POLISH
and a few bugs, because I much rather not take the time to seperate all my notes (so get ready for a wall of bullet points) from what may have been looked over and what may have been bugged.
(also I am probably going to say stuff already asked for/brought to your attention)
Beginning of the Game stuff
- Can't brush sand off of E.D.I.E. with broom
- I already said this in the survival mechanics discussion, but it is important to me cause that was the first thing I tried to do
- If you clear wood debrie (debire? can't spell) before talking to EDIE it doesn't seem to count towards the mission.
- No repercussions for trying to punch traders
- A system for trading and your aggression to traders will probably be hard to implement; however, an conversation like: "oh don't even try, we all take a class on shadow boxing before beginning life as a trader because of people like you."
- Rain can happen at the beginning of the game before talking to EDIE or learning how to build.
- Makes the desert/wasteland mood kinda mute
- The instruction to press "B" to build shows up before talking to EDIE (and shows options for building if you press it as well)
- may want to make that UI pop up after the mission
- On the world map pressing "enter" (the key) doesn't work to enter your base, you have to click the button on the screen.
- it confused me at first, and I thought I already broke the game (and then I tryed clicking it with my mouse)
- could also allow pressing enter to let you explore a tile
- Wall torches can be inside walls (or on top of them?) and they can't be rotated to be on the sides of walls
- This may also be intentional, but if you make a pretty lengthy and narrow building you can have a dark area inbetween
Combat stuff
- You can break wooden crates with an axe but not barrels.
- Sprinting doesn't affect aim for bow or other guns (this is probably me not noticing that it does)
- You could make "better aim while sprinting" (if you implement this) as an upgrade you can do with XP at a workstation
- You can grab arrows from the other side of a wall
- This is probably intentional/a good thing; there isn't roofs, and if local multiplayer is added it could add to the strategy
- Attacking while sprinting doesn't seem to make stamina go down faster, it does make sprinting slow down a bit when you swing, which I like.
- You could go down a slippery slope here by making all weapons and tools take down a bunch of energy, which would slow down the combat and make you not want to do it (mainly applies to the flame boots, they go down quick already for me)
- You could make "less stamina taken while swinging and sprinting" (if you implement this) as an upgrade you can do with XP at a workstation
- Could also only apply to certain weapons - like the spear - and not affect other weapons - like the bat.
- Sprinting to long doesn't affect speed of attack
- Not really a problem, some might consider it "unrealistic" but it would probably lead to a downwards spiral where you can't run away from skellys and you can't attack them.
- No three lines (or prongs? I don't now the name for those indicators) indiactors for stamina while riding a llama
- Fire from flame boots doesn't go out in the rain, and dust storm doesn't affect the "homing" range of the rocket boots
- This would add more strategy for the times you go out and do missions
- Doesn't necessarily have to put the flames out, but some steam coming from the flames would add a nice touch (or more polish I should say).
- Hold "E" to revive still hovers over a passed out companion (duke in my case)
- The screen shakes when you get hit when you are already passed out, but the background (or the back-background) doesn't fade, leading you to see brightly lit sand in the corners
- Maybe could be solved with the background fading too when you passout.
- Armor (or just the trash can) doesn't show up on the player, which made me sad to not see a trashcan on my head
- May just be intentional and you want the player to be able to pick their style of hair without it being ruined with a garbage bucket on their head
- May want to make a "no enemy" radius around the player whenever you explore a tile (I about died the first second one time when I clicked explore)
- Could make a specfic "no ranged enemy" radius to allow melee skellys and roaches, but not a skelly with a bow to notice you right away.
- No "scroll back" on inventory or missions (it doesn't loop from the beginning if you reach the end and vice-versa)
- This leads you to have to click all the way back to the start to see if you finished that mission if you where on the last one
- It not looping in your inventory leads you to scroll down super fast to get to a weapon or tool you placed there
Combat Suggestions
- Blocking - You could hold right click to block for a tiny period of time, which would drain a 3rd of your stamina
- This could add a lot to the strategy and add something else to upgrade and learn
- This could be used to negate/block effects that you are planning to add (ex. bleeding)
- What you can upgrade and how you can upgrade can be vast (and unlocking it too)
- What you can upgrade could be - how long the period of time the actual block lasts; how much damage it blocks; how much of effects it blocks (like bleeding is less if you blocked it); what effects it can block; how much stamina is lost from blocking (probably should be limited to 1/6 or 1/9, otherwise it might be overpowered); and how much time it takes for you to block again (this could be set in stone with the stamina regeneration, and if it varied it would be harder to gauge when to attack enemies if there is no set openings for attacking).
- How you can upgrade could be - from the players work station (leveling up the "blocking time" or "blocking effectiveness"); weapons (better/lighter weapons take less stamina or can block more often) (could also level up the weapon station to add these); armor (makes sense and could dictate how much damage is blocked and what effects are blocked/negated) (also could level up armor station to add these); or from quests
- This could be a good way to spend XP. If you do the upgrading with quests, you could connect it to the traders not being able to get hit with a "Trader Training" quest line which ends with the leading trader saying something like, "You're no where close to being a trader, you still get hit, but it seems you can block better" (could add to the grim-comedy tone of the game)
- Enemies the can block would add difficulty and would be intresting to fight against
- Really just adds more depth to the combat and survival.
- Medical Companion - A way to get a NPC to help heal you and even revive you if you pass out would be a worthwhile questline
- More Weapons -
- Crossbow - would work like the bow, but faster reload or bigger projectile (or both, your the coder)
- Lance - Weapon that could be used on the llama and does more damage while riding the llama (could get overpowered if it scales with speed, because of the rocket boots)
- Flamethrower - I think someone already mentioned this, it's a good idea
- Spiked Whip - A whip not for herding animals, but for killing skellys
- Fireworks - Would be like the grenade, but it would go in a line instead of being tossed, and not bounce off walls (less damage too)
- May want to replace the steel cost of the grenade with cloth, but keep the same oil
- May want to make a different explosion animation for this, or have the flavor text say, "More like 'fireworks' than fireworks" or say, "More practical than for looking at, that's why your not seeing colored sparks."
- More Armor -
- Helmet that passively reloads - I don't know what it should be called, but if you add this it would go well with the chest piece that gives you more ammo
- A "Cursed Flames" Flame boots - If you implement the rain and/or dust storms getting rid of fires, these could circumvent that (also have blue fire to show that in a local multiplayer setting)
- More Enemies -
- Skelly Bear (because it's in alaska, they have bears) - basically could be a tank-y skelly that could charge at players (kinda like the rocket boots but without the "always hitting" and "giant explosion")
- ON FIRE SKELLY (regular flame and cursed flame varients possible) - a flanking skelly that doesn't necessarily attack you but circles around you
- maybe by making the pathing point(s) in a circle around the player or kinda like in pacman with how pinky (or another ghost) goes behind pacman. (in this case you may not want to make it directly behind the player but more at an angle behind the player so the skelly doesn't try to go through wherever the player is standing)
- Sand Salmon/Tuna (cause alaska) - it would be able to go into the sand like the sand worm, but it would be more like a dolphin jumping in and out of the sand - instead of burrowing and coming out at a point like the sand worm.
- Maybe make these only jump in and out of the air whenever a dust storm is happening to give the weather condition an enemy.
- Mutant Centipede - larger and tougher roach (could have multiple body parts have different health)
- Mutant Locust - like the roach but can jump like the Sand Salmon
Location/Mission Stuff
- At Steven's Ranch you can mess with the electrical equipment (no one comments about it, gets mad, or tries to fix it)
- The mission where you kill the skellys for steven's the older (dead) cows you can butcher them and no one comments about it
- Can't sleep in any of the beds at any location other than yours (probably intentional, or you could do a mission to get permission to sleep at the ranch or pay to sleep in a hotel at a new location)
- If you use "shift" and "E" to pay more than one scrap at the time, the conversation still says that you had to click 500 times (would be funny if you said to Duke, "you didn't know that you could do that?")
- I quit the game from steven's ranch, and when I loaded back in, sand was gone from EDIE (I already said about the broom thing earlier)
- It still says to press "B" for build mode at locations you can't (unless you are in debug mode)
- You can plant crops at the 'orphanage' which no body comments on or thanks you about
- May have to code different sorts of triggers for stuff like this
- One randomly generated building in an explore tile had signs instead of gravestones
- I may have missed a sign saying "died due to being to dumb to order graves instead of signs" or if you add a broom brushing mechanic that can uncover signs and gravestones revealing what they say, you could have one grave have a dusty sign on it saying, "stuck in the past when signpost were gravestones" as an easter egg.
- Anchor Rage's sand clean up drones aren't able to be hit with the spear like your flash light drone can.
- may want to make the knockback they take less than your flashlight drone; they do look a lot heavier after all.
- Planning ahead and taking multiple cats seem to bug out the cat lady mission; the cats get named and left on the map but you only drop off one cat accorded to the mission and dialouge
- I couldn't really fix this in debug mode (either I was petting the cat near the postbox or it just wasn't giving the cat) (I also tried doing multiple cats again and dropping them off one at a time but it seems like they all get dropped off)
- I never got to the end of that quest.
- There is multiple entrences for the leftmost building in the 'arts and crafts' center (by destroying the broken walls) but only one trigger point for the skellys to pop up
- You may want to make trigger points connectable, so you can fix it without making the skeletons trigger three seperate times
- You may already be able to do this and I am just dumb with the debug mode.
- There may be more instances like these, but this is one instance that I noticed
- You may want to make trigger points connectable, so you can fix it without making the skeletons trigger three seperate times
- Gates don't load in on places correctly, this is in all revisitable locations (if you go in debug mode and destory and replace them they load in fine the next time you visit that location)
- To be more specfic it make a sort of invisble wall that is uninteractable (I think it may just be that you changed the gate ID but it is still using the old gate ID, but I'm just guessing here)
- In the last place you go to for the 'orphanage' story line (I didn't write it down in my notes, silly me, I do remember it is the one with the turrets, and I think it may have been the 'gym'), two switchs that I assume is for iron gates is connected to stone doors, you have to clear the stone door connection to alllow the switch to connect to the gates.
- not being able to connect switches to stone doors and gates at the same time may be a bug.
- (this may be intentional, but I have a feeling it isn't)
- In the gym you can't see the sign welcoming you to the gymnasium without debug
- Maybe I didn't get in the right spot to look at it, or the gate glitch happened at that location too
- Could make it to where big signs have a larger reading radius to where the message pops up even if you are a bit far.
- You can take cloth stacks, stone stacks, and meat stacks in the shops at anchor rage (and no one cares)
- May want to make areas where you can't interact with material stacks (may want to make something similar for electrical stuff)
- May want to get the players kicked out of the shop or prices being raised (still would have to overlay an area where players couldn't take stuff or make the stacks have different IDs)
- Putting an area where players can't pick up stacks or if they pick up stacks in the area prices would raise could lead to a bug where if a player puts a stack in the shop and can't deconstruct it. May need to make different IDs for the stacks or check every so often to see if it has the right level of stacks in it.
- The two NPCs at Steven's Ranch that are in the farm area, don't farm, and if you open the fences in debug mode they don't stay there and wonder around
- Maybe make a new NPC spawn ID that farms and plants on their own or an area overlay where if an NPC spawn in there they can't leave
- Your flashlight drone kinda phases through large water towers, instead of hovering over them like it does with walls.
The world map stuff I already said on my post in the survival mechanics, but it still stands here with the roads and quests. I really feel that for the mission stuff you just need to focus on more reactions of what the player does (like butchering steven the older's cows or using "shift E" to not have to press "E" 500 times) and more missions (which your planning) and worldbuilding (like with the broom mechanics I talked about on the survivial mechanics). Also branching out of the missions (like saying no to steven the older's mission doesn't let you refill your thirst bar at his ranch)