Lotus Aura fucked around with this message at 20:30 on Jul 9, 2015

Oh, thank god. We're finally done with one of the longest scenes in this thing.



Stats are nice and easy, so we'll deal with it right now. All very self-explanatory but:

Strength = determines physical damage done.
Speed = determines accuracy and evasion, I think. It has the least immediately obvious effect.
Constitution = determines physical defence of course.
Wisdom = magic attack and defence. Also ailment resistance kind of.

Attack = Strength+Weapon+any other benefits (if applicable)
Defence = Constitution+Armor+Accessory (if applicable)

F/W/L is elemental resistance; Fire/Water/Light respectively. Not gonna be important for a while though.

Magic Shovel MP we'll get to later.

You may notice that there is no EXP here. That is not an oversight.



Before we deal with the whole dungeon thing, we'll go everywhere else. Starting with this kid at the fountain in the square.



She just sells groceries. Which right now is just Spinach and absolutely nothing else.



The red house off to the side is our own home and there's plenty to do in here.



Storage is exactly what it sounds like. Item space is fairly heavily limited, so we'll be putting this to use later. Meal and Rest we'll get to when we can. The various guides are just "this is a list of all the [thing] you have (seen)."

...I will almost assuredly NOT fill all of every one of them. That takes far too long. But now that I've said that I probably will by accident.



We'll be dealing with the mayor a lot, so we'll go see what he has to say pretty frequently. Like right now for example.

Only two types of rooms are available right now. The little icon next to the owned/stock will be more relevant later, so don't worry about it until then. Just gonna buy one of each for the time being.



So now we'll check out the Weapons equipment store, since we'll be spending a lot of time there as well.

This is going to be very important later on, but for now we'll just see what she has for sale.



True to her word, the only weapon we can buy right now is a basic Knife. Definitely going to do so, because if not we're going to be unarmed and that is quite not good.



She also has a piece of very bad armor for sale. We're not going to buy this though. It's not worth the cost really.



And last, we have the Magic store. This is an important place to check frequently as well... but most of the time it's not for Magic.

Just get used to it now, since every time we get a new ingredient we'll bring it to this guy to get a new recipe.



But this is a magic store and Owen has no really useful spells to start off with. He has one that's kind of useful much, much later.

Heal's going to be a full restore for a long, long time even with our pretty bad Wisdom. Which is pretty nice, I gotta admit.



And like he said, we can head over to the fountain and now buy Dry Fish Flakes. Gonna pick up a couple for later; since we can buy these that's going to help a lot. Sadly, most ingredients are only available as random drops.



Aside from the cave, there's still two small little things to check out.




The gate just gets updated after every major plot beat, which is a term I use incredibly loosely in this case. Point is we won't be back here for quite a while.



The Ruins, on the other hand, we won't be back to after this ever.



It's a wifi thing, and it requires friends knowing someone else with the game to begin with. Then you can run through their dungeon instead. Exciting stuff, I am sure.



All this aside, though, the Caves are quite transparently THE most important area. Because its where that whole pesky gameplay thing is waiting.

Yeah, so we can't really do much until we dig. This is where the Shovel MP stuff comes into play, since that goes down by 1 everytime we do anything with it. Once it hits 0, we have to leave for the day so it can be refilled.



Normally, going to the right isn't the "best" way to go about things, but we want some space to work with. The ideal way to handle things is to go for the bottom-left corner first but pfffft nah.

Now that we've got something to start with, we can put down a room right here.



Despite the image above implying otherwise, I changed my mind and opted for the Feed Barrel instead. Since this room right now is a straight shot from the entrance, it makes more sense; it has the easier enemy selection even if it doesn't give us a small advantage.

On the other hand, immediately afterwards, I changed my mind back and ultimately switched the two. Dungeon designing is haaaaaaard.



We ultimately want to get to the top-right corner of the area, so we'll go north from here and begin to actually set up rooms how we want them for Simple Plans. There's nothing else we can do here on our first day, though, so we'll just leave now and come back later.

Well, this does technically give us two new recipes, they're not added "officially" until we finish this minor sidequest first. (Personally speaking, I think the Pigboar is better but we'll get to that when we get to that.)



Speaking of which, we're pretty much done with our first day so we'll just go home and wrap things up now. We could still go shopping, but there's not much of a need to do so right now.

Okay, NOW we can finally stuff something down Owen's throat. We can only choose between the two we have here right now...



And neither is very good, to be frank. We'll very quickly get ones that outclass both of these, but these are amongst the easiest to make since they basically just cost money.



The MP one is technically better (since Heal costs 3MP), but it really does not matter at the moment. Adding an extra point or 2 of HP here and there doesn't make much of a difference, but it'll add up quickly.



And now that we've eaten, we can rest and finally end the first day.

The next couple of days are just going to be spent building the dungeon and hopefully stealing a Crowbat's leg to finish our first sidequest.

So, let's get right to that.



Day 2 now, and from hereon in, we can basically do whatever we like. In order to do so, though, we need some more rooms so we can build more things. Just gonna need a couple more for today since shovel MP is still pretty tight.



Aside from that, there's nothing to do in town right now so we'll just dive straight into the cave.

Okay, so any purple circles on the map in the top corner are monsters. They will always enter a room on a new day (so long as its basically not adjacent to the ladder) but they can randomly appear outside of them as well.



More importantly, whenever we enter a square that's adjacent to them and they can enter it in one step as well, a fight begins.



Fights are pretty simple; we only have four options to choose from, a normal attack, Owen's magic, an item or running away.

Thankfully for us, the Warcat starts Asleep because it got dragged outta bed for this fight. It won't wake up until we hit it. So we're gonna do just that.



Unfortunately for us, the Warcat is probably the second toughest enemy on the first floor (at the moment) so now that its awake we're in for a relative world of hurt.



Especially when it uses its special attack. So its gonna hit even harder. Oh boy...



Yeah, ow, there goes 1/3rd of our HP in one strike. Very nasty business, that. We can easily heal it and then some right now, but that's a bit excessive at the moment; I'm generally that overconfident idiot what only heals when absolutely necessary.



Thankfully, it doesn't come to that this time around. It generally takes about 3-4 hits to actually take down a Warcat which is not exactly ideal, but we always have the advantage on this floor which helps.

I have to say "generally" because enemy strength is semi-random. It's possible for a Warcat to have slightly less HP than that (its 16-18 on floor 1) and the money we get also varies a bit as well.



Something not made clear at all by the Straw Bed's room placement (and the room period) is that you can mostly guess what you're going to be fighting based on its silhouette.



In this case, we DID get a Crowbat. How fortunate.



Equally fortunate is that it got the first turn, so it got to do something. Sounds weird, I know, but...



Considering we can effortlessly one-shot it, even at absolute base stats, that's pretty bad on its part.



Now that we've taken care of those two, we can focus more on finishing building our little area for collecting food easily. See, enemy drop rates are godawful if you just fight one enemy at a time. The chance of something being dropped goes up the more enemies there are in a fight; 3 is the most, of course, and all but guarantees the last enemy killed will drop something.

There are only 2 enemies we can fight from a Feed Barrel, and they have a whole 3 drops between them. 2 of which are food items.



Because of how close that is to the current Straw Bed, we're going to set up a cluster of 3 of these a little further off to the right. There are also 2 enemies that can appear in these, but they have a lot more drops between them. The difference being, with one exception from the Warcat, it's all equipment.



Once this is finished, we'll be able to get stronger in both ways very quickly. At least in theory. We do need to spend a decent chunk of cash to get it setup, but its relatively profitable because of how much you can get from equipment and all.



Unlike before, whenever we go back home now, we don't get interrupted by anyone else, so we can just cook and sleep in peace.



Speaking of which, until I specify otherwise, just presume that I'm only boosting Owen's HP. His MP will easily catch up once we're done with the first floor, don't worry about that.

Straw Bed by the entrance still just spat out a Warcat at us, so we'll skip up to this little trio. Can clearly see that the second enemy from a Feed Barrel will turn up now.



And we even got TWO Pigboars for our troubles! Taking them down in a fair fight right now is a bit much for Owen, mostly because its 3-on-1 more than anything else.



Fortunately, the game starts us off with 1 of every basic magic item. Let's put this one to good use...



Fire Bombs are pretty handy for most of the first floor, since they'll oneshot almost everything we can run into. The exceptions can be counted on one hand.

It's two.



Since there was three enemies in that fight, we're pretty much guaranteed to get something out of it for our troubles. A Pigboar was on the far right, so it dies last from the bomb. That means we got one of its two drops; the bag is just "miscellaneous" stuff so we can't tell what it is immediately. It might be its food drop (ideal)...



Or it might be its fur. Not quite what I wanted but it will more than suffice for the moment.



The good news with this is that a Fire Bombs costs 50G to purchase. The fur sells for a little over 150G, so we can turn one bomb into 3 if we want to.



The other straw bed also had a Warcat. Was sorta hoping for the other enemy we could fight at this point, but no dice. Just gotta place the next two straw beds and then continue digging up a bit.



Nothing else to do in the cave, so let's go shopping. We don't need to sell the fur to get another bomb immediately, so there's that.

The Healing Potion is just Heal but less cost effective. And less effective in general.



In a nice rarity, the equipment store actually sells something new today as well. Don't get too used to this happening.



Pigboar Fur actually works out as getting us profit even if takes all 3 bombs we can buy from it. Not much, but its something?

Well, no, its really kind of not. It's kind of weird having items with no use BUT to sell when we can get infinite equipment that sells for about the same, if not more, for the exact same effort but more consistently.



The hat is relatively cheap but, again, not worth buying. We can get better stuff as a drop in the cave.



Eat, sleep, and back to the grindstone we go.

Translation: as well as meeting the specific requirements, place enough rooms on a floor and a boss fight will appear in a fixed place.



Speaking of rooms and fights, our feed barrel circle gave us the ideal setup right here. We don't even need to waste a Fire Bomb on this or anything.



Now we can finish that sidequest the Mayor wanted us to do. I'm normally actually done with it before now, but taking stuff a bit slower this time around.



Setting up something special here for a little bit later. Two easy enemies and a gap for a third room, but in this case its one we don't even have yet.



The straw beds have paid dividends quite nicely this time around, and finally given us the other enemy they can spawn. I'd rather have a Warcat on the right, to maybe speed something up later, but a Goblin will do as well.



As we are right now, trying to fight through all 3 of these guys "fairly" would be ludicrous so we're just gonna burn them in their sleep instead. The goblin alone could decimate us if we woke it up.



Or at least it could have done if it didn't give us this instead. It's not the best piece of equipment for the floor, but its the nicest for sure.



More defence than the hat we could've bought, but it also grants some resistance to being Stunned. This is a good thing, because a Goblin can randomly stun you and if that happens you are probably going to die.



We're actually basically done with the general layout we want for the floor already. Just need to expand one square in the top-right corner for later, and we have two gaps for the last rooms we'll get later. One as the right-hand side of a 3-monster battle and one to go right by the ladder in this alcove.

Unfortunately, even with them we won't quite have enough to make the boss spawn. We need to get that Rank up to at least 40 and those two rooms alone won't do it.

Fortunately, we do need to spend some time digging around a bit more because I think its about time we did something we should've done on day 1.



That'll have to wait until later though. Right now, I'm going to do something weird and seemingly crazy. Just gonna sell that Helmet we just got. It's only 120G but...



Now we can buy it back. We can buy as many of them as we want for that matter. This is the main way of increasing the equipment store's stock, and there IS some cases where this is worth doing as more than a silly thing for an example. We'll get one of them fairly soon, even.

So let's go cook this Crow and give it to the mayor.

So our real 2nd part of what we get outta one simple fetch quest is that we can now cook two new things. We even basically get to keep that Crow Leg.



...But we get 2 Pigboar Ribs as well. This lets us push both Strength and Speed up to 5 each, which isn't too shabby right now.



For now we'll upgrade Strength more; the quicker we get that up, the quicker we can stop relying on items to take down a group of sleeping enemies.

As for the third part of our reward? That's gotta wait, since we'll get it right at the start of the next day.

Lotus Aura fucked around with this message at 23:29 on May 1, 2015

Nuffkins fucked around with this message at 02:27 on May 4, 2015

Nuffkins fucked around with this message at 12:19 on May 4, 2015

We totally don't have to do this if we really don't want to. This always pops up the day after we finish getting the mayor that crow leg, since the last thing that unlocks is, uh, sidequests. Each floor only has a small amount, at least.

Of course, they all consist of stuff we'd probably be doing anyway so we might as well do as many as we can. Get extra free things that way after all.



And since a trash pit is something we don't have yet, we should go see if we can even buy one.

So now we have the ability to buy a room that is a literal rubbish tip. We won't actually do that just yet though; first, we're going to leave and re-enter the furniture store. In a sort-of hard to realise way, this trigger also makes it so that...



Another new room is also unlocked at the same time. Problem is, they have independent scenes so you could miss this one pretty easily.

Now we'll buy both a trash dump and an iron chest; can only afford one of each, because the chests are quite expensive right now. At least they very quickly turn that downpayment into quite a nice profit fairly quickly.



That little bit dealt with, let's just go to the cave and drop them in the little slots I already prepared.

Monsters might not be willing to chill in rooms right next to the entrance, but they have absolutely no issues with storing their treasure there.



More importantly, there's a little something lying in wait a bit to the south of the entrance as well.



We can't go very far south, since there's an actual wall there. It's just tucked away over here, in the corner.



On some floors, there's items hidden in a corner or two. Occasionally, there's nothing at all though.



In this case, we found an accessory that has no use other than to be sold. It's a piece of equipment with no reason to equip.



Each weapon has its own unique little extra that can proc sometimes (but not overly often). Nice when it happens; daggers have fairly varied bonus effects. This one just has a chance to attack twice sometimes. Pretty useful, really!



Since we're fighting a solo goblin, we'll take this opportunity to see what one can do. This turned out to be a very bad idea.



The damage doesn't seem to impressive on its own, but that's not what makes the Goblin's skill a bit of a worry. That honour goes to its added effect.



Really wishing I didn't demonstrate the store by selling the one piece of armour that would be best right now. Being stunned is kind of a terrible scenario since it means we cannot do anything until it wears off.



It could take one turn, or it could do what it did here and take several. If it lasted one turn more, we would've actually dropped here. How embarrassing!



...At least it allows us to blow this 3MP for a Heal. Wouldn't do this if I had more than 6HP since it'd be a gigantic waste otherwise.



It does make for a good full heal though.



Still not getting the Warcat on the right over at the trio of straw beds. At least we can get our first shield this way. It's only 1 defence, but it's a start.



Naturally, the trash dump is going into that gap that was left at the top-right corner. You might be wondering why I didn't grab 3 of these and make a set of them like with everything else. This is a valid thing to wonder, but there is a reason for it.

With this and the chest in place, we're actually done with every room we "need" now. Unfortunately, the game still wants us to place upto 5 more rooms after this, so we're going to need to add some unnecessary filler.



To do that we're going to need more money, of course. Getting two Pigboar Furs is normally a terrible thing, but it'll help speed this up a fair bit. The Glass Ring can be flipped for easy money; 200G isn't a bad amount for something you can grab immediately on Day 1.



And since we still have that other Pigboar Rib that Kate brought, we can boost Owen's strength to 5. Can't do that again until we get more as a drop though.

Well now, this is a rarity. And it gave us a very nice new weapon at that. A solo Warcat in the straw bed by the entrance dropped its dagger for us.

...Finally got a drop from the right enemy, but it was the wrong drop. Getting kinda worried that I might have to drag things out now.



This isn't a bad drop to get by any means, mind you, since its better than the Knife we spent actual money on. It's immediately getting equipped and being used until we get something better, of course.



Sadly, didn't have quite the same luck with the actual equipment farming area. Once again, we got a Goblin drop but unfortunately this is something we actually start with.

Might actually have to create a second equipment farming area just to get the one thing I actually want.



So, the reason we're not smacking around 3 Slimes at once is pretty simple really. They have the most HP out of everything we can fight, and this kind of damage is with a Fire Bomb so it's always going to deal 29 damage. This also has the added downside of making it so we cannot one-shot them until later. Their minimum HP is 30.



They're tanky blighters and it's a very good thing we got that Warcat Dagger just in time. If we still had the Knife as our only weapon, we'd be dealing a whopping 1 damage.



Slimes are not fun buggers to farm, even if its just for the sidequest. They have 3 drops; 1 of them is vendor trash, the second is a ring with actual use, and the third is the Dry Slime we want. This one might also take a while knowing my luck.



But since we need to add some padding, lets grab some more hidden loot. Our second one is much more worthwhile and over in the bottom-right corner so it takes a bit more time to get to.



It is very much worth it though; it's the best ring we can get until a little later.



It does nothing for our defence, but it does increase our Attack. If we can kill stuff faster, we don't need to worry about defence.



We're going to need a filler area, so we'll throw a little area up here of three more food rooms (has more longterm benefits y'see). Or at least we will once we get the Shovel its MP back.



The Ring of Power gives us exactly as much money as the Glass Ring if we sell it, and we will. This is something we want to duplicate so we can run around with two equipped immediately.



Only got the one Crow Leg, so we'll have to get one of them to drop if we want to boost Speed again. Considering my luck as of late, I wouldn't be too sure of that.



Oh, and I put a second straw bed by the entrance as well. This one is pretty much entirely just to help try to grab the drop we want quicker.



...It does not help. The Oversized Club is the first club we can get and it's okay I guess.



Same strength as the Warcat Dagger, but being a club it has a chance to stun enemies instead. I prefer the dagger effect, though, so not gonna bother with using this one.



Normally I'd be glad that the chest has something in it now, but I'm not too sure. This adds its key to everything's drop table which means...



...We get it instead of the food we could put to good use. This does still have one good use we can put it to, but its not exactly likely to happen.



The Iron Chest has a few random items it can give, which is entirely random and determined when you open it and not a moment before. Basically means there's no way to manipulate the RNG to get what we want.

Silver Coins are by pretty common to get and their use is to sell for easy money and nothing more. But they sell for 500G which makes them the single best item to sell on the floor. Glass Rings are still bad and worthless, so of course they're most common. Copper Rings are just +1 Defence, but that's still better than the Glass one.



What we want is the second rarest item, though. The Leather Vest is available here for now, and it's a lot easier to farm on the second floor, but it is oh so very worth getting now.



It is by far the best piece of armour we can get for a little while.



Once again, not the drop we want. At least it's something new, even though it's not going to get used?



At least the Slime was kind enough to drop what we want on the second try.



There's still one more hidden treasure left to find, and its up in the top-left corner this time.



It... was not worth the trip, though. I misremembered it as being 1000G somehow. At least we can sell this for some cash.

Could upgrade MP instead, but we'll hold off from that for now. Sole HP is our only alternative right now, so I guess we'll have to do that.



Before we go grab that new spell, now that we've delivered the Dry Slime the next day we get something new at the Equipment store.

Sleep is actually a very good spell, surprisingly enough. It has a remarkably high success rate and shuts down a lot more than you might expect.



...Warcats, however, will continue to be unnecessarily mean with their drops. I think this drop is the only one that rivals the Slime's glass ring for sheer spite.



Sleep shutting down everything in one shot is very common. And it's only 2MP to cost at that! A very good use of that 300G.



Not much else happens this day; just pretty standard setting down a couple rooms, and moving on. Stewed Slime is the best food thus far in a sense, since it gives us more HP than anything else and ups defence.



It's also technically the hardest to make since it requires 2 things that are exclusively drops. Won't be making this again for a while, because the RNG just does not like me right now.



Still needed to place exactly one more room to hit Rank 40+. I made a conscious decision to place a single straw bed over by the right wall; this will actually be beneficial to us later down the line.



Ah, wow. Here's the rarest item from the chest; it is a helmet with 3 defence and is a rare hat in that it grants resistance to stunning.

Wish I noticed I got this earlier, because I just sold it without thinking. Good job I can rebuy it, since normally earliest you'll get this is from a drop on the third floor!



Just gonna take this moment to begin to boost MP a bit; gonna need it more and more soon, albeit not for reasons you might be expecting.



...I didn't think I'd actually be a bit annoyed that the boss turned up when it did.



We could totally go and fight it right now, but only if we don't get the Warcat Halter.



Which, somehow, we actually do. Really wanted this sooner, but no such luck. Ah well.

As you would expect, no, Owen cannot equip it.

Switching one Ring of Power out for a Ring of Light. If I wanted to maximise the use I could get out of this, I'd sell it, buy back two and then use both.



On top of adding 1 to defence, it gives us 30 points of Light resistance. This isn't a percentage amount (it works out right now as reducing Light damage by about 25%), but it is going to be very, very useful.



Now, how about that boss fight?

Apple Viper

So, the Apple Viper is a bigger threat than it first appears. It's regular attack is on-par with everything else in the area, judging by the numbers; in reality, that it's doing this damage with our upgraded armor and defence makes it that much more impressive.



Unfortunately, we can't really hurt it much. Despite what you would think, Fire is not that effective against this thing. Sub-10 damage from a Fire Bomb is quite worrying!



It does have the silly result of making it so that our normal attack can actually outdamage it for once, though.



If this is all that it was, the fight would be slow but not really a challenge. Fortunately(?), the Viper does have two nasty tricks.



It doesn't seem that impressive in terms of raw damage, which does make it actually kind of the best thing to happen to us.



...Even though it does also does this. So long as the attack connects, this happens and there is nothing we can do to cure it. There are no items or spells available for a while that can cure poison.

Fortunately for us, it only deals 1 damage to us at the start of our turn. That makes it such a non-issue that we can just power through it.



Until he drops below 50HP and this happens. This is the Apple Viper's most threatening move and its exactly why we wanted that Ring of Light.



That 14 damage IS with the Ring of Light. That's pretty drat lethal, but its consistent with it and so we can play with that as a fixed value to keep above. Well, really 15 because we take the poison damage immediately after.



Aside from that, it's just something that we have to deal with and hope we have enough heals to win. That's the big reason here why you want to actually boost MP earlier than I did, but pfft, nah. If I got better food drops, the +4 I took would've been completely unnecessary.

End

But we'll consider that version of events to be the more "ideal" way of doing things. Just gonna go back and redo it without even bothering to pick up the Ring of Light. Not even gonna hand over the Warcat Halter until after we're done here.



It does mean we lose half our health in a single light emission, which makes it more dangerous to mess with but we can still manage to get through this and win.



Just, uh, need to remember to not waste MP trying to put it to sleep. Unfortunately, just because its good and useful against normal monsters doesn't mean anything here. The Viper is a boss and all.

Well, I guess there is a nice little path available that will avoid all the monsters and let people see everything in there? Still a stupid idea, but its not like stepping through the door will get someone immediately devoured.



So we're now essentially done with the first floor. There's still little bits and pieces to do there, but they'll take quite a while to do so we won't worry about it right now.

Next time, we'll begin the second floor for real.

Lotus Aura fucked around with this message at 15:25 on May 9, 2015

Nuffkins fucked around with this message at 02:58 on May 4, 2015

The game isn't going to be quite as generous with this stuff in the future. We'll eventually get enough to almost no longer matter... by the time we don't need it any more.

But seriously, most of this stuff is only available as a quest reward. Getting it for no real effort is great.



Before we dive in and build the second floor, we do need to make the rounds and see what the two most talkative people have to say.

He's not kidding when he said it was cheap, geez. Grabbing this now while I remember, but I don't really need it for a while.

The walk to the second floor is really such a non-issue, with that nice path I made. Due to the sheer size difference, the same cannot be said of getting to the third though.



Anyway, we need something to trick Hobgoblins to move in. And nothing we have can do the job...

It's basically the same as a discount!

We'll just use a couple of random enemies on the first floor to showcase Gloop's capabilities. They start off completely unequipped, without the ability to equip anything for that matter, and with no spells. But there's two different spell options? Hmm, probably not important.

Also guarding instead of running. Owen can't guard, only run. Kinda annoying!



Whether or not you get to mimic something is rolled per enemy, but unlike with drops fighting 3 dudes at once doesn't make it a virtual certainty. It's also not always from the last enemy killed. In fact, if you want to mimic something specific, you should just throw that room down on its own.

Anyway, stats on the left are the base stats. Stats on the right are post-mimic stuff. Equipment and special skills if applicable on the bottom; mostly you can pretty easily tell what skils you can get/what you can equip just from the monster itself anyway.



More importantly, before we go downstairs, you may have noticed that the area where the ladder is used to be a wall. Now it's not. We can dig further out from here; there's not much of a reason to do so...



But if we go to the top-right of the expanded area we can find something hidden there of course.



This is where that money was. And it's more than I remembered too! How nice is that.



And if we spend several days digging down to the bottom-left corner we can find something else there as well. There's nothing in the top-left or bottom-right so don't waste your time.



This is some very nice armour, but, uh, it's for women only so Owen can't wear it. This is also the only one you can get, so if you really want it then you gotta do it here.



Fortunately, Gloop is thoroughly gender-neutral so they can wear it quite nicely. We won't be doing that though, and we won't even be collecting it just yet. The water resistance will be handy to have a fair bit later, so just remember its here for now.

It takes like 3 days to get to if you do nothing but dig right towards it. That's kinda ridiculous right now.

Also kinda didn't get the money just yet. In this case its because I forgot to get it until long after we were done though.



So, the second floor. We did make 2/3rds of an area just for this field, so we should stick it right here.



Just a bit north of there, we'll start to build up our grinding area for, uh, just about everything. And it's a long single path too so even Gloop can get in on it.

Later on, I'm going to switch the straw beds here for feed barrels though. You'll see.

I'm sure there's something wonderfully ironic about cooking up some slime immediately after befriending one. Mostly I just want the extra defense though.



Anyway, next day this guy's back. I'm telling ya, you feed a stray shopkeep once...

..Why's it gotta be an evil Altar?

Ah, now this is more like it. So many things to kill. LET'S GO!



Taterbombs, of course, can use their bombs. Well, the fire ones anyway. Not the Blizzard ones.



It really tears into both Owen and Gloop, but the latter moreso right now.



Well, this is nice I suppose. Now we don't want them to drop any more of these ever again. With this in hand, the little girl that sells vegetables now sells them too.

...Naturally, then, with but one exception they're going to drop nothing but these for the rest of the floor. That one exception is a Fire Bomb.



Also sticking an Iron Chest right by the stairs. Same principle as before. Plus this makes it easier to loot.



So, the pub "cellar" only contains Hobgoblins but it has an AoE effect. It makes everything start the fight drunk groggy. Grogginess just means they're a little more likely to miss and one other little thing.

Problem is, this overrides the Straw Beds making their inhabitants start asleep. This is kind of a problem with the normal Goblins replacement.



There IS a chance, at least, of groggy things just falling asleep on their turn.



Also, ow, Hobgoblins hit really, really hard for our current "level." If anything's gonna make it so we need to heal, right now it's this thing.



They also drop a lot of new, really good equipment... and this. Well, at least its 500G?



Gonna keep adding to the passageway now. This includes setting up an Altar next to a Cellar. Really, the third room should've been a Feed Barrel again, but in this case it doesn't matter as much.



At least with two floors worth of things to kill now, we begin to get ingredients thick and fast.

Oh and I shoulda pulled out the starter Light Bomb from storage for what comes next. But I forgot like an idiot so... uh.

Just more clearing stuff out, and... wow, Taterbombs are much more built than they look. We have to give up being able to equip stuff, but this makes Gloop hit harder than the Warcat arms.



Anyway, tiny Goblins are replaced with Wardogs. Wardogs are big, burly dudes who will stab you. With a sword.



Their sword is the first one we can get and also the strongest weapon available on this floor.

Needless to say, we want it. It might take a while to get though, since they have like four other drops.



....Or we can get it off the very first one we fight. That works too.



Swords are cool and good because, well, this

an RPG. Of course the best weapons are swords. We will be giving every other type their fair shakes at other points though.



Anyway Spooks are--

....yeah, uh, you don't want this until you get the tart. No Light Bombs? You're not killing any without lots and lots of Strength grinding. Just about every hit is going to deal 1 damage for quite a while!



Unless that happens. Sword unleash on the first hit?

And I can't get a Blizzard Bomb to drop? Is the RNG just broken or something?



Apparently, yes, it is. I was expecting to have to spend ages grinding to get this one. Oh my God.

Yeah, so, Grinning Spooks give Gloop their first spell. Spells work a little differently to other special skills. Those require the right body piece equipped; spells just necessitate getting the head at some point ever. Gloop then keeps the spell forever.

Granted, you do need a headpiece with MP (and right now that makes it Spooks and pretty much nothing else) for it to mean anything though.



Even got the food immediately. This one was pretty likely though. Despite having three drops, this is the one they drop most often. They can sometimes cough up some good equipment but I would not count on it.



Alright, so sticking the trash dump in the middle here seems weird but I have my reasons. Namely that it doesn't really matter where it is. If we want the slime drop, we can get it easy enough as-is and if we don't then we can get something else too.



Speaking of something else, the only hidden item on this floor is in the top-left corner.



I think with this, we have more on-hand right now than we've had for the entire rest of the game thus far.



Also a Warcat on the first floor finally dropped its shoes. Nice of it to do it a bit later than it ought to have done.



Oh. I forgot to talk to the guy about this before. Oops.

Well, it does require being able to kill a Spook in the first place. Easier said than done until we get a certain spell.



Anyway, the guy told us we need two potatoes so I bought a second like a forgetful dope. The recipe only needs one.

That's a whole 60G wasted! And the stat boost isn't even good or anything. Never even making this thing. At least the Potatoes will be handy later, when we get access to really good meals.



For now, we'll just eat even more slime in front of our slime baby and probably make it worry for its life.



If we want to make any Spook Tarts for ourselves (and we will), then we'll want to go straight to the magic shop today.

Geez, that is VERY expensive. This one spell costs the most out of everything available to buy to date.

...We buy it immediately, of course. It's the Light Bomb's spell version but better in every way that matters.

It's a minimum of five Cellars and a rank of 70+ to get the boss to appear for what its worth, and-- hang on, the chest has been filled at last. Took long enough!



Lots of enemies still get oneshot by Fire Bombs, so we can rush through fights easy enough now. Plus we had over 6000G; Fire Bombs cost 50...



Really, though, just wanted the dogs out of the way so we could replace their bedrooms. Feed Barrels still only give Crowbats and Pigboars here for what that's also worth.



So, yeah, this is why you hit Spooks with Holy Light/Light Bombs. They take 1 damage from almost everything else. Almost unfairly so.



So let's see how much damage this does.



Um, so, a Spook has ~22HP. At their absolute maximum.

This kills one twelve times over. At minimum Wisdom. Magic is pretty good!



Speaking of pretty good, random Slime coughs up a drat nice body part for Gloop. Using this immediately.



Oh dear, I appear to have trapped myself in the bedroom next to the garden. However can this problem be resolved?

Right. Wanton murder.



Kind enough to give us the key to the chest, so we'll see what it contains this time around. Silver Coin and Copper Ring stick around from before; Short Spear is the first of its kind and is only available here. We'll use it later.



Glass Tiara is the second rarest item in the chests here, and naturally Owen can't wear it. So when we get one for real, it'll go to Gloop instead.

This one we can get as a drop on the 3rd floor, so there's that I guess.



But what we want right now is this thing.



It's technically the second best armour avialable right now, Sailor Suit being tied for raw defense but has an elemental bonus, but the best we can realistically use. Giving it straight to Owen, since Gloop can't equip any armour with a Slime body.



Spook Tarts are really good to make, being the magical equivalent of the slime stuff. Easier to get though, only requires one item, and getting one lets you get more easier. It's like an ouroboros of magical power.



So naturally we boost Speed first.

Helps more since 5 Wisdom is enough to laugh at Spooks' feeble attempts to matter. We also kinda want to be fast enough to go before them so they don't Seal our magic anyway.

Honestly, I just combine the two so that way we can get repeated attempts at mimicking stuff while also getting all the items. Takes less time to set up, significantly less time to fight though and it works just as well.



Case in point, switching the potato-y arms out now for a Hobgoblin's pair instead. Exactly as strong at the face of it, but getting access to a lot of new equipment and a bonus ability for good measure.



Still need a club though, so before we worry about that, let's shut this Spook down so it doesn't get in the way.



And by "need a club," I mean the Hobgoblin that was in this room originally dropped one. So we want to get through this ASAP to get it as quickly as possible.



See? This is an actually Good Club. Sorta.



It's not that much stronger than the first one, and it's weaker than the Wardog's Sword. But Hobgoblin arms are the strongest available for Gloop right now I do believe, so its technically the best weapon there. Can't use swords with Hobgoblin arms.



Speaking of Hobgoblins drops, though, they were kind enough to give us new shoes rather fast as well.



Armour noticeably only goes up in a more piecemeal fashion than weapons which jump all over the place.



And NOW we can boost Owen's Wisdom. At least so its in line with everything else. Feels sorta weird to be making someone so perfectly balanced, but his strengths will be more accentuated later when it matters.



Anyway, just gonna jump right back into the cave now. Making a path around our farm, so that we can get to the boss easier when it spawns. As nice as it is, I don't really want to fight through at last 10 things before fighting the boss itself.



That's just thinking ahead though; it still hasn't spawned, of course. While clearing monsters out again, the Spook actually dropped its robe.



It's a straight downgrade from the jacket, but they're both quite rare to actually get so I'd just take whichever one you can get. If any.

Still no Blizzard Bombs though. The game is mocking me, I swear.



Well, a new shield from a Wardog isn't too bad I suppose.



Granted, shields aren't that great but they're a nice extra all the same.



Gonna need this defence boost before too long, I reckon. Boss should be turning up any moment now.



Okay, well, maybe not. But at least we can trade second floor Warcat legs for... second floor Warcat legs.



This is probably gonna be useful in some way.



Best helmet available thus far, and the stun resistance is going to come in handy.



Shoulda gone for Wisdom and not strength. Hindsight is 20/20 etc. etc.



Mostly because NOW is when this thing turns up.



No reason to delay any further; just gonna beeline straight for it.

Leon

So, as you might have realised by now, boss fights are kinda slow affairs that aren't really that hard. This is the kind of damage we can expect to deal to this guy.



Well, with Gloop anyway. Owen's can vary wildly from 1 to 7...ish. At least with a normal attack.



Best way to deal with this guy, outside of lucky Stuns, is to use the Holy Light spell. It still only deals 10 damage, but if I wasn't an idiot I could use that to take off 60 of his 146 HP pretty fast.



Especially since his attacks actually kind of hurt. Not so much his normal attack mind.



No, it's his two special skills that are a problem.



The grab doesn't deal that much more damage than his normal attack, but the issue with this one is the chance to stun.



But this attack is the biggest problem here.



Deals more damage than his normal attack, can outdamage his grab, and it hits both Owen and Gloop. Fantastic.

So of course he uses it more than the other two.



We don't have any multi-target healing, but at least our HP is low enough to only need to use the Healing Potions still.

Wish I, uh, thought of that sooner than mid-fight though!



Still, despite that, it just took a mite longer than it ought to have done. Not particularly difficult if you don't just try and mash A or something.

End

Really wish I had blizzard bombs by now!



Ahem, anyway. We have the MP and rooms ready, so let's begin prepwork for when we start for real. Just gonna put the chest down now while I remember.



A couple beds and a trash dump too. Not really much else to add right now; just gonna start to dig out a 3x3 area again off to the right though.

Now, let's go give the Mayor this mane.



...Or, uh, not. Hmm. I guess we need to go take a nap and come back in the morning.

And so did Katherine force herself into the party.

Same deal as with Gloop, new party member, new music.



Kate's equipment selection is a bit different to Owen's, of course. She can't use shields, clubs, swords or anything like that. Which, well, did you see her initial stats? She's a blatant mage so fair enough.

We'll give her some of our good stuff in a minute. First, let's see if the Mayor will take the mane now.

Okay, fine, maybe not then.



That's more like it. Still not ideal, but it will do quite nicely for now. She'll get upgrades pretty fast too anyway.



And, of course, since we're eating for two now, aside from this one time we won't be covering every single meal any more. Not just because it'd get tedious and boring or anything.



I mean, it probably will but a lot of them are going to be pretty obvious and self-explanatory anyway; might just stick end of update stats at, uh, the end of the update or something. We'll see.

Lotus Aura fucked around with this message at 20:42 on May 8, 2015