Unfortunately it doesn’t! I can confirm with no caveats that Charlie will not be an RO in any way shape or form.
This is in fact what I am already doing! Unfortunately combing through 118,000 words across 25+ files is still quite an undertaking, especially when there are legitimate instances of gendered pronouns that refer to characters like Sebastian and Charlie. As a result, I am confining my search to those files where I know the error exists. Will I miss some? Almost certainly. Will I continue to make this mistake? Yes. It is the price my poor brain and I have paid for gender-flipping the ROs.
The error isn’t with the code, it’s entirely human, so quicktest unfortunately won’t be of any help to me, and I will continue to rely on error reports from players. I have already corrected many of the known errors, though I won’t be updating the files on dashingdon until I am ready to release new content.
I do not have an issue with verbs except insomuch as I occasionally mis-conjugate. The only pronouns that switch between single and plural are those the MC uses, which is rare and easy to handle in any case. I prefer using variables rather than multireplace. It is, in my opinion, more readable.
I just want to express again how fond I am of this WIP. I love how light it is: fun, hopeful, and refreshing. I wish we’d see more slice-of-life games in the future as I generally think slice-of-life content is maximally underrated.
The next thing you know, you’re in your bed scrolling through Tumblr. You managed to take a shower, even with the world spinning around you. It still spins a little bit when you close your eyes. You’re too sloshed to comprehend anything you read, but a few idyllic picture sets capture your imagination. You dive down the rabbit hole, clicking on tag after tag until you finally find yourself reading a reposted news story about free castles in Europe.
This scene from the prologue actually happened to me! Minus the drunk part at least. I was scrolling through Tumblr and found a post about free castles which got me thinking/daydreaming about leaving my uncertain post-grad future to live in an old European castle.
Once I started working on the game, I was never able to find that Tumblr post again, but I was able to find a news story about it here. To summarize, Italy was giving away old castles, farmhouses and monasteries to people who agreed to maintain them and turn into a tourist attraction.
I LOVE the way these relationships (particularly the romances) are building up. I was wondering: Is there a hidden flirt/romance stat? Sad to see Alex isn’t a RO, but I really love Tony so far! Probably gonna go do another playthrough to see what Rashid has to offer next lol.
There is! There are several variables that govern MC’s interactions with other characters. In addition to the friendship stat (appears as the first initial “x” in the code), there is also the romance stat (“x_rom”) and “flirt style” (bold, hostile, and shy).
The “x” and “x_rom” stats typically determine whether the MC is eligible for certain interactions, and the flirt style determines the tone of them. Usually after a player chooses a romantic interaction, the tone will conform to the chosen option. It’s not always possible to offer the player a choice however, so the flirt style influences the entirety of the scene.
Other than these variables that build over time, there are also a ton of scene specific variables that typically look like “yrx_00_00_00_x.” These variables tell me all kinds of things about the path(s) the player has chosen for the MC and have a huge impact on both which interactions and scenes the MC sees as well as how those interactions go.
The goal is that the game will be able to recognize both how many positive interactions the MC has with other characters (“x” and “x_rom”) and the specifics (“yrx_00_00_00_x”) of those interactions! I hope this will allow me to portray nuanced relationships among the characters.
I’m afraid I’m starting to gush too much about the behind the scenes haha, but please don’t hesitate to ask other questions about the mechanics!
Thank you for taking the time to read my work and comment on it
Fear not! Make-out sessions with other characters are coming
This is delightful. I enjoyed the demo so much! I’m going to have a hard time choosing a love interest. I also appreciate we can spend time working on our friendships with non-RO characters.
The premise is so much fun. I did notice that there wasn’t any mention of who was doing all the manual labor outside – it sounds a little like Alex is doing a lot of grunt work and MC is doing a lot of planning, but not much else? I’d love to see mention of planting the wildflowers, or cleaning up the pathways, or being tired and sore from doing the outdoors work that clearly needs doing. I know they got a grant to pay for the construction but surely they’re also doing a lot of hands-on work themselves?
I’m definitely going to bookmark this WIP to stay updated on your progress. I can’t wait to play the full game!
I found a few typos:
Summary
Missing quotation marks after “now” (telling the family section).
"That’s enough for now. You rub your tired eyes. “There’ll be plenty of time to talk. It’s just a phone call away, no different from when I’m in New York.”
Missing space, probably caused by italics. Do bars and restaurants dothis on purpose?
And a couple of line repeat/continuity things:
Summary
Talking to Charlie, after she says “My older brother, Albert, is a contractor. He’d love to get his hands on this place.” — next page repeats:
Charlie’s face lights up. “Well I know he’s my brother and everything, but he really is amazing!”
“My older brother, Albert, is a contractor. He’d love to get his hands on this place.”
After tea with Ines - repeat of tea cakes line
“Ines volunteered him to give me a ride home, but he babied out. Can’t say I regret it though. The company on the walk home has been far better, but hey, at least I got some tea cakes out of it,”
“At least I got some tea cakes out of it,” you say, raising the cardboard box in front of you.
After dancing at the bar and choosing the option to leave Tony a big tip. I did not make the choice to stay with Tony and they did not dance. (I did choose the first flirt option though.)
“Balancing the three glasses in one hand, he heads back to the bar
He smiles thinking about the dance he shared with her. Maybe I’ll ask for her number.
The bar is starting to quiet down now, allowing Tony more opportunity to contemplate the American.”
I forgot to respond to this earlier! I love your playlist (of course!). Also… “I Love How You Love Me” will be having a special place in T’s heart… one day… But they prefer the version by the Paris Sisters!
Incoming gush below haha
Thank you! Also thank you for pointing out those typos and discontinuities. I think I have taken care of them.
There is a variety of labor going on behind the scenes, and you’ll be happy to know that there’s a short allusion to sore muscles and early mornings coming in the next update. Other than that, I’ve hesitated to speak much about the work that Alex and the MC are doing because I still need to decide how to handle a mechanic that hasn’t made its way into the public demo yet. More under the cut.
Invisible Labor
There is a division of labor between MC and Alex, but it’s not worker/manager. Alex is in charge of the outdoor spaces, including the gardens and livestock, but MC is also active in the planting and harvesting. MC is in charge of the indoor operation, which includes, currently, processing (a small portion of) the produce from the gardens. It will also include in future updates managing the events that take place at Darbury and the guests that come with them. Neither of them, however, are involved in the construction or landscaping beyond the planning and demolition (hence the sore muscles).
From February to June, Alex and MC spend the majority of their time and effort planting the garden.
During all this time, both Alex and MC are working in the gardens and with the animals. After the completion of the kitchen in mid-June, the MC will begin to split their time between helping Alex outside and making various jams, sauces, and pickles to sell at the market.
This is actually going to be a huge part of the game, but I haven’t decided how to implement it yet. (Open to suggestions!). Essentially, the player gets to decide how to spend their time in the kitchen. Will the MC make apple cider or pickled peppers? There will be pros and cons to each. Without getting into the weeds, the player will have to consider time, price, difficulty, and a few other factors when selecting a recipe.
Now the difficulty of implementing this system. I could:
Give the player access to the crafting interface once per week since there are different fruits and vegetables to work with every week. But this would regularly interrupt the narrative of the game.
Open the interface at the end of each yearly narrative (which is what I have currently coded). The downside to this one is that it’s difficult to streamline since, as mentioned earlier, every week there are different fruits and vegetables (and therefore different recipes) available for crafting
Give the player access to the interface once per month. This may be the best middle ground solution. It wouldn’t be as responsive as a weekly system, but it also wouldn’t be as disruptive or cumbersome.
The crafting system, which is supposed to be a Harvest Moon-esque cooking mechanic, will be hugely important to the game. It will impact whether or not the MC experiences certain events and even their ultimate success. So far, the game has been mostly slice-of-life, but conflict is coming, and the player will have to manage not only their relationships to other characters but also “Success Points,” “Renown Points,” and “Harvest Points” in order to progress from year to year. The Harvest Points will come from this part of the game.
So until I have implemented this mechanic, I won’t be doing a whole lot of exploration of the labor that goes on behind the scenes. I expect that I will tackle this challenge once and for all after I have finished the Year 1 narrative.
If you have any suggestions, please let me know! I also welcome your questions! I have done so much research and planning to eventually make this mechanic possible, down to the cost of strawberry ice cream per ounce relative to that of unprocessed strawberries, taking into account time and in comparison with other products!
You might be able to streamline it a bit, by having like the MC would input all the planning and such by actually having some sort of like tablet, with a bunch of different options, that might work as far as not breaking immersion for the actual crafting choices perhaps? at various points, and then do it that way, that might not break game immersion, or at least make it much more difficult to break game immersion. As far as the interface timings, perhaps month would be better, I’m not quite sure. In my opinion it would mostly depend on just some things? I don’t think at the end of the year would make canonical sense in the game, since you do a lot of planning kind of on the go.
Oh, that’s fascinating! Thanks for giving us a preview. I love how much research you’ve done into the gardening, and the crafting should be really interesting (and also add to replayability! Which is good, because I’m gonna want to romance more than one person).
I like the idea of a monthly crafting interface - that ties in to the seasonality of the produce without interrupting the flow of the interpersonal parts of the game as much. And it would definitely make me feel better about the MC doing serious work on the project and not shuffling off too much onto Alex. I was starting to feel a little like a jerk in that regard.
I like the game, keep up the good work. 
“I Love How You Love Me” will be having a special place in T’s heart… one day… But they prefer the version by the 
