2117: Highway Wars (Submitted, closed)

I apologise if I seem nitpicky, here, but, I think this was edited for the forearm padding, correct? If so, how am I bleeding? Nothing too big, but I was just confused. What kind of knife does this guy have? It should’ve been caught in the spikes. :joy:

Please, continue to be as nitpicky as possible! (the more you are, the better!) Actually, this section was not new, but I didn’t allow for the new option of the forearm padding. The new text should reflect this, and how the blade will get caught and you can easily disarm him, without suffering any damage. Also, some more flavour text was added in the case that you have a kevlar jacket (prevents your chest being slashed during this combat).

All your comments help a lot, so please feel free to continue to send me suggestions to improve! (these last changes will obviously only be reflected after the next update, which I plan for later today or tomorrow, as I want to add a bit more to the story before updating)

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Gotcha! Believe it or not, I enjoy hunting for bugs in these games. Especially when they are great games. :wink:

Thanks for the kind response! I shall post any more errors I find tomorrow.

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Glad to know that! Do let me know if there are other options you want, or any areas that you would like exploring etc… all suggestions are welcome!

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One suggestion I have that is related to your map - As of right now, it is a little monochrome and the settlements blur into the background.

My suggestion is to make the settlements a darker shade or ideally, a different color (like red) - or alternatively, somehow emphasize the destination chosen and origination as well.

I’m still digesting my latest session, so if I figure out further feedback, I’ll add it in later.

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Yes, I’m not incredibly happy with the maps myself… but not too sure as to what to do with them yet… I’ll try thinking of something, and might include some parts in red, as you mention. I have to make some more for the second part of the story so I’ll turn this in my head for a while…

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Just updated the game with part of the final sequence for the path leading to Burgos. However, the ending of this scene is still incomplete, but it can give people a feeling of one of the types of endings I’m looking at. I’ll try to work on it further during my long haul flight today, depending on how motivated I feel. Also, a number of other changes and typos have been ironed out as suggested by various people (thanks once again to all who have given feedback!).

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@adrao I heavily enjoy your games. I’m still in love with the highly creative Tokyo Wizard, and I enjoyed this equally as much. When this fully releases, I will be glad to pick it up.

Now to play the update. :blush:

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I started the demo and seeing there is not charisma and half of opposite stats are not opposite at all. Normally, When I don’t see a charisma stats I just go ahead elsewhere.
Honour and Deceit Loyalty vs treachery.

THERE ARE NO OPPOSITES AT ALL.
I could be very loyal to my clan or family but being cunning and treachery with the rest I could be deceiful with people but still being honorable. Stuff like don’t attack kids or people without weapons.

With that stats well you totally has blocked the character I was thinking about . Charisma is a big deal in this type of games. Mad Max was about charisma those times he intimidated people with a no ammo shotgun lol.

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Man you just spit out game after game. Where do find the time?

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I have to agree with @poison_mara. I never paid full attention to the stats. I should’ve.

She is right. It’s no big deal, I think, but they could use some renaming.

Hmm I’m going to disagree there. I think Bravery vs Cowardice, Aggressiveness vs Peacefulness, Kindness vs Cruelty, Seriousness vs Frivolity, Loyalty and treachery and Prudence vs Recklessness are all valid opposed stats. You could rename them but none of them bother me as is.

It’s true you could be loyal to one group while backstabbing another another, but again I don’t see any issue with it lowering your overall stat if you are treacherous. I mean you’re still going to get a reputation for it regardless, and it depends how the story is going to run. I know how you interact with your team changes their responses to you so the relationship you have with them is also going to have influence.

With the remainder it depends on how they’re being used by the author. So if Honour vs Deceit- if that’s applying most to how you interact with other characters, being stalwart, well intentioned and honestly keeping agreements, OR self-serving, misrepresenting and lying, not sticking to any code of conduct, I think it’s ok. I guess honour could be changed to Truthfulness/Honesty but that does give the stat a slightly different meaning which may not be what adrao is going for and Google does list “deceit” as a possible antonym of honesty though, so it depends on how adrao is planing to use this stat. (I actually have these two as opposed stats in my own WIP). In your example: if you’re going around shooting at unarmed kids your cruelty and/or aggressiveness could spike since those are situations where it’s unlikely to be required to resolve a issue at gunpoint.

I personally don’t think all games have to have a charisma stat. Some games really do need it (ie dating type games, some leadership type ones ie:politics heavy ones etc), however not all. (Again I don’t have one in my WIP, I’d rather rely more on individual relationship stats and how particular individuals feel about things. ie one might dislike people who don’t show mercy in battle while another is all for making sure the jobs finished.) I don’t think charisma would be the right stat for intimidation, it’d be more to convince people to believe you and take up your cause. For intimidation with a no ammo shotgun for example, I’d be thinking a combo of bravery and recklessness for example.

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Not in a rp. You think from perspective of a normal reader. I think from a perspective of a gamer. that stats. Lead to Empyrean problem. I as role player act in role. I don’t do following a stat forever . No I act as a character. What that provoking. is this you are loyal to your group you are great to them and never lie to them. However you want to protect them in the harsh world. You are the only could do that. You are poor and have no enough weapons is a dystopian and you have to do whatever you need to feed their bellies.

So you have to searching that makes you need con other people.

What happens then game decided that I can con them because I am too honorable. Or worse It decided that I am shit with my family and wants to stole then and being an ass because I stole some raiders.

I could be ruthless with bad guys or someone rich So game assume I will kick puppies and stole to pregnant women just because.

With all respects Mad Max is all charisma in first parts. He always convince people . Charisma is sex appeal not blunt intimidating or bravery. A con art is not brave tend to be coward…
And about your game My main problem with them is you have only a personality and is plain. No option to be flirt or subtle basically your character are plain and doesn’t change in all story. Does different stuff but nothing really hits. I never posted again in your wip because I felt my feedback won’t be appreciated. I only post in threads I know thw author and know will accept my feedback without problems.

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Nods- I get your point, really I do, but some of those points can be addressed using relationship stats as well and it does depend a bit on the tone of the game. You’ll have to ask adrao his thoughts on it. I haven’t finished this game yet but it doesn’t seem to be the case that if you behave in a dishonourable or ruthless way you get seriously railroaded into a “nasty guy” track that I’ve seen. So far many of the encounters in highway wars have been shoot first, talk later (if there is a later), I can see why charisma might not be the foremost stat here. I’m just discussing my POV with you mara which seems to differ, but it doesn’t make either more or less valid, it’s just the nature of the thing that everyone is different. Give the author both sides and they can decide how they want to act on it :slight_smile:

I’m sorry you feel that way about my WIP and myself. I consider all feedback and take it on board if I can see there’s a problem and I’m able to work it into the storyline. One of the reasons for the slow update is I am currently fixing a lot of things, including rewriting some sections to have better more thoughtful choices. I try to have an open mind to any feedback I’m given and certainly don’t have a problem if members give constructive crit, (I’m quite grateful if people point out problems to me) although sometimes such as in this case with the in game use of the honor/deceit stat I might have a differing opinion. (Although especially if I have more than one person tells me the same thing I have been known to change my mind as being potentially wrong about something and I’ll make the changes anyway). I’ll admit my style of writing in this one, probably doesn’t lend itself to your style of play since as you pointed out, there isn’t large amounts of things like flirting in it which you’ve said you want.

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@poison_mara, @Jacic, @Voldy thanks for the feedback, much appreciated. Actually, both of the comments you make are not incompatible as I had already realised there was a problem with my stats (and that some of them were redundant…). Again, like in Tokyo Wizard, I suffered from starting to get things moving without thinking properly about them, so I’m now stuck with only two of them (aggressiveness and honour, and I agree that maybe the naming on honour vs. deceit is not exactly what I want to represent). But, like Jacic, I also prefer to keep track of each individual action on a certain characters perception of you (so, certain characters are happy when you act aggressively, but not only that, and will become unhappy when they are harmed, or when you perform poorly).

But, this leads to the problem of renaming my variables. Basically, at the moment I have

Bravery: 50% Cowardice: 50%
Aggressiveness: 50% Peacefulness: 50%
Honour: 50% Deceit: 50%
Kindness: 50% Cruelty: 50%
Loyalty: 50% Treachery: 50%
Prudence: 50% Recklessness: 50%
Seriousness: 50% Frivolity: 50%

The ones in black are the only ones that play a role so far, bravery being almost useless as all the brave things lead to more aggression (at least so far), and the others again overlapping. By honour I was trying to mean this idea of behaving like an honourable person (helping those in need, etc), and by loyalty I meant loyalty to the Free Cities. But, any better ideas on how to name them? I was considering leaving only three or four, and creating a fourth stat to go alongside hand combat, shooting, driving, which could be “cunning” or something like that (equivalent to charisma), and that could be used to influence some parts in the game, like cheat at the roulette mini-game… any ideas are welcome!

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@Mxm124 this game was started before Tokyo Wizard, so in a sense it has been a long time in the making… I just got sidetracked as I become more interested in Tokyo Wizard. But I want to finish it in the next couple of months to work on something for the CSComp in May!

PS: Otherwise, I take my laptop everywhere, and write in trains, planes, while waiting for people… sad thing is much of this is for my daytime job, but whenever I get a moment I work on my WIPs

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Allegiance vs Rebellion. Could be used for The free cities. Or just A track of Oppinion others have of you And then some stat to the factions. Something like If 50 tolerated If 0 hated … Something like that could be more intuitive for player

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A stat that lets you cheat at games would be kind of cool :slight_smile:
If you’ve got the other stats in there that aren’t being used much, I’d almost leave them for the moment. If they’re not being used you can always delete them later or relegate them to minor hidden stats that are having small influences such as occasional flavour text changes. (I’ve actually been thinking the same thing about which stats to have more prominent).

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I think Fearlessness would be good for the stat for hand combat, cheating, driving, shooting, etc.

I reckon it’s a nice catch-all word in this case. How about it?

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Similar to Mara’s suggestion, how about Lawfulness vs Rebellion. (Not sure, if that’s quite right since some of the outlying posts do keep laws of sorts but I’d imagine obeying the laws and government of the free cities would be considered “lawful?” also not sure if you’re rebelling as such against the free cities, you could be but you could just be playing it as self interest with loyalty primarily to yourself.)

Or maybe if it’s not to long you could have Free City Allegiance or loyalty vs insurgent or subversive.
How about Patriotic vs Insurgent or if you don’t like insurgent, self interest?.

Haha sorry just thinking aloud. Too tired to think straight, that’s what happens when you pull an all nighter study session, I’ll be quiet now :confounded:

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