Cards of Gluttony Dev Log #21 [28/02/2025]

This dev log will actually be split up into two pieces.

It's been a hot minute since I've done a dedicated Deep Dive post, but the write-up I did about the new clothing system implementation ended up growing far too big and detailed. So it was the perfect opportunity to bring it back!

You can read about the way the way the clothing system and its color customization works in this post here.

And as for the actual development log? First, let's talk about the things added in the v0.5.1 that I haven't had a chance to talk about yet, since there was a roughly 2 month long pause since the last development log.

Making your arsenal a bit more personal

In spirit of the expanded character customization introduced by the new clothing and hair options, a bit of personal touch can now also be added to a more functional part of the game: the decks!

It was nice to finally move on from the placeholder-y vague, gray shape that used to be there.

I had quite a lot of designing the new visuals for this: if you look closer, you'll notice that the card illustration has a little bit of shadow and sheen added to it, so it sort of looks like a picture wrapped around a physical packet of cards!

A small new mechanic

On the side of actual gameplay, you might have noticed the following line in the patch notes:

- New mechanic: Some cards allow Energy to go below 0. Negative Energy is converted into negative Fit at the end of a turn.

If you've only gone through all the new content, it's unlikely you've actually seen this thing in action.

The are currently two cards that interact with this mechanic:

• Humiliating Realization: This card costs 1 Energy to use, but when activating its conditional special effect, it removes and additional 3 Energy, even if you don't have it.

• Rampage: Plays a random card out of your hand at the start of your turn, even if the cost is too high.

Rampage was added in the update to coincide with this new mechanic, but Humiliating Realization has been in the game for as long as the bakery storyline has! The additional side effect of removing 3 Energy was added later as part of card tweaks, and it was meant to make use of exactly this mechanic.

Now that it's been established, you can expect more cards that "can go beyond your Energy count" to be added in the future.
... wow, "cards that can go beyond your Energy count" is quite a mouthful, huh? What a smooth segue into the next topic!

No time for words.

So "can go beyond your Energy count" is quite a long and clumsy string of words to describe an effect that will presumably appear on many cards. This presents us with two issues:

• It's a hassle to read.

• The actual text takes up precious space on the already quite cramped card.
  There have actually already been several moments where I've had to reword a card's description specifically because there wasn't enough space to fit it all on the card.

Well then, why don't we come up with a name for it? Something that's short - preferably one word - and descriptive. Something like... overextend? Overclock?
... huh, well would you look at that? We just made a keyword.

Keywords are common design concept used in a lot of card games. Essentially, keywords are short-hand words for certain properties, behavior, or effects that can be re-used in many places.

Cards of Gluttony already uses keywords too, actually. You'll notice some of the cards use repeated phrases like One use only, (single) and (multi).

The problem with keywords is that... well, they are like an entire language of their own that one has to learn before they're even able to play the game. One use only is pretty obvious thanks to its wording alone, but what about (single) and (multi)?... or if we decide to add Over-extend? Digital card games all use pretty much the same solution:

(Simple as that, just show a tooltip with an explanation of the keywords used in the card!)

Originally, I intentionally avoided using keywords because I wanted to keep the game simple and straightforward: anyone could just pick the game up, read the card and know what it does. I never expected the game to grow so complex that I would even have to consider using keywords.

However, it's finally time to rip the bandage off and take the plunge before things go too far. The above UI currently only appears for Cedric's new card, so now it's time for me to go over all the current cards effects and keyword them properly. If you're curious about some of the upcoming changes:

• (single) -> (S): for cards that have "+X Wgt for every Y", inflict it as one hit.

• (multi) -> (M): for cards that have "+X Wgt for every Y", spread them across multiple hits.

• One use Only -> Erase: card is removed for the rest of the fight. A bit more general of a term, so it can for example be used to describe when an outside effect removes a card.

• ignoring Fit -> Inevitable

• Energy can go into negative -> Strain

And to end this section on a fun side note: if you want to see a real-life example of a card game that absolutely refuses to introduce keywords in favor of sticking to its "anyone can pick up and play" mantra, allow me to point you to a quick internet search of "Yugioh longest card".

... and that about covers all the things that were added in v0.5.1!

But what have I been up to since the update though? Let's start with a big one.

Significant balancing changes

Many ideas and mechanics have been added to the combat system ever since the game's first prototype: new cards, mulligans, statuses as well as external systems that indirectly affect the card game balance, such as the downtime between battles and weight loss during overworld exploration, the card acquisition loop, including things like the various minigames to get the materials for it.

Throughout all of this, one thing remained the same though: the numbers behind the core mechanics of card battles. Well now it's time to rip the bandage off and change those for the first time!

It's nothing too big at first glance, but small tweaks to values that are integral to the functioning of the whole system will undeniably have big implications for the overall feel of the game.

And what exactly are these changes in the first place, you ask?

Here's a screenshot from the first tutorial battle you have against Cedric. Rather than just me listing the tweaks, I'll let you witness the changes with your own eyes!.. it's like a game of spot the difference!

Did you find the differences? Good, let's move on to the next thing!

Move those lips!

Now let's talk about... talking. When it comes to one of the more minor additions, I started adding in talking animations to the various character models. Here's a quick demo on none other than the boss-man himself:

(Gordon's got things to say!)

This ended up being more work than I expected. While I originally intended to just do a simple 2-frame flicker between the closed and open mouth sprites, I ended up adding some subtle animation and timing touches to make it feel a bit more lively and consistent.

I'm still not quite fully satisfied with the result, but achieving that would mean drawing an open mouth sprite equivalent for every single mouth expression on every existing character... so for now, I'm just going to be content with an acceptable result for an acceptable amount of work.

And lastly...

I've been working on a little something behind the scenes, the results of which you can see below:

Perhaps some of you already have an idea of what these are for, but for those who don't, hopefully I'll have some news in about a month if things go according to plan.

And that's it!

It's technically a bit shorter of a development log this time around, since I decided to move the whole schtick about the new clothing system into its own post. If you plan on heading over to that one now, here's the link to it once again.

And if not, well, as always, thank you for reading and for supporting the project!