Post by inopagames in Closest Inhabited Planet comments

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Aah nice job! Sure, I can make a win and linux build. Mainly just laziness, but I’m down for a downloadable build when someone asks. Not too many people download and I’m not sure if a game is a hit or not, so I tend to do a web release first.

Not sure if itch allows me to upload while the jam is going on but I’ll upload when I can. Also, on your first run, did you get the full transformation ending? Just gauging if the difficulty is right, I’d like everyones first run to be the full transformation.

oxyrophusguibei15 days ago (1 edit) (+2)

I did, yeah. Though I might have managed to barely scrape by if my browser didn't completely lock up at one point and stop accepting inputs while the game was still running. I was strongly considering calling it there after getting the other ending but luckily for me performance improved enough on the second try onwards that I could give it a fair share of attempts without going completely insane. Playing Sonic Spinball on the side while waiting for the game to reload the level might've helped, I admit. (Been playing for over a month and still haven't even gotten to the last board, that game is brutal.)

I think the difficulty is perfectly fine as is. Maybe having a minimap so you can preview what's up slightly ahead could ease up the memorization load so you wouldn't go "damn it, I forgot this was there!" right after using a box to speed up. But if you want to just say that having to memorize everything is a feature that's fine too. Just brainstorming. Up to you whether going back to this game is worth it or not at this point.

Pardon if I'm overextending myself by now, but since you seem fairly receptive to comments I'll take the risk of coming across as a bit nosy: at first I thought this was gonna be a more straightforward droneification-themed game, but given what went on with the full TF ending that doesn't seem to be the case (which I'm personally pretty content with since the whole latex drone thing is not really my cup of tea). It's a pretty intriguing image nonetheless, and got me asking plenty of questions. What did the goo actually do to him? Is it some sort of "devolved" life form/parasite/symbiote that needs a host to reach its final stage/something closer to its "original" form? What's it gonna get up to once it reaches civilization (more specifically, how does it spread once it has a host)? Why'd it need to go through all the trouble of encasing him completely in that shiny suit to do its thing? Why does it make him grow tits? Is that toy he's using on the incomplete TF ending made out of the goo or is the color just a coincidence? And most importantly, why'd he grow such a sizeable "endowment" after the goo made it almost non-existent? (were you ACTUALLY planning on doing a more straightforward drone thing before walking back on it?) Sorry if I'm being annoying. I know most of these are just varying degrees of "because it's hot" but if you have any more in-depth answers I'd love to know.

inopagames14 days ago (1 edit) (+2)

Ooh hehe not overextending at all, love to read lengthy comments, especially this polite ones <3

Yeah, the game is probably quite resource hungry, all of the boxes spawn when the game loads and the wall slimes update their collision each frame and all kinds of other not efficient shit is happening. Only optimizations I bothered with were the goo balls and their shader. It was running fine on my pc and phone so I didn’t really bother optimizing further. Though I can’t remember if I tested the final build on my phone, need to do that later.

Aaw yeah a minimap would be cool, don’t know if I’ll update this much though, and don’t think I’ve ever made a minimap.

These are really interesting questions, thanks for asking! Latex/dronification isn’t my biggest kink, but I’m always looking to try some new things and I felt it fit pretty well the goo theme. I don’t have much lore thought out, but hey, you’re helping me to flesh it out!

So I’m thinking the goo is an alien weapon, maybe tying in with the aliens in my other games Hypnothick and AlienHypnoShooter. Maybe this game takes place a lot earlier or later of those games. They’ve somehow manufactored this kind of organism. This cargo ship was transporting a sample of it for some reason and it broke loose in the cargo hold (the maze with loads of goo balls and boxes). I guess the goo spreads and multiplies fast, considering the state of the ship. The goo broke the ship’s gravity control and the main character decides to initiate self destruct.

Any contact with the goo has permanent effects, feminizing, increasing sensitivity and making you super horny, I guess to disable soldiers. But it can encase it’s victims in a cocoon with enough exposure, taking control of their mind. The goo stop attacking the player once the dronification is complete, and the player has a new objective in mind, to find an inhabited planet and spread the organism further. The cocoon first just feminizes the victim faster, but its main goal is to transform the victim further. Transforming in to the final form takes some time, so the goo first ensures the victim is properly encumbered, if somehow they happened to get rid of the cocoon. If that were to happen after the full feminization, the freed victim would be a mess, hyper sensitive, mind cabable of only thinking sex. In the “good” ending, some time has passed and the exposure has feminizied them to some degree with increased sensitivity and lust.

The transform ending is a bit of a sequel bait. Haven’t thought of it trough, but thinking the resulting monster would be very powerful. The monster would fuck and impregnate people, resulting in more monsters, either same kind or maybe a new type, depending on the host, maybe smaller weak ones. The cocoon is a slow transformation, but the pregnancies are fast. Maybe the monster’s fluids work like the goo, feminizing and as an apphrodisiac, but not sentient and incabable of the cocoon thing. Maybe some kind of action/stealth game, maybe you can control a swarm of the monsters you helped to concieve.

That’s what I think I have so far. But mainly things happened because I found em hot ahah. Feminization, small dicks, muscle monsters with big dicks. My first idea was clothes dissolving and feminizing goo, but talked with a friend and we came up with the living goo/latex suit, so it was a combination of these things. Then I had to come up with an ending, and I really like transformations too. First the ending was supposed to be just a black tentacle from the escape pod, grabbing a rescue personel. And the full transformation a tentacle goo/latex suit. But I like big honking creatures and more organic transformations so ended up with the cocoon idea. Oh and the black dildo in “good” end is just a dildo, in hindsight, should have colored it pink or something. Or hey, maybe he chose a black one because it reminds of the black goo, can’t get it out his head, maybe the goo affected his mind more than the increased lust. Maybe the victims get hopelessly hooked on the goo, looking it out. Maybe some rich goo survivor ordered a sample and that’s why it’s in the cargo.

Whew, that was fun to think about hehe. Thanks again for asking. Did I answer your questions? Got more questions or ideas? I’d love to hear, no promises they’ll get implemented but always love to hear new ideas.

oxyrophusguibei10 days ago(+1)

Honestly quite elated to receive such a lengthy response... thanks a lot for your time! I think I might have tried those other games you spoke of but certainly didn't get very far, I don't think they ran very well either, which sucks because I'm big on transformation in general but oh well what can you do.

You did answer my questions, yeah. Though learning that the goo (might) be a bioweapon does pose a bunch of interesting questions on its own. What would be its purpose, strategically speaking? If it's used for neutralizing personnel, how do its creators ensure it won't harm them when they move in to occupy the subdued territory (if I'm getting this right), considering it seems to grow and proliferate just fine on a relatively sterile environment such as a spaceship? How can they undo the biological conversion it does to other organisms to further their own goals (since if I recall correctly from the other games they assimilate organisms from other species)? Wouldn't the associated cost with cleaning up a goo-infested enviroment and population hamper its utility? Maybe even its creators don't understand it fully yet and it's just a prototype weapon?

A game where you control a monster that builds an army by impregnating others sounds like a banger idea. I've brainstormed a bunch of similar themes myself, but as I am currently extremely lacking in the skills required to make a game I've just had it as a sort of brainworm I feed every once in a while by working out the mechanics and setting before I tuck it away on some dark corner of my mind whenever I'm bored. I initially envisioned it as an RTS where you yourself control some sort of hive queen character capable of spawning multiple types of unit and some of them might have that capability, but looking back on it now I think it'd be better suited for an infection-type game a la Infectonator, also because it would be really fun just watching your guys overrun an entire population in real time. I don't know. Hopefully I can make that some day.

inopagames9 days ago(+2)

Hehee I love to talk about this stuff, so happy people are interested in the lore, even when I haven’t thought it out completely. Aaw yeah Hypnothick is jank as fuck, but AlienHypnoShooter I think I tried to optimize to some extent. Shame they all run so bad.

Hmm, yeah it could be a prototype, but I kinda have this idea that the alien species behind all this is straight up overpowered. All of the transformations in the other games are in one form or another, feminization, so the effects of the goo are just beneficial for any further usage of the organism. The aliens also have this psychic power thing going on, with hypnosis and stuff. Maybe the effects of the goo make the subjects more susceptible for their psychich powers. Maybe if someone infected by the goo comes in certain range of one these aliens, their minds are linked. Without the alien presence all they can think of is sex, but with an alien around, they only wish to serve them. And I think the aliens would be immune to the goo, or maybe they use it recreationally, maybe it works just as an apphrodisiac and/or a sex toy.

About the enviroment. Maybe the goo doesn’t spread indefinitely, maybe a missile/bomb holds this kind of compressed goo. An explosion would spread the goo all around, and this goo would uncompress and spread to a limit. Maybe a bomb started leaking in the cargo of this game’s ship and it spread fast. The planet wouldn’t end up as completely covered in goo this way. I think the aliens are more interested in the organisms rather than the planet. They’d come collect some amount of cattle for their fleet and leave the planet alone. So bombing a planet with this goo would produce some amount of these transformed monsters who start to convert the population. But I think I need to rethink the transformation a bit. The aim of the aliens wouldn’t be to destroy the planet or completely transform everyone, but put the planet in an endless fight against the monsters so they have planet producing cattle endlessly.

So, the goo transforms you to a monster, and any contact with the goo makes you addicted to it and look it out. The monsters impregnate and produce more smaller monsters, but they also feminize their targets. Maybe this feminization isn’t so encumbering, but more of a brainwash, they wish to help the monsters in any way. Forming a sort of cult following the aliens. The ones transformed by the monsters would be chosen ones, who would ascend to serve their true purpose once the aliens arrive. Maybe they also choose some in their ranks to go trough the full goo transformation, making a new monster.

Oh damn an RTS game would be amazing. Though I’m not sure how you’d make the lewd stuff work, small models/sprites fucking in top down perspective isn’t that enticing. But I do remember back when I played Dawn of War, I zoomed in to watch the carnage from time to time, so could work. But yeah, haven’t made an RTS game ever, and they seem very complex. But I might give one a shot some day. Your queen idea reminded me of Hive Commando by Cloudbird, one of my favourite submission to the Strawberry Jam 10.

You say you lack the skills, in which fields? Art, coding? Honestly I’d say, just download Godot and start messing around with the help of some tutorials. Maybe start with a simpler project, but if your dream is an RTS game, maybe start prototyping that, passion for a project goes a long way. Sorry if you already have some experience, though if you already have some projects under you belt my advice is pretty much the same, just start making it ahah. In my opinion you learn game dev best by just doing it, theory helps, but you kinda have to get your hands dirty asap. Create jank, create anything, the next project will be better. Really hope you can make the game too, creating something and people actually playing it feels amazing. Takes a lot of time and pulled hairs but I think it’s worth it. One thing though, I’d probably start with 2D, 3D in Godot at least is still pretty bad.

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