Post Jam Devlog - Cutting Room Floor

Hello everyone! What a wild 2 weeks it's been for me during WeightGaming's Gain Jam! Making an idle-eque game whilst combating the start of the school year at university, working at my job to stay alive, and life just throwing me curve balls, I'm surprised I managed to finish the game with what little time I had. And BECAUSE of time restraints, a lot of plans went out the window or got dropped on the cutting room floor just to keep the game a minimal viable product! So this little post is to go over some of the cut content that didn't make the grade in time for the jam, but likely would get added post jam (I do tend to update my jam games a few times after release). So here's the list of features that were cut and may come back for round 2 of development!

-Story: I decided to I wanted to try adding in a story later in development during the 2nd week, but currently the introductory cutscene was all I could conjure up. So basically the story would work as sort of a tutorial to some mechanics, and each chapter would add on a new mechanic. A demon that's connected to the book would help drive story telling by talking to the player. This demon would have some animation to them to make them feel lively during the cutscenes. Each chapter would be represented with one of the major arcana tarot cards, starting with The Fool as you, the player, foolishly opened the book and are now binded in a contract with the demon of said book. In order to progress to the next chapter, a goal would need to be reached (I implemented the goal card on the avatar screen, but not much else to it)

-Imp Minions: These lil dudes are what drives the main part of the game. And having them customizable would of been neat, choosing their colors and what individual ones looked like or choosing traits you would of liked seeing them have/not have. I also wanted to have them be more animated by doing different idle animations such as waving, thinking, nodding off, celebrating a completed gold tick, squishing and playing with their large bellies once they get to a big enough size. Even as far as having different facial expressions to portray mood. Additional it would of been fun to have an interactive element letting you rub their bellies for possibly a multiplier boost.

-Player Avatar: Originally I wanted you to be able to customize your own avatar and have said avatar grow to massive sizes. The original goal for the jam was at least 20 stages of fat (not counting thin), but I ran out of time on the last day. I would've also liked to implement visual feedback with showing floating souls getting swallowed up by your avatar and showing how fat they got before moving to the prestige shop, with a belch of white light to transition to the prestige shop. (I'd of course would add a no belch option, which would only play the animation but not the noise.) I would of also liked to have added small touches like being able to jiggle your avatar's belly when you clicked/tapped on it.

-Prestige Shop: Currently the shop is... Functional. Once I figured out how I wanted the shop to ACTUALLY run, I already ran out of time for it. It would of been set up as pressing buttons would display information about that item along with revealing a buy button. It would been expanded to have subsections for different related items such as gold, brimstone, and imps grouped in their own category. As it currently stands, they are grouped based on unlocks.

-Artifacts: Oh woe is the artifacts... I had at least 13 planned, but 4 were the only ones I got thrown in. It also doesn't help that there's no information on what each DOES since that's important for knowing how impressive each one is. I also would state that some artifacts wouldn't have been implemented without another mechanic first, but I'll let y'all ponder what some of them maybe :3c

-Slot Machine: Originally the slot machine would work as a slot machine, insert coin, pull lever, and see the symbols whirl by and land on what you win. I at least got to implement a display for what you won as that's super important. And in doing so I also fixed how it currently worked near the end (testing makes perfect/bug free after all!)

-Suits: I had more planned, and even more plans for how they worked, but alas they currently only mix up the simple gameplay. They would of gained benefits from from some cut content and for changing game strategy. Story wise these would have been introduced in the first few chapters.

-Away Bonuses: What would an IDLE game be without some form of rewards accumulated after closing/leaving the game for a few hours? Currently it only rolls a number for gold and then multiplies the rewards for each hour your away. I wanted it to be more dynamic and take in account of your imps, and maybe those imps found some goodies besides just gold, like artifacts. 

SOOooo... Now that you know what got cut from mechanics currently implemented... What about mechanics that didn't even get fully in?

-Settings: Ah yes, a much needed feature that was left untouched. I had variables set up for it but not the objects and functions to carry out such needs. It would of had a standard volume and sound sliders, but also access to changing customizations for your avatar.

-Card Movement: This one I was a little on the fence about so it didn't get in, and thankfully so since it would of relied on other mechanics for WHY they were moveable. Such as charms, elements, and possibly royals? (Maybe royals could randomly have a directional bonus for imps next to them, as oppose to them just multiplying bonuses as of current.)

-Elements: I originally wanted to start out development with 2 types of Imps, Earth and Air. Earthen imps (the ones we currently have) would be about weight gain, while air imps would of been about inflation. Each element would have their own benefits/flaws, different animations, and dedicated success/fail cards for that type. I also had thoughts for Water and Fire, water would likely be water inflation with sagging balloon bellies, and fire would have inflated illuminating bellies. Suits would also mesh with these elements as certain ones would gain bonuses when paired with their elemental association. This elemental diversity could of extended to the player avatar which would give a bonus to imps of the matching type. It would probably be disguised as an early Story question to drive how the player avatar would look when expanding, and how the imps would look. Story wise these would be an early chapter mechanic as its changes game play quite a bit.

-Consumables: What would having lil pet imps be without feeding them little something that could help? Maybe some Mead to increase their success? Some Ambrosia if they kept KOing on duties, or perhaps make them KO on purpose with sone Amrita? Maybe their at a high enough rank and you want to try for a new suit with so e Soma? Consumables would of added some mechanics that can change up your imps

-Charms: And what's a game about greed without a predatory practice of having a collectable? You get one of each charm, and they can be equiped like badges to benefit from their bonuses. Duplicates would get turned into another resource and certain charms would only be obtainable from certain actions (imps finding one, randomly obtained from the slot machine, pulled from a blind bag from the rarity shop). You'd only get so many slots to equip, but that's what prestiging is here for, to expand how many you can have and even accessing additional loadouts in case you decide you want to try a different synergy. There would be ones for having a number of different/same suits, for having different/same ranks, for having different/same elements, and much more!

-Rarity Shop: A shop in which you could buy artifacts, consumables, and charms from. It would either use an existing currency or a new currency to allow purchasing from this quaint lil shop. It would only refresh it's stock on prestige, and would be limited until you upgraded its prestige items. I'd also add links to socials as a way to gain early leverage when this shop is introduced to you, just so you can have some spending money ;3

-Achievements: How can you measure progress with some form of milestones, or even goals? Achievements would be both naturally accumulated in game play, with others being challenges to complete. They would give an accumulated bonus to various things such as gold income, starting gold, reserved souls, and the like! Maybe they could be elaborated on to give other bonuses? :3c

At the end of the day, this is my first attempt at making an idle game. But I think it still has promise to be a fun time waster, to make it both an idle and strategy game you can pick up and put down without too much obligation. I hope you liked learning a little about what was and what could be ;3

Thank you for your time, have a nice, safe, and fun day! :D