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Inaccessible areas

A topic by joemama92022 created Jul 07, 2023 Views: 1,281 Replies: 4
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you should make it so that all areas you can't access have reasons like Riverflow is like, "I shouldn't go there it is closed due to sickness" or Jacobs house is like, "I shouldn't invade random properties for no reason" or the forest behind Jacob's house, "I shouldn't mess with the forests ecosystem for no reason" or for the bridge, "I don't think I can beat all those bandits and I have no reason to go there so I should hold off for now" or like mountain reach, "this place has a... weird aura I should avoid it for now" ext.

Why not let Aura enter Riverflow on day 1 even though everybody is sick? The sick townsfolk don't actually offer anything. And Jacob's house could just have a bit where he's dealing with his daughter's tantrum and asking Aura to leave. Enabling these would just give players the option for a theft I edge case with the apples.

Northern mine could just be filled with spiders but no teammates, which would bring it in line with doing winged pig thief without Charlotte or killing various bosses before they become objectives(first goblin shaman, first ogre commander, second low demon, phantom lord..).

Nephlune day 1 could be balanced by having the vendor start with fewer restocks and the door to Lilliana's house locked(she's not home, which also means you can't unlock the Mary disguise), so it mostly just allows players to use the collar to win duels, rushing wind slime as a substitute for new game+, or to grab early books. Slave trading isn't available until vice gets unlocked anyway.

Bridge bandits being a multi-stage battle effectively blocks off the south unless Aura goes for a pink run, which would stack additional rewards onto said pink run. 

Belphegor is gated by needing to know open domain I and 100 mp to learn open domain II, mount Firestorm is gated by needing water skin II or excessive amounts of healing items.

Verdeaux might need some work, but the restocking vendor can start with less inventory, anything involving Roland and/or the princess can be gated behind the festival of greed, the cathedral is already gated behind Belphegor, and just about everything else is gated with gold.

 I can't remember if sequence-breaking Sathanas and Arwin would actually make the dialogue confusing, but if you somehow manage to sneak far enough into Draknor fortress with a blessed energy potion+ just to get a curse trap barrier before saving Edwin, you probably know exactly what you're doing and should be allowed to dodge the willpower hit.

Locking off the more high-level areas just means Aura is less likely to accidentally end the day early and denies players opportunities to get ahead by being trying to be clever, both of which would actually be rather on-theme for this game.

The thing is, if we did that, we'd then have to have different dialogue depending on whether you'd been there or not at the point where you get the quests to go there, otherwise it wouldn't make sense for Aura/the party to act like they don't know about anything that's happening when they've already seen it.

Spider queen quest would just need a blurb from the adventurer guild clerk. If a player knows how to enter the mine and kill the spider queen, they don't really need the bomb tutorial or spider queen weakness dialogue that the quest provides. 

If John/Charlotte/Paul have a later reference to them killing a spider queen, it can be inferred by the player that they took a similar quest without Aura at some point. No change needed unless said dialogue specifically mentions that Aura was with them(which wouldn't need to be said if Aura was there with them on account of her having been there).

Jacob? A pre-quest one-liner asking Aura to leave and a mention of his child being angry, mention of curse optional.

Riverrun and Nephlune would need their starting dialogues set to trigger the first time you enter after starting the sick workers quest/after defeating the festival respectively instead of after the first time you enter. In  terms of dialogue, only Nephlune has maybe the one slave trader line referencing Arwin that would need to be changed, everything else is either ambiguous or gated behind quest progression.

Similar story with the Northern mountains and mountain hermit where the quest/party dialogue can be skipped if Aura isn't on a quest, leaving just the hermit's introduction and offer to teach her in exchange for alternative modes of compensation.

Mountainreach is already stuck in a stable time loop but the npc dialogue seems fine so long as the day doesn't end, which Aura has no reason to do without the quest requiring her to witness the eternal repeat.

Overall, Roland seems to be the only major problem due to Aura not having a reason to distrust him prior to the festival.

this is an even better answer to this problem then I suggested