Skip to main content

Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines

Will there be a way to turn corruption off?

I keep checking back in on this game after some months to see if the "you have to slowly grind from scratch for each character" mechanic has been toned down (it makes the game, which is otherwise fun, get old fast for me. I just don't find starting over from scratch for each character, combined with such a slow grind for each character, fun or engaging.).

This time when I checked on the game I was shocked to find that the fun was gone, and had been almost entirely replaced with frustration.

The corruption mechanic sounds like it could be somewhat interesting on paper. But boy is it not in reality.

Basically, the end result of corruption is that you can't ever go back to where you were before. But that's terribly at odds with how a survivor clone, and even this game itself, works.

A don't like having to say this to someone who's worked so hard on this game, but there are so many things wrong with corruption and I don't understand what value it's supposed to be adding to Bring It On.

Problems:
1. Corruption builds up SO FAST. If you're swarmed or have several enemies next to you, which of course happens often in a game like this, one attack can go from no corruption next to you to a 3x3 block of corruption right next to you, or even larger. And if you were positioned unlucky, you will be half over one of the newly corrupt tiles that instantly appear and immediately take damage with no time to even react. This happens often. It has killed me too, and feels like an absolutely stupid way to die.

Melee plays so badly now because of this mechanic.

2. Corruption never goes away. What's the problem with this? In a game where experience falls on the ground, and has to be collected, I don't really know of any way that's not gonna cause a big problem.

As the round goes on, there's an every growing pile of experience scattered all over that can't be collected because of corruption. I just keeps increasing how much experience you can't collect, through the entire round. That's not fun or interesting. It just feels bad and frustrating. And likely leaves you under leveled.

Ranged suffers from that just as much as melee, especially with how enemies (and the dropped experience) can get knocked backward from the force of the killing blow and land in corruption. 

And then there's chests. Having to stand still a moment to open a chest used to be an interesting mechanic that added some spice without being frustrating or obnoxious. You just had to time it well. Now it's often frustrating and obnoxious. If you couldn't get it open in time, once a chest gets covered in corruption might as well not exist.

Add on top of that--combined with how you can go from no corruption to instantly a several tile wide pool of corruption from one attack--you can have chests get spawned inside a corruption pool that didn't exist a moment ago, literally never having a chance from the moment it was spawned to ever try to open it.

All of this stuff just frustrates and repels. I can't honestly say I find it fun to play the game now. Corruption just gets in the way of the fun every single time.


I'm confused what the point of corruption is supposed to be? If it's to make the player move around, there's already stuff that drops health potions, and stuff like hidden characters. If it's to add excitement or fun, it's very much adding frustration instead and not fun.

Once again, I'm sorry to have to be so blunt about this. I can't think of a better way of saying it. While it might have been an interesting idea for an experiment, I honestly don't see how corruption is anything but an ill-fitting mechanic for this game.

We have already been making lots of changes to corruption.
The initial version of the mechanic that is out now turned out to be close, but not exactly what we wanted from the mechanic.

Changes are coming in a future release.

You will not be able to disable it entirely, but some of the changes should help with some of your frustrations.

1: Corruption will spread at a rate relative to the difficulty of the level. So in the Grasslands it will spread very slowly and take a lot of time to build up.

2: Some attacks will be able to 'burn away' and/or repel corruption. Chests and (lit) bonfires will also repel corruption.

3: Some enemies will have effects that spread more corruption, or interact with it in different ways.

Also, the corruption mechanic will play a larger part in the overall story of the game.

Also, also, the idea that the Corruption on the ground is so dangerous that you should never touch it might be a bit overkill. Corruption damage starts out very very small and then builds up the longer you are touching it - but it will take awhile to become super perilous. And, it will reset back to 'small' damage the moment you step out of it. 

The idea behind the mechanic is to present more choices to the player - do I risk taking a few hits of damage to stand in corruption if it means I can kill more enemies or do I move to get away to somewhere clear all the time? Do I run through a small patch of corruption take a few hits to go collect XP or a Chest? what about a large patch? Do I go find potions enough to heal up and then come back here to collect those things?

While we would agree that in the version you are playing now, the mechanic is a bit rough, we have been working to make it better.