Cards of Gluttony Dev Log #11 [11/11/2023] (Patreon)

Hello to you on this very auspicious date, we got Triple 11s and so it's time for another dev log! Today we'll talk about a new feature/mechanic I've been working on, a revision of an existing game design choice, as well as quite a lot of character illustrations for many new faces. Let's start with what we already know about:

Work on the Pub Quest continues!

A bulk of my time has been dedicated to art (as usual!), especially since there will be quite a few characters introduced in this questline! Here's a snippet from one of the scenes, featuring 3 new characters:

(Pay no attention to the date, that's just debug values!)

Look at all these new people! Now, they won't all necessarily be relevant or crucial to the plot when you first see them here, but they are all characters that will appear in other plotlines. So this will be a sort of foreshadowing/cameo, that'll give you a <Pointing DiCaprio meme> moment when you happen to see them later!

I tried to pick a line that would be vague enough to avoid spoiling anything, but offer enough intrigue to allow for some speculation. Any guesses as to where this is going?

(Here's a background for a change of pace!)

While writing the scenes for this upcoming storyline, I've realized that a lot of them could really use an exterior shot of the pub (it would also be neat for use in the already existing scene where you go here for the first time with Ikem).

As you can see, it's still in the early stages. Just like with the bakery and bar backgrounds from the previous update, I've set up a simple 3D scene to use as a base. As time has gone on, I've actually found myself being more meticulous with all of the art that goes into the game. It's quite noticeable if you compare the Player/Cedric sprites to... well, any other character really.

It's time for a new mechanic!

You know, I should should stop saying "the game is feature complete, we're moving on to only creating content" in these posts, because as soon as I say that, I run into exciting new ideas and things that I want to add. Let's not dawdle, have a screenshot!

(Featuring a placeholder Cedric as to not spoil the actual context of this moment.)

Now what is going on here? Let's set the scene first...

You're just idly browsing the internet when you hear about this gainer game: a card game, where the main conceit is that you make your opponent fatter using these magical cards. You think to yourself: "Huh, that's a pretty intriguing premise," so you play the game and find out there is an entire narrative wrapped around it. There's these "Fatteners", running amok, causing chaos and making others fat against their will, just for the hell of it.

In this narrative, you're the hero: you step in before they can get out of control. Not counting friendly sparring matches, you pretty much only fight after being provoked. But what if you want to be a menace like all of those troublemakers and just run around, getting the whole town bigger and fatter?

... that's right, you're looking at a screenshot from when you use The Fattening on ordinary people. Now, it wouldn't be very fun if you were allowed to just go all out with no fail state, so instead these "battles" will feature unique scenarios that recontextualize the way the card system works.

Let's get a bit more into the design decisions behind this:

• Since your Opponent has no way of fighting back, you're instead fighting against time, or rather a limited amount of turns.
• Instead of relying on your Wgt, your card draw and energy recovery is static and based on your Opponent. This is so that the difficulty isn't dependent on your current Wgt. It also allows for unique situations that get you to think about how these two values work and interact with each other.
• And the thing that this entire system hinges on: Special Conditions. These will be a unique set of effects specific to each Opponent that will change the rules in fun ways to breathe some variety into the way the card system works.

In the screenshot, you can see the Special Condition is "Discard you entire hand at the end of each turn.", sounds a bit spooky doesn't it? That is until you notice that you draw an entire hand: 7 cards per turn. This gameplay dynamic has been brought to you by my recent time playing "Slay the Spire", a rogue-lite card game that is works in a similar way. Hopefully that gave you enough of an idea about how much potential this system has for interesting mix-ups of the existing battle system.

No promises on whether this will evolve into anything bigger, like an evil/good split based on your choices, but at the very least, this will allow me to write a few more diverse conflicts than a simple "The two of us will fight now."

However, that's not the only gameplay related thing I want to talk about today!

The fine line between convenience and discovery

Here comes the big game design discussion segment. Remember how the Darwin fight used to catch you by surprise when all you wanted to do was just go fishing? And remember how that particular problem was remedied by adding a warning to the start of that scene that allowed you to dip in case you weren't ready?

(You know, this thing.)

Well, some of you might do... but in any case, ever since that happened I've put that very same warning before every fight in the game. I knew this was going to be potential problem when I first wrote that scene with Darwin, but I decided to keep it like that. It was only after some feedback came in that I decided to fix that... so why did I leave it like that originally even though I knew it could pose a problem? The answer is variety.

It was a fun way to surprise the player who didn't expect to just run into a battle when visiting this simple, inconspicuous fishing minigame. And because of the nature of the game, it's not a necessity to win every fight (we've already talked about this at length in previous logs, so I won't go into more detail.) Of course it also presented a situation where it could feel frustrating if one came in unprepared. But that was all part of the fun: some people might've had a harder or easier time with it depending on when they triggered the encounter.

But now, with this solution, a new problem arose: it feels a bit stiff and artificial.

When you entered the shop to get the cinnamon, something you might've done several times by now, you probably didn't expect anything to happen, right? But then, suddenly a big ole warning popped up that told you "Watch out, something new is going to happen!"... a fight, that's literally the only reason these warnings show up. Not only did it remove the element of surprise, it also spoiled what was about to happen. Even the writing is a bit forced, almost like a sixth sense kicking in out of nowhere.

However, I understand that it's still a matter of sacrificing quality of life for the short-lived excitement of surprise, so in the end I came to a compromise: a setting. With this, you'll be able to turn the warnings on and off. I'll leave it off by default, which will lead to a non-zero amount of complaints, I'm sure. However, I do hope that people will try to play through the game at least once without warnings for that sense of discovery.

Seeing as several of the tutorials in the game point out the many settings available in the game, I thought most players would've checked the settings menu at some point, but apparently not. Many people weren't even aware it exists. So now the question is... where should I let people know that new this option exists?

Card of the Month!

And after that long rant about game design, let us look at the last piece of this month's post. Last time we had a draft, and since then, a few of the cards in the works have had some time to ripen!

Don't end up like that

Every time your Opponent gains Wgt, you gain +1 Fit (regardless of amount) (5 turns).

"Seeing all those fatties struggle is great motivation to work harder so you don't end up like that."

This was just about the first time I've had trouble coming up with a proper name, here's some other ideas I had:

• Cautionary Tale
• Motivational Example
• Wake-up Call

Compared to these, the final title is... quite straight to the point. Do you prefer any of these over the one I ended up going with?

Actually, the absolute first draft had the card named "Contrast", however, looking into my notes, I found out that I already had an idea for a different card called Contrast. So I decided to just rename this one instead

And here go the closing words

The previous updates have taken about 3 months each, and so I've been aiming for the same with this one. If things go according to schedule, this means that the next update should come out sometime in December.

However, I've found myself under quite a lot of workload, what with all of the side characters and their stories that need to run concurrently, not to mention the main quest, which is shaping up to be the biggest one yet. So we'll see how things shape up once December comes around, but I figured it would be a good idea to let you all know how things are going!

And with that, as always, thank you for reading and for supporting the project!