Sounds like there are 3 parts to the game. The Farm, the Kitchen, and the serving areas. I think you need to focus on each part more. I would eliminate customers who want non crafted items like a carrot or beet root unless it is a single-player game. Maybe have the system skip day 1 for 2+ player games. In a 2+ player game, the fun will come from each player completing tasks in their own area while also serving customers. So the farm focused player could have to do tasks to earn bone meal to help crops grow faster when not providing chef with ingredients to craft meals. Chef player needs to figure out what items they need to request from farmers, and then once they get them, craft the food. The server needs to take orders, do minor tasks to reset customer happiness so they don't time out during harder to craft food items, and maybe answer phone calls by standing on a pressure plate for x seconds when phone starts ringing, etc. There needs to be options for complexity based on the number of players/amount of challenge players want. Maybe have fully open area for 1 player, require players to divide areas with walls they can pass things over but not cross for 2 players, and have each player have a dedicated area of their own for 3 player games.
I feel like the biggest problem is Minecraft itself doesn't have enough crafted/cooked food. Although, what's different between plate up and hungry hermits is that plate-up is focused usually on one type of food, with variations. Minecraft doesn't really have variations, but also, hungry hermits makes you focus on many different types of foods at once. Minecraft's lack of food really makes it difficult to get a fun and balanced plate-up-like game.
I think you need to simplify the number of different foods that can be made. Part of the fun of Plate Up is that you can make a backlog of food because there's only 2 or 3 options of what will be ordered. So say your options for food are cake, beetroot soup, and baked potatoes. They are all foods that require more than one step, but it's food that can be predicted and made ahead of time. You just have to balance the time it takes to make each food with the patience of the customer. With this, you need to give the players some counters. Having no counters means that you have to do everything within your inventory, thus negating working with your partner and not allowing for food to be prepared ahead of time. There's no way to give your partner ingredients that won't disappear. I think making players have to choose what gets saved on a counter (maybe an item frame so they can only do one) gives them more freedom. Ingredients and prepared food will take up counter space quickly, and it will be a good frustration to have to decide how to clear that counter. I like the idea of the cobwebs popping up more than the rats. Maybe you should make the floor powdered snow and make the players wear leather boots? Then items can't be left on the floor, they will fall through. Then just have a way to collect the dropped items below, like a water stream or something.
Maybe you could add making a potion "a pot of coffee" as a constant side thing you have to do. Or it could be an optional side quest to unlock upgrades.
Ethos game is more oriented towards the enjoyment of the player; not so much the viewers. Your game is so much more fun for the viewers to watch. It's also in an interesting middle ground of where it's different from Minecraft content but not a completely unknown gameplay(like plate up)
Here's a crazy thought. Obviously not this season, but imagine combining plate up with decked out. They take a customer's order, then have to go into a dungeon to find the ingredients and make it back out alive to serve the customer.
This is the BEST DUO for testing out Tango's game. Bdubs and the baked potato bit...."Oh No...We got ANOTHER ONE!" 1:39:00 I am literally crying - they are slaying me. I can't wait to watch Hermits play this game. LMAO. Bdubs TALKS to them - like they are real and not armor stands. LMAO.
The thing that makes Plate up so enjoyable are the people who play it. The fact that any two Hermits will be playing something cooperatively; their banter chemistry alone will make this worthwhile for viewers!
Hey Tango, have you considered potions instead/in addition to food? There's more variety of potions, and you can more easily differentiate complicated foods. It also gives you a base level of ingredients, and an ability to plan forward (i.e. you know they are all potions, so you know you need X amount of Blaze Powder. So you get Blaze Rods, and have the timed auto crafter turn them into blaze powder. The same thing with knowing you are going to need water bottles, and nether wart. Each brew would somewhat work like Soup in Plate up where you get 3 times the serve (Or if you can figure out a way to lock out brewing stand slots, that could be an upgrade?) It gives the player the base ability to forward plan because they know, at the base level they are going to need to make a potion. The next level could be they need to make 2 different types of potion, and having more customers. The more I think about the base issues I see, I think Potion Brewing solves a fair chunk of them. You might need to have recipes displayed somewhere for the potions for hermits who don't know. EDIT: I also think you are getting bogged down in the idea of upgrades, and progression. Not sure if you have played it, but have you checked out Overcooked? There is no progression, each level is it's own challenge, and instead you are working towards a high score (By serving the most customers quickly during that time). You don't lose in that game by having a Queue overflow, your loss conditions are "just" the length of service on customers. The competition between plays is instead to get more Stars which are gated at certain scores, or get a high score. Mechanically, it is simpler than Plate Up, but probably more accurately maps to Minecraft- you can throw items, but players can be locked in spots. Some of the dynamic challenges on the levels are moving obstacles, which could be piston walls, or changing to parkour.
Tango, early on you talked about separating the players. the more time that goes on the more i think this would help with the game being fun and require skill and communication. Have someone who handles taking the orders and handles the freezer items. I suggest that you focus on the Multiplayer game version to get the game out. If its received well then make the adjustments for singe player.
If you want to track how long individual customers in line have been waiting, have a piston feed tape of composters. Periodically feed items into the composters to increase their level. If the composter fills up, the customer ran out of patience and game ends. When the line moves forward, advance the feed tape to match. You can reliably and consistently increase the fill level of the composter with cake or pie, or you can use another item type and the patience time will have some random variance.
Take a comparator output that triggers a system to fill it up completely. There would need to be a buffer with the system to allow multiple composters to be emptied before being added to the queuing system.
@@jurjen909 Basically, yes. To reset a composter, fill it until it's full, then empty it again. On the feed tape this could be done at two different points on the feed tape so you don't get timing edge cases of it emptying and then partially filling again. (Basically just empty composters when they're just about to be cycled back to the back of the queue again. They should be 100% full when they're on the "back side" of the feed tape, and then they pass over a hopper before they're cycled into the queue) So at positions in the feed tape corresponding to the queue positions, you have hoppers feeding into the composters, and those will put items in the composters on a "patience tick" if there is a customer in that line position. Once a composter is shifted outside of that range of the feed tape corresponding to queue positions, it gets filled completely (this takes up to 7 items/28 redstone ticks if he's using pies, or about double that if he uses something easier to produce like cactus). There could be more than one of these "top off" points so when the whole system is resetting on a game over it could move the feed tape faster than once per 28 redstone ticks. Then just before a composter gets cycled back around to the back of the queue again, it passes over a hopper, extracting the bonemeal and resetting it to fill level 0. An approach like this would require some kind of farm feeding it obviously. Filling the composters with pies or cakes is the most deterministic solution (every item added to a composter increases the fill level, 100% of the time) - with autocrafters that's a lot easier than it used to be but it still means a pumpkin farm, a chicken egg farm, and a sugarcane (or honey) farm... autocrafter to produce sugar and then another to make pie. It's doable but it is a significant addition to the project. Depending on how the item distribution works (i.e. is there just a hopper line that's filled to capacity with pies to carry them to the different fill points?) the system could need over 50 stacks of pies just to fill the system enough for it to operate correctly - and then in an average game (say, 25 customers served) another 200 pies consumed (as each composter that cycles through the queue must be completely filled, then emptied again) A simpler farm like cactus could work but it would make the patience system random - on a patience tick, 50% chance the composter fill level increases. Some customers could wind up being more "patient" than others depending on how the RNG goes. I think probably that's not desirable though. Another challenge with a system like this is tracking which slots of the queue have customers in them, so you don't wind up adding fill level to a composter that corresponds to an empty spot in the line. For that purpose maybe a crafter that counts how many line positions are filled (add an item to the crafter when a customer joins the queue, remove an item when a customer moves into the restaurant) - then use signal strength from the composter to control which slots in the composter system will accept an item when patience is ticked.
I hope that play test quelled your fears a bit, because they were definitely having fun. Now add the rats, and I personally think the upgrades will add a lot
Maybe you can have the poe poe or some sort of health inspector be randomly added to the queue once a week/day? And you have to do some small tasks or some kind of action to satisfy them, and if you dont make it they will shut down a section of the farm or kitchen for a certain amout of time? Or only to be re opened after some purchase or something? Just spitting idea's.
the fun part of plateup is controlling the elements and upgrading constantly to 'automate', or get money and stuff and the slightly convoluted cards where you take 'optimum' decisions in your 'workflow'
Seeing an actual playtest I think you should just enforce it to 2 players tbh - it makes conceptualising interesting gameplay a lot more straight forward, and it's not like you haven't already made fantastic single player games in previous seasons! Plus it'll be done quicker ;)
Idea.... plate up was made hectic because it has multiple steps to do in order to serve a customer. Most important of which is the food and a clean plate. So my idea is, instead of clicking a button to indicate that a customer is served, how about have a hopper where it needs a clean carpet( which could represent the plate) and then it goes to some sorting process where if it is a clean carpet(plate), it would accept the order, and if not then the item would come back. This would also simulate the customer eating the food not just them going for take outs. Also after the carpet(plate) is accepted, with auto-crafter, dye it with brown or with other dyes to represent a dirty plate which could then be cleaned with washing the carpet(dishes). This would also give one more task for the players to do. TLDR: To add more "fun" in the game to make it more hectic, add the "Plate" mechanic from plate up. --- -Add carpets to resemble a Plate -The carpet would be put in a hopper to replace the button to indicate that the customer is served. -That carpet would then get checked in an item sorter to see if its the right item -While in the process of checking, this simulate the customer eating -If the item does not match with the plate, it would go back and the customer would continue "eating" -If the item does match, the customer would be considered served and the carpet goes back dyed(dirty) -Players would then go clean the carpet(dye it back to white or the original color) to get a fresh clean plate. P.s. I started this thought with dyed hats at first since you can wash them which simulates washing dishes, then I remembered that they are not stackables so it might be hard to sort them out. So I instead resorted to carpets which could be dyed and still resembles a plate.
What you need to really clarify with yourself is if Hungry Hermits is inspired by Plate Up or Based on Plate Up because that's two different ways of solving problems and game design.
When the game starts pre load a bunch of silver fish; splash them with weaving; use a separator to send them individually to drop off location(s) maybe in a queue at each location(s); when rats are requested double piston pull a block in the ceiling at chosen location(s); drop how ever many rats are requested; in the mean time when all rats are separated from the original pre load area; a new batch is spawned & splashed as back up?
@@Yirggzmb oh I forgot the timer on potion. So when the request for rats to be sent to the kitchen comes in; that’s when you splash the group; then separate and drop them? (I don’t know what it takes to separate them; I’m sure it’s tedious too?)
P.S. just got to the bdubs & scar part. Not only am I glad they came because they’re both extremely entertaining individuals but they’ve come to play test; which allowed tango debug as they play which is also fun to watch as it is helpful to tango. Especially because I’m sure the game has his anxiety on high alert. Always fun with friends. Hope tango has less bugs to deal with in the future. :)
Label certain monuments with signs so people know where they generally need to go or specifically need to go depending on which location they’re going to. For example refrigerator is just labeled refrigerator & not the items inside but the trash cans or other devices are labeled individually.
Before watching the entire VOD, did you actually play the game to a point where more difficult foods are required? Obviously food that is just one item is pretty easy, and obviously you can't start the game on full blast right away. The frantic gameplay comes later with food that needs multiple ingredients in combination with the limited inventory. If you think it is too boring maybe remove a couple 1 item recipes.
@@TackerTacker it's probably a hard balance between "don't yeet them into the deep end immediately" while also not starting out actually boring. I do think day 1 should be almost a tutorial style level though, very easy and let players learn where stuff is and what the procedure is. But I can also see how that would get really dull once you're familiar with the game
Only part way through the vod yet, but could you cluster the first load of customers, like having the first 2-3 customers each day be added to the queue with as little delay as possible, and the rest added at the normal rate. That would give you the initial rush to require multitasking without making the game actually impossible over a long day.
My thought is that you could add the ‘messes’ using copper floors and having them age and a retextured axe as a broom/mop to clean the floors. That way it gives the server something else to do. Besides taking the order and waiting for another player to get the item. Then I think the real fun in this game will come as the days get more difficult and chaotic. And adding upgrades like maybe allowing more inventory slots (1 or 2 max I think). Upgrades like ‘decorations’ (paintings) that could do things like slows customer patience declining while waiting for food if that’s possible. Adding in maybe a pressure plate in the farm that dispenses bonemeal. A few at a time like 5-10 maybe. This gives the player a few things more to do/worry about. This system could then be upgraded with maybe a further upgrade that automates this process. Another thought is the phone in plateup could be here too and the server likely could stand on a pressure plate to add the the rate customers coming in. One final note is if you decide to keep single player maybe allow them to have 2 inventory slots starting off so it’s easier for them to multitask and maybe open the conveyor system upgrade to allow them to throw items to the kitchen quickly. But I mostly think it’s a 2 player game because of the time takes to do things in the game
Looking at the plate up wiki heres how it tracks the queue outside: All queuing customer groups share a single patience bar. Following the first group, each subsequent group to join the queue causes patience to decrease 10% faster (stacks multiplicativly). Moving a queuing group inside provides a slight boost to Queuing patience, while clearing the whole queue fully restores patience until the next queuing group arrives.
In plate up the total time for all waiting phases is 4min and 15 seconds at base(2player). 150s max wait to order, 90s max wait for food, and 15 for all food delivered. All the Patience timings are also based on player count. One player gets more time 3 and up gets less.
I think it would help to have some tasks players can do at the start of the day to "get ready" or between customers to "get ahead". For example, the mini task to generate bone meal reserve.
I'm only 15 minutes into the vod so I dunno if this still holds up but: - for the tracking how long someone is in the queue: you know when a customer goes to the restaurant (armor stand gets dispensed) and when they enter (armor stand gets seated). Maybe you can use this to time how long someone is in the queue, if there is an X amount of time between going to the restaurant and getting seated then they lose. - also a visual representation of what tables are available might be nice, like a redstone lamp above it that's on or something Upgrade ideas: - a "freezer" to store food, like the plateup freezer. Could be a chest/barrel/shulker with limited space where they can store items - "auto harvest" : a observer could watch the farmland, when they plant something it gets bonemealed automatically - upgraded tables: customers have more patience Dunno if everything is even possible, just putting out some ideas :)
For more randomization, random potions like (slowness) that drop from the ceiling could help. In game terms that would be explained by the player suffering from tiredness.
I think that when the player has to conciously go and take an order, it removes a lot of stress. If the orders shows up automatically and you don't know when they show up, it could lead to the need for cooperation. The foods in Minecraft is very limited. Maybe this is more of a crafting game? Maybe the players need to make cobblestone stairs or chistled bricks, to up the variety and give you better control of the difficulty?
1:17:20 "all Pythagorian theromy" the distance is ~9.8488 blocks (no i did not consider the Exact position of the armor stand nor the origin point of the radius from the book)
Add a billing system where players get paid and reason to optimize that for "score". Add two opposing serving gods that players can tip/pray to: LowKey god of Fun vs.Osha Goddess of safety. That lets them balance Tipping bonuses vs. Catastrophy risk (Fires, Rats, mess, trouble patron, food critics (who only order cake), etc.
18:00 Maybe you figured the patience in the queue thing since this time in the video. In case you haven’t, I thought of something you might consider. You would need to calculate the total winning time for all the scheduled customers, varying by level, of course. If the player goes over that total time, they lose. A countdown timer will give the player an idea of their standing as they play. In-restaurant individual customer patience stays the same, acting as a sub counter. Which is fine. If they can’t beat the individual customer requirements, they won’t beat the total time, anyway. 🤷♀️ Just a thought. ❤ #automation One “automation” could be powering the doors to the various places so they stay open. (That iron door is the bane of my Minecraft existence!😂) 1:12:25 😂 Etho!
On the topic of fun: - I think things like the cauldron + water bucket will be the backbone of making the players feel like their decisions r having an impact. Even if the game stays somewhat "fetch-quest-y" things like the water bucket offer a super interesting little decision for the players. ----- "ok we have a water bottle order" now, the smart thing to do is get a bucket instead of a bottle and go fill the cauldron first, then ditch the bucket, get a bottle and fill it from cauldron. Saves time in the long term but takes extra time to set up. Super interesting decision espicially if the customers come in big rushes and then die down. It'll be like "okok we have a free moment go fill up the cauldron and ill fill up the X! Quick!"
Not sure if this suggestion for the queue timing comes too late. But you could have a chest minecart in a "shadow" queue for every person in the real queue. Then if you fill those with items using a hopper, at one point it will be completely filled up, so no more items can enter, so the hopper feeding it fills up, which you can detect to trigger a lose event. If the guest in the queue moves up a spot, so does the minecart in the shadow queue. For every guest entering your queue, you add a new chest minecart to the shadow queue. When a guest enters the restaurant, you simply destroy the minecart. You can play with the timing by using either a chest minecart, a hopper minecart and items that stack to 64 or 16. Or maybe even preload the carts with filler items. Or of course more than one hopper per position in the shadow queue... And if it is possible to use a comparitor on a chest minecart, then you could even do something like create an indicator with lamps showing the patience of the guest in the front of the queue. Feature creep warning: if it is raining outside, you could unlock another hopper feeding the minecart...
Brainstorming is great for triggering ideas. Chat has great ideas! But you should also talk to Skizz and Jimmy and Pearl. Ask them their favorite things about Plate Up, but also ask Cub about weird things you can do in minecraft like when he set up the pillager to change the color of a sheep (I know that that example isn’t relevant to the game, but it could spark ideas).
Plate Up's booking desk mechanics allows players to control the pacing of the game and keep it frantic. I believe coming up with an insentive to get a similar mechanic will go a long way. Especially due to the difficulty of predicting the ideal pacing given different days, number of players, and player skill...
Perhaps you could make it that the quicker you are with serving the more points/upgrade options you get at the end of the day. I think some sort of point system will probably make it more interesting as you can compare runs with other runs. Get some competition going. Also if you could get something like the phone from plate up to get customers quicker could also be nice.
hearing your complaints made me think that maybe introducing roles would be beneficial. you could base the game around 3 players and have a 2/2/2 solution, where the number stands for how many rooms each player have to focus on. one role could focus on farming and waiting customers, another on waiting and cooking and the last one on cooking and farming. i think this works with more and fewer players as well, creating the 1/1/1/1 and 3/3 scenarios. my opinion regarding solo play is that it should be possible, but only with upgrades. for this to make sense you'd likely have to add more tasks to the waiting/dining area, like e.g manually calling in guests from the queue (this could also make it so that the first queued guest that you keep pre loaded in the system can be at the door at the beginning of the day, reducing "load times", and the start day button could potentially double up as the "call in guests" button), or entertaining guests which could increase one stage of patience once per day. the kitchen might also need some changes for this 2/2/2 model to work, to give the players a reason that they should be multiple people there. i really like your freezer idea for this. small inconvinences that can be omitted by being two people. e.g maybe you can temporarily unlock the crafter speed upgrade by having another player stand on a nearby pressureplate that just outside of reach. farms are solid as they are imo, but you could make them two separate areas that allows the farmers to throw an item to eachother, and make it so only one player can be in each farming area at once kinda like with the pop down stair on the cart ride side. final point in my novel of a comment is that the hermits need some sort of reason to play the game, and upgrade points/for the fun of it aren't reason enough. the reason decked out and frogger became so successful among the hermits are because of a solid ranking system, letting hermits compare themselves to others, and the rewards (and i'm not talking about the frog coins). when it comes to this game i think that time can be a substitute for score, and whoever finished all days in less time is the employee(s) of the month! points in itself is enough of an insentive for some players to come back to the game, but since xisuma have started with the trophies then you could probably reach out to the person that made them and order a trophy or 4 for the different team layouts. Etho and Pearl can't win a 4 player format by themselves XD
I’ve played games like Plate Up and what makes them fun is that they’re puzzles. Your puzzle pieces are the tasks you must complete and you have to find a way to fit them into the box that is your time limit. Finding the tricks is what’s fun. What is the perfect sequence of events that will reward you with the most done in the smallest amount of time. There’s a juggling of resources. In your game that would be food, prep time, and customer patience. You need systems in place that allow you to massage one or two of those elements in a tricky to pull off yet predictable way (ex. ways you can tend the food while it’s cooking to get it out earlier and ways to placate customers to extend their patience.) The player needs to feel like they’re getting away with something when they play the game right. In a restaurant game I played the customers are harder to get rid of but sometimes you just don’t have what you need to feed them but the line is growing (and sometimes you can see a customer type in line who’s easy to serve) so you give the unwanted customer the wrong meal and maybe you fail that one or maybe you get far less points but the table is freed up. The player took a calculated loss but they also accomplished something. It’s a give and take. playing music and offering free treats is another way I’ve seen these games let players manipulate customer patience
Would it be interesting to give certain upgrades downsides alongside them, so when making the decision between the upgrades there's more to think about other than your currency amount? Maybe adding pop-out tables to put items on also gives rats a "new place to hide" so the number of rat spawns increase. Or maybe upgrading the number of tables decreases customer patience (Although that sounds like a nightmare to redstone).
For tracking independent customer patience, what about a shulker box per customer? When a customer leeaves the queue, all shulker boxes break and a hopper or dropper chain moves the shulker to the next position in the queue. Could always have the patience at the table be independent from the one outside, because that's not totally unrealistic. But if you do want 1 patience then you distribute the shulker to the same position as the armour stand. Not easy, would need a drastic redesign, but technically possible
I would be more worried if I did not remember Several times of similar Doubt-Despair phases during the Decked out development, and we all know that all worked out to be an amazing game!
Adjust the timers so that the tables from left to right get more impatient. This will force players to make decisions whether to take an impatient customer and let the patient one wait. If you have multiple customers running out of patience at different rates it makes it a challenging juggling act.
You could approch 'automation' via inverting the recipe system. Start the players making complex foods and add a recipe *upgrade* to make their recipes simpler.
For the queueing system - what if you measure the duration of time that the final slot in the queue is occupied? So, once that bucket fills up to whatever amount you decide, then they lose.
I feel like multiplayer is the way to go with this game. Plate Up, from a viewer experience, is fun because of the interactions. (Half of why I love the streams is because that’s where “Jimmy Jiggles” came from!) I think the player interactions/cooperation are important for that reason. It makes it fun for us to watch, and it makes it fun to play / stream. A suggestion, which might take away from vanilla Minecraft, but is my suggestion because I feel the biggest problem here is that Minecraft lacks the food needed to make this game possible: A temporary texture pack for when you play plate up / custom items dispensed after making food. I don’t know redstone, so I don’t know how much of this is possible, but this idea is that you’re using a crafting recipe of a pre-existing block, but when crafted, it triggers a different, retextured food (or item) to pop out. If not that, then retexturing blocks with a temporary-use texture pack and renaming items using said texture pack. Still using that idea, but eliminating the weird dispenser - crafter nonsense. Essentially just making it so the players have to work together to craft items, even if those items are a bit custom in nature. I get that this might be a bad idea, sheerly because it looses it’s vanilla Minecraft aspect, and everybody’s probably thought about it already. But I thought I’d put my two cents in. Finally, unrelated to ideas… just as a thought behind the purpose of this game. I don’t really see Hungry Hermits as the next Decked Out, in terms of longevity. It does feel more like a mini-game. Which, of course is disappointing in some aspects, because the goal would be to get people invested in a game for a long time. But I think it still has the potential to be a very fun streaming game. (Saw someone mention that this will be more fun for viewers than watching Frogger/Ravager Rush, which I agree.) If it was a minigame, you could always add “updates” to it (the addition of upgrades to the kitchen, the rats from the ceiling, maybe even side quests and other easter eggs).
Here's an idea for the queueueue timer: Make a 45° slope and put rails on it, alternating between regular ones and detectors, one detector rail for every space in the queue(ueueue). From one side have pistons block the track so that carts will stay on the detector rails (the piston head should be one block above and one ahead of the detector). You can link all pistons up with a diagonal torch tower. If you send an 8 tick pulse into the lowest one they should let them all go ahead by one spot. On the other side place droppers to aim at the block above the detector rail. These will put the timer items into the carts. You can read the output of the carts through the slope, placing comparators behind the blocks the rails are on. All droppers should fire at the same time and if there isn't a minecart in place the item will shoot across the track, at which point you can catch it in a water stream and put it back into the cycle. The only problem is that there could be gaps between the customers, so you may need to link the detector rails to the piston above them.
Maybe if you’re still having issues, you could just have a specific amount of customers show up during the day and not worry about how long the customers have been waiting outside for. Just have the fail state be if you don’t serve them fast enough
About the queue getting full and then losing, maybe instead of measuring the fullness of the queue, measure the rate at which customers get dequeued. if you don't dequeue a customer for too long you lose (though still keep the "queue is full" losing condition as well)
Here's an idea if you want to try having one player just in the farm area - remember last season where BDubs had the horse archery thing? Have something like THAT to occupy the farmer player's "free" time, right? Like a side game that the more he "wins" it the less rats or something? I don't know. Maybe could be interesting if the bobbing horses are viewable by the customers and other players in the main area? That way the farmer player doesn't seem so isolated, if you know what I mean?
Randomness can feel good in games. Like lets say the freezer. If you are in the freezer waiting for a max of 20 seconds, it will feel very good if you hit the random chance that it only took 5. Which gives the player some brain candy to feel happy and get on with their task. Also I feel like randomness in upgrading will help the game a lot, which Plate Up has as well. This round you can choose between upgrade 1 3 and 6, the next round between 2, 3 and 5. Every game will feel different and feel good in different ways.
I think that you should make the game get exponentially harder. Say that Day 1 is super easy, just to get players acquainted with the flow of the game. Day 2 could just be day 1, but perhaps at a slightly faster rate. By Day 3, you are incorporating more complex recipes, but at low frequencies. Day 4 could be exactly the same as Day 3. Day 5 has the possibility of any recipe but will be much slower than Day 6 will be. Days 6-8 should be extremely hard. One of the most important parts of a video game, at least in my experience for what it's worth, is that there is some kind of content that you can't reach immediately, which will require players to get more creative and coordinate. I think the reason for your nervousness about the fun-ness of the game is that you can't feel how the game will be played by the other Hermits. Another reason may be, even if subconsciously, you think or know that this game will never add up to DO2, and perhaps you feel that you want to make Hungry Hermits on par with DO2 in terms of how replayable it is. I think what you can recreate from DO2 is the competitive nature of the game. Take Ravager Rush, for example. You're just running from one side to the other while dodging ravagers, which is still pretty fun, but it doesn't have any in-game nuance to it. The Frog Trophy made by Hoffen allows the Hermits' competitive natures to be on full display. There is no reward at the end of the game or season. People will work harder for something than they will for nothing; that's just basic psychology. TLDR: Make content that is unreachable for a little bit, reevaluate how you look at the game in terms of success, and perhaps consider some kind of external reward or gratification.
Hm. (I have seen parts of this live and parts in VoD, so forgive me if I've missed something) I think, from watching you play PlateUp, that a lot of your enjoyment of the game comes from the customizing/improving of the restaurant, not just the timed day itself. Small things, like having extra counters pop out or having that auto-emptying can as improvements might add that feel that you're looking for. They're just not added yet. I do find it fun as-is, and I could see a team really crushing it as time goes on. How would kitchen improvement happen? Would there be an option after, say, rounds 4, 6, and 8? Will there be automatic upgrades at those milestones, or would you have the freedom to choose which of those happen at which times? You'll not be able to get that ridiculous customization, but i think what you'll be able to get is a good cross between Plate Up and Diner Bros, and that's gonna be a great time.
1. I think if you want to increase the decision factor, open up more hotbar slots, and run the customers through quicker. Now routing and time management is the game. "Okay I need carrot right away, but if I grab sugar and pumpkins I can feed the next costumer as well, do I have time for that?" 2. If there is some rhythm to what costumers will want next, the players can hedge and prep in different ways "Cake hasn't shown up in a about 10 costumers, its due, I should grab eggs when I go out for fish" 3. If a skulk finds a silverfish in the dinner room, costumers leave more quickly
You don’t have to stick to Minecraft recipes. You can fake and retexture new recipes with redstone. In plate up the fun is learning the recipe, optimizing for it, and embracing the chaos the upgrades bring.
Tango how about removing the farm aspect altogether... the game is about timing... make the items dispensed like oh you want only a carrot???? well make the dispenser timed to dispense carrot as if it was picked and peeled etc.? and a made item is dropped from a dropper.....and if it isn’t picked up quickly it drops into lava (burned)
HUGE part of why plateup works is the phone. The pacing of work isn't perfect, rather you are insentivised to push your luck as far as you can for extra money, so you can buy upgrades to keep up with the customer scaling. Take out the phone, and plateup becomes a boring game.
When the queue is full, can't you start a timer then? That way you're effectively tracking the maximum time a customer has waited without dealing with the complexity of tracking individual times, or tracking time for the customer at the start of the queue. So when you serve a new customer that resets the timer. The maximum time to serve is then dependent on the number of other customers, their spawn time, and the timer -- (customers * spawn time) + grace period. Alternatively, you could have customers that arrive after the queue is full fall into an "unserved customer" pool. You could then have it so that if you failed to serve 2 or 3 customers that will end the game. You could tie that with the customers you haven't served from the tables, so 2 or 3 of either would end the game.
I wonder if this game wouldn't have been better with another theme after all, like a redstone factory or home depot that sells all sorts of stuff from ladders to item frames. There's just not a lot of food items in this game that have interesting crafting recipies to begin with. Though in the end I can't tell how much fun Hungry Hermits will be, because honestly I don't get the appeal behind Plate Up either. Everything Tango has made here is amazing, from the areas, to the mechanics like the animated customers, to the implementation of it, and I hope it all comes together when it's finished.
as one who completed both overcooked games, while playing with my brother I think what made the game fun even if there's like a theme for every couple level is the environment of the level itself. a lot of the levels may have had similar recipes, but each one had a challenge, like some had cars in the middle of the street where the kitchen is, I know u have done something similar with the silver fish so keep trying with that. also, something cool that I remembered you had done in the biggening of the season which is moving belts that transfer items in the red stone factory, why don't u add with some walls so both players have to send items to each other to complete the orders. and I think you have done an amazing job with the things that can be ordered but why don't you add more like maybe potions or stews, which will require more Coopertive playing as u would like. but GOOD LUCK and keep on working on it you are doing great.
Don't know if Tango looks at these comments or if he gets to this idea later, as I'm only about 20 minutes in, but what about having certain areas that can only be accessed by having a pressure plate stay active. So your partner would have to come stand on it to let you in and out, making you work together. I don't know if it's possible to switch that activation to like a lever or something if it's a single player game - by diverting to another Redstone line if you have a selection of player number? I don't know Redstone lol
Tango, seems like the rats would add another dimension and break up monotony, if nothing else, not to mention spiking the players' adrenalin and excitement, thus enhancing game play. It's also just a cool feature completely consistent with the lore of the diner setting. So I think it's worth the cost of doing it (which is easy for me to say, since I don't have to pay that cost lol)!
In plate up you have the call option. As a player it might be fun to override how fast the costumers come in. In that way the people that have played day one multiple times, they can increase the difficulty. I saw in the vod there was problems with too many costumers coming in at once. Maybe a timer in front of the queue could delay them? Only when the previous costumer has been away from the queue for a certain amount of time, the next gets to move forward? I have no game making/redstone knowledge so I don't how easy or how possible this is or if this even is a worthwhile idea.
No offense to redstoners, but Tango's right. QC is a bad "feature". It may be useful and convenient in a few circumstances, but it is inconvenient and annoying in way more even when you understand it.
If you make the customers queue up more regularly, then tracking customers is pretty equivalent to tracking time in queue If you want the players to not know the value, you could take out the windows for the last few customers
2:00:10 yeah global throttle or make falling faster by blocking off the water over the hole that opens up. For example by pushing in an open fence gate. Or detect with a string from above and close the trap door immediately when the customer starts falling. But that might be complicated Redstone-wise.
What if there was an easy thing to get, but a limited number of it that could be used to give patience to customers. Then the players themselves can choose when to get a break on the crafting. For example, when there is a cake.
Also, last comment. Maybe you can have like a "trip" system. So when you are bringing the food to the table maybe there is a change for you to trip over something that causes the items to be dropped on the floor. Maybe kill the player from the ceiling with arrows or something in random spots then increases the more days pass? It would be like the waiter trips in front of the table and drop the food.
@@s4shade64it's so horrifying. Keralis also did that now and somehow I feel it would be so creepy just seeing a screamy face and beaming smile with that fleshy eyelid thing when they sleep. Eughh
what if the stove “catches fire” or like random equipment will “break” and you’ll have to do something to repair them. Just a small random element that will keep you on your toes, but if you don’t stay ontop of it becomes problematic
what about putting orders in bundles/shulkers, so you can create orders that have more steps, like plate up? if you do shulkers, you can have a single shulker loading station that the players have to manage together.
For line patience, how about a timer that fills faster based on the number of people in the queue? Each time a customer enters the restaurant, some amount of the timer is drained (or reset?). It penalizes a long queue because you have to serve customers faster to keep the timer from triggering.
For the queue, imo, when you are in a queue, no matter how long it is as long as its moving your patience is fine so resetting the time every time it moves would be realistic. if you did want to make it incremental you could have a timer on a hopper clock that resets every time it moves but have a counter keeping track of the amount of people in the queue (items added/subtracted from a barrel). Read off the barrel to remove/add items to the timer to change the timings.
You could track a customers time in the cue by depositing an item onto them that can be replaced. Suck as boots. Put gold boots on the last queued slot at set intervals. Then before popping them up deposit leather boots on them. If an armor stand drops gold boots it leaves the store. If that happens three times you loose.
Don't know if its possible but you could have combinations of food like Steak and water bottle or Chicken with Baked Potato. Dunno if it could work with the left hand of an armor stand tho.
it would be sick to like, collect a bunch of spiders and drop one or two every game in the farm as a farm-specific threat that u have to take the broom to deal with, and then you can maybe buy a brewing stand upgrade and use spider eyes to brew "coffee"
Is there anyway to possibly add zombies/maybe slime to the mix in some way where they are almost dead ( it could be something like they caused food poisoning or angry customer for wrong order)
What if the order armour stands vanished after 10s, so part of the game is remembering who wants what. Not necessarily something I find fun in games, but its an avenue
For a resettable cobweb timer, could you align the item with the edge of the cobweb and leave a space next the cobweb tower for a minecart to fall past them, missing the cobweb but sucking up the item hanging out the side?
i started watching now and maybe solved later, but you can have a timer that counts the first person of the queue but when the next client goes in the restaurant it resets. this should solve the problem
Co-op they should have conveyor from the farm and the kitchen, while they have a timed door for blocking the location. But cooking needs to be more balanced if you want to lock up a player
Sounds like there are 3 parts to the game. The Farm, the Kitchen, and the serving areas. I think you need to focus on each part more. I would eliminate customers who want non crafted items like a carrot or beet root unless it is a single-player game. Maybe have the system skip day 1 for 2+ player games.
In a 2+ player game, the fun will come from each player completing tasks in their own area while also serving customers. So the farm focused player could have to do tasks to earn bone meal to help crops grow faster when not providing chef with ingredients to craft meals.
Chef player needs to figure out what items they need to request from farmers, and then once they get them, craft the food.
The server needs to take orders, do minor tasks to reset customer happiness so they don't time out during harder to craft food items, and maybe answer phone calls by standing on a pressure plate for x seconds when phone starts ringing, etc.
There needs to be options for complexity based on the number of players/amount of challenge players want. Maybe have fully open area for 1 player, require players to divide areas with walls they can pass things over but not cross for 2 players, and have each player have a dedicated area of their own for 3 player games.
I feel like the biggest problem is Minecraft itself doesn't have enough crafted/cooked food. Although, what's different between plate up and hungry hermits is that plate-up is focused usually on one type of food, with variations. Minecraft doesn't really have variations, but also, hungry hermits makes you focus on many different types of foods at once.
Minecraft's lack of food really makes it difficult to get a fun and balanced plate-up-like game.
Great suggestions. 😊
I think you need to simplify the number of different foods that can be made. Part of the fun of Plate Up is that you can make a backlog of food because there's only 2 or 3 options of what will be ordered.
So say your options for food are cake, beetroot soup, and baked potatoes. They are all foods that require more than one step, but it's food that can be predicted and made ahead of time. You just have to balance the time it takes to make each food with the patience of the customer.
With this, you need to give the players some counters. Having no counters means that you have to do everything within your inventory, thus negating working with your partner and not allowing for food to be prepared ahead of time. There's no way to give your partner ingredients that won't disappear. I think making players have to choose what gets saved on a counter (maybe an item frame so they can only do one) gives them more freedom. Ingredients and prepared food will take up counter space quickly, and it will be a good frustration to have to decide how to clear that counter.
I like the idea of the cobwebs popping up more than the rats. Maybe you should make the floor powdered snow and make the players wear leather boots? Then items can't be left on the floor, they will fall through. Then just have a way to collect the dropped items below, like a water stream or something.
Maybe you could add making a potion "a pot of coffee" as a constant side thing you have to do. Or it could be an optional side quest to unlock upgrades.
Ethos game is more oriented towards the enjoyment of the player; not so much the viewers.
Your game is so much more fun for the viewers to watch.
It's also in an interesting middle ground of where it's different from Minecraft content but not a completely unknown gameplay(like plate up)
Here's a crazy thought. Obviously not this season, but imagine combining plate up with decked out. They take a customer's order, then have to go into a dungeon to find the ingredients and make it back out alive to serve the customer.
this reminds me of Battle Chef Brigade
This would be pretty cool!
delicious in dungeon...
Decked up
@@espressomagic948lol
This is the BEST DUO for testing out Tango's game. Bdubs and the baked potato bit...."Oh No...We got ANOTHER ONE!" 1:39:00 I am literally crying - they are slaying me. I can't wait to watch Hermits play this game. LMAO. Bdubs TALKS to them - like they are real and not armor stands. LMAO.
The thing that makes Plate up so enjoyable are the people who play it.
The fact that any two Hermits will be playing something cooperatively; their banter chemistry alone will make this worthwhile for viewers!
Note to self, watch VOD before typing ideas as you may just have to delete your comment in 5 minues after its covered
Yep I just did this with the cobweb idea!
Done that a few times. Once commented on the VOD as if I was watching live….
I'm guilty of this lmao
Hey Tango, have you considered potions instead/in addition to food? There's more variety of potions, and you can more easily differentiate complicated foods. It also gives you a base level of ingredients, and an ability to plan forward (i.e. you know they are all potions, so you know you need X amount of Blaze Powder. So you get Blaze Rods, and have the timed auto crafter turn them into blaze powder. The same thing with knowing you are going to need water bottles, and nether wart. Each brew would somewhat work like Soup in Plate up where you get 3 times the serve (Or if you can figure out a way to lock out brewing stand slots, that could be an upgrade?)
It gives the player the base ability to forward plan because they know, at the base level they are going to need to make a potion. The next level could be they need to make 2 different types of potion, and having more customers.
The more I think about the base issues I see, I think Potion Brewing solves a fair chunk of them.
You might need to have recipes displayed somewhere for the potions for hermits who don't know.
EDIT: I also think you are getting bogged down in the idea of upgrades, and progression. Not sure if you have played it, but have you checked out Overcooked? There is no progression, each level is it's own challenge, and instead you are working towards a high score (By serving the most customers quickly during that time). You don't lose in that game by having a Queue overflow, your loss conditions are "just" the length of service on customers. The competition between plays is instead to get more Stars which are gated at certain scores, or get a high score. Mechanically, it is simpler than Plate Up, but probably more accurately maps to Minecraft- you can throw items, but players can be locked in spots. Some of the dynamic challenges on the levels are moving obstacles, which could be piston walls, or changing to parkour.
Tango, early on you talked about separating the players. the more time that goes on the more i think this would help with the game being fun and require skill and communication. Have someone who handles taking the orders and handles the freezer items. I suggest that you focus on the Multiplayer game version to get the game out. If its received well then make the adjustments for singe player.
Don’t even have to physically separate. He could place cobwebs in door ways to discourage people crossing over areas
If you want to track how long individual customers in line have been waiting, have a piston feed tape of composters. Periodically feed items into the composters to increase their level. If the composter fills up, the customer ran out of patience and game ends. When the line moves forward, advance the feed tape to match. You can reliably and consistently increase the fill level of the composter with cake or pie, or you can use another item type and the patience time will have some random variance.
How could you reset a composter tape? Spam feed them all stuff untill they give a bonemeal? And hope they dont get partially filled.
Take a comparator output that triggers a system to fill it up completely. There would need to be a buffer with the system to allow multiple composters to be emptied before being added to the queuing system.
@@jurjen909 Basically, yes. To reset a composter, fill it until it's full, then empty it again. On the feed tape this could be done at two different points on the feed tape so you don't get timing edge cases of it emptying and then partially filling again. (Basically just empty composters when they're just about to be cycled back to the back of the queue again. They should be 100% full when they're on the "back side" of the feed tape, and then they pass over a hopper before they're cycled into the queue)
So at positions in the feed tape corresponding to the queue positions, you have hoppers feeding into the composters, and those will put items in the composters on a "patience tick" if there is a customer in that line position. Once a composter is shifted outside of that range of the feed tape corresponding to queue positions, it gets filled completely (this takes up to 7 items/28 redstone ticks if he's using pies, or about double that if he uses something easier to produce like cactus). There could be more than one of these "top off" points so when the whole system is resetting on a game over it could move the feed tape faster than once per 28 redstone ticks. Then just before a composter gets cycled back around to the back of the queue again, it passes over a hopper, extracting the bonemeal and resetting it to fill level 0.
An approach like this would require some kind of farm feeding it obviously. Filling the composters with pies or cakes is the most deterministic solution (every item added to a composter increases the fill level, 100% of the time) - with autocrafters that's a lot easier than it used to be but it still means a pumpkin farm, a chicken egg farm, and a sugarcane (or honey) farm... autocrafter to produce sugar and then another to make pie. It's doable but it is a significant addition to the project. Depending on how the item distribution works (i.e. is there just a hopper line that's filled to capacity with pies to carry them to the different fill points?) the system could need over 50 stacks of pies just to fill the system enough for it to operate correctly - and then in an average game (say, 25 customers served) another 200 pies consumed (as each composter that cycles through the queue must be completely filled, then emptied again)
A simpler farm like cactus could work but it would make the patience system random - on a patience tick, 50% chance the composter fill level increases. Some customers could wind up being more "patient" than others depending on how the RNG goes. I think probably that's not desirable though.
Another challenge with a system like this is tracking which slots of the queue have customers in them, so you don't wind up adding fill level to a composter that corresponds to an empty spot in the line. For that purpose maybe a crafter that counts how many line positions are filled (add an item to the crafter when a customer joins the queue, remove an item when a customer moves into the restaurant) - then use signal strength from the composter to control which slots in the composter system will accept an item when patience is ticked.
damn this seems even better than the 3 different solutions I came up with on r/Tangotek.
I hope that play test quelled your fears a bit, because they were definitely having fun. Now add the rats, and I personally think the upgrades will add a lot
It was pretty fun watching two player like Bdubs and Scar. I think as humans we liking playing things that are simple.
Maybe you can have the poe poe or some sort of health inspector be randomly added to the queue once a week/day? And you have to do some small tasks or some kind of action to satisfy them, and if you dont make it they will shut down a section of the farm or kitchen for a certain amout of time?
Or only to be re opened after some purchase or something?
Just spitting idea's.
Day 1 feels like a tutorial. I think it would feel more fun when using the kitchen ie: smoker, crafter etc.
50% chance of getting 2 customers instead of one should create decent clusters, and create mulitasking.
the fun part of plateup is controlling the elements and upgrading constantly to 'automate', or get money and stuff
and the slightly convoluted cards where you take 'optimum' decisions in your 'workflow'
Hey Tango, will you guys be playing scrap mechanic again? Just asking, not trying to rush/push to it.
Unlikely. It wasn't popular at all.
Seeing an actual playtest I think you should just enforce it to 2 players tbh - it makes conceptualising interesting gameplay a lot more straight forward, and it's not like you haven't already made fantastic single player games in previous seasons! Plus it'll be done quicker ;)
I think it could be hard coordinate hermits plans together
Idea.... plate up was made hectic because it has multiple steps to do in order to serve a customer. Most important of which is the food and a clean plate. So my idea is, instead of clicking a button to indicate that a customer is served, how about have a hopper where it needs a clean carpet( which could represent the plate) and then it goes to some sorting process where if it is a clean carpet(plate), it would accept the order, and if not then the item would come back. This would also simulate the customer eating the food not just them going for take outs. Also after the carpet(plate) is accepted, with auto-crafter, dye it with brown or with other dyes to represent a dirty plate which could then be cleaned with washing the carpet(dishes). This would also give one more task for the players to do.
TLDR:
To add more "fun" in the game to make it more hectic, add the "Plate" mechanic from plate up.
---
-Add carpets to resemble a Plate
-The carpet would be put in a hopper to replace the button to indicate that the customer is served.
-That carpet would then get checked in an item sorter to see if its the right item
-While in the process of checking, this simulate the customer eating
-If the item does not match with the plate, it would go back and the customer would continue "eating"
-If the item does match, the customer would be considered served and the carpet goes back dyed(dirty)
-Players would then go clean the carpet(dye it back to white or the original color) to get a fresh clean plate.
P.s. I started this thought with dyed hats at first since you can wash them which simulates washing dishes, then I remembered that they are not stackables so it might be hard to sort them out. So I instead resorted to carpets which could be dyed and still resembles a plate.
What you need to really clarify with yourself is if Hungry Hermits is inspired by Plate Up or Based on Plate Up because that's two different ways of solving problems and game design.
I'd love to SEE tango and etho build a Game togheter. they're already created an awesome mail system. What a power duo!
them collabing/troubleshooting redstone, game design, everything is always great. here, decked out, always...love it. they work great together
When the game starts pre load a bunch of silver fish; splash them with weaving; use a separator to send them individually to drop off location(s) maybe in a queue at each location(s); when rats are requested double piston pull a block in the ceiling at chosen location(s); drop how ever many rats are requested; in the mean time when all rats are separated from the original pre load area; a new batch is spawned & splashed as back up?
Though you'd have to be sure that they'd be used before the potions could run out
@@Yirggzmb oh I forgot the timer on potion. So when the request for rats to be sent to the kitchen comes in; that’s when you splash the group; then separate and drop them? (I don’t know what it takes to separate them; I’m sure it’s tedious too?)
P.S. just got to the bdubs & scar part. Not only am I glad they came because they’re both extremely entertaining individuals but they’ve come to play test; which allowed tango debug as they play which is also fun to watch as it is helpful to tango. Especially because I’m sure the game has his anxiety on high alert. Always fun with friends. Hope tango has less bugs to deal with in the future. :)
Label certain monuments with signs so people know where they generally need to go or specifically need to go depending on which location they’re going to. For example refrigerator is just labeled refrigerator & not the items inside but the trash cans or other devices are labeled individually.
Warped wood is in the cyan family. Cyan is in between green & blue.
Before watching the entire VOD, did you actually play the game to a point where more difficult foods are required?
Obviously food that is just one item is pretty easy, and obviously you can't start the game on full blast right away. The frantic gameplay comes later with food that needs multiple ingredients in combination with the limited inventory. If you think it is too boring maybe remove a couple 1 item recipes.
@@TackerTacker it's probably a hard balance between "don't yeet them into the deep end immediately" while also not starting out actually boring. I do think day 1 should be almost a tutorial style level though, very easy and let players learn where stuff is and what the procedure is. But I can also see how that would get really dull once you're familiar with the game
Only part way through the vod yet, but could you cluster the first load of customers, like having the first 2-3 customers each day be added to the queue with as little delay as possible, and the rest added at the normal rate. That would give you the initial rush to require multitasking without making the game actually impossible over a long day.
My thought is that you could add the ‘messes’ using copper floors and having them age and a retextured axe as a broom/mop to clean the floors. That way it gives the server something else to do. Besides taking the order and waiting for another player to get the item.
Then I think the real fun in this game will come as the days get more difficult and chaotic. And adding upgrades like maybe allowing more inventory slots (1 or 2 max I think).
Upgrades like ‘decorations’ (paintings) that could do things like slows customer patience declining while waiting for food if that’s possible.
Adding in maybe a pressure plate in the farm that dispenses bonemeal. A few at a time like 5-10 maybe. This gives the player a few things more to do/worry about. This system could then be upgraded with maybe a further upgrade that automates this process.
Another thought is the phone in plateup could be here too and the server likely could stand on a pressure plate to add the the rate customers coming in.
One final note is if you decide to keep single player maybe allow them to have 2 inventory slots starting off so it’s easier for them to multitask and maybe open the conveyor system upgrade to allow them to throw items to the kitchen quickly. But I mostly think it’s a 2 player game because of the time takes to do things in the game
Looking at the plate up wiki heres how it tracks the queue outside:
All queuing customer groups share a single patience bar.
Following the first group, each subsequent group to join the queue causes patience to decrease 10% faster (stacks multiplicativly).
Moving a queuing group inside provides a slight boost to Queuing patience, while clearing the whole queue fully restores patience until the next queuing group arrives.
In plate up the total time for all waiting phases is 4min and 15 seconds at base(2player). 150s max wait to order, 90s max wait for food, and 15 for all food delivered.
All the Patience timings are also based on player count. One player gets more time 3 and up gets less.
I think it would help to have some tasks players can do at the start of the day to "get ready" or between customers to "get ahead". For example, the mini task to generate bone meal reserve.
I wonder which is more complex
Tango's Hungry hermits
Or
Doc's texas poker
Maybe reduce the variety of recipes. If the players get used to one recipe for one day or one match the then start to optimize
okay this exactly what I need rn
I'm only 15 minutes into the vod so I dunno if this still holds up but:
- for the tracking how long someone is in the queue: you know when a customer goes to the restaurant (armor stand gets dispensed) and when they enter (armor stand gets seated). Maybe you can use this to time how long someone is in the queue, if there is an X amount of time between going to the restaurant and getting seated then they lose.
- also a visual representation of what tables are available might be nice, like a redstone lamp above it that's on or something
Upgrade ideas:
- a "freezer" to store food, like the plateup freezer. Could be a chest/barrel/shulker with limited space where they can store items
- "auto harvest" : a observer could watch the farmland, when they plant something it gets bonemealed automatically
- upgraded tables: customers have more patience
Dunno if everything is even possible, just putting out some ideas :)
I think his main concern is "what is the physical redstone mechanic that actually stores and tracks that information"
For more randomization, random potions like (slowness) that drop from the ceiling could help. In game terms that would be explained by the player suffering from tiredness.
Then you can upgrade your energy levels, by reducing these drops or even dropping speed potions
I think that when the player has to conciously go and take an order, it removes a lot of stress. If the orders shows up automatically and you don't know when they show up, it could lead to the need for cooperation.
The foods in Minecraft is very limited. Maybe this is more of a crafting game? Maybe the players need to make cobblestone stairs or chistled bricks, to up the variety and give you better control of the difficulty?
1:17:20 "all Pythagorian theromy" the distance is ~9.8488 blocks (no i did not consider the Exact position of the armor stand nor the origin point of the radius from the book)
Add a billing system where players get paid and reason to optimize that for "score". Add two opposing serving gods that players can tip/pray to: LowKey god of Fun vs.Osha Goddess of safety. That lets them balance Tipping bonuses vs. Catastrophy risk (Fires, Rats, mess, trouble patron, food critics (who only order cake), etc.
18:00 Maybe you figured the patience in the queue thing since this time in the video. In case you haven’t, I thought of something you might consider. You would need to calculate the total winning time for all the scheduled customers, varying by level, of course. If the player goes over that total time, they lose. A countdown timer will give the player an idea of their standing as they play. In-restaurant individual customer patience stays the same, acting as a sub counter. Which is fine. If they can’t beat the individual customer requirements, they won’t beat the total time, anyway. 🤷♀️ Just a thought. ❤
#automation One “automation” could be powering the doors to the various places so they stay open. (That iron door is the bane of my Minecraft existence!😂)
1:12:25 😂 Etho!
hii tango i had an idea: you could add instand ordering as an upgrade (for example a item will hold the pressure plate down for you)
Or force a redstone signal to where the signal of the pressure plate goes to.
On the topic of fun:
- I think things like the cauldron + water bucket will be the backbone of making the players feel like their decisions r having an impact. Even if the game stays somewhat "fetch-quest-y" things like the water bucket offer a super interesting little decision for the players.
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"ok we have a water bottle order"
now, the smart thing to do is get a bucket instead of a bottle and go fill the cauldron first, then ditch the bucket, get a bottle and fill it from cauldron. Saves time in the long term but takes extra time to set up. Super interesting decision espicially if the customers come in big rushes and then die down. It'll be like "okok we have a free moment go fill up the cauldron and ill fill up the X! Quick!"
One person the cook, the other person the server
Not sure if this suggestion for the queue timing comes too late. But you could have a chest minecart in a "shadow" queue for every person in the real queue. Then if you fill those with items using a hopper, at one point it will be completely filled up, so no more items can enter, so the hopper feeding it fills up, which you can detect to trigger a lose event.
If the guest in the queue moves up a spot, so does the minecart in the shadow queue. For every guest entering your queue, you add a new chest minecart to the shadow queue. When a guest enters the restaurant, you simply destroy the minecart.
You can play with the timing by using either a chest minecart, a hopper minecart and items that stack to 64 or 16. Or maybe even preload the carts with filler items. Or of course more than one hopper per position in the shadow queue...
And if it is possible to use a comparitor on a chest minecart, then you could even do something like create an indicator with lamps showing the patience of the guest in the front of the queue.
Feature creep warning: if it is raining outside, you could unlock another hopper feeding the minecart...
Brainstorming is great for triggering ideas. Chat has great ideas! But you should also talk to Skizz and Jimmy and Pearl. Ask them their favorite things about Plate Up, but also ask Cub about weird things you can do in minecraft like when he set up the pillager to change the color of a sheep (I know that that example isn’t relevant to the game, but it could spark ideas).
Plate Up's booking desk mechanics allows players to control the pacing of the game and keep it frantic.
I believe coming up with an insentive to get a similar mechanic will go a long way.
Especially due to the difficulty of predicting the ideal pacing given different days, number of players, and player skill...
Perhaps you could make it that the quicker you are with serving the more points/upgrade options you get at the end of the day.
I think some sort of point system will probably make it more interesting as you can compare runs with other runs. Get some competition going.
Also if you could get something like the phone from plate up to get customers quicker could also be nice.
hearing your complaints made me think that maybe introducing roles would be beneficial. you could base the game around 3 players and have a 2/2/2 solution, where the number stands for how many rooms each player have to focus on. one role could focus on farming and waiting customers, another on waiting and cooking and the last one on cooking and farming. i think this works with more and fewer players as well, creating the 1/1/1/1 and 3/3 scenarios. my opinion regarding solo play is that it should be possible, but only with upgrades.
for this to make sense you'd likely have to add more tasks to the waiting/dining area, like e.g manually calling in guests from the queue (this could also make it so that the first queued guest that you keep pre loaded in the system can be at the door at the beginning of the day, reducing "load times", and the start day button could potentially double up as the "call in guests" button), or entertaining guests which could increase one stage of patience once per day.
the kitchen might also need some changes for this 2/2/2 model to work, to give the players a reason that they should be multiple people there. i really like your freezer idea for this. small inconvinences that can be omitted by being two people. e.g maybe you can temporarily unlock the crafter speed upgrade by having another player stand on a nearby pressureplate that just outside of reach.
farms are solid as they are imo, but you could make them two separate areas that allows the farmers to throw an item to eachother, and make it so only one player can be in each farming area at once kinda like with the pop down stair on the cart ride side.
final point in my novel of a comment is that the hermits need some sort of reason to play the game, and upgrade points/for the fun of it aren't reason enough. the reason decked out and frogger became so successful among the hermits are because of a solid ranking system, letting hermits compare themselves to others, and the rewards (and i'm not talking about the frog coins). when it comes to this game i think that time can be a substitute for score, and whoever finished all days in less time is the employee(s) of the month! points in itself is enough of an insentive for some players to come back to the game, but since xisuma have started with the trophies then you could probably reach out to the person that made them and order a trophy or 4 for the different team layouts. Etho and Pearl can't win a 4 player format by themselves XD
I’ve played games like Plate Up and what makes them fun is that they’re puzzles. Your puzzle pieces are the tasks you must complete and you have to find a way to fit them into the box that is your time limit. Finding the tricks is what’s fun. What is the perfect sequence of events that will reward you with the most done in the smallest amount of time. There’s a juggling of resources. In your game that would be food, prep time, and customer patience. You need systems in place that allow you to massage one or two of those elements in a tricky to pull off yet predictable way (ex. ways you can tend the food while it’s cooking to get it out earlier and ways to placate customers to extend their patience.) The player needs to feel like they’re getting away with something when they play the game right.
In a restaurant game I played the customers are harder to get rid of but sometimes you just don’t have what you need to feed them but the line is growing (and sometimes you can see a customer type in line who’s easy to serve) so you give the unwanted customer the wrong meal and maybe you fail that one or maybe you get far less points but the table is freed up. The player took a calculated loss but they also accomplished something. It’s a give and take.
playing music and offering free treats is another way I’ve seen these games let players manipulate customer patience
Imagine the chaos if they could unlock a station of energy drinks "speed potions" to cover more ground faster 😂
Would it be interesting to give certain upgrades downsides alongside them, so when making the decision between the upgrades there's more to think about other than your currency amount?
Maybe adding pop-out tables to put items on also gives rats a "new place to hide" so the number of rat spawns increase. Or maybe upgrading the number of tables decreases customer patience (Although that sounds like a nightmare to redstone).
For tracking independent customer patience, what about a shulker box per customer? When a customer leeaves the queue, all shulker boxes break and a hopper or dropper chain moves the shulker to the next position in the queue. Could always have the patience at the table be independent from the one outside, because that's not totally unrealistic. But if you do want 1 patience then you distribute the shulker to the same position as the armour stand.
Not easy, would need a drastic redesign, but technically possible
I would be more worried if I did not remember Several times of similar Doubt-Despair phases during the Decked out development, and we all know that all worked out to be an amazing game!
Adjust the timers so that the tables from left to right get more impatient. This will force players to make decisions whether to take an impatient customer and let the patient one wait. If you have multiple customers running out of patience at different rates it makes it a challenging juggling act.
The fact that you generally avoid the quasi connectivity has saved me a lot of grief in my lifelong project of converting Decked Out to Bedrock..
You could approch 'automation' via inverting the recipe system. Start the players making complex foods and add a recipe *upgrade* to make their recipes simpler.
For the queueing system - what if you measure the duration of time that the final slot in the queue is occupied? So, once that bucket fills up to whatever amount you decide, then they lose.
A visual display for what day you are on could be cool, high scores work well :)
I personally think custom foods would have been the best option, but I understand you wanted to make it easy to pick up.
no Fan boying/girling today, just pure honest feedback :P will do in the edit after watching^^
I was about to sleep 😭
There can be events ex- stoves gas is leaking , so you will have to stop it in x time or you lose
Have you tried turning it off and on again?
Thank you for the vod upload tango!!
Less than 5 minutes
I feel like multiplayer is the way to go with this game. Plate Up, from a viewer experience, is fun because of the interactions. (Half of why I love the streams is because that’s where “Jimmy Jiggles” came from!)
I think the player interactions/cooperation are important for that reason. It makes it fun for us to watch, and it makes it fun to play / stream.
A suggestion, which might take away from vanilla Minecraft, but is my suggestion because I feel the biggest problem here is that Minecraft lacks the food needed to make this game possible: A temporary texture pack for when you play plate up / custom items dispensed after making food.
I don’t know redstone, so I don’t know how much of this is possible, but this idea is that you’re using a crafting recipe of a pre-existing block, but when crafted, it triggers a different, retextured food (or item) to pop out. If not that, then retexturing blocks with a temporary-use texture pack and renaming items using said texture pack. Still using that idea, but eliminating the weird dispenser - crafter nonsense.
Essentially just making it so the players have to work together to craft items, even if those items are a bit custom in nature.
I get that this might be a bad idea, sheerly because it looses it’s vanilla Minecraft aspect, and everybody’s probably thought about it already. But I thought I’d put my two cents in.
Finally, unrelated to ideas… just as a thought behind the purpose of this game. I don’t really see Hungry Hermits as the next Decked Out, in terms of longevity. It does feel more like a mini-game. Which, of course is disappointing in some aspects, because the goal would be to get people invested in a game for a long time. But I think it still has the potential to be a very fun streaming game. (Saw someone mention that this will be more fun for viewers than watching Frogger/Ravager Rush, which I agree.) If it was a minigame, you could always add “updates” to it (the addition of upgrades to the kitchen, the rats from the ceiling, maybe even side quests and other easter eggs).
Bdubs: 1:27:15
Here's an idea for the queueueue timer: Make a 45° slope and put rails on it, alternating between regular ones and detectors, one detector rail for every space in the queue(ueueue).
From one side have pistons block the track so that carts will stay on the detector rails (the piston head should be one block above and one ahead of the detector). You can link all pistons up with a diagonal torch tower. If you send an 8 tick pulse into the lowest one they should let them all go ahead by one spot.
On the other side place droppers to aim at the block above the detector rail. These will put the timer items into the carts. You can read the output of the carts through the slope, placing comparators behind the blocks the rails are on.
All droppers should fire at the same time and if there isn't a minecart in place the item will shoot across the track, at which point you can catch it in a water stream and put it back into the cycle.
The only problem is that there could be gaps between the customers, so you may need to link the detector rails to the piston above them.
Maybe if you’re still having issues, you could just have a specific amount of customers show up during the day and not worry about how long the customers have been waiting outside for. Just have the fail state be if you don’t serve them fast enough
About the queue getting full and then losing, maybe instead of measuring the fullness of the queue, measure the rate at which customers get dequeued. if you don't dequeue a customer for too long you lose (though still keep the "queue is full" losing condition as well)
Like 1000!!! Sry it was a satisfying number 😂 So excited to watch the playtest🎉
Here's an idea if you want to try having one player just in the farm area - remember last season where BDubs had the horse archery thing? Have something like THAT to occupy the farmer player's "free" time, right? Like a side game that the more he "wins" it the less rats or something? I don't know. Maybe could be interesting if the bobbing horses are viewable by the customers and other players in the main area? That way the farmer player doesn't seem so isolated, if you know what I mean?
Randomness can feel good in games. Like lets say the freezer. If you are in the freezer waiting for a max of 20 seconds, it will feel very good if you hit the random chance that it only took 5. Which gives the player some brain candy to feel happy and get on with their task.
Also I feel like randomness in upgrading will help the game a lot, which Plate Up has as well.
This round you can choose between upgrade 1 3 and 6, the next round between 2, 3 and 5. Every game will feel different and feel good in different ways.
I think that you should make the game get exponentially harder. Say that Day 1 is super easy, just to get players acquainted with the flow of the game. Day 2 could just be day 1, but perhaps at a slightly faster rate. By Day 3, you are incorporating more complex recipes, but at low frequencies. Day 4 could be exactly the same as Day 3. Day 5 has the possibility of any recipe but will be much slower than Day 6 will be. Days 6-8 should be extremely hard. One of the most important parts of a video game, at least in my experience for what it's worth, is that there is some kind of content that you can't reach immediately, which will require players to get more creative and coordinate. I think the reason for your nervousness about the fun-ness of the game is that you can't feel how the game will be played by the other Hermits. Another reason may be, even if subconsciously, you think or know that this game will never add up to DO2, and perhaps you feel that you want to make Hungry Hermits on par with DO2 in terms of how replayable it is. I think what you can recreate from DO2 is the competitive nature of the game. Take Ravager Rush, for example. You're just running from one side to the other while dodging ravagers, which is still pretty fun, but it doesn't have any in-game nuance to it. The Frog Trophy made by Hoffen allows the Hermits' competitive natures to be on full display. There is no reward at the end of the game or season. People will work harder for something than they will for nothing; that's just basic psychology.
TLDR: Make content that is unreachable for a little bit, reevaluate how you look at the game in terms of success, and perhaps consider some kind of external reward or gratification.
Hm. (I have seen parts of this live and parts in VoD, so forgive me if I've missed something)
I think, from watching you play PlateUp, that a lot of your enjoyment of the game comes from the customizing/improving of the restaurant, not just the timed day itself.
Small things, like having extra counters pop out or having that auto-emptying can as improvements might add that feel that you're looking for. They're just not added yet.
I do find it fun as-is, and I could see a team really crushing it as time goes on.
How would kitchen improvement happen? Would there be an option after, say, rounds 4, 6, and 8? Will there be automatic upgrades at those milestones, or would you have the freedom to choose which of those happen at which times?
You'll not be able to get that ridiculous customization, but i think what you'll be able to get is a good cross between Plate Up and Diner Bros, and that's gonna be a great time.
1. I think if you want to increase the decision factor, open up more hotbar slots, and run the customers through quicker. Now routing and time management is the game.
"Okay I need carrot right away, but if I grab sugar and pumpkins I can feed the next costumer as well, do I have time for that?"
2. If there is some rhythm to what costumers will want next, the players can hedge and prep in different ways
"Cake hasn't shown up in a about 10 costumers, its due, I should grab eggs when I go out for fish"
3. If a skulk finds a silverfish in the dinner room, costumers leave more quickly
You don’t have to stick to Minecraft recipes. You can fake and retexture new recipes with redstone. In plate up the fun is learning the recipe, optimizing for it, and embracing the chaos the upgrades bring.
Tango how about removing the farm aspect altogether... the game is about timing... make the items dispensed like oh you want only a carrot???? well make the dispenser timed to dispense carrot as if it was picked and peeled etc.?
and a made item is dropped from a dropper.....and if it isn’t picked up quickly it drops into lava (burned)
HUGE part of why plateup works is the phone. The pacing of work isn't perfect, rather you are insentivised to push your luck as far as you can for extra money, so you can buy upgrades to keep up with the customer scaling. Take out the phone, and plateup becomes a boring game.
When the queue is full, can't you start a timer then? That way you're effectively tracking the maximum time a customer has waited without dealing with the complexity of tracking individual times, or tracking time for the customer at the start of the queue. So when you serve a new customer that resets the timer. The maximum time to serve is then dependent on the number of other customers, their spawn time, and the timer -- (customers * spawn time) + grace period.
Alternatively, you could have customers that arrive after the queue is full fall into an "unserved customer" pool. You could then have it so that if you failed to serve 2 or 3 customers that will end the game. You could tie that with the customers you haven't served from the tables, so 2 or 3 of either would end the game.
I wonder if this game wouldn't have been better with another theme after all, like a redstone factory or home depot that sells all sorts of stuff from ladders to item frames. There's just not a lot of food items in this game that have interesting crafting recipies to begin with.
Though in the end I can't tell how much fun Hungry Hermits will be, because honestly I don't get the appeal behind Plate Up either. Everything Tango has made here is amazing, from the areas, to the mechanics like the animated customers, to the implementation of it, and I hope it all comes together when it's finished.
as one who completed both overcooked games, while playing with my brother I think what made the game fun even if there's like a theme for every couple level is the environment of the level itself. a lot of the levels may have had similar recipes, but each one had a challenge, like some had cars in the middle of the street where the kitchen is, I know u have done something similar with the silver fish so keep trying with that.
also, something cool that I remembered you had done in the biggening of the season which is moving belts that transfer items in the red stone factory, why don't u add with some walls so both players have to send items to each other to complete the orders.
and I think you have done an amazing job with the things that can be ordered but why don't you add more like maybe potions or stews, which will require more Coopertive playing as u would like.
but GOOD LUCK and keep on working on it you are doing great.
Don't know if Tango looks at these comments or if he gets to this idea later, as I'm only about 20 minutes in, but what about having certain areas that can only be accessed by having a pressure plate stay active. So your partner would have to come stand on it to let you in and out, making you work together. I don't know if it's possible to switch that activation to like a lever or something if it's a single player game - by diverting to another Redstone line if you have a selection of player number? I don't know Redstone lol
Tango, seems like the rats would add another dimension and break up monotony, if nothing else, not to mention spiking the players' adrenalin and excitement, thus enhancing game play. It's also just a cool feature completely consistent with the lore of the diner setting. So I think it's worth the cost of doing it (which is easy for me to say, since I don't have to pay that cost lol)!
In plate up you have the call option. As a player it might be fun to override how fast the costumers come in. In that way the people that have played day one multiple times, they can increase the difficulty.
I saw in the vod there was problems with too many costumers coming in at once. Maybe a timer in front of the queue could delay them? Only when the previous costumer has been away from the queue for a certain amount of time, the next gets to move forward?
I have no game making/redstone knowledge so I don't how easy or how possible this is or if this even is a worthwhile idea.
No offense to redstoners, but Tango's right. QC is a bad "feature". It may be useful and convenient in a few circumstances, but it is inconvenient and annoying in way more even when you understand it.
If you make the customers queue up more regularly, then tracking customers is pretty equivalent to tracking time in queue
If you want the players to not know the value, you could take out the windows for the last few customers
2:00:10 yeah global throttle or make falling faster by blocking off the water over the hole that opens up. For example by pushing in an open fence gate.
Or detect with a string from above and close the trap door immediately when the customer starts falling. But that might be complicated Redstone-wise.
What if there was an easy thing to get, but a limited number of it that could be used to give patience to customers. Then the players themselves can choose when to get a break on the crafting. For example, when there is a cake.
Also, last comment.
Maybe you can have like a "trip" system. So when you are bringing the food to the table maybe there is a change for you to trip over something that causes the items to be dropped on the floor.
Maybe kill the player from the ceiling with arrows or something in random spots then increases the more days pass?
It would be like the waiter trips in front of the table and drop the food.
I will say that having freecam really helps here - watching the redstone easily and as it goes.
If only quasi connectivity would be shown xD
How is bdubs blinking? Is that a fresh animations thing?
Yes, it's even better when he sleeps.
@@s4shade64it's so horrifying. Keralis also did that now and somehow I feel it would be so creepy just seeing a screamy face and beaming smile with that fleshy eyelid thing when they sleep. Eughh
what if the stove “catches fire” or like random equipment will “break” and you’ll have to do something to repair them. Just a small random element that will keep you on your toes, but if you don’t stay ontop of it becomes problematic
what about putting orders in bundles/shulkers, so you can create orders that have more steps, like plate up? if you do shulkers, you can have a single shulker loading station that the players have to manage together.
For line patience, how about a timer that fills faster based on the number of people in the queue? Each time a customer enters the restaurant, some amount of the timer is drained (or reset?). It penalizes a long queue because you have to serve customers faster to keep the timer from triggering.
For the queue, imo, when you are in a queue, no matter how long it is as long as its moving your patience is fine so resetting the time every time it moves would be realistic. if you did want to make it incremental you could have a timer on a hopper clock that resets every time it moves but have a counter keeping track of the amount of people in the queue (items added/subtracted from a barrel). Read off the barrel to remove/add items to the timer to change the timings.
You could track a customers time in the cue by depositing an item onto them that can be replaced. Suck as boots. Put gold boots on the last queued slot at set intervals. Then before popping them up deposit leather boots on them. If an armor stand drops gold boots it leaves the store. If that happens three times you loose.
Don't know if its possible but you could have combinations of food like Steak and water bottle or Chicken with Baked Potato. Dunno if it could work with the left hand of an armor stand tho.
it would be sick to like, collect a bunch of spiders and drop one or two every game in the farm as a farm-specific threat that u have to take the broom to deal with, and then you can maybe buy a brewing stand upgrade and use spider eyes to brew "coffee"
Is there anyway to possibly add zombies/maybe slime to the mix in some way where they are almost dead ( it could be something like they caused food poisoning or angry customer for wrong order)
What if the order armour stands vanished after 10s, so part of the game is remembering who wants what. Not necessarily something I find fun in games, but its an avenue
For a resettable cobweb timer, could you align the item with the edge of the cobweb and leave a space next the cobweb tower for a minecart to fall past them, missing the cobweb but sucking up the item hanging out the side?
i started watching now and maybe solved later, but you can have a timer that counts the first person of the queue but when the next client goes in the restaurant it resets. this should solve the problem
Im so excited for this, love following the development process. What i liked from these games is how crazy hard it gets.. and the organisation needed
Co-op they should have conveyor from the farm and the kitchen, while they have a timed door for blocking the location. But cooking needs to be more balanced if you want to lock up a player