Temple of The Roguelike Forums
Development => Programming => Topic started by: NON on May 09, 2012, 09:09:31 AM
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Hi
I'm considering implementing drugs/alcohol to stave off insanity in Infra Arcana.
Would be cool to hear some ideas how it could work, what the penalties could be (addiction should of course be a risk).
I'm thinking it should reduce the long-term insanity for a cost of temporarily lowering your aiming/dodging/searching/whatever. And every time you use it, a variable counts up (invisible to the player, except maybe some occasional message when it gets above certain levels). The higher this number is, the higher chance for getting an addiction every time you use it.
Addictions would be a "thing" similar to phobias and compulsions. A pop-up appears telling you that you have it. For alcohol for example, you could have increased shock rate and terrible aim (shaky hands) when you don't drink :D
Give ideas please
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Alcohol could make you bleed worse/longer. Could also make you more susceptible to disease. Maybe even temporarily lower your health?
I think I like the idea of adding the drugs/alcohol to balance with sanity. Hard to really tell if it will work though until it has been tried out. It also fits the theme considering some authors of the time/type, many of which had alcohol/drug addictions. Poe comes to mind for one.
Too much drugs and booze could also eventually have adverse effects on your sanity. Possibly hallucinations.
I think the main thing is that drugs/booze should not have to be a necessary thing in the game to take, but rather something you can choose to take along with the risks in order to ease your sanity in dire moments.
Booze could also be used to throw like a potion maybe which could amplify the effects of the flare gun, cocktail, flame weapons, etc.
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Alcohol could make you bleed worse/longer. Could also make you more susceptible to disease.
Why? Is that a thing that alcohol does to people? Never heard of that
Hard to really tell if it will work though until it has been tried out.
It's like that with most features. But this seems like a funny/cool thing to include, and it will help establish the theme and setting more. Just need to get the mechanics right.
It also fits the theme considering some authors of the time/type
Drugs are mentioned in some Lovecraft stories. Sometimes as a method to cope with something horrible in the past.
Too much drugs and booze could also eventually have adverse effects on your sanity. Possibly hallucinations.
Sure
I think the main thing is that drugs/booze should not have to be a necessary thing in the game to take, but rather something you can choose to take along with the risks in order to ease your sanity in dire moments.
Yes this is what I was thinking too. It seems a bit sleazy if drugs and alcohol became a too central part of the game.
Booze could also be used to throw like a potion maybe which could amplify the effects of the flare gun, cocktail, flame weapons, etc.
I'll probably implement booze as a potion. So these things will practically come for free. But I'm not sure what you mean by amplify? More damage and/or burn duration? I suppose it could be helpful against really tough enemies. But against zombies and cultists for example, molotovs are already a bit overkill as it is :)
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Alcohol actually helps prevent disease. True story.
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It would be cool if certain drugs could help with spell casting, and generally increase stats. However as a disadvantage, taking certain drugs could reveal new horrible kinds of monsters (like in the Hounds of Tindalos).
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Those are awesome ideas! But for now I'm asking more for how the core mechanics of the drugs should work.
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If you drink substantially in a short amount of time you should be able to black-out and lose memory of recent past and future events, thus removing the insanity caused by an event. The downside I guess would be reduced combat ability or some vulnerability during this time. I think the mechanic of getting completely wasted after witnessing a truly horrific event would be pretty interesting.
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If you drink substantially in a short amount of time you should be able to black-out and lose memory of recent past and future events, thus removing the insanity caused by an event.
I'm not keeping track of individual events like that. I believe in keeping it simple:
Quaff one whiskey reduces insanity by X% but gives Y% to-hit penalty for Z turns. Something like that :)
Fainting could be an effect of too much drinking though
Since fainting does a toughness check, it would be hilarious
"You quaff whisky. The world is turning black... You resist fainting!"
The toughness ability could also be used for resisting addiction ;D
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Alcohol thins the blood. That's why I suggested that too much could make you bleed longer.
As for having alcohol amplify fire, I was thinking of flammable types of alcohol such as used in the cocktail, than could maybe make an enemy burn longer or with a little more damage when doused with alcohol before being set on fire. Or, if you throw it against the ground, then light it on fire (or vice versa), it could expand the effected area.
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Or, if you throw it against the ground, then light it on fire (or vice versa), it could expand the effected area.
That sounds like a really cool trap. But I'm doubting that pouring a bottle of whisky on the ground and lightning that on fire would cause a mayhem of destruction :) Wouldn't it just make some tiny flames? Or am I wrong? Does anyone know? If this is anywhere near a plausible strategy in real life, then I will not hesitate to add it to the game.
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If alcohol has only negative effects why would you drink it in the game? It doesn't make sense. What I did with alcohol is that I made it the only way to recover hit points (in Teemu), but it makes you confused (even dead) if you drink too much. I think it was such a brilliant idea and I'm seriously underrated as game developer.
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? ? ?
No one has talked about alcohol only having negative effects! It's primary use would be to reduce shock and/or insanity. It could also remove fear.
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No one has talked about alcohol only having negative effects!
Oh? Well, please, continue then.
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Perhaps there could be more in-depth fire mechanics. As in certain horrors and creatures are averse to fire, so spilling some liquor on the ground and lighting it could be used as a repellant.
However in truth alcohol burns very quickly and does little more than minor damage if spread on skin. The health effects to a person from drinking are also minor in the short term, unless ingesting a very huge dose (which would cause you to vomit and maybe faint anyway, preventing you from causing real health damage). Dizziness and such would make you less skilled in combat at high doses, though many people are fully capable of effective violence when drunk.
The key thing would be the effect on sanity. Alcohol would help the mind deal with sanity, and maybe increase confusion resistance, but make one more susceptible to sleep attacks and reduce accuracy a little in combat. In the setting I would say that the more you use alcohol to avoid insanity the more you come to rely on it and become less sane whilst sober. Many things in the game would cause a sobering up from the sheer horror of them, and you'd have to hit the bottle often to keep your mind from shattering, whilst overall weakening your mind a bit more with every swig.
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Thanks Darren, that's a very informative post. Could you speculate similarly on opium please? :)
Do you have any clue what would be the differences/similarities with alcohol (in terms of game mechanics, and real life effects)?
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Uh, well, I have less experience with that, and haven't already made a game based on opium mechanics already.
But in general opium is meant to make you useless and drowsy. The British traded heavily in opium with China in the 17th century with the specifically aim of keeping the "sleeping giant" quelled. I can't imagine it's use in the game being anything positive for the player.....
... unless you feck around with things a bit. How about having the story / theme of the game include elements about opium gangs and cultists that use opium. Perhaps the drug lets you get in touch with the other side more easily. It's dangerous to use, but can unlock the secrets of spells and improve their power manifold. It would be a way of introducing a glass cannon wizard build, based around opium abuse, but with the drawbacks of slower movement, withdrawal and frequent hallucinations.
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Uh, well, I have less experience with that, and haven't already made a game based on opium mechanics already.
But in general opium is meant to make you useless and drowsy. The British traded heavily in opium with China in the 17th century with the specifically aim of keeping the "sleeping giant" quelled. I can't imagine it's use in the game being anything positive for the player.....
... unless you feck around with things a bit. How about having the story / theme of the game include elements about opium gangs and cultists that use opium. Perhaps the drug lets you get in touch with the other side more easily. It's dangerous to use, but can unlock the secrets of spells and improve their power manifold. It would be a way of introducing a glass cannon wizard build, based around opium abuse, but with the drawbacks of slower movement, withdrawal and frequent hallucinations.
So when can we expect "Pulverized Poppy"?
It would be an interesting mechanic if cultists would ignore you while you are high on opium. I mean they probably wouldn't see someone completely drugged out as a real threat.
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"Plucked Poppy", a new roguelike about a young girl losing her innocence whilst becoming addicted to drugs in a dystopian future. Coming soon... ;)
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Lol Darren I could just see you doing something like that.
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Alright some other ideas:
Alcohol, like suggested before, could lower insanity and maybe reduce damage at the cost of lower intelligence (i.e. learning spells and the like).
Cocaine could increase dodge but lower a players aim (maybe just for ranged attacks) to simulate the jitters.
You could also include cigarettes, cigars and the like which have a minimal, but useful effect on insanity with little downside except maybe having the highest addiction rate.
Finally, all drugs have a chance of making the person addicted which would have various negative effects.
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Hahaha, I love the cigarettes idea
There could be something like 30% chance to start with 8 + 1d8 cigarettes in the inventory.
"Using" one lowers the shock/stress level, but has no immediate negative effects, only high addiction chance.
I'm also a bit amused by the idea of quaffing a potion of toughness to get rid of nicotine addiction. I'm guessing there's many people who wish a thing like that existed ;D
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I'm also a bit amused by the idea of quaffing a potion of toughness to get rid of nicotine addiction. I'm guessing there's many people who wish a thing like that existed
I know I do!
If you have smokes, would you have a lighter/matches too? (edit: I guess it's already implied that you do since you have the ability to light tnt and cocktails. )
Whiskey is not that flammable, but other alcohol is. Like 151 proof rum.
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Yeah exactly. A lighter or matches is already an implied possession. Would be redundant to make it an actual item.
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I really liked Madness approach to insanity.
You slowly start seeing things in the dark which aren't real.. but what is real after all.
Roguebasin page:
http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php/Madness
Main page:
http://students.mimuw.edu.pl/~pm262952/madness/
Expansion (Feature Creeper) page (I recommend you to play this version):
http://code.google.com/p/featurecreeper/
(http://magiccards.info/scans/en/lg/168.jpg)
(http://www.indiegames.com/blog/images/timw/madness3b.png)
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Thanks, I'll have a look!
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Don't know if your latest update (cheers, by the way) already includes this, as I haven't gotten around to try it, but here's my instinctive thoughts:
If alcohol can be used to restore sanity without restrictions, there's the potential of scummy/boring tactics where the player finds a "safe place" to get drunk every now and then. Perhaps it would be more challenging if drunkenness only makes you more resistant to losing sanity and/or just restores sanity that was lost up until a few rounds ago. So you'd have to drink just before or during encounters with nasties to get the sanity benefit. This way, penalties to combat etc. would be more interesting.
I've no personal experience with opium as such, but my rule of thumb would be that getting high in creepy catacombs writhing with nameless horrors isn't necessarily good for your mental health. I know opiates are great pain killers, but at least one person I spoke to who got it administered in the hospital got "weird dreams", which the nurse said was not uncommon.
I do like the idea of opium raising magic awareness, though. One adverse effect (reflecting addiction) could be that you get less apt at magic when you're sober: If you rely too much on drugs to get "in touch", you might start losing the ability to access that side of yourself when your blood is clean. Anyway, I'd probably poke around here for info about opium: http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/opiates/opiates.shtml
As always,
Minotauros
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Ho, ho. I just started to browse around the site linked to in my last post, and came across this essay by Thomas de Quincey (http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/opiates/opiates_writings1.shtml). Just the first sentence is hilarious, it could come straight out of a Lovecraft novella:
"It is so long since I first took opium, that if it had been a trifling incident in my life, I might have forgotten its date: but cardinal events are not to be forgotten; and from circumstances connected with it, I remember that it must be referred to the autumn of 1804."
As always,
Minotauros
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Nice input AgingMinotaur
No I've not added these things yet.
"getting high in creepy catacombs writhing with nameless horrors isn't necessarily good for your mental health."
Agreed. I'm not sure getting drunk would help either actually...
I like the idea about opium helping with magic in the short term but harming it in the long term (making you more dependent).
Could be something simple like influenced by opium gives +20% temporary bonus chance to cast, but 2% permanent penalty.