Post by bashindan in Pedestrian Wolves Proof-Of-Concept Demo comments

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A single fight is doable, I think I even beat a fish and a wolf by myself in an attempt, but then I just had no HP to endure a battle by going forward, which is how it turned out into winning a battle, going to the couch, going to the save point, then resuming going forward. There was a bear encounter that killed me instantly, so I assume I just got critted on and didn't notice that was the case.

Other than the Fire enemies that actually were terrible even with a few recruits, the encounters worked once I had Norman (easy to recruit) and amy (easier to recruit once Norman joined), but going from encounter to encounter is what created too much friction, since every two steps required returning a whole lot, or trying to avoid enemies as much as possible to not lose HP and have to use one of the healing items I got. If you consider the path going west from norman, theres three fish encounters, two bears and two fire sprites. Randomly finding a boss after that, with all my HP and MP on the yellow, just felt tiresome.

Individual encounters may not be that bad with a party, but the areas feel too crowded when you're getting little to no heals and check/save points. If there was a direction I could go that had people to talk to, minigames to do to earn money, I'd try doing that happily, but every direction I headed had enemy encounters testing me, and recruitables that demanded venturing such zones to afford the recruit.

FrailSnake8 days ago (1 edit)

The beach is meant to be this high-level area that makes the player wanna retreat to the woods or the abandoned building.

There are ways I can definitely clue the player in more to that. Like, LISA The Painful had a big sign that said "TURN BACK" for its equivalent.

Did you ever get to see the woods? The middle path down the road. I designed it with the intention of being *the* place to do easy encounters if the other locations were giving players trouble.

bashindan8 days ago (1 edit)

I went through it, released the guy at the end and nothing more happened, didn't find any further paths, and returned to the beach. However, I played it one more time now and went around the abandoned building a bit more after recruiting Boyle too. There's doors you go through without a path back, or going forward and backwards taking you to different rooms. I presume it's an intentional shifting dungeon kind of place? Since there's no reactions from characters or mysterious SFX when it happens, I honestly can't tell if something intentional or not happened. I also sent all my team to 1HP with the vending machine (I thought I was dealing it damage and thought I had to mash to destroy it. Again, no reaction from the character and the screen flashed blue, so it didn't respond like damage.)

My exploration was then cut short because trying to jump from the top support thing towards the top of the waterfall has Abe jump down towards the middle waterfall. The only direction I haven't gone to is over there, but I can't reach it. Also, there are two different padlock exits that lead to the same place. After exiting through the first one once, I expected the second one would lead to a different place...

Also, down here there are some many sentry camera enemy icons, but defeating one of them deletes them all. Bug or feature?

FrailSnake8 days ago (4 edits)

Feature. And yeah, it's a shifting dungeon. I'm considering expanding it a little for the Kickstarter demo and putting a party member inside to really sell the whole thing and what it all means.

I'll put making the vending machine damage more obvious on my list. I thought I fixed that already, but I guess I forgot to save the change.

bashindan8 days ago

Since the setting of the world isn't very clear at this point, it's hard to judge if a shifting dungeon was possible or not. The warnings were pretty normal too, nothing that hinted at the

It's tangential, but I remembered/thought up some things I want to ask mostly because I live off information:

1) Between the default enemy icon being a wolf, healing items being wolf meat/sandwich and the cure for lycantropy, I could get an image. Between the fish people, Mother Hydra and mentions of Dagon, I see Innsmouth, a quite different image. Papa Beer, druids, the ghost things are a third world. If we go back to Head Doctor, there's a fourth, and I'd classify Premature Burial under the same category as Papa Beer since it's a punny enemy, but the graffiti's probably a fifth. Did you create these in a flow state and didn't mind much how congruent they were, or there is a thread I can't see?

2) Are you going for Lovecraftian or just pop culture-ish things in the overall story/setting?

3) I liked the Moth Man encounter. Addressed, set up and paid off. A bit of a jumpscare, even, with it being out the window, and then on your face when you leave. Though it could use dropping a prophecy just to feel less like it's just using a popular name without the contents of its character.

4) I actually forgot to mention in the original post and now that I've bitched so much I feel the need to build goodwill, but I like your art. That first CG of Penn waking you up Komaeda-style was actually very cute. I don't know if you're cooking it up or didn't want to do it, but having your art for character portraits in the menu would be very appreciated (the sprites arent ugly, but your art is cuter).

5) What books do you like?

FrailSnake8 days ago (3 edits)

1. There's an ongoing theme. All the weird creatures are called "wolves" in-universe. Partially as a joke, but it gets paid off later. The party member Norman replaced for the alpha demo explicitly goes like "I hunt feral wolves. These Fish Men wolves are an invasive species." Which is actually good information, and it makes me sad I used Norman there instead bc of all that behind the scenes nonsense. They'll be included in the Kickstarter demo though.

2. Animal-inspired monsters, and theology-inspired monster hunters. Moth Man is a cryptid, Papa Beer is a pun, Fish Men are Lovecraft. But they're all animals. Head Doctor and Premature Burial are outliers, and were made before I had the idea down. In addition to the party member guy above, I might wanna replace Premature Burial with like, a zombie groundhog or something to codify the animal theme.

3. Moth Man has more to it and gets paid off later. Or not. It's sort of a "hidden quest" throughout Area 1 with various triggers. I might add 1-2 more triggers to make it all flow more nicely.

4. No need to apologize. The fact you took the time to play my game and critique it is a gesture I appreciate.

5. I don't really read all that often, but I recently finished Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas. Very interesting autopsy on the 1960's. I like when art is a time capsule like that.

bashindan7 days ago

1) Oh, that's nice. Personally it's not that odd to me, since I'm used to "wolf" being used poetically to represent predators or aggressors. If it's there early, I'm sure people will just take it in as how this world works.

2) That makes sense, I understand now. For Head Doctor, it's embryo-like enough to be unclear if it's actually a human, so it isn't that much of an outlier. Maybe some edits to make it a bit more of an animal embryo and you can call it a day. Since it's the second enemy in the game, or possibly third if the player found Premature, it's probably better for all three to be in-theme to already transmit the idea of what you're fighting with in the game.

3) Recruitable Mothman real?

Also, thank you for your time

FrailSnake7 days ago

1. It's the whole predators/aggressors thing, yeah. Lot of overt metaphors regarding sheep, shepherds, the oxymoron of "lone wolf" because wolves are pack animals.

2. I didn't think of the animal embryo bit. That's actually genius. I'm gonna steal that idea.

3. Recruitable Mothman real, yeah. In playtesting, I only got 1/4 people to recruit him. Which I'd like to raise to at least "half the playerbase will find him."

bashindan7 days ago

Finished the demo

Couldn't solve the water treatment plant's puzzle, I have the impression you have to be gathering items to awaken some creature, and the only item I think was left was the one above the padlock door (between two doors) which I couldn't arrive at no matter what. That aside, the doppelganger encounter was a pretty clever, and I understood it betteron the secong time walking that corridor.

The Dagon battle was a bit good, but mostly I liked the Beak and Flounder interaction. That said, should a LV0 random fish also have 1000 HP?

Ninetails was more interesting for that one scene than Abe across the whole demo. When he accuses me of this and that, and says we are not the same, it's hard to think anything of it when I'm nobody. Four places with some 12 hours sounds pretty doable though. I also got curious about the cigarrettes and burning house you can find afterwards.

I must ask, however, aren't you a bit too enfatuated with status that apply freeze? One of my hydra fights ended instantly because the whole party got frozen in the AOE. The fish encounters underground were essentially letting myself die once to get full healed and actually have a chance at the battle. Had Amy not learned the one AOE attack, i'd have been pissed at the Dagon fight, probably. I absolutely think this game needs more AOE at most, more multi hit at least.

Since both Dagon and Hydra were necessary to end the demo, I have no idea what the three optional bosses are now. I also only found 5 (6 with the mothman I didn't recruit) of the 9 characters that were in it, and can't even guess what I didn't do right to not find them.

Loan Shark was the most interesting skill, Norman's line upon being devoured also rose my interest in him as a character.

I've said most of my pieces, and what I haven't said are things I don't think would be constructive, so if there's something you'd like to know/ask for your research on the gaming experience you've provided, it's the last thing I can do for you at this point.

FrailSnake7 days ago (2 edits)

- The treatment plant doesn't have a puzzle. It's just get in, get the key, get out. It'll probably make more sense when I replace the flounderer with the key with a party member recruit. Like "Oh. So this was the end of that."

- Flounderer is Level 0 cause it can't attack. Only alternative to my mind would be "Lv. ?"

- Yeah, Ninetails is definitely a character I wanted to get right. The burning stuff is his doing, effectively "If you weren't here, he would've resolved things. You're both wolves killing other wolves. Aside from your chosen LARP, you are functionally the same guy." It's something I try to lean into, and will do earlier with the afforementioned Norman-replacement recruit that goes "Hey isn't it weird that you kill wolves? Don't you see them differently as one of their kind?"

- I'll keep the AoE thing in mind. Moth Man is "the AoE guy," but one more wouldn't hurt. Also yeah, the Freeze obsession is a thing I've been fighting against. A problem of my own making, deciding the first area to be "the water area."

- Party members are Amy, Norman, Boyle (standard most people find), Laura (wolf, resident of the house that burnt down), Moth Man (wolf), Buddy Rabbit (another sewer encounter), and Herbert (the guy with the bike lock around his neck who you freed while he was brainwashed)

- I want to thank you a lot for taking the time out to do this. This isn't just me blowing smoke. The fact you really did care to be blunt with your criticisms is gonna do me infinitely better in the long-run than the people too afraid or uncaring to share their honest thoughts.

If I had to ask one thing: what was your experience with the Devour mechanic? It was meant to sorta be like "If you're struggling, here's your out."

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