My Greedy Dog Steve

An isometric twist on an RPG, where you must keep your adorable pet dog well fed, made for LD40 with Brainoid & my brother JSama.

https://honestdan.itch.io/my-greedy-dog-steve

Having watched GamesPlusJames take part in the Ludum Dare game jam, LD40 was my first chance to take part my self. I worked with Brainoid again, with my brother Jsama providing some proper art to use.

The aim was to create a game where it was an inverted RPG, the older you get – the weaker you become. Every level up the player would need to choose a new negative talent point, which would make the game harder as time goes on. The player was tasked with slaying enemies to acquire meat for their new puppy.. who’s appetite seems to keep growing with every meal.

On paper the idea of leveling up making your character worse / weaker made sense, but in reality it posed a risk of making the game less fun as time went on. Certain player choices would amplify this negativity – for example, if you leveled up and choose speed related perks, your movement speed would be really slow for the rest of the game – making it take longer and made exploring more tedious.