Hey guys,

im currently working on a 2D Idle RPG. My goal is to have as many meaningful progress systems as possible, offering the satisfaction of progress in every aspect while having engaging and fun gameplay.

Link to most current version

Version-history:

v.0.08 Demo (Current)

v. 0.07 Demo

v. 0.06 Demo

<h4>Background</h4>

I am working on this project since April 2019. Its my first game in Godot. So im using it to inch evercloser to my vision and learn Godot and other things on the way. Improving the game and myself.

The focus is on the management aspect of incremental games, trying to implement many parts of rpgs that make them feel very satisfying (coming closest to WAMI - Wizard and minion Idle)

I now have a small playable demo with not much content, just to get an idea of what i want to make. The UI is not final, most of the things are closest to prototype stage. But you can still give me feedback on those points if you have ideas for improvements and such.

<h4>Demo </h4>

Please give me your feedback, suggestions, ideas or passionate discussions. Its all really valuable to me!

  • You can kill monsters, get equipment,
  • equip the items, notice a difference in strength.
  • The character can level up
  • you can put points in to the stats
  • pick different worlds on the map with different monsters and loottables.
  • you can drag skills onto the skill-bar and use them that way

Note: in the demo your character is a "Gold Hoarder" (more classes to follow) that utilises the gold the player has to deal damage, buff etc. He has an inherent trait that gives him bonus damage depending on the amount of gold he holds.

As this game is centered around progress and the rpg feeling i can try to add more progress systems over time, while i flesh out and improve existing systems with the knowledge i gather.

My main motivation is that (IMO) many games nowadays are often good games in themselves but often lack in the progress aspects, either the systems are lackluster and dont offer anything to the gameplay or the progression-system lacks in depths and doesnt utilize its full potential. Or the game just doesnt have enogh progress systems. So it gets boring after a bit (being a good game but offering too few progress elements... im looking at you "Soda Dungeon"). I passionately enjoy those kinds of mechanics when they are done right and create a want and feeling of "i want to progress". Games like the old world of warcraft IMO understood how to make games interesting for a longer time: set benchmarks for players (this monster is strong, i cant defeat it yet) having a fun main gameplay loop everything you do (besides afk) lets you progress/become stronger Gold is relevant, because you can use it to become stronger (and have the need/want for that) and many more, but for me the progress part being the central one

Please try it out and tell me what you think. The current versions are still more like playable prototypes than representative of the end-product. Im learning as i go, so some aspects can change in a profound way.

<h4>Core principles:</h4> - The player will always have one or multiple goals in front of them, that they want to achieve. - the player will progress (get stronger) by any activity - The player can play actively or passively like an idle game - Every aspect of the game has to be fun and if it gets monotonous, automate it - 100% free (no way to use real money in the game, as it destroys the feeling of progress) - no artificial time-gating (wait for X to finish) - make the gameplay intuitive and easily understandeable - The things you find will always be relevant (ressources, gold etc.)

<h4>Current Features implemented:</h4> Inventory Health System Experience System Achievements 6 Worlds (with unique monsters) World-map Crafting Weapon-Masteries (Train these masteries by using a weapon-type and profit from the gained mastery-levels even if you dont use those weapons) enhance your items CharacterStats * Monster-Titles (gain bonuses for killing monsters a certain amount of time, monster-specific and small global bonuses)

<h4>Some progress systems planned (not ordered by priority):</h4> - Weapon-leveling (weapons get stronger) - Weapon-skill-tree - skill-mastery (skills get stronger over time, also get new effects) - Base/Camp to build and upgrade buildings that boost the player and give ressources and such - Add some minigames (that are optional, completely idle is still possible)

Edits: Improve formulations, grammar and layout

Edit2: Added current version to top-post!

a month later

Soo, it seems that it has been one month since my last Preview. Currently there is no working demo, as im still polishing on some features and trying to understand how they fit into my vision of the game. Will try to upload a new Demo soon when i feel like its worth showing. Most of my work was refactoring anyway, so it wont look like much right now.

Features added: - custom tooltips: I have now made custom tooltips as godot's standard hint_tooltip is way too inflexible and slow to handle my requirements - Unlock concept: Now i can lock and unlock features reiliably with the help of a central controller - Fishing minigame prototype: Small mini-game to have a experiment to see how mini-games fit into the flow of the game - Added Rough Weapon-Masteries Concept: The player can now level up masteries by using certain weapon-types at his disposal and will get stronger when using those weapons as well as receive a global bonus even when they dont wear that weapon-type. - Save-System: I implemented a save-system for a certain version (in the last version its stable, but it broke again, because i made some big changes. So i will wait until i want to push another version to upgrade it again) - Added prototype Gathering-Encounter - Added a Directory-Loader for game-objects: Before i had to define each .gd file i wanted to load, that represented a skill etc., i had to hardcode these. So I built a Util-Class that could load files from a folder in the project and load them into a dict, so i can use them on runtime without having to spend much time on changing paths etc. (Big Timesaver!!!) - Slimmed down the code drastically, removed a lot of old obsolete code - Changed Project-structure to System-Based folders (everything that belongs to one system comes into one folder) instead of the old structure where i would separate based on category (UI, Classes, Systems, Globals). this currently makes working in the project a lot easier as I dont have to search for every script im looking for. - Reworked Battle-System to Encounter-System: Before the game had to be in a constant battle with monsters (it didnt know any other state). - The save-System was the biggest hassle out of all of them because my knowledge of the different ways of saving and some core functionalities of godot werent clear to me yet (inst2dict, dict2inst, var2bytes, bytes2var, serialization in godot, class-types: Resource, Script) But as there is currently not enough content so that its even worth to have a save-system, i will invest more time when the need arises. And with the new-won knowledge until then i might be able to make it cooler, better, more reliable. - Reworked the Stage-System in a way that makes it easier for me to add new worlds and define them with impactful mechanics/individuality) - Reworkd the monster-scripts and how they were instantiated. - Added Parser: Now at some places i can just write a string to define certain objects instead of having to finickly write dicts for everything. So for example i write "gold:20", the parser will convert it to a Ressource_Cost Object that has its own data-holder functionality. - I built a prototype for the Class-Ressource System for the gold hoarder but i pushed back that progress because i want to see how the classes fit into my crafting/gathering/town-side of the game (and my interest in those regards are higher now)

I have had time to think a lot about my vision and the different scenarios and pitfalls etc, so some parts of my games may change/vary. Vision that changed/was refined over the last month:

  • More focus on the town: gathering/crafting skills and recipes are based on the town and their people rather than on the character.
  • Current idea is to have monsters mainly drop ressources that the player can then use for all the other things like recipes, crafting, upgrades etc (but im working hard to make sure that this wont become tedious like in "Swag and Sorcery" where you have to manually refine everything and find a recipe that may maybe make sense. Rather i want a system where the player feels rewarded along the way and rather just has to manage where he wants to invest his ressources first, where those ressources might make sense for him the most right now. An Idea here would also have been that the player kinda teaches the town about things he discovers, gaining passive income for those ressource-types. So for example if the player encounters a new ressource, at first he can only "actively" collect it by encountering it. But after a certain time/skill-level/ressources found, the player can upgrade a gather-building in town (for example the mine) where from now on the player will have a passive income of that ressource.

My current next steps are:

  • Get a concept of the Town working
  • Gathering (Gathering-Encounters, passive income, gathering-Skill/Mastery-System)
  • Crafting (Create items from ressources, modify Items (enhance etc.)
  • Food (Buffing player and town)
16 days later

Hey guys!

Long time no see!

I have a new Version you can try out (works best in Firefox):

https://www.grinning-games.de/progress_game/0_07/progress_game.html

I changed a lot and still had a lot planned for this version, but i wanted to put something out before i burn out on working for the demo. This is still a prototype!

If you cant progress, let your character farm at a lower monster to gain level and weapon masteries.

I nearly changed everything about the backend, so it may seem close to v0.06 but only in visuals. New Features: - Saving functionality (game saves every 2 minutes, spacebar to save, escape to load, R to wipe save (after which you have to restart the game) - 3 levels of the same skill (with different side effects) - Weapon-masteries: lets you level up your weapons by auto-attacking - new custom made tooltips: should now display relevant informations reliably - sketched world map (WIP) - 6 new levels - 6 tiers of items - effects on items - something remotely resembling balancing - and some more stuff

Please give me your feedback!

7 days later

Armored slug... nice. lol. Level 2, so far so good. Gonna let this run for awhile

Potential bug (or feature?): I'm one-shotting the slug boys now, and sometimes there's a bleed effect that persists through the life of the next ~2 slugs. I'm PRETTY SURE it's a feature but it seems like a bug.

Discovered click damage accidentally. There seems to be no incentive to use it, which I'm actually fine with.

When I equip any gear, it re-appears in my inventory a few seconds later.

World 2: Welp that horse thing is something else. Time for nightmares. Now I gotta grind through the rest to see what other foul abominations you've constructed. Very nice +1

@organicpencil Hey mate! Thank you for your feedback and playing the game! That the bleed effect persists is a feature, because i wanted the dot to have a bigger impact when "farming" lower creatures. But i may change it if its too nonsensical. At a later point i could add it as a perk "dot effects persist between fights".

When I equip any gear, it re-appears in my inventory a few seconds later.

This happens because im discarding duplicates that you get to prevent the inventory from overspilling. Will change this with an inventory-rework, so i can also check for duplicates in equipped items (equipment and inventory are currently 2 separate systems)

Discovered click damage accidentally. There seems to be no incentive to use it, which I'm actually fine with.

I personally also dont like games that force you to click, because that only makes the idle less fun (forces you to play active), so i let people click for a small incentive (1% damage per click). Currently im planning to add an itemslot with a clicker-item that clicks for the player including click-masteries (clicks can trigger stuff etc.) so the player can play actively but also just idle with no big disadvantages (one of my core principles for the game. You can play active if you want but you can also keep going idle and are not punished for either (or for switching modes).

Thank you again! :blush:

a month later

Hey guys,

I was having a busy time at work and took kind of a hiatus from the game.

Right now im working on getting the project up to new standards, trying to see if those can improve my workflow within the project.

The game got some smaller updates (mostly UI and a Notification-Window) but im targeting v0.08. Dont know when it will come, but it will entail a crafting prototype.

Keep it up and have a great day!

3 months later

Hey guys, its been a while.

Moved towns for work.

In the last three months i was working less frequently and when i did i worked on refactoring the project, so it would use custom Resources for data internally.

Currently also kind of burnt out on the project. Still have great ideas (imo) but burnt out on the work-process.

@jbrooks79 said: lol Well done, Good game . .

Thanks! :)

5 months later

Hey guys, long time no posts.

Im still deep in development and was refactoring major parts of the game (lots of backend) so im able to implement the game features i want to have.

Most other featured got pushed back as im currently working a lot on polishing current content and getting the main game-play loop right. Also doing major UI changes.

feature teaser: https://streamable.com/0pw5ek

combat teaser: https://streamable.com/hkazu6

weapon masteries now have proper unique effects also influencing the players attack.

Im currently working towards v0.08, which will have crafting, ressources and item enhancing (+1 and quality) and (idleable) content of around 2 hours.

Spells/Skills are currently removed, as im reworking those in a major way for a later version, so they have a proper place in the game (and are actually fun to use).

Hi @Reneator, found you over here (it took me a while to link your name to your username here and the game...). I will try your demo later!

@Saitodepaula said: Hi @Reneator, found you over here (I took me a while to link your name to your username here and the game...). I will try your demo later!

Hey, Thanks mate!

Its a pretty old demo though, so v 0.08 is pretty close, bringing a lot of improvements.

But you are still more than welcome to try it out at v0.07, just to notice the dfference in polish :)

Thank you!

Keep it up!

Glad you're still working on this! I love the enemies. Perfect level of weirdness.

@organicpencil said: Glad you're still working on this! I love the enemies. Perfect level of weirdness.

Thank you mate!

Really happy you like them!

Then here one of the latest monsters i made, but not sure if i use it in the game:

22 days later

FINALLY:

V0.08 is out:

You can play it on itch.io or download it: https://reneator.itch.io/progress-game

I reworked the game from the ground up, so a heavy focus was on useability and enabling me to build new features faster and better.

New features: - Ressources (you get them by defeating monsters or through other sources) - Crafting (you can now find recipes and craft items for the ressources you find) - Enhancing (after you crafted 5 items, you can spend ressources to increase the strength of your item) - Monster Titles( Earn titles by killing monsters and gain permanent bonuses) - Achievements

I removed spells for this version, as they deserve to be done properly (so they are actually fun and engaging) and have an entire version dedicated to them and i finally wanted to have something out for people to play-test after about 10 monts of development.

Tell me what you think of it!

15 days later

I'm a fan of idles, watching this one. Keep up the good work!

6 days later

Soo, to keep you guys updated on whats happening:

I started development on v0.09, which will have the following features: - Spells/Skills (including an auto-caster with deeper mechanics so you still use skills while you idle) - Worlds get split up into multiple zones so you can farm until you are strong enough to beat the boss of the world, to progress to the next world - Optional Story: Story and dialogues incorporated in a way that the player can engage in it whenever he wants but doesnt disturb the flow or even pausing the game or any silliness like that - Town: The player encounters a town in which he can build/upgrade buildings to unlock features and gain power through various means. - Reworking stats to improve "class-fantasies" and make stats more valuable and items more interesting and more "choice-based"

I plan on releasing experimental builds for 0.09, where you can play the first chapter/world to try out those new systems while they are still in development and give feedback on them, to help me create a well rounded and fun experience.

I post near-daily development updates on the Progress Game Discord: https://discord.com/invite/MmJrgYE

a month later
4 months later