Issue #4 - The Old Toys

Hi again, time for another check-in on Barty's development. I recently went into worldbuilding in a past issue, but I only briefly touched on the characters of the world. This week, I'll start to go into a few more details about one of the main factions you'll interact with: The Old Toys.

A Big Old Group of Friends

One of the main inspirations for Barty's Adventure was Stardew Valley, the farming sim that kicked off a generational interest in the cozy game genre. In fully updating the ability to romance many of the NPCs you meet and interact with in the game, Stardew's romantic interests set the high bar for developed and emotional character arcs.

I wanted to do something similar with Barty's Adventure, but I also wanted to push the idea further. Why can the bachelors/bachelorettes in Stardew only become your love interest when you get a strong enough relationship with them? Where are the other types of strong relationships, like besties or nemeses? With BA, I plan on evolving the relationship mechanic to something a little more nuanced. I want to build upon the foundation of strong interpersonal connections and storytelling, but also explore other types of relationships found in the real world.

Lets Be Frenemies

In planning how this relationship mechanic would work, I had two major goals:

1. Incorporate the relationship feature into the gameplay to generate actual stakes for the player in their NPC interactions, and
2. Allow for a variety of relationships that are evolving with the timeloop, all based on the player's actions.

I actually started with the second goal, in looking at how relationships are formed in video games. Many games in the cozy genre allow only for positive growth, going from "Indifferent" to "In Love". While this has been shown to be super popular, I wanted to explore what could possibly be behind that "Indifferent" gate. By moving "Indifferent" to the middle of my relationship meter, I now had a whole range of feelings to play with on the bottom half of the scale.

With this system being applied to every NPC you meet in the game, I now gave the player some emotional stakes to their actions. You could accidentally (or intentionally) anger NPCs instead of just making them essentially strangers again. This shifting of the relationship scale allowed me to go back and attack that first goal above: incorporating the gameplay into this system.

Did Somebody Say Stakes...

I now had a viable range of emotions, from complete fury to absolute adoration. But what do those emotions mean for the player? Well, the "angry" side of the meter seemed like a no brainer: boss battles. In a game that has combat alongside these NPCs, it only makes sense that if you push one of them too far, they'll challenge you to fight.

Imagine getting a Stardew-esque "heart" event, but instead of ending on an uplifting note, the NPC who disagrees with your actions forces you to stop everything and fight them. The clown or mermaid who you could have been friends with decides they aren't going to take it anymore and locks you into combat. Of course, there will be those warm, cozy moments for relationships on the other side of the spectrum, but I feel like these NPC boss battles will be something unique to the genre.

But immediately there were some issues: what if a player mistakenly angers an NPC to the point of no return? And really, boss battles for all 150+ NPCs??

So the first issue actually resolves itself through the timeloop. Don't want to be stuck in that -5 relationship? Don't save it in the timeloop, and it will reset on the next cycle. This also deepens the "magic-bubble resource" management, as you only have so much currency to spend on locking items, dead enemies/bosses, and now relationships into the loop. Problem solved and game evolved.

The second issue is a matter of my personal resources. Knowing my limitations as a solo dev, I knew that this was impossible to do for every NPC. I had to limit this boss battle idea to only a select few characters, while providing less intensive stakes for the others. This helped form the idea of The Old Toys, the group of NPCs who will trigger more focused relationships. While every NPC has a meter, only The Old Toys will have associated cutscenes, boss battles, and bestie/spouse status. This allowed for the idea to flourish, provided a commonly-accepted "bachelor/bachelorette" system, and saved me years in development time. Win-win-win.

The lore of The Old Toys is something I'm working on, but I have known who they are from the get-go (as seen by that drawing above from years back):

1. Toddy Teddy - a mentor of sorts for Barty and leader of The Old Toys.
2. The Wolf - a misunderstood storybook character.
3. Rainbow Sprinkles - a unicorn who just needs to believe in herself.
4. Sir Piggington - a storybook pig who may believe in himself a little too much.
5. Ava Cado - an avocado who has contracted a mysterious disease.
6. Duck Duck - a rubber duckie who puts The Baby's safety above all else.
7. Jewel - a mermaid who just wishes to return home.
8. Jangles - a generational toy who is lost but not forgotten.
9. Cloud - a stuffie who feels torn in two directions at once.
10. The Last Little Plane - Cloud's mentor who is still learning that role.
11. Socko - a fashion-conscious sock puppet who runs a boutique.
12. Steggy Dino - a toy struggling with an impossible mission.

I tried to make the group varied, so that players have many options with who resonates with them. As I continue to develop the characters, the biggest struggle will be to ensure they have different voices, feelings, and motivations while maintaining consistency through their spectrum of emotions. It's not a small task! Still, I feel strongly about this idea, and I can't wait to bring it to fruition in the final game.

Talk to you soon! 😄

This newsletter is an update series for the development of the game Barty's Adventure. If you are interested in continuing the conversation, please join the community Discord server: https://discord.gg/M7p2Mtgkyx. Your input in these early stages of the game are invaluable and much appreciated. Thanks!