it's one of the first topics about which I asked on Reddit, and now I see it pops up at least once a month... Consider that, as discussed in that page, the Team is smaller than I thought (the graphical artists Satchely and Velinquent are not officially part of Team Salvato), so it's hard to believe that they are really working on three projects at a time. On the ohter hand, it's curious that a guy that calls himself a game creator did not produce any game for 6+ years. My personal idea is that Dan Salvato has a "normal job" for a living, tops up his wage with the DDLC merch, and works on Magicore Anomala in his spare time (and dreams about the other 2 projects while sleeping - and I really hope none of those is DDLC 2, because a sequel wouln't make much sense).
Pablito ZuccaBoom
Recent community posts
p.s. Unfortunately, I don't know Python, but this short C# program works on both Windows and Linux (of course, with the appropriate runtime: DotNet for Windows, Mono for Linux. But the concept is the same of Python, which has its own runtime).
It detects your user name and if you have OBS Studio running:
using System;
using System.Linq;
using System.Diagnostics;
internal class Program
{
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
Console.WriteLine("JUST MONIKA");
Console.WriteLine($"I'm talking to YOU, {Environment.UserName}");
var obsList = Process.GetProcessesByName("obs")
.Concat(Process.GetProcessesByName("obs64")).ToList();
if (obsList.Count > 0)
{
Console.WriteLine("Are you recording me?");
}
else
{
Console.WriteLine("Let's talk forever, sweetheart!");
}
Console.WriteLine("p.s. JUST MONIKA");
}
}
Fun fact: with C#, you don't need to specify the ".exe" suffix... not even on Windows!
But maybe Python is different...
"Now, where was I...?"
Oh, right.
To try to cure my obsession with the game (or to make it worse, I don't know yet), I want to make a music video about it and... what do you say? there are already THOUSANDS of them? Oh, I know, but mine will be in Italian! Whay do you say? There are already HUNDREDS of them?
Dang it! I feel so late and lame ...
Anyway, if making a video wasn't already a big challenge (I'm a noob at video editing), I decided to do it on Linux (of which I'm an "eternal" noob) with open source tools only.
So I'm a bit disappointed: playing on Linux (or on a Mac, I suppose) gives you a worse experience than on Windows.
- Monika does not try to guess my real name on Linux. This is sad, since I served her the chance on a silver platter: my Linux username is my real first name. This is very strange since, after all, she correctly tells me where the "characters" directory is, and of course it is under /home/MYREALNAME/something/something/characters.
- You don't get Monika's jumpscare on Linux. The wiki says "It does not work on Mac or Linux, as these OSs don't use "exe" programs" but that's nonsense,
the gameMonika sould just try to find both "obs" and "obs.exe" to do the trick. I tried to rename "obs" to "obs.exe" or "obs64.exe" on Linux, but it still did not work. So, since I wanted to include Monika's jumpscare in my video, I broke my "rule" and recorded it on Windows. - Obiously you don't get the fake BSOD on Linux and Mac, that's quite reasonable. But it would have been good to replace it with some equivalent, such as the "kernel panic". While not flashy and iconic like the BSOD, it still can scare the s**t out of Linux (and Mac?) users. Furthermore, not having a BSOD-like screen is also bad plot-wise, because you don't get the DDLC_ESCAPE_PLAN_FAILED code and so you don't know that Monika tried to escape from the game, you just get a "generic" glitch.
Do you know if there is a mod that fixes those limitations?
Ok everyone! Er... I meant ... hello itch community!
I probably lived under a rock for the past 6+ years, because I stumbled into this game by accident (further proof that TV Tropes will ruin your life) just a couple of months ago!
And now I'm obsessed by it! I often find myself whistling the main theme, or humming some tribute songs found on Youtube.
I'd like to say CONGRATULATIONS and KUDOS and the like to the authors (and point out some minor problems and maybe give suggestions), but I'm still a bit disappointed by the lack of replies of the Neuroticfly dev team here on itch... so ... Do you know if Dan Salvato or anyone from the dev team ever replies to these posts?
Well... screw that, I'll do it anyway!
I like your game - I don't know how it manages to be cute and creepy (and cute, and creepy, and cute, å̶̧̧͇͕͔̩̼̤̓n̵͇͖̬̳̦͈͒̽͘d̴̝̋ ̶̘͙͇̰͍̺̊͒ͅC̴͚̜̝̒̀̎́̏̄́̕R̴̰̥̮̞̠̘̐̐̏͘͜Ę̵̨̖̞̦͇̖̑ͅE̶̢̹͊̿̒̒͘P̸͖̬̣̹̾̓̀̌̉Ÿ̵̛͙́̾́̕ ) at the same time, but it does.
Unfortunately, I was spoiled most of the best stuff, but it was still quite an experience.
You are very good, Dan & other creators, do you know that? (and you are also very, very, VERY evil, do you know that?).
About the minor problems... well, next time :)
I recently managed to win the game in Euclid (Medium) difficulty level. Looks like the hardest thing is surviving the first 3-4 waves in order to kickstart Production (Refine Duplication and Crystal Fractalization are probably among the first upgrades that you should get). In this way you get stabler sources of money and the game starts being manageable, but you must always be on your toes, because a small distraction could be fatal.
I wanted to achieve Military Might and Basic Weapons also in Euclid mode, and I did - but unfortunately, the game has no way to track this if you already got Military Might and Basic Weapons in Safe mode. So I'm not even sure if I really got Military Might and Basic Weapons in Euclid mode, because it's unfortunately very easy to click the wrong button by mistake (it happened e.g. when I tried to achieve Sacrifice in Easy mode: at the end of the game, I was not awarded it, probably I clicked Retreat once by mistake, maybe I clicked it instead of the scrollbar).
What is the hardest between Military Might and Basic Weapons? Hard to say, both have their pros and cons. In Basic Weapons, it's good to focus on genetics because you don't have to upgrade every single type of military unit, you just crank Aggression and Endurance; on the other hand, I really miss some tactical military units, especially shields and snipers. In Military Might, the good thing is that you can completely forget about Essence and Genes, so you can pump up crystals and cores like there is no tomorrow; on the other hand... well, duh, no big beasts, you'll have to sacrifice units more often. So, in the end, I'd say Military Might is a bit harder than Basic Weapons: what do you think?
Speaking of milirary units, some things that still bug me:
- it's hard to balance the relative speed of the various military units, and for some units, you can't increase the HP without also increasing the speed (and for some of them, you can't even increase the speed). So, sometimes you end up splitting your army too much, which leads to complete failure.
- Shotguns. I never used them, because they seem to suck, or I suck at using them. I'm curious: do other players use them effectively? if yes, how?
I still hope developers will show up again some day ... meanwhile, Merry Christmas everyone!
Since I always die in Medium/Euclid mode, I did other intermediate challenges, in Easy/Safe mode.
So, after the "Basic Weapons" achivement, I got "Military Might", "Truly Optimized" and "Life Matters".
Since I gave you too many unsolicited suggestions... here are some OTHER suggestions!
- add a gory death animation for the Blood God.
- show an epilogue. It does not need to be animated, maybe just crawling text that tells us what happens after the defeat of the Blood God. Is the Red Pool still there? Does it still spawn monsters? (if not, the O5 may be disappointed, since they wanted those pink candies so hard). Will the player be promoted? But "promoted" in a world of monsters is not always good news: add some ominous reference to a next assignment, so you have a sequel hook. This is SCP, even the happy ending should be a bit CREEPY...
- at the end, show the Achievements I got in this game (distinguishing the new ones from "the ones that I already have but that I nevertheless achieved AGAIN in this game"). Otherwise, to know what I got, I have to remember the Achivemenent screen "before" the game and compare with the current one, it's annoying (e.g. in my case, I don't know with which game I got "Life Matters", I suppose it was the same where I got "Truly Optimized", but I can't know for sure). Show congratulations if I get Achievements, even if I lose: funny enough, I think I got the "Millionaire" and "Well Respected" achivements in a game I lost!
- The epilogue may be different according to the difficulty level and/or the way the game ended (the Achivements themselves?). What if the "Military Might" leads to a more militarized Foundation? On the other hand, who knows what effects a heavy focus on Genetics can have on the SCP universe?
- (maybe this is too much...) when the player gets an Achivement, you may give them some kind of bonus that they can spend in another game. The bonus may be given only the first time you get the Achivement, or every time (or it may be a lesser bonus for the second time and after).
I don't know if a turret would help... it would maybe give us some breath in the early game, but by the time you get machine guns, the most dangerous monsters are bulletproof (and anyway, wouldn't the monsters attack the turret instead? especially the flying ones and the ones with a ranged attack?).
By the way, a problem that bothers me is covering the retreat, especially when the enemy has fast monsters, e.g. the Icefang and Magmatooth (the tigers).
I order the retreat when I think it's the best, and according to Murphy's law, the enemy spawns a Magmatooth that wipes away the slowest retreating units. For this prupose, I sometimes tried to sacrifice a fast Scarlet Wing: but it's very weak and the time gained is not so much... and even a "cheap" Scarlet Wing still costs a gene...
A similar "scaled down" situation occurs in the early game, if the enemy spawns a Scarlet Wing that bites my back during the retreat. And at the beginning, when I'm struggling to survive, I don't have genetics and so I can't spawn Scarlet Wings or any other fast unit.
O devs where are you? the last time they commented, it was two weeks ago...
Some questions about the Icefang (the ice tiger, aka SCP-354-15):
- according to SCP lore, the Icefang is "agile enough to dodge most gunfire". Anyway, in the game, I took it down with a Sharpshooter. For me, it's very convenient (since, on the contrary, the Magmatooth is canonically bulletproof), but is this by design? (maybe in-universe this unit is a so good sniper that the tiger does not see it coming?)
- according to SCP lore, the Icefang lost to the Magmatooth, so it's vulnerable to heat. And in game, it is, in fact I can take it down with a Magmatooth or flamethrowers. Anyway, it looks like it's immune to ground fires: it blinks red when it passes or stops on ground fires, but apparently it does not take damage! Is this by design? (Note that luckily for me, the Magmatooth takes damage from the ground fires).
Some other remarks:
- When I order the Retreat during a battle, sometimes my units (humans or monsters) turn around and... they continue performing the attack animation, but in the wrong direction, i.e. towards the other retreating units. I don't think they are really attacking their own friends, but it's confusing. And it's not just a visual thing: units that waste time attacking air are not retreating and so are more vulnerable.
- most bulletproof monsters, with the notable exception of bears, still recoil when hit by a Sharpshooter (of course they don't take damage), but at the same time, they don't budge under a shower of 12 level-3-empowered machine guns... is this by design? It is not just a visual thing: the recoil temporarily stops them, if just for a seconds, but that second can be precious.
- about machine guns: the Research menu and its descriptions say "Gattling" all over the place, but the Personnel entry for Blitzstorm units correctly says "Gatling" (except maybe in this universe Richard Jordan Gatling was named Gattling instead!)
I did it! Pheeew, it was close... and I did NOT manage to get a lot of potentially interesting researches, due to lack of time and funds. (And I still don't know how to get the giant lizard! Which I suppose is named SCP-682)
The Blood God design is stunning, with all those you-know-what inside.
On the contrary, the end screen, "Blood God Defeated - the end", is anticlimatic after all this effort: so, as a revenge, I send the devs here to ruin their life :D
Jokes aside, if the devs are interested, I can send my quasi-final stats, if this can help balancing the game.
While most people complained about the Retreat cooldown (which is unfair, I must admit, but after some practice I found it manageable), I have other concerns:
- When units are in the same spot, their health bars overlap (for both me and the enemy), so it is hard to assess how the battle is going.
- To add insult to injury, dropped resources cover the health bars completely. A textbook case of Obstructive Foreground.
- When you send a unit, the counter of total units on the field (on the right) takes time to update. This can be annoying and hinder tactics.
- Where I work, the UX team is always on our throat if they see a horizontal scrollbar. In this game you already have one (to pan the scenery), but when you get a lot of unit types, another one appears! It makes selecting the units harder. I want to send the best units for the job, in the correct number, in the correct order: but this is not easy if I have to scroll left and right (and sometimes the bar autonomously moves left or right and makes me select the wrong unit type. Maybe this happens if I'm selecting units while other units are returning to the base). So please try to review the design of the unit selector. If, in the end, the unit scrollbar is unavoidable, at least find a way to compensate it. A worthy reward for a player that reaches this level would be the ability to pause the game even in the main screen... maybe even some kind of RTWP ? or am I asking too much? (I'm sufficiently old to remember the frustration of launching an attack with many units in Dune2, they never arrived in the order or formation I wanted!)
EDIT (30/10/2023): another game! I was looking for a challenge so I aimed for the Basic Weapons achievement, and I got it! I thought it would have been harder then the normal strategy, and in fact it is, but only at the beginning. About mid-game, I found it even easier... TOO easy probably... at a certain point, I realized that the waves were not challenging any longer, that I had a lot of money and nothing useful to research further, and enough firepower to kill the Blood God twice, but unfortunately I yet don't know how to summon it (her?) before the end. Maybe this is a sign that I'd better move on, to the the Medium/Euclid mode...
EDIT2 (01/11/2023): failed very soon in Euclid/Medium mode, maybe I'm not ready yet? :(
But since the monsters are clearly thougher, having less initial money and rep sounds unfair (I'd reserve this for Keter and above). And did I really say that the Retreat cooldown was manageable? I retract it, your honor! ;)
Meanwhile, some other findings:
- Even when I'm high level and I have a lot of money, Reputation is still a harsh bottleneck. And if it's a nuisance in Easy mode, it's deadly in Medium mode. I'd suggest to review this "double currency" mechanism to make sure it's really balanced.
- If I pump up my Sideguards with extra research, the bullet counter appears only when they have 14 bullets left, but not before: is this a bug or by design? (I did not try with other units).
- in the Genetics info for the Blood God, it says "it is unknown if this entity is capable of leaving the Red Pool", and it's ok at the beginning. At the end, it deserves something more creepy, since the Blood God is literally crawling to get you.
- Trying to delete a saved game does not work (of course I can overwrite them, but it's just a workaround).
- When I load a game, the Auto options that were checked when I saved are not enabled. It could be by design, and it could be a good idea, to avoid wasting resources, but it should be clearly documented, to avoid confusing the player. And after you reach Duplication Level 5, duplication should be always automatic: having the checkbox for duplication makes no sense whatsoever, because it does not waste anything, it's all gain for the player.
- Some days ago I pointed out that the Personnel menu shows the number of units in the base, but not outside. For Genetics monsters, it shows neither: again, having both would be very useful, to take informed decisions.
- The game lets you research higher levels of Genetics even if they don't unlock new monsters. It should put a cap on it, so the player does not waste money and rep dreaming of extra monsters, or extra abilities for existing monsters, or some other secret boon (Unless there is REALLY a secret boon at really higher levels!).
- The same is (probably) true also for Director Orientation.
- There is STILL the bug about Sirens transforming into Needles when they come back to my base! This is a real pain, since this does not happen for other monsters, and the Sirens have a valuable AoE attack that Needles lack.
I think that not having the Retreat button always available IS indeed the point of the game.
You may call it an artificial difficulty (and probably it is indeed) but we can also justify it in-universe: the fresh military units are cocky guys that think themselves as invincible and underestimate the power of the Red Pool monsters ("Second Lieutenant, Jake Jenson. West Point. Graduate with honors. We're here because you are looking for the best of the best of the best, sir!"). With appropriate training in Safety Procedures, which are core of the SCP mythology, they learn to do like good old friend Khalid: "Better part of valor, better part of valor!!!".
I'm back!
This time I'm trying to balance military units with genetics.
Now I have MY OWN big damn fire cat! And a big damn hedgehog-bear!
(And also a couple of flying leeches, even if they always seem to perform better when the enemy uses them: anyway, it may be my own bias, or I can't use them well... EDIT: probably this is the same bug pointed out by kiddage456js some days ago. If it is by design, it's unfair, I paid for Blood Sirens, not for lesser Needles!).
Oh, HOW I would like to put a leash on the cat so it would not run fast past my shield-bearers and right into the Red Pool! so I'm forced to click Retreat even if I'd like to move a little further - but I suppose this IS the point of this game...
The downside to this new strategy is that I have less money than in the previous runs (but more Reputation) and less tech improvements... how long will I last?
EDIT: I'm at Day 43 and I'm still alive! Hooray! What now? How I can I get the giant lizard I see in the trailer? (EDIT: now I see that there are Achievements! One of them says "Spawn the indestructible reptile, somehow", so it's something the player must discover on their own. Well, for now I can say that researching Genetics Level = 10 13 does nothing, maybe some extra levels are necessary, or it is something else, or a combo).
Meanwhile, the waves become stronger and stronger...
You made me remember the first times I tried games in English, many, MANY years ago... knowing little or no English, it was sometimes funny, sometimes nightmarish (and sometimes useful in retrospect).
I made hilarious mistakes trying to guess words (who had TIME to look every term in a paper dictionary?) and falling for "false friends" against Italian words, e.g. I thought "alignment" was something related to food, my good guy was "male" so I thought he was "evil", not to mention gotta/gout and gonna/skirt confusion...
A very good game, but I find it hard even in easy mode... er... at least for an old, eternal noob like me ^__^'
The first three times I died very quickly. The fourth and fifth times, I survived to around Day 40-42, then the waves overwhelmed me, especially those big damn fire/ice cats.
I focused on military units, maybe I should have tried genetics instead? But there are so many things to do, and I always lack resources (in particular, it looks like just a couple of battles going wrong start a Slippery Slope of Dooooooom for the reputation)... Or maybe I just suck at the game! :D
Some suggestions:
- background music is fine, but sometimes the beat sounds like bullets firing, making me think a battle is still in progress.
- when enemy is at the gates and I send long-distance shooters (e.g. Sharpshooters, gatling guys, leeches, etc), they are in a blind spot inside the base so I cannot see how many of them are there, and how many bullets they still have. I don't know if it is a characteristic of the game, or maybe just my setup (Windows 11, in the Google Chrome browser). EDIT 02/11/2023: I'm starting to get used to this, and while it has its cons, it also has pros - namely, it's the only way to order a precision strike at the best possible moment.
- in the Personnel menu, when I select a type of unit, it shows how may of them are in the base. It would be useful to also show how many of them are currently outside.
- sometimes the emeny big damn fire/ice cat glitches, especially when it is running to my base while my units are retreating (which may be a good thing, if it slows down the beast and save the ass of my units...)
Kudos again!
Nice game, it's both creepy and hilarious at the same time! :)
I must confess that after a certain point I gave up and used the walkthrough because I could not open the chest - it's probably MY fault, because I did not pay attention to the Big Picture and to what was really going on.
Note: the game does not work from Google Chrome (Version 105.0.5195.102 ) in Incognito Window ("Failed to read the localStorage property from Window: Access is denied to this document"). The game works correctly in Google Chrome normal window. And it DOES indeed work in Microsoft Edge and Mozilla Firefox equivalents of Incognito Window (of course, playing in this mode is a bad idea because you will lose your progress when existing the browser).
My song goes round and round
Instead of stopping starts again
The music floats around
It starts all over at the end
Whirling, twirling, faster, faster, spinning, can't you see?
Maybe you will hear my song and come to rescue me...
(Congratulations, this short "game-which-is-not-exactly-a-game" is more creepy than many long and complex games...
A friend of mine was in a toxic relationship like this - many years ago. Luckily she dropped him and later found a better person)
Short but very, very good! I liked when the things turned scary...
This game made me think about my relationship with trains. I've always loved trains as a kid. Then I became a commuter, so now I tolerate them, but I still prefer them to cars. A couple of times I fell asleep and missed the stop - of course, when I had an important appointment at the correct stop, and this is scarier than spiders! Now I'm quarantined because of the coronavirus outbreak and - believe it or not - I sometimes miss my trains, even with their dirt, delays and cancellations...
Nice game (except the boss monster which is totally unfair: completely unexpected, you can't backtrack and if you die you cannot reload). The REAL problem is that the game CRASHED twice! It crashed while saving (once autosaving, once when I explicitly saved). A command prompt appeared but I could not type anything. Sorry I forgot to take a screenshot. I reloaded the page in the browser (I'm using Google Chrome 80.0.3987.132 on Windows 10), I loaded the last saved game, it worked but I lost ALL my inventory! To add insult to injury, the first time I reloaded I was "magically" placed in the cave level OUTSIDE the walls, without tools. I restarted from scratch, I was very near to the endgame, I had all the benches, all the gem tools, and... CRASH, again, lost everything. I gave up :(
About the gameplay: I liked it, but the progression wood/stone/iron/gold/gem is too unnecessarily long and time-consuming. If I were you, I'd remove gold completely from the game and go straight from iron to gem, or maybe you could use gold for something else (after all, the idea that gold tools are better than iron tools is ludicrous EVEN for a game that has zombies and magic pockets).