Video showcasing basically what gameplay I’ve got for my current game.
I have a problem though, and I need some thoughts on the matter. I’ve been working on this, and I liked the idea, but as the game is it isn’t really that fun. I’ve thought of adding maybe breeding or combat mechanics, but I’m not sure if that’s really what I’m missing. I’d appreciate some feedback, thoughts, observations or critiques. Bear in mind that it ultimately should be a mobile game, though I don’t know how feasible that would be to distribute without paying whatever fees it would require to put it on an appstore, and I’ll probably post a PC version on newgrounds anyway.
A progression system of some type and different levels. Earn fluffbux for each correct fluffy a person gets correct, need x amount by levels end as ‘rent’ with a time limit. Between each level a player could use extra fluffbuxs to buy new tools as the fluffy types change every so often along with different bosses for each level as well. These bosses could be weirdbox-type fluffy that try to get the other fluffies out of the level and the player has to take out the boss allowing them to earn enough money to pass the level. Also, random pickups give bonus money, a money multiplier for limited time. The player could also spend extra money for traps such a bowl of sketties that would attract the fluffies.
Different colored fluffies that do different things.
Like being faster or able to call in micro fluffies to over run the screen or shit attacks that can cover the screen.
To be able to win you also need to be able to lose.
I agree with that last part, but it’s supposed to be a pretty casual game. I guess that’s more what I’m driving towards, it’s more of a toy than a game in my mind
Yeah. Variety is the spice of life and it would make your game considerably more interesting and fun to play. Oh another thing that could make the game more interesting is other fluffies reacting to their friends getting squished or taken to a new home. If a fluffy sees another getting adopted, they start crying and begging for the player to take them as well.
Okay. From the video, I’m not 100% certain what the purpose of the box is. Are we keeping good colours or just random fluffies?
For a squashing game… the cleanup/furnace dragging mechanic feels tedious and boring. It takes away from the real action of slapping the hell out of fluffies, especially with the volume of fluffies that could be introduced.
So, I have a weird rework idea. Make it a game about sorry hoofsies. Instead of a hand, make it a hoof. Instead of a furnace, make a pile of poopies. Instead of the box, make a feral sort of nest. Play it from a smarty or toughie POV. Give forever sleepies to poopie babbehs and save the good babbehs. Points added or subtracted for either. Good babbehs to nest. Poopie babbehs get the sowwy hoofsies and thrown to the poopie pile. Maybe throw an incremental counter for corpses on that pile as an overlay.
No mucking about with weird alternative weaponry. Keep it simple and sweet. Just increasing the number of fluffies on screen to increase the challenge or muck about with random color babbeh generation.
I’m thinking it might be easier, especially for a mobile game, to make it about two mechanics. Kill and save. Tap or tap and drag. Tap to squash, tap and drag to save. Really make players prioritize one over the other for points. Killing is easy. Lower points per squash. Higher for saves. No need to drag to the poopie pile. Have something like a little graphic of a pair of fluffies with a stretcher or something. Automated cleanup, if you will, to ferry those corpses to the poopie pile.
Hmm… It has potential but it does indeed not look too fun. Without getting too complex or changing too much, my thoughts:
Some kind of feedback when you squash a fluffy. Maybe points pop up above their head, like when you stomp a goomba in Mario. Makes it a bit more whack-a-moley and incentivizes more squashing.
It’s a bit hard for me to tell if they’re good or bad colors - at the start a deep blue one goes into the box while a similar, more purpley one goes in the furnace? It seems to be a muted vs non-muted color thing, but maybe you could make the good-colored ones sparkly or something to make this clearer. You could also tie this to the points above, having different colors give different amounts of points, or losing points for hitting the good fluffies.
The disposal mechanic seems like a hassle. You have to dispose of the fluffies one by one and it’s a slow process at that. It seems pointless enough that players (or at least I) would skip it entirely and see how many fluffies I gotta squish before the game starts to lag, so some way to speed up or automate this would be good - for example, lesse …
Option 1 - Instead of a furnace, have a flamethrower or broom item so you can just clean them up with some big swipes of your finger. (Broom may be better because people will absolutely try and use the flamethrower on live fluffies.)
Option 2 - When a fluffy is whacked it automatically goes into the furnace and you just have to turn it on every now and then. Maybe it has a cooldown period, so it isn’t viable to use it too often, and fluffies pile up in front of it as long as it’s not in use.
Option 3 - Remove it completely, have the whacked fluffies either disappear over time (melting or something) or crawl off-screen at half their original speed. This one’s my favorite because you can still keep the box, and it can lead to an “oh crap - ok it’s still good just gotta box it before it melts/escapes” reaction if you squash a good fluffy.
Speaking of the clean-up mechanic - it gets in the way of the squashing mechanic. Why not separate the two? You get a wave of fluffies, then a short break to dispose of the bodies. This means you can have more fluffies appear at once too, and make for a more hectic/exciting “do I squash them all and put the good ones in the box after, or try to get the fancy-color ones alive mid-game” gameplay.
Definitely needs more fluffies at once. There’s like 3 or 4 of them on screen at most. Doubling or tripling that number makes it more hectic as you try to get them all, which makes it more fun! You could also add a fail state this way, if you lose by letting too many fluffies get away.
The fluffies seem to love just peeking in from the edge of the screen then instantly leaving again, which seems like it’d get frustrating - especially on a phone screen, which could make you hit the “minimize app” button by mistake trying to nab that one fluffy. And double especially if you add a fluffy-escape fail state. Only or twice once does a fluffy actually pass through the middle of the screen, when that should ideally be the norm. Maybe it should be a thing that they go at least somewhat close to the middle before leaving? You could put a plate of spaghetti there or something to justify it. (Having the spaghetti actually do something is optional.)
Those are the things I came to think of! I hope some of them sound good, and I look forward to playing it.
As far as fluffy behavior goes, the way they work is that they randomly slight turn left, right, or keep course. I don’t want to add a fail state like escaped fluffies because it kind of punished players for having a chaotic screen like how I want. The number of fluffies DO go up over time, and the plan is to add plates of sketti you can purchase to temporarily boost spawn rates. The video didn’t show it, but you can use the third button, the hose, in order to quickly wash away all the fluffy piles after you collect a hundred fluff bucks to buy it. Maybe make the hose a little cheaper?
I don’t want things like “fluffy waves” or rigid levels because I think it gets in the way of a player playing at their own pace. There will be items to either increase or decrease spawn rates, but that would be up to the player to use. I DO like the idea that scores float up over their heads when you squash em tho
The color mechanic is random. You’re rewarded more highly in general for lighter colored fluffies than darker colored ones when you squash or put them in the reward box, but the box itself is completely random. It’s more of a “Fill out the request” than “Find the best colored fluffy” which I don’t really like the concept of either becaus I’ve seen too many shitfits from people claiming that “Chocolate brown with speckles is the most beautiful color a fluffy can have!!” Essentially, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I want to skip that specific complaint before I encounter it.
@cornpop I do like the idea of them reacting to what you do, I’d need to rework the movement entirely but I kind of did have the idea that they’d shy away from corpses
Yeah, a fail state would make it a different game altogether, so I definitely appreciate a cozy thing of whacking fluffs at my own pace. It’s good that the fluffies increase with time, the problem is just that you have to keep the player’s attention during the slower start-up phase too.
As for the box - I honestly didn’t notice it was changing color! No wonder I was confused, I thought you could just put any “good-colored” fluffy in it. (Maybe the whole box could change color instead of just the fluffy? I don’t know how to solve it, just that the current one is strangely subtle.)
Sadly I think my feedback skills are limited without being able to play the game myself, but the main thing right now is definitely adding more feedback by showing the fluffybucks floating above the squashes/box. Maybe you could also have a little “splat” noise or yelp when squishing someone. (I didn’t notice the fluffybucks were a thing either, as the counter is squirreled away in a corner!)
My only other idea, now that I know how everything works, is that in addition to colors, maybe unicorns/pegasi/alicorns could exist? Just as slightly rarer encounters so people have a bit more variation. Optionally, since they’re rarer, they could also give a few fluffybucks extra when squished.
