Patch Preview

I was working on the stuff I mentioned in the previous post, and I thought I would be able to get a build out this week. But unfortunately that fell a little short, so we'll have to make due with a patch preview instead.

Some people are probably a little disappointed with the removal of (dungeon) traps. However, I think given the feedback on annoyance of tripwires and spikes, my assessment that the traps doesn't fit well with rest of the game is correct. So there wouldn't be any more "disabling" traps than what currently exists. 

I do like the lewd gas idea tho and I think it fits well within the context of the game. But it actually requires some work. I designed the "grab" system to work on a Many to One relationship - multiple attackers, and one victim. Unfortunately the Many part didn't account for zero attackers so had to implement "selfies" functionality.

Furthermore, I shifted the delivery mechanism of lewd gases, from invisible traps, to hand-held "grenades." There is now a new weapon class - thrown flasks (grenades) that does various effects on impact. Emitting a cloud of lewd gas being one of them:

How this works is that units inside the gas (friend or foe) will have their heat increased. And should it fill to full, characters will be overcome by their desire and start playing with themselves. 

One idea I want to try with the flasks is effects that affects friends and foe alike. The gas flask being one example. There are two more flask types available next patch: the flash flask which emits a blinding light that disables units in a large area for some time; and the shockwave flask that have a very strong knock back effect. 

I also added a longbow weapon type. Its nothing fancy, but it's meant for players that want to play with a more "sniper-like" ranged weaponry. Compared to the short-bow, the longbow have lower rate of fire, but inflict greater damage per shot so it has a better ammo efficiency. 

Now, onto the restraints and (holding) "Devices"

The way how restraints work for players is that, there is a new equitable item type, restraints. When this is equipped, "Talk To" are replaced with "Tie Up." And it does exactly what it sounds. Once a unit is tied, you will have a new option - "Carry" where you will pickup the restrained unit, carry her, and potentially place her into a holding device.

Now, originally, I want the restraint to work on any grabbable foe as well. But unfortunately, this implementation interferes with the exp reward system, loot system and the auto-despawn system. I don't have a good solution atm so instead, the restraint on enemies only works on defeated uniques, which meant only a couple of enemies are susceptible atm. I consider this a flaw and I wish to address it somehow in the future, and hopefully making restraints applicable on all enemy types.

Finally, the holding devices. This actually took sometime as well because I had to upgrade the grab system to account for not only character + character grabs/animations, but "device" + character grabs/animations as well. (And "device" + victim + attacker(s) in the future) I'll spare you the details but that works now.

Currently, there are 6 different (holding) devices (P.S. if anyone got a suggestion on a better name for this, let me know!). Originally, I thought most of the devices would be "active," that is, they continuous inflict heat damage upon the holdee. But I thought it would be nice to have some "passive" devices as well, that just hold the character there. 

On the currently implementation, only the Player can free themselves out of a holding device whereas all Non-Player-Characters will be held forever until they are freed. Maybe eventually, there could be a "fun cave" kind of area and the Player may lose the auto escape privilege as well. 

Obviously, this device mechanic can go a lot further. For example, tentacles, magical hands, other autonomous drills can be done with the same implementation. Perhaps having other characters being able to perform Device-specific grabs/animations with the holdee. Of course, temporary "summons" can be done as well. I did some experimental stuff with the above ideas, that isn't game ready but really shows promise. 

Another new feature, is custom dungeon mod with custom enemies. But I will postpone this particular feature and explanation/example to the bugfix build after, as history indicate that the next feature build will likely have a couple bugs.

So, ETA on next build. Plan is middle next week to sort out some kinks, and potentially add a few more Devices as well. Adding new devices is kind of "easy": most just model + animation work now that the hard implementation part is done. For the really eager modders: I would like some time with the system to see how everything works/make adjustments and I'll open up modding for custom devices to a later date.