Hayo! Breakin' it down:
1. Yep; this was a time-saving measure because of the ridiculously short development cycle. Right now they're baked in together, but that's because we haven't really built out any of the UI framework yet. Sprites, background, and the UI will all be drawn separately.
2. Double-yep. As well as animation for the enemies idling, attacking, and possibly during battle sex, although that might be limited to certain special enemies. And, of course, any extra-battle sex (either an encounter that goes south or goes exactly as planned) will also have accompanying art - as well as some generic animations for certain activities, including game over splashes and generic animations.
3. Absolutely. There's a ton of stuff that isn't yet implemented - all in total, there are 3 basic combat stances, 6 advances stances, 5 "positional" stances, and a number of sex stances and other special stances, all of which will have a lot more options in terms of skills than they do now - so the number of skills will likely hit low- triple digits. The combat system as it is now is purely proof-of-concept - none of the enemy stats or skills are finalized (enemy health is only as low as it is to make it easy to 'skip' combat), and while I have done an initial first pass of what classes will have what base stats (and there will be some tweaking for character customization), most of those stats are currently not used, whereas all of them will have uses both in combat and out - that's designed, just not implemented. Battle sex will be a tactical element to tire out (stamina system - only partially implemented, being fatigued will lower attributes), distract, or satiate your enemies, with the (design) intention that willingly and strategically using sex in battle will make battles overall easier, while making it more and more likely that your character will abandon and/or be forced to abandon their quest as they progress if they're constantly doing it, either because they pick the wrong partner or are too enticed by an offer of... companionship.
And though you didn't ask specifically about it - world map traversal, generation, towns, resource management and equipment will all be implemented and expanded upon.
4. Definitely don't have a release date in mind yet - there's still a ton of work to be done. This is just an initial build out of the core gameplay loop and some iterative design. Only reason we've even set this up on itch at this stage is to participate in the lewd game jam because it seemed like fun and gave us a nice deadline to hit. We've got a long backlog that will only get longer as we dive into each system, and we're a team of two. So far we've made pretty steady progress, but the final game is far in the horizon, so any release date would be a guess.
Thanks for the questions - if you've got any more, please, feel free, and suggestions are also welcome. We'll probably post up on here with a list of planned gameplay and UI systems so that it's more obvious what's in the wings definitely and what's still up in the air.
So I have a question and the reason I ask it here is because its related to something you've mentioned in this post.
You've suggested that the player will be able to make combat easier by engaging in sex but that comes with its own risks. I'm really curious as how those risks will present themselves.
The risk of picking the wrong partner is easy to understand, like the werebitch and her knot, whom I might add is my favorite monster thus far! Great job on that front. But it's the second part, the part about succumbing to temptation that has got me confused.
Is it just the player that will succumb to the temptation of 'companionship' because they crave the well written sexy times (a distinctly plausible scenario!).
Or is it that sex going to be a double edged sword in that, each time the protagonist orgasms or is on the receiving end of one, their willingness to slut it up increases until it gets to the point that they will drop their pants for anyone with or without the players consent?
Honestly I just find the whole concept of potentially sacrificing long term success (by engaging in risky sex), for short term gain (an easier combat encounter) interesting from a game mechanics stand point and was wondering what, if any plans there were for this?
Good eye - yep, that's the basic gameplay hook there. Sex in combat would be, in a general and abstract sense with probably a few different concrete avenues for it to manifest (general "looseness" factor, specific acquired perks/kinks, etc.), a short-term advantage sacrificing a long term one. You'd be more and more likely in future encounters/battles to end up in a situation where your character's willingness is more of a liability than an asset - and eventually that will checkmate you into a game over at, say, the hands of a sexy, sexy minotaur/giant/werebitch, or some enemy where having sex with them dramatically reduces your combat effectiveness (a succubus, for example), putting you at a disadvantage. It's entirely meant as a tactical vs. strategic choice.
So would this be tracked by a separate stat like 'sluttyness' or something to that effect? If so will one of the current base stats act as a counterweight? For example if a character has high charisma then will they be more able to engage in sex without as high a risk of consequence?
Oh and one further question if I may. For anyone planning on doing a purity or chaste route (or as close as you can do to one in this game), were their character tp receive some unplanned intimacy, (or even better, lots of unplanned intimacy) would the player find their chaste and virtuous hero corrupted into a sex addict? Because that would...'terrible'.
A character with higher charisma would have an easier time getting in to fight sexy times, or to defuse a fight with sexy times, or to avoid a fight (even without sexy times), but higher charisma itself wouldn't prevent the negative effects of sexy times, at least not directly. And yep, it'll be sluttiness, plus perks you build up (Level 1 Donglust, Level 2 Donglust, etc.) that might be unlocked depending on said sluttiness score.
Purity / chaste runs are actually going to be built in as challenges - ie tracked as an achievement or possibly even a mode. There would actually be a few different kinds of challenges - purity vs. chaste is a good example. As for that corruption scenario... yep.
Hey - good questions.
The exe wrapper is because we don't have access to a unix system for testing, and wanted to make sure that it was as simple as possible for at least the platform we knew it was working on. In the long term, we'll be wrapping it in native apps for Windows/Mac/Linux bundled with the jre so it Just Works, but we didn't want to spend too much time on deployment at this early stage.
The key field is used for indexing because ultimately (at least as the design is envisioned right now) it will be a composite key, something like "001-01" for encounterNumber&"-"&sceneNumber, and the order of the array will be essentially arbitrary.
You might want to use an object (JSON object, in Java they're called hashmaps, I think) instead of an array for better performance, lookups in arrays are a bit slow. The left part of a JSON object is usually called a key, so I think it fits the purpose. The file would look like this:
{
"script":{
"001-01":{"scriptLines": ["encounter 1, scene 1", "hi"]},
"001-02":{"scriptLines": ["encounter 1, scene 2"]},
"002-01":{"scriptLines": ["encounter 2, scene 1"]}
}
}
An alternative option would be using nested arrays, i.e.
{
"script":[
[
{"scriptLines": ["encounter 1, scene 1", "hi"]},
{"scriptLines": ["encounter 1, scene 2"]}
],
[
{"scriptLines": ["encounter 2, scene 1"]}
]
]
}
This approach might be better because you don't need to order the scenes manually and accessing array elements directly (when not having to loop through the whole array) is faster than using objects. The downside would be having to stick with numbers as encounter IDs, which could be a bit annoying with a larger amount of different enemies.
Sorry if I'm being obnoxious, I'll just shut up if you don't want that kind of feedback.
No, this is really good - I use JSON all the time, but I usually just let the tail wag the dog and structure the JSON based on what I want it to deserialize as. I'm using libgdx, which has its own json wrapper for dealing with serialization and deserialization, and also its own map implementations - and currently, the way that it's working is I deserialize that array, then iterate through it and build a map out of it with key -> scriptLines. Your first way makes perfect sense if I created a POJO for that to deserialize into, but I'd like to deserialize it directly into a libgdx ObjectMap for consistency. I'll give it some thought - we're not quite at the performance optimization stage, but this is good to think about now. I definitely wasn't married to that JSON structure, it was just a quick means to an end. If you spot anything else that raises an eyebrow, I'd love to hear it - dev feedback is really helpful.
Arousing them with taunt does just that - arouses them. In the future, it'll both arouse them and make them more aggressive, letting you take advantage by making them tire themselves out... either by blocking or otherwise stonewalling their big attacks, or by engaging in some extracurricular, tiring activities. :D
Yeah, categorizing the actions by stance and showing what stance they'll put you in is a big priority - we want for it to be a nice visual map eventually. And that goes hand in hand with showing all the info for an attack - including stamina/balance consumption. Strength is definitely overpowered - basically, none of the other stats have nearly their full potential implemented, and strength is having a larger influence than it should as a result. Connecting attacks is going to have more of an impact now than it currently does - a 0 damage attack is basically a wasted attack right now, and that won't be the case.
There will be other ways to enter defensive stance - in fact, a weaker guarding ability will bring you into defensive as well out of the box.
Good call on the attack still working when you run out of stamina - that'll make "desperation" attacks interesting. Although in normal play you shouldn't really be passing out like that - stamina will have weakening effects as it gets low, but you shouldn't need to exhaust ALL your stamina - that's just the way things are balanced now.
Food is 4 per map slot because you'll be able to use more/less by being more cautious as you explore, among other possible factors on the world map, and I don't want to have fractional food, but that's not set in stone.
Enemy levels, or at least relative strength will be visible if your perception is high enough - I don't plan to re-use encounters the way it currently is, but we may do the traditional palette-swap/adjective/higher level variants that are a staple of the genre, like you suggest.
We do want to have something pushing you forward - food is the first indication of that, and with the aforementioned "careful" movement on the world map, it could create a nice dynamic between risk and reward, but if we see that food can't be made a good enough stick to get people to move on, we'll look at our options. A bogey(woman) that stalks dawdlers could be fun in its own right.
Thanks - this is good stuff. Even for facets we already plan to implement, it's good to know what to prioritize, and anything that's annoying at this stage we should prioritize highly.
Yes, there's going to be a fleshed out story mode - when you select story mode, it will soon give you that introductory scene, introducing the MC, the setting, and the tone of the story. There will be character creation, still, with the ability to customize some aspects of your looks, some background info that ties into your starting resources, name, etc. Even in story mode, the game will play in that roguelite fashion, but with some dedicated, automatic encounters added that move the story along and ultimately end with some story conclusion - not necessarily the same one every time. To answer that point - most of these set encounters will take place in dungeons and towns/cities.
Strategically moving from encounter to encounter on the world map is going to be a large part of it - although you'll also have movement within large cities and dungeon-areas. On the other side of it, customizing your character with skills / stances / spells / perks and gained knowledge will be a big chunk of the "RPG" part - right after the actual role playing of selecting how your character responds to situations when they have a choice.
As for the core "femboyness" of the game - what's currently in is not totally representative - it's very skewed toward combat encounters, with no way to avoid them, and very few meaningful interactions in the way of flirting, or being cute, choosing to explore more feminine attire/mannerisms/fun times, or encountering the same character multiple times and building a relationship with them, or just the character inside their own head thinking about the situations they find themselves in and how to respond to them. There also aren't currently the various attributes and customizable options that will allow your character to become more femboy-like, or more sexy, or to (potentially) keep chaste and merely have femboy-like qualities.
tl;dr - it's not going to be all click combat click - that's definitely over-represented in the current build. There are a lot more RPG elements and femboy-y elements coming down the pike - it won't all be monster girls with dongs going into the MC's face and butthole.
Those're definitely some encouraging thoughts. On the gameplay side one thing that has always irked me with strategy RPGs is how so few of them have towns and dungeons. Even when the story's engaging and the battling is fun and fresh between encounters running from one fight to the next without the sort of monotony-shattering breather that towns provide or the curious interest that dungeons hold can make them a trudge if you're not playing in short bursts.
I did like the challenge of navigating the maps - the she-wolves give a good indication of how you'll need to plan when, where, and if you'll take on a tough fight - and the stances do feel like they'll allow for some diverse builds once some balancing and progression is in place.
As we get to see more of your thoughts on the core femboy aspect of the game make it down "on the page", so to speak, I'd definitely consider supporting the game.
I checked it out at the recommendation of someone in the picarto stream yesterday - it's pretty cool, from what I can see. I think it's similar, from what I can tell, to a live action game I played with a group of friends (without the sexy combat). I like the combat system that I've seen so far, but I haven't looked too closely.
I have a backlog/commit history that could be used to generate a change log - it's not up anywhere currently, but we'll start to post it up on our tumblr and here in the future.
Since the last version:
Thanks for the answer. I do like what you've got in the game so far, but in my opinion the combat system could use some numbers tweaking. Mainly so that the difference in attributes between you and your opponent has less impact and to eliminate the possibility of doing 0 damage on attacks. A good first step might be to increase the amount of health characters have and to tie base damage to the attack type and weapons being used. Have the strength - endurance difference be used as a damage modifier with diminishing returns and a max damage increase/reduction.
Yeah, combat overhaul is going to be right after we finished the world map overhaul. 0 damage attacks are actually going to be somewhat normal - the idea is that a 0 damage attack doesn't do "nothing", though. But yeah, especially as it is now, the difference in stats has an outsized effect more than it should. The other aspect is that Strength and Endurance are the only things that seem to matter currently - mainly because they just about are. When there are ways to fight an opponent that can completely overpower you, we'll have achieved what we set out to do.
Endurance, in the long run, isn't even going to directly affect damage absorption. That's just what it currently does. It might have some small effect, but not the huge impact it has now.
If you can try to run the exe in the command line, you'll be able to see the error (in the future, we'll print the stack trace on the screen to make it easier for you):
Run the following command while in the directory of the game: java -jar "TalesOfAndrogyny.exe" - that should give you the error.
From what I've seen, the most common issue is whether your videocard driver supports the proper version of OpenGL - updating your driver might help. Depending on what the error is, though, it might be something we can fix.
Yep, that's the lwjgl OpenGL error. I need to figure out how I can handle it, because there appears to be a resolution, but I'm not sure exactly what causes the issue and how to detect it ahead of time. I'm going to try a workaround and see if it works in the general case.
Here's the description of the error - it's a bug in lwjgl, as far as I can tell: https://github.com/libgdx/libgdx/issues/997
Alright, the fix seems to have isolated the issue then - we're trying to force it to give the all clear, but if your video card doesn't support OpenGL 2.0 the game just can't run. D:
The next version we're putting out will actually pop up the error on crash without you having to run it from the command line like that, so it'll be more obvious what the issue is. Thanks again for giving it a try, and glad to hear that it works on your PC - I expect a lot of the people having issues are running the game on integrated graphics cards on their laptops.
Hey, sorry about that; could you try running the game in the command line / terminal with this command:
java -jar TalesOfAndrogyny.exe (you'll need to navigate to the directory with the exe or just copy the whole path in)
And just see if it shows you an error? We haven't been able to reproduce this issue and it seems to be affecting a decent number of people. Again, really sorry, but if you could let us know what error you're getting, we might be able to fix it. It seems to depend on the machine/graphics card.
Thanks for the reply, sorry it took me so long to notice :o, I am using windows 10 (should have probably told you that in the original comment). I should let you know that I'm super bad at computer stuff, but looking on the internet it told me to open command prompts and taught me how to navigate to the file. When I got to the files location and ran it I encountered the same issue and no error message appeared in my command prompt. Sorry for not being able to provide more info, as I said I'm terrible at computer things but trying to get better.
Glad you already love it! It's still very much a work in progress - tons more to implement, including animations and more comprehensive sounds.
That castle is mostly a placeholder right now (as you can tell by the crash that occurs because I haven't finished building out what happens there) - but what it represents, ultimately, is the game's first objective, including likely the encounter that will be the first boss fight. In the next version, I'll put a placeholder up there so you get that instead of a crash. In the final game, along the way there will be optional towns and dungeons, and then more beyond.
Food is an entire mechanic - basically it's the thing keeping you moving forward, so it will be a bit hard to come by and making sacrifices or overcoming challenges to get it will be pretty common.
As for knowledge of anatomy, and more broadly knowledge in general, that will help in both combat and in interactions - sometimes, knowledge of what lies beneath a wereslut's skirt is all that will keep you from a knotty, knotty end.
Hey,
I wouldn't worry too much about disgust - while it will be pretty prevalent, characters that are more... used to things will develop a taste for it, and won't be as disgusted. You'll also be able to, like the Catamite perk, be able to tailor your character to be like that from the get-go.
Getting the enemies supine will be easier as the interface gets a bit more transparent and you can use Perception to tell how unstable and tired they currently are, and you'll be able to manipulate that better as we add more skills and make upgrading skills have more of an outsized effect (knockdown, for instance, increasing in knockdown capabilities).
Right now, getting enemies to sex you isn't as effective (and health-preserving) a strategy as quickly handicapping the enemy with strong attacks - this will change as more skills are introduced and new enemy routines and enemies having particular responses to sexual activities. The big combat rebalance still hasn't taken place, and the goal of that is to make it so that burning an enemy down fast and hard isn't often the best go-to strategy.
Hey there! The game should have created an error.txt file - if you could copy the contents of that file here that'd be a big help. Out of curiosity, where are you placing the game folder? It's possible that you're in a folder where we can't create files - like a folder that requires admin access to put files in. If you have a folder that syncs to dropbox, that might also be the problem.
Hey, i've simply got it in a folder in my downloads folder so shouldn't be admin protected.
the error message is as follows;
com.badlogic.gdx.utils.GdxRuntimeException: Error writing file: data\save.json (Local)
at com.badlogic.gdx.files.FileHandle.writeString(FileHandle.java:353)
at com.badlogic.gdx.files.FileHandle.writeString(FileHandle.java:339)
at com.majalis.save.SaveManager.saveToJson(SaveManager.java:116)
at com.majalis.save.SaveManager.saveDataValue(SaveManager.java:73)
at com.majalis.battle.Battle.battleLoop(Battle.java:230)
at com.majalis.screens.BattleScreen.render(BattleScreen.java:70)
at com.badlogic.gdx.Game.render(Game.java:46)
at com.badlogic.gdx.backends.lwjgl.LwjglApplication.mainLoop(LwjglApplication.java:223)
at com.badlogic.gdx.backends.lwjgl.LwjglApplication$1.run(LwjglApplication.java:124)
Caused by: com.badlogic.gdx.utils.GdxRuntimeException: Error writing file: data\save.json (Local)
at com.badlogic.gdx.files.FileHandle.writer(FileHandle.java:330)
at com.badlogic.gdx.files.FileHandle.writeString(FileHandle.java:350)
... 8 more
Caused by: java.io.FileNotFoundException: C:\Users\Kalon\Downloads\New folder\Tales of Androgyny Win64 v0.1.12.1\data\save.json (The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process)
at java.io.FileOutputStream.open0(Native Method)
at java.io.FileOutputStream.open(FileOutputStream.java:270)
at java.io.FileOutputStream.<init>(FileOutputStream.java:213)
at com.badlogic.gdx.files.FileHandle.writer(FileHandle.java:322)
... 9 more
It still is. I wasn't happy with the name myself. It implies a boy who dresses in a feminine matter does so to deceive and confuse people. It's deeply seated within the homophobic idea that being gay/trans is just being confused and wrong.
Yea, agreed.
Brain-dump warning - armchair psychology and dumb analogies ahoy:
Our intention isn't to imply that being gay or bi or trans is wrong. I don't think people who use the term are necessarily implying that they are, either - many now identify as gay or bi or even trans themselves - that isn't to say it's not a slur rooted in some pretty messed up ideas, but it probably goes to show that for many, the fetish itself is about the perceived "wrongness", whether they personally feel it's "wrong" or not. A lot of kink is like that - social taboos and sexual fetishes being what they are. And going further than that, for some, it's a bridge to "wrongness", a way to make it feel alright. That's why erotica that features dubious or even a lack of consent is consumed by people who self-insert into the passive character: without agency, actual desires can remain subconscious and still be fantasized about, rather than envisioning themselves as an active, consensual participant who has to explicitly say, for instance, "do me up the bum!"
That might seem like a form of self-harm, but fantasies can remain fantasies, and for those who break themselves free of that kind of self-denying or even self-loathing thinking, it can still be comforting to fantasize in that same vein while consciously acknowledging that you're not being "trapped" or that you're not "trapping" anyone; you're seduced or being seduced by someone, in the typical fantasy case, who has a penis, and who has a gender and sexual identity that you are completely comfortable with, just as you're comfortable with your own. The "naughtiness" or "trickery" of it, then, is the same "naughtiness" or "trickery" as "you've been a very bad boy, and I'm a sexy cop, so I'm going to sexily arrest you, with sex." "Oh no officer, not with your boobs all over my face!"
This isn't a blanket excuse of "it's just porn" - we try to think about how people can take attitudes away from it (just a quick rundown of things we would want to clarify - sex isn't sex without consent; both men and women, regardless of any context, never deserve to be raped; men and women, regardless of genitalia, are people first and foremost and should be treated and respected as such; your gender and sexuality are just fine; gender isn't defined by noodly bits or what you wear for fun times; don't reduce whole people to fetish objects or objects of worship - it's still dehumanizing; be good to each other) We try to make it as explicit as possible when we're delving into themes for the sake of making a point about real life and when we are solely for the purposes of a fantasy, and it's always an ongoing process. Sometimes the best we can do is a disclaimer warning along the lines of "don't try this at home!", but it is notoriously difficult to avoid reinforcing some awful idea or another, even in something that seems otherwise innocuous. We're making smut that we hope to be inclusive with, not because we want to save the world through the power of dicks, but because it sucks to feel excluded or demonized for no reason, whether it's smut or not.
tl;dr - It's a slur; fetishes do as fetishes does; just because I think wearing lacy underwear is "dirty" and "naughty" in a sexual context doesn't mean I can't take pride in and enjoy wearing ladies unmentionables; dehumanization sucks.
You kinda missed the point of what I meant. This isn't how you or people with that fetish think. The truth of the matter is that many trans women face harm and death because of simply being trans women. Because men who are infatuated with their feminine looks but faced with finding out (some way or the other) they have a penis feel like they have been tricked into being/acting gay and act with aggression. In fact, there have been actual murder cases where men who killed trans women were acquitted because of "the shock" also known as the "trans panic defense". Using a term like trap isn't harming you or me. But it reinforces the idea of "if they have a penis but dress like a girl they are a trap, a threat to your heterosexuality".
None of this is about "you shouldn't make a game about rape because rape is a crime" etc. - it is merely about harmful language. Also, a disclaimer - a respectful one - is actually a really good thing. If you tell people what is in the game (as you do on the game page), you give them the power to decide if they want to confront themselves with that or not.
I'm familiar with trans panic and the general danger women who are trans face simply for being who they are, and like I said, I agree it's a slur for that reason and also the general dehumanization of reducing someone to a concept.
Yeah, what I meant with the disclaimer was - I don't really think it's sufficient just to slap a disclaimer on; not that you shouldn't put a disclaimer, but that by itself, a disclaimer isn't carte blanche to write anything and everything without regards to the consequences. We're going to try to put disclaimers where we can, and to make it clear that we're not trying to say anything hurtful about anyone.
I'm curious, did you mean to say that this isn't how I or people with that fetish think, or this isn't about how I or them think? I'll admit I was a little upset when I read the former, but reading your whole post I think you meant the latter, which I can understand - I digressed.
This is a mostly irrelevant, but the game itself is devoid of the language we're talking about here (and always was, actually), and in fact of any of the slurs you might expect to find. It was a blind spot not to recognize the previous title as being harmful, and I'm sorry about that - it was never our intention to harm anyone.
Yeah, agree. My digression was mostly just in defense of the fetish itself - the language offends me also, and the only reason I used it was unthinking expedience, something along the lines of "the fetish is X, I'm making an RPG called X, I'll call it X RPG for now". A week or so before the takedown we actually had a discussion in one of our streams about the implications of the term, and what to replace it with - and really, there isn't much that doesn't also have either other negative implications, is also recognized as a slur, or isn't really accurate to the subject matter. We eventually struck on Androgyny, and as fans of androgynous figures that worked well for us, but the most common usage of the word is to denote someone of ambiguous gender, which isn't quite what we're going for, but regardless, it's leagues better than the previous title.
That's a common misconception. The truth is actually much, much sillier than that: it's a reference to an old Admiral Ackbar line that would be used as a joke (oh I thought it was a girl at first but it was actually a boy etc) when westerners discovered otoko no ko art (which in itself is a silly Japanese pun). This style of art/character is one where boys look feminine enough to be sexually androgynous and may or may not include crossdressing. It's actually entirely free of implication of sexuality or gender; otoko no ko characters are depicted as liking girls, liking boys, both, crossdressing, not crossdressing, as identifying as a boy or as a girl - there's really no standard to it at all because it's an aesthetic, not something people use as an identity marker of any sort.
So anyway after that joke got so prevalent people then organically began calling otoko no ko characters "traps" and so, naturally, the reverse (a girl who's handsome enough to be sexually androgynous whether crossdressing or not) became known as a "reverse trap". That alone should tell you that it's not actually referring to some notion that the character in question is actually trying to "trap" or deceive anyone; "reverse trap" would make absolutely no sense whatsoever in that context.
The misconception is very easy to make if you're not familiar with the etymology of the term but it's not a slur. It's a goofy-but-now-it's-in-the-lexicon word for an archetype/aesthetic; it's really only used to refer to fictional characters.
You're being condescending, disrespectful on top of being completely wrong. I was considering arguing with your point but that would be wasting my time. Keep your mansplaining to yourself next time.
Hey there - there's a lot that still remains for combat; weapons, armor, and items are going to play a large role, skills will have more diverse effects, there's general balancing that needs to be done.
Mainly, right now, if you don't hit the enemy with heavy attacks early on to break their armor, you end up in a situation where you can't perform strong enough attacks to do anything to them, because as you get lower health and stamina, your effective strength lowers. The combat system is currently entirely deterministic (aside from what actions an enemy will take, which is a weighted random distribution based on how aggressive they are and the current situation), so there's no luck factor involved.
That may be an actual issue with the resolution - that should be working. When you change the resolution dropdown it doesn't resize your window at all? It should at least automatically resize each time you make a selection, and then it should save it when you leave that menu - we'll be adding a save button eventually.
