All Tied Up

A while back on the topic of (dungeon) traps I mentioned I abandoned lewd traps for something better. Quite a few people asked what that something is, so here is an explanation.

NOTE: Still all WIP and subject to change.

From early on in development, one feature that I wanted in game is in-combat grabs and allies. Overall I’m quite happy with the current system, with one exception: when you outnumber the enemy. When you have allies with you, the grab is more detrimental to the enemy than against your party. As overpowered as the divine battle dress big fister is, she is no match for a group of three (or more) - she spends too much time on grabbing a single unit when the player can utilize this “downtime” to basically, fully recover the other members of the party. This is why for the first real boss, he had to have a summon minions ability else I fear he would suffer the same fate.

One possible solution is to increase the penalties of grab or make rezzes more difficult. That is something I don’t want to do because I feel it goes against the nature of the game. But I do want to do something to address the situation so I can design encounters without always resorting to a large number of enemies.

I had an idea. The reason the adds are necessary, is not because of the swarm factor, but it alleviates the more powerful units (such as Ludas) from doing the grabs themselves (and “stuns” himself for the duration). So, if the game allows a unit to be put into an animation without always needing a “partner,” then similar results can be achieved. This is why I went with the (dungeon) traps idea - to implement an engine feature to have “animations” with the “environment.”

Ultimately, I abandoned the lewd traps because it is not a very fun mechanic to play against. I have a better idea:

Interactable Traps/Objects. Or Curios in the darkest dungeon for those that are familiar with that game. Basically, randomly placeable objects found in dungeons which the player/ally can interact with. And then, depending on chance, either give a reward, or an “animation” ensues.

The advantage of this over traps is that it does not interrupt the normal game play. When you are trying to fight, having an invisible trap activate underneath you and disables you for a long time sucks. However, those that are actively seeking game overs, you can still do the same.

The second part is restraints. So there will be a new equippable item class - “restraints.” Units with restraints equippable will be able to, well, restraint any downed foes. Restrained units need to break free of their bonds before they are able to do anything else. The duration is probably going to be dependant on the type and strength of the item versus the stat of the unit. The restraints must be removed first before the unit can be helped up (by allies).

A little aside here. So, bondage is a fetish that was requested a long time ago. And the suggestions were quite involved. For example, binding the feet would change the walking/running animation to something else, and binding the arms would gave the character a different attack. I actually did gave this kind of bondage a try back in August. My conclusion is that it takes too much time for a game that needs to be fully animated (and possibly deal with non-humanoids in the future). If this was a text game or had a simpler combat system, I believe I could do it, but alas, we are not. So the only kind of bondage that is feasible for me to implement is a fully disabled state as I described above.

I would like restraints to enable special grabs but it isn’t planned for the initial release.

The second feature of restraints, is that it allows for restrained foes to be carried. This enables a lot of possibilities, for example kidnapping an ally, or taking someone back with you from the dungeon. But for the first release, what I want to do is the ability for some enemies to carry bound units to the special trap objects/machinery found in the dungeon (the Curios), and places them there.

So in short, I am working on 1) Trap Objects/Curios (if someone can suggest a name for this kind of thing, let me know) 2) bondage 3) carrying units. I believe this entire system, when working in unison, is superior to the lewd traps approach. None of the annoying surprises, allows for a wide variety of “animations” and objects that are easily accessible if you wish, and gives the player a clear indication of what's going on and possible counter play.