Wandering Hamster Progress

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Bob the Hamster
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Wandering Hamster Progress

Post by Bob the Hamster »

So I have been working on Wandering Hamster again!

I started at the beginning of the Heart of the OHR contest, but I ended up focusing on revamping the existing content, and never got around to adding much new content, so it is not eligible for the contest.

The biggest and most visible change is that I removed James and replaced him with Misa DuHamstre (who you might remember from Crypt of Baconthulhu and Don't Eat Soap)

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Doing this really broke my writer's block on the game, and I am really happy about the change.

When I was 18 years old in 1996, adding myself as a character to my own game seemed clever and funny. Now in 2016 it just seems embarrassing--

--but even more importantly, I have two daughters now, and I didn't want to leave myself with no good answer to "Daddy, why are there no girl hamsters in your game?"

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I also added some quick-travel options so that you can get around the map more easily. You can ride Friar Harvey's cart from the Monastery, and there is an Owl who will take you rapidly over Troll Mountain after you have finished it once.

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I also added a bunch of attack balance fixes, enemy balance fixes and item balance fixes, as well as a few improved sprites and tiles, and a handful of new items and new enemies.

The game still ends in exactly the same place it did years ago, but hopefully that will change soon too. Your words of encouragement really do help motivate me :)
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Foxley
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Post by Foxley »

Work on Wandering Hamster has been resumed? That news alone is cheering me up considerably. Can't wait to play it.
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guo
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Post by guo »

This is fantastic news! I first played WH way back in 2000 prior to playing around with the OHRRPGCE. A part of me will be sad to see the Spam Man gone but the new character looks like a great replacement. Can't wait to play it.
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Post by Taco Bot »

oh my

this is... this...

someone get the pentagon on the line

EDIT:

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Last edited by Taco Bot on Tue Aug 02, 2016 1:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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RMZ
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Post by RMZ »

I found all of the plot breakdowns on your wikipedia page and it got me really wanting to see the end of this. I am very curious to see how the plot changes with swapping James out for the girl hamster. It will cause me to replay this.

If it helps you stay motivated, maybe try to break up the game into segments and try to reach a goal before ending your production? Like... maybe you could release what you have, and polish it up for presentation for the app stores for instance. People could get hooked, play it, and generate more hype for you and your story. Just a thought.

Really glad to see you working on this again!
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Fenrir-Lunaris
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Re: Wandering Hamster Progress

Post by Fenrir-Lunaris »

Bob the Hamster wrote:The biggest and most visible change is that I removed James and replaced him with Misa DuHamstre
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Post by FnrrfYgmSchnish »

"Wandering Hamster is being worked on" is always a great thing to see, even if it's just going back and touching up some things here and there so far rather than the game's plot going further.

James' presence in the game never came across as the "embarrassing" sort of self-insert character to me, though -- not being the main character (or more importantly, not drawing most/all the attention away from everyone else like a lot of bad fanfiction self-inserts tend to do -- the "bad" type of self-insert probably wouldn't spend as much time offscreen as James does after the Broaste battle, for example) probably helps with that, but looking forward at the plans for later parts of the game, things took a very different turn than most people's "this character is basically just me" characters and I don't think most people would label James as the "bad" self-insert even if they were a bit biased against the concept of self-insert characters in general. But yeah... I don't really see what the issue is with having a character based on yourself as long as you don't go down the "my name is Daniel, here's my character Daniel, he's like me but randomly super-powerful for no reason, sometimes stronger than he was 10 seconds ago just because some stronger new enemy showed up and I can't have my character lose!" path, or otherwise have that character just overshadow everyone/everything else in a way that doesn't even make sense (like being able to do awful stuff and still be seen as "the good guy" by everyone just by default, breaking established "how stuff works" rules just because, and so on.) I think for the most part, people's aversion to self-insert characters is BECAUSE they've run across too many that were basically just some 12-year-old's fantasy of being Superman or marrying their favorite character or whatever, so they assume that any new one they encounter is going to be like that too without giving them a chance. Kinda-sorta-almost like how everyone freaks out at the sight of a swastika because Nazis, even though Hindus and Buddhists and tons of other people have had peaceful/positive/at-least-it's-not-genocide-related uses of swastikas for millennia.

I'm curious to see how the game will change now that James has been swapped out for Misa DuHamstre, though. Glad to see James' explosive Spam cans and magic-boosting equipment are still present -- having Bob and "gender-swapped Bob" rather than two very different characters would be pretty disappointing. Isn't it technically "Wandering Hamsters" now that there's two hamster characters, though? Maybe that can be the title of some future sequel. XD

Oh, and I like that owl! Having "shortcuts" to get back across previously-cleared areas is probably a good idea, especially in parts of the game before any longer-distance transportation (boat, hot air balloon, etc.) is available, especially if there's stuff going on in previous towns that makes backtracking necessary.
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Willy Elektrix
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Post by Willy Elektrix »

This is very cool.
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Re: Wandering Hamster Progress

Post by Ichiro »

Fenrir-Lunaris wrote:
Bob the Hamster wrote:The biggest and most visible change is that I removed James and replaced him with Misa DuHamstre
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"Gentlemen, behold! My time-space continuu--"
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Bob the Hamster
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

Hehe :)

Thank you all for the encouragement!
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Post by TMC »

FnrrfYgmSchnish wrote:Glad to see James' explosive Spam cans and magic-boosting equipment are still present -- having Bob and "gender-swapped Bob" rather than two very different characters would be pretty disappointing. Isn't it technically "Wandering Hamsters" now that there's two hamster characters, though? Maybe that can be the title of some future sequel. XD
I wonder!

James didn't seem at all out of place to me either (if anything did, it was throwing cans of SPAM... but, no! I'm not suggesting removing that too!) But I think it will feel a bit different without him.

I have mentioned in IRC a few times that James has actually been doing small bits and pieces of work on WH over the last few years --- it wasn't dead cold unlike my and most people's "indefinite hiatus" projects --- but this is pretty different! Great to hear that development is unstuck.
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Pepsi Ranger
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Post by Pepsi Ranger »

I'd hate to see James removed from the early game completely (and we still don't know how the new change will affect the proposed end game). Perhaps he can remain as an old sage who somehow appears in every town, and each appearance gets a new hamster version of the WTF response whenever Bob encounters him (what, you again?), and is finished off each time with gratitude for his sound advice. And, of course, that can of SPAM has to appear somewhere.

Just a thought. I don't think the game will be quite the same without him.
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Bob the Hamster
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

Misa still uses spam cans.

Also, although James is removed from the normal game, he is still available from the hidden Cheat Shop ;)

I might add him back in as an NPC in Flanat later on, but I don't know.

Today I worked on the Snake Uvula boss battle, which was a super boring battle.
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Re: Wandering Hamster Progress

Post by Sparoku »

Bob the Hamster wrote:So I have been working on <a href="http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewtop ... >Wandering Hamster</a> again!
Much hype, must play! Byee!!
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Post by FyreWulff »

Sounds like a good refresh to me to get the ball rolling again!
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