Super Bean Caravan

Welcome to the alpha demo of Super Bean Caravan! This game is a less ambitious project that I’m going to complete before my main project.

Your feedback, any feedback, is supremely valuable. If you have an itch.io account you can leave a comment below, or send them to [email protected],  or any other means you have of getting ahold of me.

This page will become more salesy and fun later on, but for now has to suffice as the instruction manual. 

Super Bean Caravan

The Legumi are a secret race of bean-devouring creatures. They have a legend, and that is that True Happiness is somewhere out in the world, but no one alive has made the trek.

In Super Bean Caravan, you play as a young legumi, and your goal is to explore each corner of the land looking for wisdom houses which open the path to True Happiness. 

Along the way, you’ll keep yourself alive by finding, harvesting, and eating beans, which add time to your life, and also produce two pips. Pips are tiny, explosive seeds that can be thrown at monsters to frighten them away.

CONTROLS

The game is controlled with the arrow keys, space bar, and “P” button.

• The arrow keys move your legumi around the world map, and are also used to navigate menus.
• The space bar makes you eat a bean. If some other action is displayed over your legumi’s head, (enter, bounce, chat,) it performs that action instead.
• “P” pauses the game. From here you can see your beans, pips, time, money, and how many nearby wisdom houses you’ve visited.
• You can also stand still to see how many beans, pips, and seconds of life you have remaining.

OBJECTS

While traversing the world, things will appear as a distant glisten  until you get close enough to see what they are. Here are some things you might come across.

•   Beanstalks will drop three beans if you walk into them. Those beans will regrow after sixty seconds. They are fairly rare, and tend to grow in green, natural areas, as well as around legumi settlements. 
•  Monsters will chase and attack you as soon as they come into view, forcing you into a battle. I’ll go into more detail about battles below, but suffice it to say, if you’re not sure what something is, make sure you’re ready for battle before you approach!
• Treasure will appear as a glisten until you’re right on top of it. Pick it up for some easy money! (Money doesn’t do anything in the demo, but in the full game there will be shops to upgrade your character.)
• Mushrooms will bounce you towards a preset destination. Sometimes somewhere safe, always somewhere good. 
• Wisdom Huts contain wise old thinkers with musings to pass along. Visiting every wisdom house in an area opens up the portal to the next area.
• Portals is a fancy word for ‘doors’. They can be entered with the spacebar. Some remain hidden until all the nearby wisdom huts are visited.

BEANS, PIPS, AND LIFE

You can hold ten beans, and ten pips. You start the game with five of each. You also have sixty seconds of life, which starts ticking down whenever you are outside a town. 

When you press spacebar to eat a bean, you will gain back ten seconds and also produce two pips. 

Pips can be used in battles to scare monsters away.

BATTLES

When you encounter a monster on the overworld, it starts to pursue you the moment you’re close enough to see it. When it reaches you, it’s time to battle.

The legumi have two strategies to escape this danger, and they depend on the monsters’ hunger and startle numbers.

• The legumi can toss an equal number of beans to the monster’s hunger. If the monster is satisfied, it will leave you alone. 
• The legumi can throw any number of their pips, which will explode at a random volume number, (zero to three,) for a total explosion that matches or exceeds the monster’s startle number, and scares it away. 

If you manage to beat the monster, they’ll drop some money and leave you alone. However, that doesn’t mean you’ve heard the last of them; every monster has a cooldown, and once they’re finished their break, they’ll be on the lookout for you again. 

Sometimes when you throw a pip, it won’t explode. Luck of the Legumi dictates that there can only ever be one dud per throw. 

Monsters won’t attack you per se, but if they’ve got you up against the wall with no beans and no pips, y'know, they will kill you. 

TIPS

• Beans are life! Search the fields around town for some places to stock up, or your adventure will be over before it begins. 
• Crackijack are very brave, but all they want is a single bean. Conversely, Maunch Minors are very hungry but startle easily. 
• The path to true happiness will become visible when the four wisdom houses are found. (Psst. It’s up north.)