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Feline Mind Meld
Jun 14, 2007

I'm pretty creeped out

something posted:

So, a game where you produce lootboxes and then pay real money to open them up, giving you more materials to make better (and more expensive) loot boxes?

Or skip all that and give me a cheque with the amount left blank :eyepop:

A game where you play idle games to produce meta idle games, and each lesser tier of game is used for IAP in the level above.

Available for cash as well though.

Yw

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something
Aug 1, 2011

Have you ever seen
The most pure look of delight
On a Babby's face?

Pillbug

Klungar posted:

Sounds kind of like Shark Game, but without the placement.

I haven't played shark game in a while but if i recall wan't that game more like swarm sim, with a series of sea creatures you hired to produce more and more fish? This would have a grid-based placement system kind of like in reactor idle.

Klungar
Feb 12, 2008

Klungo make bessst ever video game, 'Hero Klungo Sssavesss Teh World.'

something posted:

I haven't played shark game in a while but if i recall wan't that game more like swarm sim, with a series of sea creatures you hired to produce more and more fish? This would have a grid-based placement system kind of like in reactor idle.

Yeah, like I said, there is no placement, but it wasn't like Swarm Sim/Antimatter Dimensions, where everything just produces the next level down. There were lots of different resources, units that produced resources, units that consumed resources to make different resources, units that consumed units to make other resources, units that consumed resources to make other units, etc. Much more of a crafting/economy set-up.

Devor
Nov 30, 2004
Lurking more.

something posted:

I haven't played shark game in a while but if i recall wan't that game more like swarm sim, with a series of sea creatures you hired to produce more and more fish? This would have a grid-based placement system kind of like in reactor idle.

So Shark Game if you place your building correctly, Shark Game but less efficient if you place them incorrectly

Give me belts or give me death

LordSloth
Mar 7, 2008

Disgruntled (IT) Employee
Ive got the dumbest possible inspiration for an idle game: US Politics. Your prestige currency would be in the form of Putins. Rebirth would happen automatically, the only question is how far you could go before the collapse.

You start out juggling debts from the Taj Mahal, but come 2000 you become a reform party candidate. And so on. Can you eventually ascend to the throne of God-Emperor while Warhammer 40k music plays and Slaneesh pees on you endlessly?

Captain Foo
May 11, 2004

we vibin'
we slidin'
we breathin'
we dyin'

LordSloth posted:

Ive got the dumbest possible inspiration for an idle game: US Politics. Your prestige currency would be in the form of Putins. Rebirth would happen automatically, the only question is how far you could go before the collapse.

You start out juggling debts from the Taj Mahal, but come 2000 you become a reform party candidate. And so on. Can you eventually ascend to the throne of God-Emperor while Warhammer 40k music plays and Slaneesh pees on you endlessly?

:chloe:

Falcon2001
Oct 10, 2004

Eat your hamburgers, Apollo.
Pillbug
Couple things:

1. I would absolutely like more idle games in the vein of ReactorIdle / FactoryIdle but with a more interesting system and maybe a prestige system to give you the ability to choose between active/idle gameplay.

2. http://structure.zefiris.su/ been playing this which I saw someone post and if you're into much more idle-y games than active play, it's pretty interesting honestly. Every level or so introduces new stuff and nothing's been fully gamechanging but it's been interesting at least.

Super Jay Mann
Nov 6, 2008

If you want to do something about building placement/supply chain mechanics and whatnot, you probably want to look at something like Anno as much as you would Factorio. Factorio's gameplay emphasizes aesthetics and interesting methods of automation to achieve a goal with the added subgoal of not getting run over by aliens. Anno (the good ones anyway) are more focused on other aspects like supply-and-demand, resource and space scarcity, and supply chain efficiency (efficiency isn't as important in Factorio because resource scarcity isn't really a thing).

Not that I'm advocating any specific approach from these but I think it's useful to look at contrasting examples of gameplay systems in similar genres to see what tradeoffs and what direction in gameplay you want to go for rather than just looking at one game you really like and using that as a primary template.

Dr. Arbitrary
Mar 15, 2006

Bleak Gremlin
I think my dream game in this genre would incorporate something like Factorissimo or the way that SpaceChem lets you design subfactories that are used at a higher level in an abstracted way.

So, you start with a T0 factory, set it up and when you unlock the next tier up, those factories are single squares with inputs and outputs that are calculated based on the T0 layout.

As you progress, you unlock chains to produce upgraded parts, which you can then take down to lower levels, but if you've got 20 T0 widget factories and want to replace a iron grabber with a steel grabber, you need to parts for all 20.

Ineptitude
Mar 2, 2010

Heed my words and become a master of the Heart (of Thorns).
I love city builders and factorio but those reactor/factory idle games did not work at all for me.

There was so much uninteresting and frustrating micro management, the games were 100% idle for long periods then required a gigantic undertaking to upgrade to the next resource, then another long rear end period of idle, with no gameplay in between. Additionally, there was no sense of progress. Your numbers got bigger but they key feature of idle games where early mechanics become trivialized over time was non existant since you upgraded to a new resource type and completely phased out old resources so there were no earlier mechanics to trivialize. (And lets face it, these games were almost void of mechanics and features to begin with)

If someone can make this genre of idlers work it is somethinFOURg i am sure. Feel free to tone down the memes a bit though.

something
Aug 1, 2011

Have you ever seen
The most pure look of delight
On a Babby's face?

Pillbug
Perhaps you can unlock a higher # of building that can construct new items with material costs, and then later you can combine a large multiple of them to upgrade their production rate or efficiency, so as your production capabilities grow you'll always have some small objective to work on.

frankenbeans
Feb 16, 2003

Good Times
The biggest issue for me with factory idle and the similar one made by the same guy was that there is an optimum way to set up every 'space' you have. You either set it up the best way, or it sucked a world of rear end. Before long it became a game of google 'best layout room 3-1', and there was almost no interaction after the build. Just watch your number crawl up to one of about 5 upgrade options.

Furthermore, if you upgrade a unit without upgrading everything connected to it, your output cratered hard, sometimes to a point that you couldn't recover from. This further cemented the whole 'one way or die' design.

Unfortunately I don't really have any solutions. Maybe give people a choice of upgrades to units (max input, holding capacity, efficiency) that give you something to do between upgrades. Or have module options for machines to handle newer materials without destroying everything you've already made. Like 'The Machine' is a single entity and the core of the game, and everything else is a modular plugin. Prestige could update certain base stats of the machine depeding on how you designed it.

The real problem is getting out of the 'one way to play' mechanics. NGU doesn't yet have this problem as you can approach each rebirth in a number of ways, and some are better than others for certain things (stop progressing and run Mega Lands for boosts in the pre-BDW phase, 5-30 minutes rebirths for XP, etc.)

All that said, I'll play whatever you put out as you've built up a lot of good will, and will get a lot of mulligans.

Edit: Never spelt 'became' that badly in my life.

frankenbeans fucked around with this message at 20:44 on Sep 21, 2018

something
Aug 1, 2011

Have you ever seen
The most pure look of delight
On a Babby's face?

Pillbug
I've got at least a year to stew on this game idea because my next plans are finish evil mode/difficulty/idk what to call it, port to Steam, maybe assess the viability and do a mobile port. After that I can try out this idea while keeping up some token updates to NGU.

And yeah, those were the same parts I disliked about reactor idle, that you had pretty much one path to how you upgraded the reactor's capabilities, and one optimal layout. For this game I'd want to have a huge selection of materials you can make at varying degrees of difficulty and cost, all which have intertwining upgrades associated with costs of x or y materials, something so sprawling and complex that it's difficult to objectively say what is best, but at the same time it's very easy to a) have a target item in mind to make and b) easy to set up an optimal or near-optimal system for creating such an item.

Dr. Arbitrary
Mar 15, 2006

Bleak Gremlin
Just throwing ideas out here:

Suppose you have an iron factory with inputs of coal and ore, coming in from one of the cardinal directions and iron (and possibly waste products) leaving through another direction.

The grid for building starts at 4x4, with the smelter being 2x2. Not much room to work. Maybe you could fit two smelters in with clever arrangement, but otherwise you'll have free space.

Those free spaces can hold desks for people of multiple kinds that produce lateral resources. Like maybe one will generate research based on the items in the factory, so even though you only have one furnace, there's a guy in there who gives you furnace research points.

Maybe every part used in a factory just innately generates xp for it's type, and empty space generates a different type of currency. So yeah, you can optimize things to use only 4 conveyors when a naive design would use 8, but then you've halved your conveyor xp.

Maybe the xp curve is a square root, so oddball factories with lots of weird parts will be a great way to make progress on multiple fronts, whereas a very streamlined design will earn less total, but focused on the most important parts.

Do you have the tools to measure what players are doing in game, like in NGU do you know the median values for energy power by time played? If you can gather that, you can find a range for how people are designing things and make sure there's not too wide a gap between optimal and typical.

Spazzle
Jul 5, 2003

I haven't played in like a decade, so it might be different now, but there were a lot of ways in which Eve Online was an idle game. When you look at the the way that training interacted with ships and the game itself, and how it had the possibilities of running tasks for days or months there is a lot of the same game DNA there. It didn't have the same kind of orders of magnitude jumps that a lot of idle games do, but I wonder if that is played out anyways.

For something like a factory simulator, you could have a combination of skills, stats, random components with their own stats, and limited placement of those components in a facility to produce something, or have some kind of effect.

Devor
Nov 30, 2004
Lurking more.

Spazzle posted:

I haven't played in like a decade, so it might be different now, but there were a lot of ways in which Eve Online was an idle game. When you look at the the way that training interacted with ships and the game itself, and how it had the possibilities of running tasks for days or months there is a lot of the same game DNA there. It didn't have the same kind of orders of magnitude jumps that a lot of idle games do, but I wonder if that is played out anyways.

For something like a factory simulator, you could have a combination of skills, stats, random components with their own stats, and limited placement of those components in a facility to produce something, or have some kind of effect.

In the EVE vein, and also with the person who mentioned people sitting at desks - I liked how Master of Orion 2 did the Hero/Overseers - you could find/hire a guy who had bonuses, say +food and +ind, or +research and +morale, and you'd assign him to an entire system with multiple planets - and maybe the system had a mix of planets good for industry and food. But since you had a guy who really helped industry, then it made sense to focus all the planets in that system on industry even if there were some nominally good farming worlds.

When somethingggg was spoiling Diggers early on, I thought they were going to be more like that - random mixes of abilities, choose which ones to develop. Kind of like Mercenaries from Clicker Heroes.

Dr. Arbitrary
Mar 15, 2006

Bleak Gremlin
I really like the idea of a logistics game that starts at a very micro scale, like setting up a single production line and eventually ends up with setting up interplanetary networks.

Ineptitude
Mar 2, 2010

Heed my words and become a master of the Heart (of Thorns).
NGU

Finally gotten to Walderp.

Beat his rear end handily the first time (i couldn't play his game as he would said i didn't do his command, or when i did do his command he claimed he didn't say "Walderp says", regardless of whether or not he said "Walderp says" so i just beat his rear end between his statements)

I found him in one of the menus and went back to fight him again but now there is a 3 hour timer. I was planning on rebirthing, can i rebirth now or do i need to do the whole Walderp game (beat him and find him 3 times?) in a single rebirth?

Also it is unclear to me if i need to find him 3 times to finally beat him and to that whole deal 3 times, i.e. find him a total of 9 times?

Devor
Nov 30, 2004
Lurking more.

Ineptitude posted:

NGU

Finally gotten to Walderp.

Beat his rear end handily the first time (i couldn't play his game as he would said i didn't do his command, or when i did do his command he claimed he didn't say "Walderp says", regardless of whether or not he said "Walderp says" so i just beat his rear end between his statements)

I found him in one of the menus and went back to fight him again but now there is a 3 hour timer. I was planning on rebirthing, can i rebirth now or do i need to do the whole Walderp game (beat him and find him 3 times?) in a single rebirth?

Also it is unclear to me if i need to find him 3 times to finally beat him and to that whole deal 3 times, i.e. find him a total of 9 times?

You can rebirth, it remembers your fights with him

For the game, if he says "Walderp says XXX attack" your next attack MUST be XXX. If he just says "Do XXX attack" your next attack CANNOT be XXX.

You'll fight him 5 times before he stops hiding - he does get harder each time.

Lotus Aura
Aug 16, 2009

KNEEL BEFORE THE WICKED KING!

Falcon2001 posted:

2. http://structure.zefiris.su/ been playing this which I saw someone post and if you're into much more idle-y games than active play, it's pretty interesting honestly. Every level or so introduces new stuff and nothing's been fully gamechanging but it's been interesting at least.

There is one semi-active(ish) function at low stages but it only really becomes active in any way once you unlock Spellcasting stuff. Until then, every upgrade just makes it more hands-off if anything. :v: You do still have to check every now and then to reconfigure things and ascend to the next map, though.

Honestly one of my favorite features is that the help descriptions are dynamic and update themselves to be relevant to what you have. It's a really small and subtle thing but it's neat.

The Huge Manatee
Mar 27, 2014
I think factory idle type games could be improved by forcing you to buy off brand parts such that the inputs and outputs vary in direction and quantity, like the old pipe placement puzzle games.

No googleable solutions, you've just gotta use your head and make the most of what you get dealt.

Captain Foo
May 11, 2004

we vibin'
we slidin'
we breathin'
we dyin'

The Huge Manatee posted:

I think factory idle type games could be improved by forcing you to buy off brand parts such that the inputs and outputs vary in direction and quantity, like the old pipe placement puzzle games.

No googleable solutions, you've just gotta use your head and make the most of what you get dealt.

Diablo-esque modifiers on your pipes and parts

Devor
Nov 30, 2004
Lurking more.

Captain Foo posted:

Diablo-esque modifiers on your pipes and parts

Roguelike Idle

Captain Foo
May 11, 2004

we vibin'
we slidin'
we breathin'
we dyin'

Devor posted:

Roguelike Idle

YES

GrossMurpel
Apr 8, 2011
Aren't idle games already kind of roguelite because you come up to a point where you can't progress so you start from scratch with some bonuses that carry over?

something
Aug 1, 2011

Have you ever seen
The most pure look of delight
On a Babby's face?

Pillbug
if roguelike is purely defined as " you can lose, and if you lose you start from the beginning" then i guess this game also fits the bill of idle roguelike:

http://mogera.jp/gameplay?gid=gm0000002911

Captain Foo
May 11, 2004

we vibin'
we slidin'
we breathin'
we dyin'

Devor posted:

Roguelike Idle

I guess Dragon Cliff kinda exists but it is flawed

Samuringa
Mar 27, 2017

Best advice I was ever given?

"Ticker, you'll be a lot happier once you stop caring about the opinions of a culture that is beneath you."

I learned my worth, learned the places and people that matter.

Opened my eyes.
You write what you know so

NGU Idle Idle

You get to make your own NGU

comingafteryouall
Aug 2, 2011


Samuringa posted:

You write what you know so

NGU Idle Idle

You get to make your own NGU

Make it so you have to also manage the players and you can get tons of content from all the weirdos in Kong chat

GrossMurpel
Apr 8, 2011

something posted:

if roguelike is purely defined as " you can lose, and if you lose you start from the beginning" then i guess this game also fits the bill of idle roguelike:

http://mogera.jp/gameplay?gid=gm0000002911

What in the gently caress is going on

Ignoranus
Jun 3, 2006

HAPPY MORNING

GrossMurpel posted:

What in the gently caress is going on

I actually enjoyed this. Click on buttons to get money, then click on buttons to get things to click on buttons to get you money. Click on a button and you can't afford the thing? You lose! Start from the top.

When I got to the end Chrome gave me an error message about converting a circle to JSON so I don't know what is going on, but I think I beat it?

Ignatius M. Meen
May 26, 2011

Hello yes I heard there was a lovely trainwreck here and...

Ignoranus posted:

I actually enjoyed this. Click on buttons to get money, then click on buttons to get things to click on buttons to get you money. Click on a button and you can't afford the thing? You lose! Start from the top.

When I got to the end Chrome gave me an error message about converting a circle to JSON so I don't know what is going on, but I think I beat it?

Yeah it's pretty good for what it is. It's not a concept that can stretch far but 5 minutes or less to hit the end feels just right.

That error is almost certainly about hitting the max value for an integer. Most games any more use a larger integer type, but even then they can eventually hit the limit and have to work around that (for instance, Realm Grinder).

something
Aug 1, 2011

Have you ever seen
The most pure look of delight
On a Babby's face?

Pillbug
What's everyone's best time? I can pull off a 285 :smuggo:

Ignatius M. Meen
May 26, 2011

Hello yes I heard there was a lovely trainwreck here and...

something posted:

What's everyone's best time? I can pull off a 285 :smuggo:

I think I pulled off a 161. Maybe it was 261?

I'm almost certain it can be done in 2 minutes or less. Let's say a minute or less is the challenge point.

something
Aug 1, 2011

Have you ever seen
The most pure look of delight
On a Babby's face?

Pillbug
way to make me feel inadequate in under 30 seconds

no really bravo

edit: I don't thinkunder a minute is possible, you need to stay alive for 60 seconds with the final tier bought to win.

Ignatius M. Meen
May 26, 2011

Hello yes I heard there was a lovely trainwreck here and...

something posted:

way to make me feel inadequate in under 30 seconds

no really bravo

edit: I don't thinkunder a minute is possible, you need to stay alive for 60 seconds with the final tier bought to win.

The number was fresh in my mind, sorry. :shrug:

That's a fair point. Sub 2 minutes is probably still doable with more precise numbers and timings than what I used.

Ineptitude
Mar 2, 2010

Heed my words and become a master of the Heart (of Thorns).

Devor posted:


If he just says "Do XXX attack" your next attack CANNOT be XXX.


:doh:

Ignoranus posted:

Click on a button and you can't afford the thing? You lose! Start from the top.


Oh! Couldn't figure out why i randomly lost. Im used to spamming clickable buttons in these games...




Guess i am too stupid to play these games

Omi no Kami
Feb 19, 2014


Dumb NGU question: the completion bonus for the magitech set includes 3 Magic Bars, and "1 Magic Bar Bars". Is that a typo, or are bars and bar bars mechanically distinct things?

Sage Grimm
Feb 18, 2013

Let's go explorin' little dude!
Check the Sellout shop. One of the consumables has that name. :v:

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Omi no Kami
Feb 19, 2014


Ooh derp, of course it's the last place you look... thanks, I feel silly now :)

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