Food mechanic

[ARMR]

Is it possible to add a mechanic where a "Food" key item is automatically consumed every few minutes of in-game time, representing the characters consuming well... Food on their travels etc.

Where, if there is no "Food" and the timer runs out all party members take some damage, representing starvation.

How would you all feel about a mechanic like that though?

(Also I posted this thread in this board because I honestly couldn't think of another one to place it in, is it in the correct one?)

 

[Valkyriet]

I like your concept, it's original (at least, I haven't heard of anything similar implemented in an RPG till date). That is, if you can actually manage to implement it. Be careful though. Make sure your party has access to enough gold to be able to buy resources, or at least get enough gold from monsters and mobs to sustain them. Would also be fair if there were long recesses between consuming times.

 

[ARMR]

I like your concept, it's original (at least, I haven't heard of anything similar implemented in an RPG till date). That is, if you can actually manage to implement it. Be careful though. Make sure your party has access to enough gold to be able to buy resources, or at least get enough gold from monsters and mobs to sustain them. Would also be fair if there were long recesses between consuming times.

I believe the game Dark Cloud had a similar mechanic, though i never plaid it to be sure. I'm basing it off Table Top RPGs since in those players need to eat or they will die of hunger. The Ultima series had something similar, but you consumed food by step... It was crazy.

Problem is I have NO idea how to go implementing that.

Something like: there's a timer (which I know how to create, via an event)

Then at the end of the timer, the "Food" item is consumed

Then the timer is restarted.

If the "Food" item is not found then players take damage

Then the timer is restarted. So on and so forth.

 

[Wavelength]

Sure, it's possible to do.  The easiest implementation would probably be a Parallel Process common event, that waits a certain number of frames (e.g. 3600 frames for one minute of play time) and then checks to see if you have any food available (there is an option for this in Conditional Branch).  If so, you lose a bit of food; if not, your party takes damage.

I don't think this is a good idea for a play mechanic in most RPGs, though, at least not in the form you present.  You are essentially punishing the player for playing your game at their own pace.  There is no benefit that the player gets from buying and eating food except for "not starving".  This kind of thing is fine in a game like The Sims, Exiled, or Don't Starve, where maintaining your good health is part of the game's core engagement.  It's a defensible play mechanic in something like Gauntlet, where the game really is trying to rush the player.  But to put it in a standard RPG, where the main things on the player's mind are (for example) winning battles and saving the kingdom/world, such a food mechanic will be seen my most players as an annoyance and a chore.  Even in games where starvation couldn't lead to death, like Steambot Chronicles (it would only slow the player's movement significantly), it felt like a negative feature in the game.

Assuming the core engagement of your game doesn't focus around survival/maintenance, I would recommend taking the opposite tack - make food an "optional" thing where you gain some bonus (to your combat stats, speed, personality, whatever) for an amount of time after you chow down on some food.  Once your party becomes "hungry" again, you lose the bonus.

 

[ARMR]

Sure, it's possible to do.  The easiest implementation would probably be a Parallel Process common event, that waits a certain number of frames (e.g. 3600 frames for one minute of play time) and then checks to see if you have any food available (there is an option for this in Conditional Branch).  If so, you lose a bit of food; if not, your party takes damage.

I don't think this is a good idea for a play mechanic in most RPGs, though, at least not in the form you present.  You are essentially punishing the player for playing your game at their own pace.  There is no benefit that the player gets from buying and eating food except for "not starving".  This kind of thing is fine in a game like The Sims, Exiled, or Don't Starve, where maintaining your good health is part of the game's core engagement.  It's a defensible play mechanic in something like Gauntlet, where the game really is trying to rush the player.  But to put it in a standard RPG, where the main things on the player's mind are (for example) winning battles and saving the kingdom/world, such a food mechanic will be seen my most players as an annoyance and a chore.  Even in games where starvation couldn't lead to death, like Steambot Chronicles (it would only slow the player's movement significantly), it felt like a negative feature in the game.

Assuming the core engagement of your game doesn't focus around survival/maintenance, I would recommend taking the opposite tack - make food an "optional" thing where you gain some bonus (to your combat stats, speed, personality, whatever) for an amount of time after you chow down on some food.  Once your party becomes "hungry" again, you lose the bonus.

Hmmm... I do agree with you there! Thanks!

 

[Hoppy]

I like your concept, it's original (at least, I haven't heard of anything similar implemented in an RPG till date). That is, if you can actually manage to implement it. Be careful though. Make sure your party has access to enough gold to be able to buy resources, or at least get enough gold from monsters and mobs to sustain them. Would also be fair if there were long recesses between consuming times.

Or have plenty of enemies that drop food.

 

[Valkyriet]

That's a good idea too, hoppy! Alternatively, you can have your party be able to buy a farmhouse later in the game, where they can plant seeds. They can buy different kinds of seeds from shops all over the world. Some seeds which grow into more health-giving foods can be slightly more expensive than the others. You can also have the option of consuming seeds if there's absolutely no other food left in the inventory

 

[Heartbreak61]

...

Assuming the core engagement of your game doesn't focus around survival/maintenance, I would recommend taking the opposite tack - make food an "optional" thing where you gain some bonus (to your combat stats, speed, personality, whatever) for an amount of time after you chow down on some food.  Once your party becomes "hungry" again, you lose the bonus.

Or instead of bonus, give penalty for player if they are on starving state like lower physical stats, disable to run, or something.

Create certain actors to have "iron stomach" states which lessen the effect of starving state might be interesting too, as well as creating cooking proficiency stats, food quality, allergy, and others (okay, lets stop it before it's going too far, lol).

I agree with Hoppy, your food must be available in almost any stage of the game. Or else, your player will always play at disanvantages, which is not fair, I think.

Anyway, that IS a very interesting idea. Good luck!

 

[dkun]

The first Zenonia (mobile game) had one. If I remember correctly, you had to eat food to fill up your hunger bar or else your max action and SP bar (used for skills and such) would decrease. I don't know why I hated it. It might've been that I had trouble getting food or that the hunger bar decreased really fast. Either way, it was pretty annoying.

It's easy to mess up a system like this. I'd advice you to make sure that it's as less annoying as possible. I had a pretty horrible experience when playing Zenonia 1.

Perhaps you could make the stat decrease/whatever disadvantage hunger gives really low; perhaps you could increase the timer to make it less difficult for the player.

It may be best to have a reward for eating regularly or otherwise, the whole thing would feel like a lacklustre system.

 

[mauvebutterfly]

The old Exile games by Spiderweb Software had a food system, but the developer scrapped it in the Avernum remakes since it was almost entirely a non-factor once you got past the first few levels.

The problem is in finding a balance between the food system having an impact, and the system being tedious to manage. Characters cast into a new land with nothing of value might make securing a food source their first objective. As long as there is a narrative reason for having food be important (famine, survival situation, etc...) it can add to the game. Once characters get themselves established, however, it might be better to turn off the hunger system. In other words, use it as a part of a scenario or quest where appropriate. You can reactivate it later if it becomes relevant again (the evil wizard unleashed his horde of locusts or something) but dealing with hunger when it is nothing more than remembering to spend a few coins at the inn for provisions isn't an interesting system.