting lists should only show items that can be used.

As for the categories, normal/rare/unique indicators certainly have their value, but perhaps a more useful categorization for the player is weapon/gift/usable/trash or something similar. Things like the scrolls of fire and ice certainly seemed to me as weapons. It would have been nice to know instead that they were trash (the word trash here being used in the vernacular of various rpg's not to indicate monetary worth, but that it has no game use; selling it is its only purpose). "Show only Trash" and/or "Show Magic-box Only Items" being one of the potentially useful filters for the list (basically, show me everything I have that has no other use in the game but to destroy in some manor here in this crafting box).

 

[lyondijon]

good to see a dev finally who knows what he´s doing

 

[yv0751]

Just my opinion, but quest items should not appear in the list at all. If you plan to have lots of any single quest item (meaning you can find the same item repeatedly and eventually have 100 of them stockpiled) then it's just a normal item like any other, although with a specific usefullness to the story. But the demo playthrough seemed to indicate that quest items were single-existence/never sell/never craft items. Crafting lists should only show items that can be used.

As for the categories, normal/rare/unique indicators certainly have their value, but perhaps a more useful categorization for the player is weapon/gift/usable/trash or something similar. Things like the scrolls of fire and ice certainly seemed to me as weapons. It would have been nice to know instead that they were trash (the word trash here being used in the vernacular of various rpg's not to indicate monetary worth, but that it has no game use; selling it is its only purpose). "Show only Trash" and/or "Show Magic-box Only Items" being one of the potentially useful filters for the list (basically, show me everything I have that has no other use in the game but to destroy in some manor here in this crafting box).

Thanks for the suggestions. Certainly some valid points. I will keep an eye out for the impact during testing/balancing week that starts 23.05.
Minor adjustments of that kind can then still result. The colour coding btw will be consistent throughout the game, so I can’t strictly colour for craft/no craft attribute. I’ll look for a good compromise.

 

[yv0751]

Small preview on assets I reworked for V0.4:

 

[J-jay]

Small preview on assets I reworked for V0.4:
View attachment 1817709

God dang I can't wait for the next update XD
I blazed way to fast through that stuff.
~def not stealing some ideas for my own game~

 

[Ilikebigbities432]

Can you open the locked door yet in the lower levels or is that for 0.4

 

[yv0751]

Can you open the locked door yet in the lower levels or is that for 0.4

That is not implemented in v0.3 atm.

 

[dontcarewhateverno]

GAME.mc.money=…. puts money in the stash
irith.fp = gives favour points

Thanks!

By the way, not sure if it's been reported before, but I find that whenever I enter level 2 of the dungeon after blowing up the guardian slime, if I have another bomb in inventory, the game crashes.

 

[dontcarewhateverno]

hrm... princess give vibes of dumb blondie but i guess this is to be expected from being alone, and i hope it will change later

Disagree. I think the balance between vapid, spoiled and highly impressionable is just about perfect for the visual character design and game theme. Hope she keeps those elements while raising sluttiness, submission and curiosity while staying mentally bubble-headed, even if a little less innocent.

 

[yv0751]

Thanks!

By the way, not sure if it's been reported before, but I find that whenever I enter level 2 of the dungeon after blowing up the guardian slime, if I have another bomb in inventory, the game crashes.

That issue has been fixed with 0.3a/b.
I recommend you use these versions or wait for 0.4 if you don’t wat to start a new game yet,