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Game Design

Information Guy: Status Effects Part 1



Hi. Information Guy here. Have we met?

Have you ever been fighting a pterodactyl and then stepped in a big pile of T-Rex you-know-what? Me neither. But if I had, I might be inflicted with a status effect. I bet you’d want to call a time out, but that pterodactyl wouldn’t let you, because they’re vicious, bitey things. And you stole its eggs.

That’s the problem with status effects. They’re things that make it harder to fight. But, you already knew that, because you probably play lots of video games. I don’t, so this is all quite fascinating to me. The world is a pretty fascinating place if you don’t know much.

Hey. Want to hear about some status effects you might run across? I’m just going to assume so, because that’s the kind of guy I am. I like talking, and I like like teaching.



Sometimes something might jump out at you when you’re not ready. Or, maybe someone will act like they’re punching you in the face and then kick you in the shins instead. That kind of thing will startle you, which means you won’t get to finish your turn. You can do the same thing to an enemy, though, so if an enemy is winding up for a big attack, then just startle them and everything will be A-okay.



Of course, once you’ve been startled once, it’s hard to do it again. After you get startled, you become alert. As the fight goes on, each time you or an enemy is startled, you’ll become alert for a longer period of time–up till five turns! Think of it like this: if your buddy puts a bunch of feral cats in your backpack, that’s going to scare you pretty good the first time, but if they do it again, you’re going to hold your backpack up to your ear like a conch shell the next time.



Sometimes, you’re going to get sick. This may be an adventure, but you know who don’t go on adventures? Germs. If you do get sick, it’ll wear off after battle, but while you’re fighting expect to lose 10 percent of your HP a turn if you don’t treat it.



Immunodeficiency. This one doesn’t feel good at all. Unlike sick, you’re not going to get hurt from this, but if you’re immunodeficient, you’re not going to be able to heal yourself. Like most status effects, it will wear off after battle, but if you get this during a tough encounter, you better treat it fast!



What’s that? Why are you sleeping in the middle of the fight? Did someone give you a boring lecture? Did you just decide to take a nice afternoon nap? Well, be careful. Sleeping only lasts three turns, but you can’t act while you’re asleep, and if someone hits you, you’re going to REALLY feel it. Sleeping also makes you vulnerable to nightmares, so be careful to avoid enemies who can enter your dreams and kill you in your sleep…

…Really, that’s a thing.

That’s it for this time. Would you like me to repeat that?

Game Design

Field Actions

So far, I've only really talked about battles/stat progression/story stuff; I’d like to talk for a bit about what happens more on the exploration side of things now. Specifically, I want to talk about field actions.

Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass has a pretty strong emphasis on exploration. Since you’re looking through a kid’s perspective in this game, I wanted to make the world a big toy box for the player to have fun in (of course, this excludes the darker areas in the game, which I’ll share more about once I’m deeper into level design).

Since Jimmy can transform into several different monsters, this allowed me to give him several different field actions based on which monster he’s currently transformed into them. Think about them as the on-map abilities you gain in Breath of Fire 2 or the tools in Lufia 2. You can change into a different monster anywhere in the game, and by pressing a button (default: A), your monster will perform a field action.

For example: the Low-Level Goon is a bit of a troublemaker. His field action allows him to grab onto things and either SHAKE THEM UP or PUSH THEM AROUND. For example, you might shake a tree so that it drops its fruit to give you a quick HP recovery. Or, you might push or pull a block onto a switch. Or, you might shake a vending machine and get a free snack. Or, maybe you just want to shake somebody lounging on the beach because you don’t like his stupid face.

Another example: the Revolting Blob is universally hated, so you can use his field action to turn yourself into a target like so:



In most dungeons, this will allow you to immediately fight a random encounter, but maybe you’ll find other uses for it as you explore.

While I do have some puzzles in mind for field actions, most of these will be optional. The main goal with field actions was to give lots of room for players to interact and have fun with the environment. There are lots of transformations and each has its own field action, and I’m looking forward to profiling them in future blog posts!

Progress Report

Another World of Beasts

I’d like to stay pretty transparent about where I’m at in the developing process, so let’s do that: I’m just scratching the surface. One thing I really like to do, though, is knock things off lists, and I knocked a thing off the list a few days ago: all of the monster graphics have been finished.

To give you an idea of the scope of Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass, there are 327 enemy graphics. I wanted to keep the experience consistently novel, so the bulk of the game contains new enemies in every area. I will be revisiting old monsters and mixing them in interesting ways in a couple of bonus areas, but novelty of experience is still going to be stressed throughout.

Another thing to note: although there are 327 separate graphics, some enemies have multiple graphics. For example, an enemy named Rorschach switches between five different forms each turn with each form having different properties; so, he’s got five unique graphics.

Now that I’ve finished drawing all the monsters, I’ll be mainly focusing on designing equipment and items, setting up enemy behavior, and drawing the battle animations. I’m already pretty deep into the equipment and items, and I can’t wait for ya’ll to see some of the fun stuff I’ve got planned!

(Also posted this on the old Tumblr)

Miscellaneous

Screenshot Weekly

So, in my random shouting into the endless vacuum of space (i.e. Twitter), the editor of indiegamemag.com saw some of the screenshots from Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass and was cool enough to reach out to me and offer me a spot on their Screenshot Weekly segment:

http://indiegamemag.com/screenshot-weekly-preposterous-pulsating-bedfellows/

How rad is that?

Game Design

The Imagination System

I posted this on the tumblr, which you can check out for weekly updates. I'm going to post the bigger game-devvy stuff here, too, though. Anyway:

One of the things I’m pretty excited about for Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass is Jimmy’s Imagination abilities. While there is story justification for this system, I want to focus on the practical side of how it works in terms of skill learning/stat progression:



This is the imagination menu. It can be brought up from the field menu any time, and it allows Jimmy to look at the stats of each monster he can transform into. It also allows him to equip his skills. By pressing up and down, you can navigate which skills you want, and pressing left or right changes Jimmy’s form. Here’s what each section refers to:

1. This is just the skill description. Right now, the “Bully” skill his highlighted, so that’s what’s being shown. I don’t like guesswork in skill descriptions, so I made sure that all the skill descriptions have clear effects written out in addition to the more flavorful explanations.

2. This is where you equip your skills. You’ll note a few different icons. The stars means that if a skill is equipped, Jimmy can use that skill regardless of what form he’s in. Since Jimmy will be frequently changing forms both in and out of battle, the starred spaces are very useful. The regular bullet points denote skills that, when equipped, can only be used when Jimmy is in his normal form. Skills are also divided into active and passive skills. For those who don’t know, an active skill is a skill that Jimmy actually uses in combat or on the field, and passive skills work automatically. Some passive skills involve increased stats or the ability to stun all the enemies for one turn at the beginning of a fight, for example.

3. These are the monster stats. The experience listing in this field is dependent on the monster, meaning that Jimmy’s monster forms each have their own levels. As you can see, right now the Low-Level Goon form is selected. Every time he levels, Jimmy permanently gains one luck point that stays with him regardless of what form he’s in. The percentage values beneath that are the stat modifiers to Jimmy’s base stats whenever he’s transformed into a Low-Level Goon.

4. These are the equippable skills that the Low-Level Goon automatically has. When you switch to a Low-Level Goon, Jimmy will automatically be able to use them, but if you want to equip them in a different form, you’ll have to unlock them by making it to the appropriate level with that monster. As you can see, the Grift ability unlocks at level 40, so Jimmy can’t equip that yet, but he can still use it while he’s transformed into a Low-Level Goon. Also, I should note that monsters do not automatically get their passive skills. These don’t show up on the screenshot since you have to have a passive skill slot highlighted first. The only passive skills Jimmy can have are the ones he’s unlocked and equipped, as many are quite good. This is why Jimmy’s normal form might start out weak, but, by the end of the game, he’ll be more powerful than any other form!
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