Red Riding Hood and the Little Bad Wolf DEMO is out!
Red Riding Hood and the Little Bad Wolf, as the name may suggest, is a little game inspired by the tale of Little Red Riding Hood in its various versions, from Perrault to Grimms, from Calvino to not-so-dressed ladies at the mercy of fierce giant-pawed wolves.
Or something like that.
«A young man with a red hood wants to visit his grandmother who lives on the other side of the forest.
A young wolf girl wants to eat a young human and the best way to do it is to lure them deep into the woods.
The young man with the red hood asks for a guide and the young wolf girl volunteers. If only the young man with the red hood wasn't so suspicious...»
Coordinates:
🌿 Available on Itch.io (Click me! Click me!)
🌿 In English and Italian
🌿 30 minutes up to 1 hour of playtime between walking simulator, exploration, absurd puzzles and even more absurd game overs
🌿 Major warnings for the demo: alcohol, stupid references to cannibalism, light sexual references, mild language in few scenes
[Full warning list on the Itch.io page or on its Tumblr tab]
Features:
🥧 Original artworks so beautiful you have no idea no really you have not
🥧 Puzzles that go against the most basic laws of physics
🥧 A Big Red Riding Hood and a Little Bad Wolf Girl
🥧 A lot of trees, flowers, wine and focacce
🥧 Complete version will features 4 endings, mainly inspired by the various versions of Little Red Riding Hood but a little less gore (?) - This is the demo’s feature list but I wanted to say it anyway
🍃 Please note that this is the demo. The complete version may have some differences.
I've been working on this game since 2019, it's time to release! ... At least the demo, that's it. I think the total length of the game will be about two or three hours. Meanwhile, here are the first thirty minutes/one hour.
It's a silly and unpretentious little fantasy game, but I hope you enjoy it!
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You know that indescribable emotion of getting to work seriously on your game projects and seeing Unlimited Bug Works and plot downtimes blossom here and there? I think it's still a positive thing, because it means that you're really working on your projects!
In case your answer was "no", I don't care, I know you crave to know what's going on behind the scenes, so I'll tell you anyway.
Welcome to "Soe does devlog", an occasional release of a completely random series.
Red Riding Hood and the Little Bad Wolf
Run run ruuuuun!
I completed the English translation of the game's current build in early March. That means that about 95% of the total game is translated, I just have to… like… finish the game.
And it was at this point that I finally realized what The Problem was: the last area before the endings didn't quite convinced me. The gameplay was non-existent (You had to check 20+ things mechanically, all in a dark map with running disabled. Exciting, isn't it?) and the dialogues were also quite weak.
What a cute place! What could possibly go wrong?
Well, nothing, because it's a boring place!
So, I decided to tear down that section and do it all over again.
At the moment I've fixed the dialogues, improved the map and re-enabled the run. Disabling it was my attempt at creating some sort of atmosphere, but I thought that if I found it in a game, I wouldn't think at it as atmospheric but as annoying.
What I'm missing is not exactly a "gameplay", rather finding a good way for the player to interact with the story in that specific area. (Best explanation ever!) At that point, the game went through a rather long cutscene, albeit with choices, and immediately after that the endings split up: I don't want that point to feel like a stagnant moment. Not crackling or very memorable, just, I wish it wasn't "outdone" by the rest of the game.
The Night of the Candy Apple
To infinity...
There are over 100 switches for a game that can last as long as three minutes and I don't know what to think about it.
The moment I went to betatest it, I realized that I had greatly underestimated my gameplay ideas.
In The Night of the Candy Apple it's possible to explore the entire "haunted house" without completing any puzzles - Either leaving them half done, or one quarter, or three quarters. This, however, implies switch after switch for how many party members are there, to take into account what has been discovered and what has not been discovered, which cutscenes there have been, at what point in the puzzle the player has arrived. Obviously I had already put them, but I had put them for the biggest and most obvious things, I hadn't considered the details and the brief moments in which it would have been possible to leave the room without having completed it first.
Also, I've fallen into the trap of "I'm the author and I know what's supposed to be done." Heartfelt thanks to my betatester, @time-lapse-games, who pointed out many - many - things that probably would not have pleased those who are not omniscient. Maybe, after I release the game (Someday), I'll make a post with all the wtf?s. For now, I can say that there is the "puzzle where you have to recreate a room", and there were 1. two almost identical objects and therefore it was not known which one to put where 2. the possibility for the player to get stuck in the walls of the room - FOREVER.
Another funny thing is the fact that TWO puzzles, once put into practice, proved to be unfeasible.
The first one was a jigsaw puzzle. Simple. The problem is that there are no VX Ace scripts for jigsaw puzzles. I searched in English, in French, in Spanish, in Portuguese, in Japanese, in Italian, but nothing, nobody seems to know how to do jigsaw puzzles in RPG Maker VX Ace. I saw that there is a script to do this, but it doesn't have the check switch, so there's no way to let the game know that you've completed it. If anyone knows of a jigsaw puzzle script for the VX Ace that has a completion check, please let me know PLZ PLZ - They won't get anything but my gratitude, but they'll know that they are a good and merciful person.
For those who were thinking that I could replace the jigsaw puzzle with a sliding puzzle, the fact is that I hate them with passion and that I would never self-inflict the pain of testing one on myself or on the betatester. (Nothing against those who love them, uh, I just find them frustrating.)
In the end, I solved it by completely changing the puzzle. Easier to do, I still would have preferred the jigsaw puzzle, but I don't mind.
What will be beyond this? It will be possible to find out, because I changed the puzzle to unlock it!
The second one is in the very first "haunted house" room, which is definitely cool. The gameplay involves a series of questions and the idea was that you could stop the questions at any time and just walk away. I've tried everything, but nothing, first the questions ended and then the "leave" event happened (!).
In the end, after looking at the horizon and reflecting on my life choices, I opted for a solution that may not be graphically beautiful but it's much more easy and direct.
Among other notable things was seeing that I was having difficulty with my own gameplay ideas.
There was the realization that checking EVERYTHING just to see changing flavour texts would be a pain in the aXE, so I decided to put balloons to mark the different flavour texts.
Along the same stuff, puzzles are supposed to be solved by a specific party member. It's something I did on purpose, I even discarded a menu I liked because it omitted the "Formation"!
Well, once the cutscenes were done, I realized that I had completely forgotten about this. It took me a few minutes to put the switches and variables that were needed, but I still think about the fact that I forgot about the game features that I decided to put on purpose. I am unique and fantastic.
Red Riding Hood and the Little Bad Wolf + The Night of the Candy Apple
There are Galleries in both games, because I made CGs and I want everyone to see how good I am. Once done, I noticed that both Galleries have approximately 40 images and I realized I drew 80+ CGs in a couple of months (December-January). Not professional ones or like a cool artist who knows what they're doing, but my tools are a screenless tablet and Gimp and I think I did my best. They're not perfect, but I'm satisfied.
But why there are so many CGs? Actually, the reason is that I did it on a whim.
When I play an RPG game or when I see let's plays, there can be the moment where a book is found or a story is told and often what you see on the screen is the map with 349205 dialogue boxes and that's it. Likewise, there may be Game Overs where "it's supposed to happen something". I personally don't like them. I want to show the player why the character can no longer continue, I want to give a background of some sort to what is being read or narrated. Not that I did CGs for EVERYTHING of course, sometimes I just put a picture of a letter or something like that. Until I did the Galleries, I didn't realize I drew so much. I suppose it's a good thing, somehow?
(Also, does that mean that if my mental health is good 100% of the time I'd be super productive? *Don't exaggerate, now-*)
Now I will read this book and it will last several dialogue boxes, and you will not see the map, but us! It's completely different than usual RPGs, isn't it? Isn’t it...?
And that's it, for April 2023!
I hope you had a good Easter and I wish you good luck with your projects!
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*So, when you think you're going to fin-* Shut up.
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