would be cool if there was a way to grab a bunch of coins at once because you end up amassing a hoard of 1 yen coins and it's a pain to even try and get rid of them
Downloaded the game within the last few minutes AND played in browser, encountering a bug where I can't click on the coin slot in the tutorial. Unfortunate. Not sure if 0.1.02 possibly broke something or if it's just my systems.
Infinite money glitch. you need to click outside of the money and the coin hole to exit the machine, then quickly pick up a coin and place it in the hole, after that when you click the machine again it will have the coin's value inside but you still have the coin. you can use it as is and get a free item every time, note that you can't get that coin that is inside if you exit, so it can only be used as a free coin, so just use a 500. it's the fastest way to get all foods up to 500. But not healthy foods, I noticed that the healthy foods you get with 500, is just enough to keep you fed for the time it takes to do the bug, if you want to go the healthy transformations, then just go with 50 seeds packs. (or a thousand if you have the money, but in my experience, just using all your money up to 50 coins, getting seeds is the best way.)
by the way I noticed in the comments that not that many people know that when you get an item the vending machine says the coins you need to put for a guaranteed same item, for example 333 yen is a bottled fetus. maybe a reference to please don't touch anything? idk. edit: not all of them have a price for a guaranteed droop.
Just tried it and it works, not even hard to do , unless the game dev is reading this in which case it doesn't work and there is no need to look into it as a bug. also I noticed the number thing and it works for multiple items but I think the number changes if you reload the game.
love the game but it is missing a few things, this is just some constructive criticism and a few suggestions
What the game is missing is a long-term goal, sure surviving is a short-term goal but there is really nothing to work to after the mechanics are figured out and the game play is mastered, there are the transformations to find, but they are difficult to discover naturally, and I had to look in the comments to see how it works. Maybe add a cryptic hint about eating too much of the same type of food. There is also discovering every food item, but that feels like more of an extra thing that someone would do after they have completed the game and not a goal for someone to complete
There need to be endings. Starving and getting arrested are game overs but they aren't phrased as endings, I think it would be better if they were endings 1 and 2 out of however many endings there are, and an ending for each transformation too. Going back to my first point, a good ending (and a long-term goal) could be saving up enough money for something that drastically improves the main characters situation, I don't know what this would be yet and it might require expanding on the lore but I think the game would improve with it.
I don't know how I would fix this game play wise, but the whole game is slow to progress, I have spent a few hours playing and I have only gotten two transformations fully. Maybe add some different game-play for the money gaining part.
This last thing is more of something that I would find funny, but I noticed that after purchasing some items (I don't know if it works on all of them) a number flashes on the screen of the vending machine, and inputting that number of yen allows you to get the same item again, I think that putting in 69 yen and 420 yen should get special food items, but this is more of a humorous suggestion than a serious one.
That's everything I have to say
Edit: it just occurred to me that another good feature would be if the gallery shows more info about the food, like how much you need to pay for it or a short description.
The game has a good idea, but should they have added an inappropriate element to the game? I see it as things that have nothing to do with a bloody and scary game. I see it as a good game if it was free of inappropriate things for Akmor.
Cool idea but I'm not sold on the execution yet. The music loop on the street really feels like it could be longer or have some more variety in tracks because it gets very repetitive very quickly given how long you spend waiting for money to roll in.
I do like the art direction a lot! But do otherwise agree with a lot of the criticism here as things that could be addressed for future builds.
(Also I struggled to get the browser version to work in either browser I used, not sure if that's a me issue or not though.)
I'm honestly a huge fan of the concept of this game, though like many other people say the gameplay is a bit lacking and takes a really long time to progress. I think making some routes faster would help add some more incentive for replayability. Some little things I think would do a lot for the game too would be:
Commentary on these form changes. I wanna hear the girls reaction to these a little bit more, having no commentary makes them feel a little bit sudden and I think even just a bit of dialogue would add some authenticity to routes and would help a lot with some immersion.
Along that line, I think changing how passerbys respond to you would add to that immersion. It feels a little bit funny when I'm at stage 3 of the unhealthy route and someone comments about seeing your bones, looking thin, or offering food because you look like you need it. Adding to the cruelty of passerbys by making them say awful and relevant things at different stages would show some attention to detail.
I do wish some foods had some dialogue to accompany them, too, I believe this is something that'll already be added on however I do just want to mention it!
It might be a bit complicated, but I wondered whenever I got the dirt if there was an ending correlating to eating that and then the many seeds you get... I think it'd be interesting if some more endings were added by combining foods that seem to go together, or hoarding. Getting all of the items that are like, household objects or collectables being a sorta ending would be really interesting!
For the different endings, when endings do get implemented, some simple hints to help avoid confusion would be really useful, especially in the case of specific endings like eating a certain food or if there's ever any combos implemented.
That's all I gotta say on ideas I got from playing the game, and aside from the already mentioned things about there being no endings just yet, I really enjoy the concept of this game! I think it does very well for body horror and it really intruiges me, definitely can't wait to see if and when there are any updates!
My bf and I both tried to play around with this game for about an hour, but between the two of us nothing really happened. I really want to be able to experience the cool looking body horror this game has to offer. It looks sincerely so interesting and I hope the creator keeps working on it, but with a looping soundtrack and sitting for god knows how long I'm not really keen to keep messing around with it. I hope in the future it has a more interactive system added to it. Cause where it is right now it is an interesting idea but lacks a lot of depth to it to keep peoples' attention.
the concept and art is very cool, the only thing i wish is that instead of waiting for money there was some kind of better gameplay, because just sitting and waiting is very tedious and boring.
is there actually any endings? Does the gallery work? I've been thru all 5 phases of the apple seeds, 3 stages of the unhealthy, etc., and I can't achieve an ending or any gallery unlocks.
Ok so quick guide. Did this on android so experience may vary.
1) apple seeds are your friend, use these to stave off hunger and save the rest of the food for mutation.
2) EAT ON THE STEEETS NOT AT THE MACHINE!!!! Got your attention? Reason: game saves when you return to the streets. Get disappointed that your mutation items weren't enough? Quit or let the cops catch you. Game will revert back to before you went to the streets but after you bought/used your items. Not eating at the machine will save you time and prevent you from having to start from scratch if you screw up.
CHEESE METHOD (for those who dont have time): Again did this on android with the game installed (and whatever version it is at the time of this writing) . Get money, return to vending machine, return to streets without spending cash, quit game, reload game, and "Oh look" our hobo heroine (could prolly use some) is now 50% food and 90% thirst. Go get money and repeat. Do this as much as you like till you got the cash and either get the items your aiming for or experiment with the machine.
Edit: Cheese method will revert you to base form. Its mainly intended as a way to get cash without having to spend anything to keep our hobo alive.
on another note,
ADDITIONAL CHEESE: Use the items you wish to transform with. Let cops arrest you. Continue the game once you're back at the main menu. And now your at the mutation you left off with with the items you used restored. Only drawback is if you quit the game you WILL revert to base form regardless of whether or not you go out to the streets and return. (Haven't tried going up another transformation tier yet and having that save)
Cash results (based on my xp)
1$ seeds
5$ 5 seeds
10$ 10 seeds
50$ 50 seeds
100$ 100 seeds, random lower tier food
150$ GUARANTEED DRINK (tested dozens of times, never any seeds)
200$ better food
500$ 500 seeds or much better food
1000$ 1k seeds and even higher food
1K is highest and last tier as I've been made aware.
there's probably ranges i missed but im hoping someone will find the special numbers.
Also see the reply below mine by Crystal to see the spreadsheet they made. Useful info on there.
Sorry to hear that. When i did it i had her at her base form so l wasnt aware it reset anything. On another note, I just used up all my items for one type of transformation, let the cops arrest me (thought that would give me an actual ending....nope) and it put me back at my previous save with all my items I used and current mutation level I ended at. Also will revert back to base form if you quit, but atleast you can see all forms.
So I figured it mostly out, going to leave explanations for what I believe the mechanics to be 1: Seeds always pop up under 100 yen or occasionally higher, it is NOT worth it to go for seeds except in amounts of 1, 50, or 1000. Any other amount and you will usually get less than what it's worth. 2: The game functions in transformation lines, with your base form being one of them. You CANNOT transform if you have progressed any amount on the "hungry" line. 3: Progression on any transformation line, including the hunger one, will regress whatever line you are currently on. 4: The machine is not going to give you rarer things if you dump a ton in, instead it is like a code system. So far I have determined that 150 will always give a cola, and 50 will always give you 50 seeds 5: Each line appears to have 5 transformations 6: Foods appear to be organized into groups of items. I suspect these groups are bug, flesh, sweets, soda, and seeds. 7: The hunger transformation will only regress the other lines one stage at a time, so you can progress a bunch along the seed line and use the time to accumulate items for the others 8: The goal is to collect food, not money
If anyone disproves one of these please let me know?
Hi!!! I've spent the past few hours figuring out how to decompile the game, and I can confirm some of what you're saying! I had just been trying to grab the different transformation forms, but I ended up recovering the original code too. I'm trying to sift through it right now, and am working on a Google Sheets file with information.
1) Based on what I've figured out, the game creates a pool of potential items based on what you drop in. Items are added to the pool after a certain amount of yen is added, so that means that if you're below a certain number, those higher items are impossible. Everything less than 100 is guaranteed to be apple seeds.
2) Can confirm! The hungry line is actually titled as the anorexia line in the files. There's also the default sprites, anomolous line, holllow bride, parasite line, perfect line, and the unhealthy line.
3) Unsure
4) Going based off of what I said in #1! After 100 yen, some more items start being added to the pool. For example, at 100 there's molded bread, sun dried termites, cicadas, soft drinks, water bottles, etc. The higher you go, the more items are added to the pool, including better ones. Items are added at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 50, 100, 150, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, and 1,000 yen. I don't think that other misc increments between the item limits affect what you get, so it's better to save up.
5) This is true for some of the lines! The healthy and unhealthy lines have 5 transformations, but the others have only 3.
6) In the code, items are tagged with being either "healthy", "unhealthy", "liquid", "parasite", and "anomaly". Some of the items can have 2 of the tags at a time. Interestingly, the food sprites are bundled into "anomalous", "disturbing", "normal", and "specials". I think only the tags influence things though!
7) Unsure
8) I think that that's a good way to summarize it! Hoard the food you need for your transformation line.
Search for my comments in this thread, I also made a spreadsheet and it looks like ¥10 and ¥150 are best for surviving (especially if thirst gets critical), and then only ¥100 (and ¥500 if you have the coin) are worth it for the other routes, as they offer best variety of liquids, anomalies and parasites. I haven't tested this but for ¥100, the 11% chance of healthy anomalous liquids should be enough to get the top stage of the "liquid" route: (here is the second one:)
In the item_dir array, the 0th member of each element is the hunger satiation, the 3rd one is the thirst satiation. For example, "antarticwater" restores 5 food and 30 water. The best satiation to cost ratio is 1 for a single apple seed but it's tedious to farm so I always go for 10, which gives 5.
What causes that transformation? Is it certain liquids because I try to drink a lot of water but nothing seems to change and I'm at a normal state if that matters.
I haven't achieved it either, I don't have the patience to play and check but it's called "hollow bride" in the image files and "liquid" in the code. The code for it is different from the Parasite and Anomaly paths but I haven't been able to reverse-engineer either, it's a bit of object-oriented mess. However, upon closer inspection it looks like healthy liquids might not actually increase the liquid level, see last line:
for keys in [Content.UNHEALTHY, Content.PARASITE, Content.ANOREXIA]: if health_lvls[keys] > 0 and val_count <= 3: health_lvls[keys] -= 1 else: val_count += 1 if val_count == 3: health_lvls[each] += 1 if count.has(Content.LIQUID): if count[Content.LIQUID] > 0: pass else: if count.has(Content.HEALTHY): if count[Content.HEALTHY] > 0: health_lvls[Content.LIQUID] -= 1
Anyway, ¥100 is best for anomalous liquids too (11 %: bottled blood/eyes/sewage) and ¥150 for unhealthy liquids (100 %: Kola Classic/Zero/Chost). So maybe anomalous and unhealthy liquids are a way to go?
I don't usually comment on games I've played on itch.io but after reading the other comments I just wanted to say I think the game has a lot of potential considering its still a work in progress! I'm hoping other comments are taken into consideration as constructive criticism because I do agree with a lot of points made but I think maybe some people have been a little too harsh. I think the art style is super cool and creepy and I cant wait to see what else is added to the game!
Came here after watching Manly's video. Really don't want to join the complaint squad.
This game is built very solid. Very very solid.
This game has a very cool art direction.
I love the idea and the story is somewhat simple but all good stories should be simple.
My issue is... This game was not sanity checked nor peer reviewed.
Manly takes his gaming very seriously and did a lot of work to try to figure out what was the poitn and made an entertaining yet mediocre video. i thought to myself "this can't be all..."
I've spent around 7 hours by now trying to blackbox this... And this isn't an idle game, its Fnaf level of micromanaging the hunger bar, because you litterally have to polish every single coin to get anywhere.
This game has no respect for your time. Hours of progress can be reset to zero in an instant, and there's no leeway for getting experience to learn the mechanics. You either work towards the mutations you want, or you make negative progress towards it. And the RNG can reset all of your progress buy just giving you bad coins or dropping you bad items in a row, and the stages take too much effort.
So yeah. This was uterly miserable to play because there's no skill involved. Its just rolling till you roll snakeyes and have to restart. A game with this big of a time and no save function is just waiting for a PC or browser hickup to make you just leave.
If you thinking about playing. i don't recommend.
Stage recuirements need to be halved, Money increase, more obvious hunger mechanic.
I wish i could like this game more, but its way too much and i've spent too much time of it. This is just rude.
ultimately very boring and tedious. i had no idea what i was doing and had no direction or anything, just sat for like 40 minutes watching a video on my second monitor while occassionally putting like 150 into the machine and feeding the character. The concept is there, though. It's really interesting but it needs more work.
Very nice little game, the art style is charming and it's very simple, but still enjoyable for a few hours. It is somewhat tedious, I often found myself doing other things while waiting after the first hour has passed. The game does have potential and I'd love to see some new updates coming out soon :D
Also, it inspired me to consume a lot of apple seeds from now on
And there is a muscle girl so this is definitely getting a good score
I really like the concept of the game with the involvement of the vending machine and the food affecting you, in either really good or really bad ways. I do have some complains which I feel might need improvement:
- Increasing the coin gathering. Someone said to have something like a fast-forward and while maybe not that exactly, I def feel the speed of money collecting is a must. - Hints at what amount does what. I am aware SCP-261 is blank but I don't think I'm alone when I say it's difficult to figure out the cost of what items. Those apple seeds are gonna haunt me. -Hunger and Thirst meter need to slow down. Given how slow the money collecting can be and how often you'll get apple seeds, these need to adjusted if different outcomes can be seen. -Also just extra hints as whatelse to do can help out.
Aside from those, I'm super interested in this game and I hope to see more from it!
Here’s a small tip for anyone who needs it. , if you're trying to get any transformation, it seems to work like a point system.
example: If you were to eat a seed you gain hunger and a point towards the seed transformation, but if you were to eat anything else, it would decrease that point, meaning if you're looking for a transformation you need to stock up on that type of food/drink.
I extracted the game files (version 0.1.00, which was up-to-date when you wrote the comment but no longer is) and it seems you are right. I don't fully understand all of it yet but I think
There is an oversight that you can survive without drinking, probably will be fixed
There are six transformation paths:
"anorexia" (starving): 3 levels then death
"unhealthy" (sweet, fatty or rotten food, some is also anomalous such as choco shapes or donuts): 5 levels
"perfect" (healthy food): 5 levels ranging from beautiful to muscular to space being; contrary to popular belief all healthy food counts but apple seeds are easiest. I think only number of items counts, so 10 apple seeds are as good as 50
"parasite" (worms and bugs including giant alien ones, bees, maggots, earthworms, wasps, crickets, scorpions, but not fried roaches, tadpole soup, snail skewers, milk spiders, rat on stick or dog feet): 3 levels, ranging from maggot-infested to insect queen
"anomaly" (SCP food: human body parts, spiced candy, leeches, bag of colorful apples, lemon clams, fluffy alien box, pyramids, choco dildo/floppy/chess/robot/bullets, Ponari Sweat, swimmer bottle, Xocolatl, can with alien language): 3 levels
"liquid" (drinks): makes your belly and head very round and full of ulcers, idk if it even works: 3 levels
Starving or eating/drinking non-category-specific food will decrease level in category
Idk if you need to return to normal to change categories
Costs:
¥1-¥10, ¥50 only gives corresponding amount of seeds
¥150 only gives unhealthy liquids
nothing costs over ¥1000
no parasites above ¥300
seeds are best satiation for your buck:
theoretically best is 1 seed = ¥1 = 1 satiation point (but you'll spend too much dispensing them they're not worth it)
likely best is 10 seeds = ¥10 = 5 satiation points
also good is 50 seeds = ¥50 = 10 satiation points
best parasite chance: ¥100 (26 %), same as ¥300 but that's not worth it
best anomaly chance: ¥500 (59 %), or ¥100 (22 %) for best value
best healthy liquid chance: ¥100 (11 %) (needed for "liquid" route, presumably)
I'm guessing that your best chance at surviving, making money and staying normal is by eating 10-packs of apple seeds and occasionally ¥150 junk drinks to reduce healthiness and thirst (if a thirst consequences get patched in a future version). You'll save up to fill the inventory with various things. Eat a selected category at once to transform as you wish. Only eat on the street to waste less time not begging, although looking into your inventory next to the vending machine is the only place to see the front standing sprite.
In the game files, you'll also see unused sprite versions with an open mouth (perhaps for eating animation that didn't really work, may be fixed later), traces of a "mother" mechanic and the script for a little VN I don't think was released.
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As somebody who played for a few hours, here's my experience and honestly the biggest problems i saw (warning, a lot of text):
I discovered this game thanks to manlybadasshero, I loved the concept and looked at the comment section to see if any comments advice would get me anywhere, I saw the one that anything below 100 is just really seeds mostly and it gave me the idea to just only ever spend either 100 or anything over it
This was pretty much the loop for the first hour, I felt pretty intrigued, not because she was really changing or anything but because I liked seeing what the vending machine would give for the price range I was going for at first with each item (100), I got to a pretty solid point to where I was keeping her alive while also getting a lot more of coins (I think the most I got were around almost 4000, that's because I kind of neglected her needs and just kept going with the items I had to see how much I would get before she started looking thin like how she did in manly's video for most of the time, it was mostly so i could do a massive spending on items to see what would change her)
By hour 2, i was feeling kind of down because I realized that no matter what I did, she wasn't really evolving and I started thinking it might had to do to with letting her starve after all those items like how manly did to see if it would give some kind of different art, but I left tha option out because it just felt risky and like a waste of time to let her be close to dying for it, but things got pretty interesting when I just said "fuck it" and consumed all the seeds I had randomly gotten before during the 100 price point, that's where I got my first phase of the evolution (I'm guessing most endings have phases, I got through like 3 but we'll get into that right now, back when I downloaded it didn't have as much comments so I didn't have much to go on)
Instead of the phase being something scary or weird, it was actually pretty cute, it's like she looked happier and honestly it had me thinking I was finally going somewhere visibly, and then she evolved again and I thought I had finally discovered what it was (I have no idea what could have been I think maybe the seeds because the gameplay doesn't really tell you much unless something happens and you kind of gotta guess what changed it)
And I was like that for a while because she would be almost starving, like at 10% and that's where I would immediately feed her something before it actually affected her for her to de-evolve, but by giving her food she went back to phase 1, I have her some food again and she went to phase 2 again, and it just felt like a loop of decisions of trying to go somewhere with basically no info and just me guessing but also taking no notes because I wasn't really sure what was doing it
Until I consumed a certain item and she evolve into phase 3, she had these muscles and it felt like once again I was onto something and I thought maybe it had to be just consuming the exact same item all the time, but here's where I realized the first major issue:
If going by one certain item all the time is the clue to it, it's not really the best because you gotta get lucky with the wide variety of items there is and how getting some of them feels like 1-100 chance sometimes, I spent a lot of coins trying to get the same item with no result and I was going by the same exact point of coins I got it before for (either 200 or 300), and while this may be the way to finally find out, you gotta keep in mind she keeps starving and could de-evolve any time by herself so it feels like a race in between you and actually getting somewhere with the food before you gotta do twice what you had to do once
And that's really what at most I got because she just completely de-evolved by herself when I tried to give her rare items because she got back to phase 1 and I tried to keep going but it didn't really go anywhere, so I went by the seeds (I held onto them in the first hour because I thought they would do somewhere at some point and that's why by hour 2 I just gave them to her because it didn't really do anything and i wasn't gonna spend more time if the seeds were the thing)
So the main criticism is that the game feels really slow, like painfully slow even for players who have a lot of patience, getting an ending feels difficult (i didn't get one because by the time she went to her normal self i just knew it would be 2 extra hours of trying many things to just get to one point and then nowhere), and you're kind of lost most of the time despite trying different strategies, I was even more lost back then since there were only like 3 comments and two were criticism to how slow the game went
Nothing really happens to you if you just try to keep her alive so it just feels like a constant waiting of time for nothing because like I said, I was for like 2 hours with the same exact appearance because I just was keeping her alive hoping at some point something would change her, so maybe that was on me because I held onto the seeds because of her dialogues saying she maybe should hold onto them to see what would happen
And the biggest issue, the game is like a back and forth of trying. To the point I had gotten, I just had seen 3 appearances and with a lot of luck because I kept trying different things and none of them worked out for me (consuming A LOT of seeds, trying to go for the same item, it took too long and she would de-evolve, and others), it feels like you really gotta try to go somewhere and even then it feels like the only possible endings you could get are either her starving, the police catching you or you continuing for who knows how long and you don't really get access to the library (I'm guessing because I haven't died yet, i can still continue, but i was hoping that while I was still alive maybe the gallery could give me some clues, so I have no idea what that looks like)
And this is all for my massive yap session covering my own experience, I feel like the game has potential, the artwork is pretty interesting and that itself can keep you playing because of the intriguing sensation of when or what is gonna make something happen, of hoping for something massive to change after a certain amount of time of just being alive, but the issue is that it just doesn't, at least not for somebody who started with not much information other than 3 comments and this game page itself, I feel like it needs some major changes for it to actually thrive with the concept it has without feeling like way too much time spent for nothing, I'm honestly gonna keep checking just in case it gets that update because I still have high hopes for it and I feel like since it just released it can still get some pretty good changes :D
The short read of my comment is: I agree with many of the other comments here, and find this initial concept interesting. When it has a significant update I would greatly appreciate coming back to see more.
That said, I have some thoughts I'd like to share.
I echo the same sentiments as most others in the comments: apple seed RNG feels too high and gameplay loop has a lot left to be desired. I would like to throw out some suggestions for what could help change up the gameplay. These may already be ideas in consideration, so take this instead as "things I would look forward to seeing!"
In the beggar sections, I think being given some sort of choice options would be a bit more engaging. Like how you are forced to leave because of the police warning, maybe other random encounters could happen. I see the people dialogue having some people make "offers", I don't know how explicit you plan for this game to be, but having a choice in maybe taking up one of these offers could be a way that either helps you to earn more money or potentially lose money. I don't think it needs to necessarily be involving "sexual favors", and if it did then we don't need graphic detail. The game has an obvious vibe it's going for and it should try to keep in line with the desperation and the despair.
Some examples of various choice sections could be: someone asking the MC to do something that could potentially land her in trouble (ie. go throw a brick through the window of this place, like cruel and degrading pranks that have chances for consequences with the police), having someone she knows from school or work or family that maybe pities her or uses the opportunity to bully her, or having someone actually give her food instead which could maybe improve her health in a minor way (more on this in the vending machine section).
While you feel more helpless just sitting and waiting for people to give you money, I think that sense of desperation can still come through with more engaging moments like this. Certainly would help break up the waiting and make it feel all the more special if used sparingly.
In the vending machine sections, I think instead of tying the RNG purely to the amount of money punched in, it could also rely on the inputs of numbers put on the numpad. I see the vending machine art has a bunch of buttons, so it might be a case where a certain amount of money + a certain code combination could help you in getting a specific type of food (bugs, body parts, "normal" foods) and it may help to also make it so you can discern whether the item is a food or a drink.
I played through and only got food why my MC was dehydrated. Which actually, in real life, you would survive far less without water. So I feel like if the MC is dehydrated for too long, then that itself could be an ending where she dies to that rather than just starvation. But the idea of putting in money and punching in a code could have you making the choice to help your thirst meter or your hunger meter. (For example: 200 coins with the code 1234 gives you a food item, but 200 coins with 6789 gives you a drink, determined by food starting with odd numbers and drinks starting with even numbers, this could be more randomized to your discretion but it would be nice to have a little more control over just what you could possibly get).
I'm not familiar with the original SCP story so maybe that isn't how it works, but having this addition could then mean you could hide codes in areas or have hints that can steer people to try things and thus get special food items that could lead to rare endings.
As for food intake, I think there should be more immediate responses from the MC to certain foods. If a certain food is conventionally repulsive (rats on a stick or eyeballs in a jug) then I think there should be a more immediate chance of the MC becoming sick or even refusing to eat it. Maybe she will only eat it if she has 0% in her stats, but I also think there should be chances of success that then increase the more that she eats a specific food type. The more successes she gets, it could also become more filling and allow her to sit and beg more without worry of immediately starving.
Maybe it can also psychologically effect her as she may become dependent on a specific type of food. This is where the food RNG can come back into play because as you focus on a certain food group, for example: bugs, then anything that isn't a bug can be more repulsive or be something she refuses to eat.
Additional gameplay elements, I think this game would greatly benefit from an in-game clock or calendar system. It would help to have a limited amount of time day-to-day or to have certain times of day better spent at various places. Sitting and waiting in real time can become quickly disengaging and tiresome if you're doing nothing else to engage with the game. Which is where many folks would like to ask for some sort of additional gameplay feature or for the begging sessions to be shorter.
And what might be nice to go in tandem with this is to choose a location to beg at. So depending on the time of day, maybe you can go to different places to either have more chances for earning or to decrease your chances of getting into trouble. Whether that be by the law or unkind and cruel people.
So maybe during midday, you can go to a park to beg. This can come with advantages and disadvantages, so:
advantage=Police won't bother you for being in the public park
disadvantage=being out in the sun has a chance of causing sunburn and makes you thirsty faster.
Then at night, you can beg by the street near the fancy restaurants:
advantage=more chances for earning money and potentially receiving safe food
disadvantage=police are more likely to catch you. Then rather than have a window pop-up asking if you want to wrap up, maybe have one of the random dialogues in the corner say "That's so despicable, someone should call the cops" the dialogue bubble could be a different color just to help make it more accessible for people to pick up on it being important dialogue to pay attention to.
Now for some very nitpicky, small quality of life changes I think could be useful in just polish and feel of the game:
when in the inventory, I would like it if I could click outside the window of it to exit or to immediately jump to begging on the streets, my natural inclination because I was trying to outpace the timers was to stock up on eating food and then immediately go back to begging
sidenote: might help if the timers weren't so fast, this was a complaint I saw brought up and I can agree that it feels difficult to keep up when this game essentially doesn't have a pause screen to allow you a break or give you access to settings in case you wanted to adjust volume or text speed
dialogue for receiving types of food should not repeat, it also feels like there was an intended order for how many appleseeds you get (at getting 1 the MC comments how she doesn't know if it's an apple seed or not, but if you got a baggy of 100 before then she would comment exasperatedly over the large amount of apple seeds not being enough) maybe there just needs to be a flag for noting when a food item has been previously discovered so she doesn't repeat dialogue OR some way to stack the variable so the first time she gets seeds, she can wonder what they are, but next time she only gets one seed she can comment "more seeds? Really? Does this thing have anything else?" really just to build on that exasperation rather than tie it to individual items.
capability to skip intro cutscene/tutorial for new games, even if you are starting the game for the first time, some people might be coming to this project from seeing another play it. This isn't necessarily the only reason for it, but I think having the option there to say his ESC and get a popup asking "Are you sure you want to skip the tutorial?" just to ensure players don't hit it by accident and miss out if they DO want a tutorial
Having a clear indicator that shows up to say "click to continue" would be helpful, could be some text that fades in at a corner or little icon that blinks to show it requires an input from the player to continue
Overall, I see you have a few other games that I am interested in checking out! This could be just a small project that you don't plan to go further, but the concept is neat so I'd love to see an update that further explores it. This is a great start and the polish you do have is wonderful: good art, the music is thematically nice, and a fairly clean and easy to navigate UI! This has an incredible start, don't take all the criticism too harshly as understandably, it is in a proof of concept phase that I see having the potential to build to a good resource management game. As well as tell a twisted narrative involving the psychological effects around food from an unknown source with dubious effects.
I'm currently making a video, which will include all the references I was able to understand, but the dialpad isn't how the original SCP worked. It was based on 3 things in the story: The amount put in (more the 500 yen is bad), the amount of times used (more then 10 times in a day is bad), and whether it's powered or unpowered (unpowered is bad). With that being said, the developer could do a ton with that alone.
I haven't reached any endings but been noticing some transformations
Easiest one is the appleseed transformation, having 5 different stages. You can just pay 10 constantly to get 10 seeds, or pay 50 to get 50 seeds. It happens everytime from my experience and I've been playing for about 5h straight now (help)
Then's the bug/insect transformation, it's tricky and I've only seen one stage of it. Been slowly eating appleseeds so I remain normal and not starved while saving up insect foods. Leeches don't seem to count toward this, idk about snails. Worms do. I've only seen 1 stage of this transformation
Idk about rest, only drinking sodas leads nowhere from what I've seen
If you pay 500 you often get objects?... I feel like eating multiple objects in a short time period might give some new transformation path
Then there's human related items like the baby looking thing and eyes. Could also lead somewhere, I haven't gotten enough of those items to dare and try (edit: doesn't seem to lead anywhere, ate about 6 of these items. Maybe they negate each other somehow or just don't have transformation path)
I've been decompiling the code and I can confirm that there are 6 paths! There's the anorexia line (starving), perfect line (eating healthy food), unhealthy line (eating unhealthy food), anomalous line (eating anomaly-type food), parasite line (eating bugs), and the "hollow bride" line (consuming a lot of liquid).
The healthy and unhealthy lines have 5 transformations, while the others only have 3 transformations. This is the snippet of code I found about the requirements.
I've been working on a spreadsheet listing what food counts towards what transformation!
Agree! I also decompiled it and I think the ideal strategy (in version 0.1.00 at least) is
At first, only eat ¥10 packs of apple seeds and drink ¥150 unhealthy liquids (100% chance for each). This grind will let you survive, stay normal and save a lot of money or food items. You can even go down all 5 steps of the healthy route or fat route by varying the ratio between seeds and sodas. You can always starve to return to normal.
Only other price point worth bothering with besides the aforementioned ¥10 and ¥150 is ¥100 (and ¥500 if you have that coin). This gives a good value-for-money of anomalies, healthy liquids and parasites. Healthy seeds and unhealthy liquids are best obtained in the previous point.
After saving up enough items from it, eat a selected category at once to transform as you wish to the 3 stages of the other routes.
Minor optimizations:
Only eat on the street to waste less time not begging, although looking into your inventory next to the vending machine is the only place to see the front standing sprite.
First operate the coin slot as many times as you need, then collect everything from the output tray by spam-clicking.
The game needs dome QoL and bug updates, but otherwise seems like a good little game.
QoL:
- A fastfoward button would be great. Too much idle time waiting for coins
- Maybe some new dialogue that hints to you what ending you are currently on
Bugs:
- The gallery (I didn't bother to play too long because I don't see the point until this is fixed. Which I am guessing this is to keep track and see which endings/food items you have gotten? Or at the very least I hope it is the food items. I would love to keep track of that.)
This is honestly a really neat little concept for a game. The simple scarcity and desperation of I-will-eat-basically-anything feels novel. Unfortunately, as it currently is, I've been at this for 3 hours trying to see anything other than just steady starvation by attrition, to no avail, and this has resulted in the gameplay loop wearing out its welcome. I feel like the tedium is an intentional part of the experience, and I can appreciate that, but there's such a thing as overdoing it (which, although I know the game isn't in its finished state, is how the experience currently plays). Would come back to this if it were a little less arbitrary in how long it takes to achieve the payoff.
Still, to stress again, solid concept! But really needs some fixing up so that I can actually find the content you put into the game.
Yeah same as all other comments. Beyond the apple seed apotheosis, achieving anything else is far too difficult. wanted to see the bug ending, but if you can't see the hidden values that determine how the character transforms, the RNG just holds this thing back far too much. it would take Hours just to farm the bug food and then you would have to stave to reset your values and then hope you have saved up enough.
compounding that with the lack of the galery feature surry i can onyl give a thumbs down.
What a neat little game. I think I'm gonna make a video on it, just to document all the items currently in the game. I love the fact that there is a mobile version too?? I thought that was absolutely awesome, I've never seen a game do that before. When I post the video, I'll be sure to upload it here. Looking forward to seeing the full game.
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would be cool if there was a way to grab a bunch of coins at once because you end up amassing a hoard of 1 yen coins and it's a pain to even try and get rid of them
Downloaded the game within the last few minutes AND played in browser, encountering a bug where I can't click on the coin slot in the tutorial. Unfortunate. Not sure if 0.1.02 possibly broke something or if it's just my systems.
I'd like to be able to play this game D:
you have to hit space bar to progress the dialogue, then it lets you click the slot. Unnecessary and confusing.
Man can we get a happy ending were she becomes a D class personel, but atleast they give her free meals while studying her...
Infinite money glitch. you need to click outside of the money and the coin hole to exit the machine, then quickly pick up a coin and place it in the hole, after that when you click the machine again it will have the coin's value inside but you still have the coin. you can use it as is and get a free item every time, note that you can't get that coin that is inside if you exit, so it can only be used as a free coin, so just use a 500. it's the fastest way to get all foods up to 500. But not healthy foods, I noticed that the healthy foods you get with 500, is just enough to keep you fed for the time it takes to do the bug, if you want to go the healthy transformations, then just go with 50 seeds packs. (or a thousand if you have the money, but in my experience, just using all your money up to 50 coins, getting seeds is the best way.)
by the way I noticed in the comments that not that many people know that when you get an item the vending machine says the coins you need to put for a guaranteed same item, for example 333 yen is a bottled fetus. maybe a reference to please don't touch anything? idk. edit: not all of them have a price for a guaranteed droop.
Just tried it and it works, not even hard to do , unless the game dev is reading this in which case it doesn't work and there is no need to look into it as a bug. also I noticed the number thing and it works for multiple items but I think the number changes if you reload the game.
love the game but it is missing a few things, this is just some constructive criticism and a few suggestions
What the game is missing is a long-term goal, sure surviving is a short-term goal but there is really nothing to work to after the mechanics are figured out and the game play is mastered, there are the transformations to find, but they are difficult to discover naturally, and I had to look in the comments to see how it works. Maybe add a cryptic hint about eating too much of the same type of food. There is also discovering every food item, but that feels like more of an extra thing that someone would do after they have completed the game and not a goal for someone to complete
There need to be endings. Starving and getting arrested are game overs but they aren't phrased as endings, I think it would be better if they were endings 1 and 2 out of however many endings there are, and an ending for each transformation too. Going back to my first point, a good ending (and a long-term goal) could be saving up enough money for something that drastically improves the main characters situation, I don't know what this would be yet and it might require expanding on the lore but I think the game would improve with it.
I don't know how I would fix this game play wise, but the whole game is slow to progress, I have spent a few hours playing and I have only gotten two transformations fully. Maybe add some different game-play for the money gaining part.
This last thing is more of something that I would find funny, but I noticed that after purchasing some items (I don't know if it works on all of them) a number flashes on the screen of the vending machine, and inputting that number of yen allows you to get the same item again, I think that putting in 69 yen and 420 yen should get special food items, but this is more of a humorous suggestion than a serious one.
That's everything I have to say
Edit: it just occurred to me that another good feature would be if the gallery shows more info about the food, like how much you need to pay for it or a short description.
The game has a good idea, but should they have added an inappropriate element to the game? I see it as things that have nothing to do with a bloody and scary game. I see it as a good game if it was free of inappropriate things for Akmor.
Cool idea but I'm not sold on the execution yet. The music loop on the street really feels like it could be longer or have some more variety in tracks because it gets very repetitive very quickly given how long you spend waiting for money to roll in.
I do like the art direction a lot! But do otherwise agree with a lot of the criticism here as things that could be addressed for future builds.
(Also I struggled to get the browser version to work in either browser I used, not sure if that's a me issue or not though.)
Gameplay and Critique ;)
I'm honestly a huge fan of the concept of this game, though like many other people say the gameplay is a bit lacking and takes a really long time to progress. I think making some routes faster would help add some more incentive for replayability. Some little things I think would do a lot for the game too would be:
That's all I gotta say on ideas I got from playing the game, and aside from the already mentioned things about there being no endings just yet, I really enjoy the concept of this game! I think it does very well for body horror and it really intruiges me, definitely can't wait to see if and when there are any updates!
My bf and I both tried to play around with this game for about an hour, but between the two of us nothing really happened. I really want to be able to experience the cool looking body horror this game has to offer. It looks sincerely so interesting and I hope the creator keeps working on it, but with a looping soundtrack and sitting for god knows how long I'm not really keen to keep messing around with it. I hope in the future it has a more interactive system added to it. Cause where it is right now it is an interesting idea but lacks a lot of depth to it to keep peoples' attention.
the concept and art is very cool, the only thing i wish is that instead of waiting for money there was some kind of better gameplay, because just sitting and waiting is very tedious and boring.
Tips to get the fat route?
Spend 150 to get soda cans, best way I did it
I'm double checking but eat only "unhealthy" foods.
Things like Sodas, Chocolates. There is someone who in the comments that posted an online excel file of which food is labeled as.
Okieee so I love this game but...
is there actually any endings? Does the gallery work? I've been thru all 5 phases of the apple seeds, 3 stages of the unhealthy, etc., and I can't achieve an ending or any gallery unlocks.
Ok so quick guide. Did this on android so experience may vary.
1) apple seeds are your friend, use these to stave off hunger and save the rest of the food for mutation.
2) EAT ON THE STEEETS NOT AT THE MACHINE!!!! Got your attention? Reason: game saves when you return to the streets. Get disappointed that your mutation items weren't enough? Quit or let the cops catch you. Game will revert back to before you went to the streets but after you bought/used your items. Not eating at the machine will save you time and prevent you from having to start from scratch if you screw up.
CHEESE METHOD (for those who dont have time): Again did this on android with the game installed (and whatever version it is at the time of this writing) . Get money, return to vending machine, return to streets without spending cash, quit game, reload game, and "Oh look" our hobo heroine (could prolly use some) is now 50% food and 90% thirst. Go get money and repeat. Do this as much as you like till you got the cash and either get the items your aiming for or experiment with the machine.
Edit: Cheese method will revert you to base form. Its mainly intended as a way to get cash without having to spend anything to keep our hobo alive.
on another note,
ADDITIONAL CHEESE: Use the items you wish to transform with. Let cops arrest you. Continue the game once you're back at the main menu. And now your at the mutation you left off with with the items you used restored. Only drawback is if you quit the game you WILL revert to base form regardless of whether or not you go out to the streets and return. (Haven't tried going up another transformation tier yet and having that save)
Cash results (based on my xp)
1$ seeds
5$ 5 seeds
10$ 10 seeds
50$ 50 seeds
100$ 100 seeds, random lower tier food
150$ GUARANTEED DRINK (tested dozens of times, never any seeds)
200$ better food
500$ 500 seeds or much better food
1000$ 1k seeds and even higher food
1K is highest and last tier as I've been made aware.
there's probably ranges i missed but im hoping someone will find the special numbers.
Also see the reply below mine by Crystal to see the spreadsheet they made. Useful info on there.
The pizza slice can be rolled at any amount after 600 yen! 1,000 yen is the last increment where new items are added.
I've been working on a spreadsheet with all of the items, including their minimum price!
I tried your cheese method... and it reset my transformation :( I was on stage 5 of the Apple Seed route, and reloading turned me back to normal....
Sorry to hear that. When i did it i had her at her base form so l wasnt aware it reset anything. On another note, I just used up all my items for one type of transformation, let the cops arrest me (thought that would give me an actual ending....nope) and it put me back at my previous save with all my items I used and current mutation level I ended at. Also will revert back to base form if you quit, but atleast you can see all forms.
So I figured it mostly out, going to leave explanations for what I believe the mechanics to be
1: Seeds always pop up under 100 yen or occasionally higher, it is NOT worth it to go for seeds except in amounts of 1, 50, or 1000. Any other amount and you will usually get less than what it's worth.
2: The game functions in transformation lines, with your base form being one of them. You CANNOT transform if you have progressed any amount on the "hungry" line.
3: Progression on any transformation line, including the hunger one, will regress whatever line you are currently on.
4: The machine is not going to give you rarer things if you dump a ton in, instead it is like a code system. So far I have determined that 150 will always give a cola, and 50 will always give you 50 seeds
5: Each line appears to have 5 transformations
6: Foods appear to be organized into groups of items. I suspect these groups are bug, flesh, sweets, soda, and seeds.
7: The hunger transformation will only regress the other lines one stage at a time, so you can progress a bunch along the seed line and use the time to accumulate items for the others
8: The goal is to collect food, not money
If anyone disproves one of these please let me know?
Is there anything else that requires codes? Like, how do I get sweets?
Hi!!! I've spent the past few hours figuring out how to decompile the game, and I can confirm some of what you're saying! I had just been trying to grab the different transformation forms, but I ended up recovering the original code too. I'm trying to sift through it right now, and am working on a Google Sheets file with information.
1) Based on what I've figured out, the game creates a pool of potential items based on what you drop in. Items are added to the pool after a certain amount of yen is added, so that means that if you're below a certain number, those higher items are impossible. Everything less than 100 is guaranteed to be apple seeds.
2) Can confirm! The hungry line is actually titled as the anorexia line in the files. There's also the default sprites, anomolous line, holllow bride, parasite line, perfect line, and the unhealthy line.
3) Unsure
4) Going based off of what I said in #1! After 100 yen, some more items start being added to the pool. For example, at 100 there's molded bread, sun dried termites, cicadas, soft drinks, water bottles, etc. The higher you go, the more items are added to the pool, including better ones. Items are added at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 50, 100, 150, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, and 1,000 yen. I don't think that other misc increments between the item limits affect what you get, so it's better to save up.
5) This is true for some of the lines! The healthy and unhealthy lines have 5 transformations, but the others have only 3.
6) In the code, items are tagged with being either "healthy", "unhealthy", "liquid", "parasite", and "anomaly". Some of the items can have 2 of the tags at a time. Interestingly, the food sprites are bundled into "anomalous", "disturbing", "normal", and "specials". I think only the tags influence things though!
7) Unsure
8) I think that that's a good way to summarize it! Hoard the food you need for your transformation line.
thanks Crystalbinja, the sheet is very helpful for transformations
Search for my comments in this thread, I also made a spreadsheet and it looks like ¥10 and ¥150 are best for surviving (especially if thirst gets critical), and then only ¥100 (and ¥500 if you have the coin) are worth it for the other routes, as they offer best variety of liquids, anomalies and parasites. I haven't tested this but for ¥100, the 11% chance of
healthyanomalous liquids should be enough to get the top stage of the "liquid" route:(here is the second one:)
In the item_dir array, the 0th member of each element is the hunger satiation, the 3rd one is the thirst satiation. For example, "antarticwater" restores 5 food and 30 water. The best satiation to cost ratio is 1 for a single apple seed but it's tedious to farm so I always go for 10, which gives 5.
What causes that transformation? Is it certain liquids because I try to drink a lot of water but nothing seems to change and I'm at a normal state if that matters.
I haven't achieved it either, I don't have the patience to play and check but it's called "hollow bride" in the image files and "liquid" in the code. The code for it is different from the Parasite and Anomaly paths but I haven't been able to reverse-engineer either, it's a bit of object-oriented mess. However, upon closer inspection it looks like healthy liquids might not actually increase the liquid level, see last line:
Anyway, ¥100 is best for anomalous liquids too (11 %: bottled blood/eyes/sewage) and ¥150 for unhealthy liquids (100 %: Kola Classic/Zero/Chost). So maybe anomalous and unhealthy liquids are a way to go?
It seems the liquid path is very likely not working
I don't usually comment on games I've played on itch.io but after reading the other comments I just wanted to say I think the game has a lot of potential considering its still a work in progress! I'm hoping other comments are taken into consideration as constructive criticism because I do agree with a lot of points made but I think maybe some people have been a little too harsh. I think the art style is super cool and creepy and I cant wait to see what else is added to the game!
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Came here after watching Manly's video. Really don't want to join the complaint squad.
This game is built very solid. Very very solid.
This game has a very cool art direction.
I love the idea and the story is somewhat simple but all good stories should be simple.
My issue is... This game was not sanity checked nor peer reviewed.
Manly takes his gaming very seriously and did a lot of work to try to figure out what was the poitn and made an entertaining yet mediocre video. i thought to myself "this can't be all..."
I've spent around 7 hours by now trying to blackbox this... And this isn't an idle game, its Fnaf level of micromanaging the hunger bar, because you litterally have to polish every single coin to get anywhere.
This game has no respect for your time. Hours of progress can be reset to zero in an instant, and there's no leeway for getting experience to learn the mechanics. You either work towards the mutations you want, or you make negative progress towards it. And the RNG can reset all of your progress buy just giving you bad coins or dropping you bad items in a row, and the stages take too much effort.
So yeah. This was uterly miserable to play because there's no skill involved. Its just rolling till you roll snakeyes and have to restart. A game with this big of a time and no save function is just waiting for a PC or browser hickup to make you just leave.
If you thinking about playing. i don't recommend.
Stage recuirements need to be halved, Money increase, more obvious hunger mechanic.
I wish i could like this game more, but its way too much and i've spent too much time of it. This is just rude.
what items lead to the rainbow transformation?
140 unique items is deceitful . After 8 hours i found 4 unique items. Insects, weird demons, apple seeds and filling food. thats ur.
It took me a lot of time to become like this, and then I realized that my only screenshot was partially blocked by someone. QAQ
Black cock jumpscare
Your comment sounds like a shitpost but it's an actual item in the game
There is also the "Bull's Penis" item
Edit: Removed photos because I don't want to get in trouble
Yeah, i saw it in the page's pictures, it was...very surprising to say the least.
ultimately very boring and tedious. i had no idea what i was doing and had no direction or anything, just sat for like 40 minutes watching a video on my second monitor while occassionally putting like 150 into the machine and feeding the character. The concept is there, though. It's really interesting but it needs more work.
Very nice little game, the art style is charming and it's very simple, but still enjoyable for a few hours. It is somewhat tedious, I often found myself doing other things while waiting after the first hour has passed. The game does have potential and I'd love to see some new updates coming out soon :D
Also, it inspired me to consume a lot of apple seeds from now on
And there is a muscle girl so this is definitely getting a good score
I really like the concept of the game with the involvement of the vending machine and the food affecting you, in either really good or really bad ways.
I do have some complains which I feel might need improvement:
- Increasing the coin gathering. Someone said to have something like a fast-forward and while maybe not that exactly, I def feel the speed of money collecting is a must.
- Hints at what amount does what. I am aware SCP-261 is blank but I don't think I'm alone when I say it's difficult to figure out the cost of what items. Those apple seeds are gonna haunt me.
-Hunger and Thirst meter need to slow down. Given how slow the money collecting can be and how often you'll get apple seeds, these need to adjusted if different outcomes can be seen.
-Also just extra hints as whatelse to do can help out.
Aside from those, I'm super interested in this game and I hope to see more from it!
Here’s a small tip for anyone who needs it. , if you're trying to get any transformation, it seems to work like a point system.
example: If you were to eat a seed you gain hunger and a point towards the seed transformation, but if you were to eat anything else, it would decrease that point, meaning if you're looking for a transformation you need to stock up on that type of food/drink.
hope this helps
I extracted the game files (version 0.1.00, which was up-to-date when you wrote the comment but no longer is) and it seems you are right. I don't fully understand all of it yet but I think
Costs:
I'm guessing that your best chance at surviving, making money and staying normal is by eating 10-packs of apple seeds and occasionally ¥150 junk drinks to reduce healthiness and thirst (if a thirst consequences get patched in a future version). You'll save up to fill the inventory with various things. Eat a selected category at once to transform as you wish. Only eat on the street to waste less time not begging, although looking into your inventory next to the vending machine is the only place to see the front standing sprite.
In the game files, you'll also see unused sprite versions with an open mouth (perhaps for eating animation that didn't really work, may be fixed later), traces of a "mother" mechanic and the script for a little VN I don't think was released.
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As somebody who played for a few hours, here's my experience and honestly the biggest problems i saw (warning, a lot of text):
I discovered this game thanks to manlybadasshero, I loved the concept and looked at the comment section to see if any comments advice would get me anywhere, I saw the one that anything below 100 is just really seeds mostly and it gave me the idea to just only ever spend either 100 or anything over it
This was pretty much the loop for the first hour, I felt pretty intrigued, not because she was really changing or anything but because I liked seeing what the vending machine would give for the price range I was going for at first with each item (100), I got to a pretty solid point to where I was keeping her alive while also getting a lot more of coins (I think the most I got were around almost 4000, that's because I kind of neglected her needs and just kept going with the items I had to see how much I would get before she started looking thin like how she did in manly's video for most of the time, it was mostly so i could do a massive spending on items to see what would change her)
By hour 2, i was feeling kind of down because I realized that no matter what I did, she wasn't really evolving and I started thinking it might had to do to with letting her starve after all those items like how manly did to see if it would give some kind of different art, but I left tha option out because it just felt risky and like a waste of time to let her be close to dying for it, but things got pretty interesting when I just said "fuck it" and consumed all the seeds I had randomly gotten before during the 100 price point, that's where I got my first phase of the evolution (I'm guessing most endings have phases, I got through like 3 but we'll get into that right now, back when I downloaded it didn't have as much comments so I didn't have much to go on)
Instead of the phase being something scary or weird, it was actually pretty cute, it's like she looked happier and honestly it had me thinking I was finally going somewhere visibly, and then she evolved again and I thought I had finally discovered what it was (I have no idea what could have been I think maybe the seeds because the gameplay doesn't really tell you much unless something happens and you kind of gotta guess what changed it)
And I was like that for a while because she would be almost starving, like at 10% and that's where I would immediately feed her something before it actually affected her for her to de-evolve, but by giving her food she went back to phase 1, I have her some food again and she went to phase 2 again, and it just felt like a loop of decisions of trying to go somewhere with basically no info and just me guessing but also taking no notes because I wasn't really sure what was doing it
Until I consumed a certain item and she evolve into phase 3, she had these muscles and it felt like once again I was onto something and I thought maybe it had to be just consuming the exact same item all the time, but here's where I realized the first major issue:
If going by one certain item all the time is the clue to it, it's not really the best because you gotta get lucky with the wide variety of items there is and how getting some of them feels like 1-100 chance sometimes, I spent a lot of coins trying to get the same item with no result and I was going by the same exact point of coins I got it before for (either 200 or 300), and while this may be the way to finally find out, you gotta keep in mind she keeps starving and could de-evolve any time by herself so it feels like a race in between you and actually getting somewhere with the food before you gotta do twice what you had to do once
And that's really what at most I got because she just completely de-evolved by herself when I tried to give her rare items because she got back to phase 1 and I tried to keep going but it didn't really go anywhere, so I went by the seeds (I held onto them in the first hour because I thought they would do somewhere at some point and that's why by hour 2 I just gave them to her because it didn't really do anything and i wasn't gonna spend more time if the seeds were the thing)
So the main criticism is that the game feels really slow, like painfully slow even for players who have a lot of patience, getting an ending feels difficult (i didn't get one because by the time she went to her normal self i just knew it would be 2 extra hours of trying many things to just get to one point and then nowhere), and you're kind of lost most of the time despite trying different strategies, I was even more lost back then since there were only like 3 comments and two were criticism to how slow the game went
Nothing really happens to you if you just try to keep her alive so it just feels like a constant waiting of time for nothing because like I said, I was for like 2 hours with the same exact appearance because I just was keeping her alive hoping at some point something would change her, so maybe that was on me because I held onto the seeds because of her dialogues saying she maybe should hold onto them to see what would happen
And the biggest issue, the game is like a back and forth of trying. To the point I had gotten, I just had seen 3 appearances and with a lot of luck because I kept trying different things and none of them worked out for me (consuming A LOT of seeds, trying to go for the same item, it took too long and she would de-evolve, and others), it feels like you really gotta try to go somewhere and even then it feels like the only possible endings you could get are either her starving, the police catching you or you continuing for who knows how long and you don't really get access to the library (I'm guessing because I haven't died yet, i can still continue, but i was hoping that while I was still alive maybe the gallery could give me some clues, so I have no idea what that looks like)
And this is all for my massive yap session covering my own experience, I feel like the game has potential, the artwork is pretty interesting and that itself can keep you playing because of the intriguing sensation of when or what is gonna make something happen, of hoping for something massive to change after a certain amount of time of just being alive, but the issue is that it just doesn't, at least not for somebody who started with not much information other than 3 comments and this game page itself, I feel like it needs some major changes for it to actually thrive with the concept it has without feeling like way too much time spent for nothing, I'm honestly gonna keep checking just in case it gets that update because I still have high hopes for it and I feel like since it just released it can still get some pretty good changes :D
The short read of my comment is: I agree with many of the other comments here, and find this initial concept interesting. When it has a significant update I would greatly appreciate coming back to see more.
That said, I have some thoughts I'd like to share.
I echo the same sentiments as most others in the comments: apple seed RNG feels too high and gameplay loop has a lot left to be desired. I would like to throw out some suggestions for what could help change up the gameplay. These may already be ideas in consideration, so take this instead as "things I would look forward to seeing!"
In the beggar sections, I think being given some sort of choice options would be a bit more engaging. Like how you are forced to leave because of the police warning, maybe other random encounters could happen. I see the people dialogue having some people make "offers", I don't know how explicit you plan for this game to be, but having a choice in maybe taking up one of these offers could be a way that either helps you to earn more money or potentially lose money. I don't think it needs to necessarily be involving "sexual favors", and if it did then we don't need graphic detail. The game has an obvious vibe it's going for and it should try to keep in line with the desperation and the despair.
Some examples of various choice sections could be: someone asking the MC to do something that could potentially land her in trouble (ie. go throw a brick through the window of this place, like cruel and degrading pranks that have chances for consequences with the police), having someone she knows from school or work or family that maybe pities her or uses the opportunity to bully her, or having someone actually give her food instead which could maybe improve her health in a minor way (more on this in the vending machine section).
While you feel more helpless just sitting and waiting for people to give you money, I think that sense of desperation can still come through with more engaging moments like this. Certainly would help break up the waiting and make it feel all the more special if used sparingly.
In the vending machine sections, I think instead of tying the RNG purely to the amount of money punched in, it could also rely on the inputs of numbers put on the numpad. I see the vending machine art has a bunch of buttons, so it might be a case where a certain amount of money + a certain code combination could help you in getting a specific type of food (bugs, body parts, "normal" foods) and it may help to also make it so you can discern whether the item is a food or a drink.
I played through and only got food why my MC was dehydrated. Which actually, in real life, you would survive far less without water. So I feel like if the MC is dehydrated for too long, then that itself could be an ending where she dies to that rather than just starvation. But the idea of putting in money and punching in a code could have you making the choice to help your thirst meter or your hunger meter. (For example: 200 coins with the code 1234 gives you a food item, but 200 coins with 6789 gives you a drink, determined by food starting with odd numbers and drinks starting with even numbers, this could be more randomized to your discretion but it would be nice to have a little more control over just what you could possibly get).
I'm not familiar with the original SCP story so maybe that isn't how it works, but having this addition could then mean you could hide codes in areas or have hints that can steer people to try things and thus get special food items that could lead to rare endings.
As for food intake, I think there should be more immediate responses from the MC to certain foods. If a certain food is conventionally repulsive (rats on a stick or eyeballs in a jug) then I think there should be a more immediate chance of the MC becoming sick or even refusing to eat it. Maybe she will only eat it if she has 0% in her stats, but I also think there should be chances of success that then increase the more that she eats a specific food type. The more successes she gets, it could also become more filling and allow her to sit and beg more without worry of immediately starving.
Maybe it can also psychologically effect her as she may become dependent on a specific type of food. This is where the food RNG can come back into play because as you focus on a certain food group, for example: bugs, then anything that isn't a bug can be more repulsive or be something she refuses to eat.
Additional gameplay elements, I think this game would greatly benefit from an in-game clock or calendar system. It would help to have a limited amount of time day-to-day or to have certain times of day better spent at various places. Sitting and waiting in real time can become quickly disengaging and tiresome if you're doing nothing else to engage with the game. Which is where many folks would like to ask for some sort of additional gameplay feature or for the begging sessions to be shorter.
And what might be nice to go in tandem with this is to choose a location to beg at. So depending on the time of day, maybe you can go to different places to either have more chances for earning or to decrease your chances of getting into trouble. Whether that be by the law or unkind and cruel people.
So maybe during midday, you can go to a park to beg. This can come with advantages and disadvantages, so:
advantage=Police won't bother you for being in the public park
disadvantage=being out in the sun has a chance of causing sunburn and makes you thirsty faster.
Then at night, you can beg by the street near the fancy restaurants:
advantage=more chances for earning money and potentially receiving safe food
disadvantage=police are more likely to catch you. Then rather than have a window pop-up asking if you want to wrap up, maybe have one of the random dialogues in the corner say "That's so despicable, someone should call the cops" the dialogue bubble could be a different color just to help make it more accessible for people to pick up on it being important dialogue to pay attention to.
Now for some very nitpicky, small quality of life changes I think could be useful in just polish and feel of the game:
Overall, I see you have a few other games that I am interested in checking out! This could be just a small project that you don't plan to go further, but the concept is neat so I'd love to see an update that further explores it. This is a great start and the polish you do have is wonderful: good art, the music is thematically nice, and a fairly clean and easy to navigate UI! This has an incredible start, don't take all the criticism too harshly as understandably, it is in a proof of concept phase that I see having the potential to build to a good resource management game. As well as tell a twisted narrative involving the psychological effects around food from an unknown source with dubious effects.
I'm currently making a video, which will include all the references I was able to understand, but the dialpad isn't how the original SCP worked. It was based on 3 things in the story: The amount put in (more the 500 yen is bad), the amount of times used (more then 10 times in a day is bad), and whether it's powered or unpowered (unpowered is bad). With that being said, the developer could do a ton with that alone.
What do I need to do to get each ending? what is the requirements for each transformation/path?
I haven't reached any endings but been noticing some transformations
Easiest one is the appleseed transformation, having 5 different stages. You can just pay 10 constantly to get 10 seeds, or pay 50 to get 50 seeds. It happens everytime from my experience and I've been playing for about 5h straight now (help)
Then's the bug/insect transformation, it's tricky and I've only seen one stage of it. Been slowly eating appleseeds so I remain normal and not starved while saving up insect foods. Leeches don't seem to count toward this, idk about snails. Worms do. I've only seen 1 stage of this transformation
Idk about rest, only drinking sodas leads nowhere from what I've seen
If you pay 500 you often get objects?... I feel like eating multiple objects in a short time period might give some new transformation path
Then there's human related items like the baby looking thing and eyes. Could also lead somewhere, I haven't gotten enough of those items to dare and try (edit: doesn't seem to lead anywhere, ate about 6 of these items. Maybe they negate each other somehow or just don't have transformation path)
I've been decompiling the code and I can confirm that there are 6 paths! There's the anorexia line (starving), perfect line (eating healthy food), unhealthy line (eating unhealthy food), anomalous line (eating anomaly-type food), parasite line (eating bugs), and the "hollow bride" line (consuming a lot of liquid).
The healthy and unhealthy lines have 5 transformations, while the others only have 3 transformations. This is the snippet of code I found about the requirements.
I've been working on a spreadsheet listing what food counts towards what transformation!
Agree! I also decompiled it and I think the ideal strategy (in version 0.1.00 at least) is
Minor optimizations:
takes a lot of insect and bug foods to get there, got this after she looked fat (fat is an unrelated stage to this)
saved up bug and insect foods and ate 10yen seeds to grind
note: leeches don't count toward this
How do you get anything other than starving to death
appleseeds
paying 10 or 50 gives them, 10 feels to be better value
just spamming those and waiting for money to build up
I see, then when i have like 20 000 money ho do you advise to spend it? What should i avoid?
Like 200 at a time, 1000 or what?
from what I've seen 500 gives object related items a lot of the times, 1000 gives either "KFC" or 1000seeds
100 seems to give a variety of items (esp insect related) anything below it gives seeds
10 and 50 always give seeds
idk about rest honestly anything over 1000 is just pain to insert into the vending machine you starve in the process lol
Eating enough bugs makes you into one apparently...
holy shit
That kinda cool ngl damn
How exactly do I get any endings other than getting arrested or starving to death?
The game needs dome QoL and bug updates, but otherwise seems like a good little game.
QoL:
- A fastfoward button would be great. Too much idle time waiting for coins
- Maybe some new dialogue that hints to you what ending you are currently on
Bugs:
- The gallery (I didn't bother to play too long because I don't see the point until this is fixed. Which I am guessing this is to keep track and see which endings/food items you have gotten? Or at the very least I hope it is the food items. I would love to keep track of that.)
giving 10 000 to the machine doesn't give anything special
adding proof pics soon if itch.io allows me to, struggling to post a comment with pictures
strategy for saving for me were 50 and 10 yan apple seeds (mainly 10yan)
takes too many hours tho lol
idk why I was left with 105 money, I know I inserted 10000 to the vending machine
haven't seen this item before but it didn't seem that special that it'd be worth 10k, I'll test later how much food it gives
it's worthless. about 5-10% food, 0% thirst
very tedious to collect and isnert coins, hopefully rng gets reduced or improved and some sort of fast forward is implemented :'D
cool arts and concept though
This is honestly a really neat little concept for a game. The simple scarcity and desperation of I-will-eat-basically-anything feels novel. Unfortunately, as it currently is, I've been at this for 3 hours trying to see anything other than just steady starvation by attrition, to no avail, and this has resulted in the gameplay loop wearing out its welcome. I feel like the tedium is an intentional part of the experience, and I can appreciate that, but there's such a thing as overdoing it (which, although I know the game isn't in its finished state, is how the experience currently plays). Would come back to this if it were a little less arbitrary in how long it takes to achieve the payoff.
Still, to stress again, solid concept! But really needs some fixing up so that I can actually find the content you put into the game.
welcome back anomalous coffee machine...
Yeah same as all other comments. Beyond the apple seed apotheosis, achieving anything else is far too difficult. wanted to see the bug ending, but if you can't see the hidden values that determine how the character transforms, the RNG just holds this thing back far too much. it would take Hours just to farm the bug food and then you would have to stave to reset your values and then hope you have saved up enough.
compounding that with the lack of the galery feature surry i can onyl give a thumbs down.
chocolate penis? we gonna get a sex update?
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ꉣꋪꍏꌗꀤꍟ ꓄ꃅꍟ ꍏꉣꉣ꒒ꍟ ꌗꍟꍟꀸꌗ
What a neat little game. I think I'm gonna make a video on it, just to document all the items currently in the game. I love the fact that there is a mobile version too?? I thought that was absolutely awesome, I've never seen a game do that before. When I post the video, I'll be sure to upload it here. Looking forward to seeing the full game.