Weekly Update/Preview Aug 14-21

Hi there. I seem to be settling into three tweets per week, which may or may not be a good amount. I dunno. Generally I'm trying not to put too much pressure on myself with it, as not everything I do has a lot to show off or talk about. Hopefully having these bits of more insight (or at least more text) helps make them feel a bit more substantial as previews.

Anyway, there were some issues with production over the last week. I'm still caught up in helping with moving stuff, as well as some medical issues, but I'm sure you don't want to hear too much about that. Work was done. Work continues. Let's talk about tweets and stuuuuuuff.

Not a gamble

This is just another skill that I've implemented, and it actually has a couple things to talk about around it. As far as the skill itself, I've kind of flopped back and forth between thinking it's strong enough and thinking it's too weak. The reason why I say it's not a gamble is because the number doesn't change. That means you can identify what the number is, and play around it. With three allies, and no way to change the turn order or the turn count, that means that each ally cycles through every possible digit every 30 turns. Playing optimally, a +7 attack (and/or disarm at rank 2) every 30 turns doesn't sound very crazy. That also assumes that the character with the skill is always in place to use the skill, which won't even always be the case because of all the turns spent moving and stuff. I'm not sure if it should be adjusted to be better or not.

The other thing to talk about more generally is my stance on RNG. The skill is obviously based around a starting idea of a gamble-like skill, but on the whole, I'm actually pretty averse to adding a lot of RNG effects that change the amount of damage being done in combat/disarming. I've generally liked the idea that every turn, assuming you have done enough research and understand the game and such, you will be able to predict what will happen when you hit the button/key to go to the next turn. I've purposely avoided things like critical hits or random chance of a status being applied. This skill went through multiple iterations that made it less and less random before arriving to where it's at now.

Still, I do wonder if that's the right choice. There are obviously a lot of things in the game that are still random (dazed movement, floor generation, what events a monster/trap does if multiple would be valid, where an undying monster respawns). While most of it is stuff you can react to, which feels mostly in your control, there is also some amount of skill in understanding stuff like expected values, risk management, and opportunity cost. I'm not sure that adding more randomness to the game would make it more difficult in a way that people would appreciate, although it very well might end up creating more dramatic stories, which would be nice too.

Miscellaneous Witch things

People love the Witch. I love the Witch. I haven't set up a good way to have actual scenes with her, but this kind of thing will hopefully tide some people over until that happens. A lot of these little messages that I've thrown in (they just appear after a random amount of time spent in a Witch's Den) are a bit more silly than normal Witch, though I don't know if there will be much of a distinction there for anyone but me.

The Witch is a bit crazy, but there is a method to at least the way that I write her normally. She can say silly things and that's perfectly fine, but in the case of scenes with actual plot, I always try to keep her focused on conveying an idea. The core of what she wants to convey is the starting point, but from there I just let things wander. Free association, switching words to synonyms, using the incorrect meaning of words, intentional rhyming and alliteration, pulling in obscure references, then going back and doing it multiple times over. Stuff like that There's an endless amount of possibilities, but surprisingly often it flows out more easily than you might think. I don't know if that says something about me or not.

Obviously, I've never had to read Witch dialogue myself without knowing what she's trying to say, so I can't be certain that the core idea of what she's trying to get across always lands. That's perfectly fine though. Arguably it makes it better, as it can be especially engaging if she says something that only makes sense much later on a repeated viewing and you suddenly realize that kind of stuff can be everywhere in her dialogue.

It doesn't hurt that it's also quite amusing as well.

haha yes

I don't know why I use "haha yes" as placeholder text so much.

Anyway, this is obviously a hint at a much more gameplay affecting sort of thing. The clear and obvious resemblance to the Witch's Den menu should make it not TOO much of a stretch to guess what it's about, although you'd have to be pretty lucky to guess the exact mechanics behind it I think.

Arguably, this could have fit in with the previous update, but at the time I wasn't actually sure if I was going to add all of this. Interaction with Coraline could have been entirely cutscenes and I'm sure that would have been fine, but I recognized that this allows me to cover several mechanical ideas that I've wanted covered for a while (think: making permanent corruption slightly less permanent, among other things). I guess we'll see how it works out in the end.