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Intent is not a prerequisite for rudeness. I'm not saying it doesn't matter or anything, just that you can be rude by accident, and I can understand not liking the whole "let's have slowness happen via magic weight gain" thing.

There are a few reasons I decided to address this in the comic itself, one of which being I like Tedd's temper tantrum (that is effectively poking fun at myself), and another is that it segues well into what I want to talk about next.

The bottom slider option is inspired by at least one Saints Row game (I can never remember if it was in just one game or not), plus the simple fact that plenty of people would prefer it not be binary.

Speaking of the sliders, height change would be another option for slowing down enemies, and I believe shrinking was even mentioned as a way to slow them down earlier. I didn't consider it for the previous comic, however, because I was thinking of changes that would affect a single variable, and I think a significant height reduction would affect more than just movement speed.

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Comments

Stephen Gilberg

I suppose you could add weight that's not part of the body, like a barbell.

David Fenger

Or enormous elephant feet...

Serith

You could turn the bust slider all the way up instead. Huge boobs would probably slow ya down, or at least distract you. They'd probably distract anyone else nearby too. Then you stealth.

Chordat

but what if the bust slider is already at max? EDIT: or in other words: "Bold of you to assume the bust slider isn't already at max."

Serith

No no no, max is relative. You see, the character always start at the middle when initially created or when the menu is open. Like you open their slider and move it up halfway then close it. When you reopen the menu the slider is set with the new size as the middle. Or maybe not. It'd be easier to say you can temporarily go over max slider size with the spell, or it just doesn't work on exceptionally busty ladies.

M.

I don't know who those settings were for before Tedd started changing them, but I like them. :) But I understand where both Susan and Tedd are coming from on this one.

John Trauger

You can't win once you start fretting too much about who your game will annoy. At some point just about anything you do with a game is going to annoy someone or cause some other problem. Weight gain as the slow spell f/x will bother some people. It will delight others. A turtle shell will be fine for some, but evoke eye-rolls from others, perhaps annoying those few terrapin players for playing to the "slow turtle" stereotype. Just *having* a bust slider is going to annoy a lot of people. Just ask yourself a simple question: (which seems very difficult for some real-world game, TV and movie-makers these days): "Who is your target audience? What would they like/dislike?" And rank everybody else's concerns a notch or more below.

Jared Fattmann

I do like the idea of a turtle shell spell as both a buff and a debuff depending on circumstances (slows the target down but also adds defense)

Anonymous

Would it be rude to make a character look heavier, give them a Charisma boost, and say "I've added weight to my words"?

Anonymous

"How big is the target audience with an unusual fascination for transformation, how much public backlash do we risk, and will the backlash attract more customers than it sacrifices?"

John Trauger

To my mind that's too general. People are going to get hung up on the details not the theme. That's Susan's point about why you might not want to do weight gain for slowness. That overweight players might not like it. My counterpoint is if your game tiptoes around every demographic that could possibly be triggered by a specific transformation, you won't have much of a transformation game left. Avoid gratuitously alienating your core player base first then see what you can reasonably do for everybody else.

Dragon Quest 3 or 4 in 2024

Another way to do "slow" effects would to be a change in material. Going from flesh to say stone might be just as effective. Or maybe just make it how they behave rather than appearance. Moving carefully or clumsyly. Stumbling or such. And of course there is always "that" kink. But I think the best option is all of them. Put the player in charge of how there status effects manifest.

Reynna Romero

Come on think about it! If you give them a turtle shell you run the risk of giving them training similar to Master Roshi’s Turtle school regimen. You don’t want kid Gokus and Krillins running around all over the place!

Some Ed

What about weight that shouldn't be part of the body but is? I know, that's cancer. I'm not asking you to identify what it is. Transforming someone to have cancer isn't so evil if it all goes away and they're fine when the transformation is over, right?

ijuinkun

For many AAA games, the target audience is "everyone", because they need to sell at least ten million copies in order to justify the production budget.