“Honestly being a New Yorker isn’t all that fun. Yeah you’ve got the multiple gangs that roam around the street that either help or harm others depending on their views; the lawful and corrupt detectives that solve cases on a weekly basis; the underground street races that cause the police trouble everyday; and the mad scientists, like yours truly, that create world-changing creations like yourself. But that ain’t all that fun anyways, it’s just regular life here.”
-Dragon Scientist
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Heyo! Foxboi here, if you don’t know, I’ve recently made a post on the Interest check forum about a potential WIP about a totally normal life in New York. After getting myself used to ChoiceScript, I’ve finally made the pre-prologue to the idea! (Demo at bottom)
Anyway’s, what is ‘A ‘Regular’ Life in New York”?
Original Non-Detailed Premise
Ah New York, the ‘Big Apple’ (commonly named by people who never lived in New York) filled with hopes and dreams. From Manhattan to New York City itself, the state is littered with tourists in wonderment; New Yorkers in running their usual businesses; gang members battling each other in shady alleyways; corrupt detectives taking bribes from low-life criminals; mad scientists running around causing all sorts of havoc; and the Statue of Liberty in its glory. Come over to New York for friends! Life-changing experiences! And maybe even… love.
In ‘A ‘Regular’ Life in New York’ (placeholder for now), you will be playing as a biological creation made by a mad Dragon Scientist living life in the state of New York. Throughout your journey you will meet countless curious characters from around the land, from detectives to assassins, the possibility is endless! (I’m just kidding, only about 16 characters). Evolve your personality throughout the game: will you be a shy observer or will you be a outrageous Casanova? Will you train to become a intelligent detective, a mastermind criminal or even a insane lab-companion? Will you be a regular human? Or will you become a lycanthrope-type creature? Will you make friends and even find the possibility of true love? Hey, don’t look at me, this is your life!
Much More Story-Detailed Premise
You play as a biological creation accidentally created by a drunken mad scientist, who’s a dragon - yes, you heard correctly.
After recently discovering your test tube, the scientist decides for you to live a normal life in New York, which of course, becomes a crazy experience as the year goes on. From cat serial killers and crazy cooks, to loyal werewolf detectives and righteous hackers. New York isn’t going to leave you in a boring state of mind.
And to add insult to injury, a mysterious conspiracy is occurring under your nose. Though you decided to ignore it in the first months, the conspiracy grows larger and dares to threaten your livelihood. Will you discover this conspiracy and take it down while you work as an assassin, mobster, scientist, chef, racer or detective? Or will you fail and risk your chance at life?
And as the year goes on, will you become a outrageous Casanova or a shy observer? Will you make others respect you? Or will they treat you as a joke? Will you risk your wellbeing for the sake of friendship and even… love? Don’t look at me, this is your life.
With every relationship you strengthen, you may be able to take down this organisation that wants you dead. Though, you could always go lone wolf…
Relationships and how they work:
Relationships in the game are pretty simple. There will be labeled choices that lead directly to romance scenes or flirt scenes, with choices varying in different degrees of personality (sarcastic, cold, flirty, shy, subtle). The friendship choices won’t be labeled, but should be obvious when playing. Non-RO can be flirted with as well, but their reactions will usually stray to a ‘friend-zone’ type of comment. Each Character will have a different opinion to your personality, some will love a humorous approach while some prefer a more serious and stoic tone.
There are 3 stats (2 for non-RO) per character. The romance stat, which shows your level of ‘affection’ towards each other; the friendship stat, which shows the level of bond and likability; and the respect/ignorance stat, which determines whether a character will take you seriously or not. You can have a high friendship/romance with someone, but they may not take you seriously if the respect stat is low. The respectability all determine on what the character deems ‘acceptable’. However, being respected can be a double-edged sword, as you may be considered the ring-leader by others. Which may lead to your playable character going through risky situations.
Relationships are quite vital throughout the game, with some aspects requiring friendships or romances to increase your likelihood of succeeding.
However, the relationship stats and abilities stats are heavily affected by the ‘Time Will Tell’ system.
(May include the ‘Lone Wolf’ route, but that involves alienating everyone.)
What’s the ‘Time Will Tell’ system?:
In a nutshell, the ‘Time Will Tell’ is the game’s way of balancing abilities by nerfing a sizeable section of your stat percentages. For example, once you reach the first half chapter 1, let’s say your strength percentage is at 45%. the game will remove 10% off of your strength, making it 35% in the next half.
Why create this? Mainly because I noticed during the programming of the pre-prologue, you could easily increase your abilities and relationships with the right choices. So to fix/make it harder, I’ve decided to implement this system.
Also, realistically, you would lose efficiency and friendships if you never train or socialise after reaching maximum percent. So this is just a way to keep players focused on stats while allowing them to explore areas with a cautious mindset.
(Note: I may lower the times I use this if I find it too harsh on the player.)
Other Features: (Note: can be subject to change)
- Play as a human, quarter-human, quarter-animal or a lycanthrope type of creature. (Mostly cosmetic, has slight reactionary purpose and allows some choices to be unlocked).
- 8 unique romances with an additional 8 friendships.
- Choose to be straight, gay, lesbian, bi, pan, asexual, aromantic or fluid. (Note that there is NO gender-locked romances, becoming asexual or aromantic also does NOT remove romance options, if any potentially asexual/aromantic people want to romance, they can romance.)
- Be male, female or non-binary (Note that there is a ‘biological sex’ scene for silly crude humour in the later scenes, but there is a choice of having nothing at all. You’ll get to pick your mental gender and pronouns, which will act as your desired gender. Technically you can be transgender, but that’s only a small mention in the demo.)
- Choose to be a detective, assassin, scientist, street-racer/get-away driver, gangster/mobster or even… a chef.
- Explorable areas created by an Australian that knows nothing about New York
- A variety of mini-social events to build relationships
- Multiple endings to increase replayability
And that should be it!
Developer’s Notes:
Would be greatly appreciated if you guys gave feedback and criticism, it’s welcome and especially needed as I’m just a starting writer.
Screenshots of small bugs, spelling mistakes and continuity errors is also incredibly appreciated as well, especially in the customisation scenes.
May update weekly or fortnightly if I’m on my school holidays. May take a few months during school times.
Sorry if the post has an influx of broken english.
Currently in the Demo
- Awakening and customisation scenes
-
Introduction to 1st Non-RO Friendship character
- Slight exposition of the world.
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Introduction to 2nd Non-RO Friendship Character
- Introduction to the Scientists
- Laboratory exploration scene
- 1st of 6 Trust and Skill tests added
- Introduction to the Chefs
- Restaurant exploration scene
- 2nd of the 6 Trust and Skill tests added
- Introduction to the detectives
- 3rd of the 6 Trust and Skill tests added
- ‘The Runts’ Exploration scene
- Introduction to the Assassins
Main Characters (As of 26th January 2019)
The MC: Presumed 21 (Despite being born in the present)
"What have you gotten yourself into now?"
A strange scientific organism created by a mad dragon scientist, despite their efforts to live a regular life, they seem to always get themselves into some sort of wacky, dangerous and downright-insane situations.
Non-RO:
Dragon Scientist: 55 in Human Years, 27.5 in Dragon Years
???-Dragon
"Mad scientist extraordinaire!"
A perverted scientist that works under the shadows of his laboratory, though considered reckless and childish, he somehow always surprises everyone with his innovative inventions and discoveries. Now his ‘quirks’ are just considered normal to his colleagues and friends.
Yomiel Tzar: 27
Human: Russian-American
"Don’t associate yourself with scum like me."
Cold, mean and a douche. The perks to an amazing detective. Despite how everyone he works with despises him, they all have to admit he’s useful, with a high intelligence and an extremely threatening aura, he could get the most despicable to confess their crimes. He can’t possibly get along with that personality… right?
Troy Moonlight: 22
Quarter-Maine Coon (kind of)
"What do you mean by ‘too many robots’?"
A sous chef at day, and also a scientist at day. As the daughter of a gangster restaurant owner, cooking is 2nd thought to her, but as the daughter of a mad scientist, science is also 2nd thought to her. On the surface, she’s a loveable cutesy young-adult, but get on her bad-side, you won’t be seeing the light of morning. Occasionally supports her brother’s assassination jobs around the city with her robots.
Redn Devoni: 26
Human: Italian-Serbian (kind of)
"Can we hurry this up? I’ve got a husband that needs loving."
A snarky sarcastic detective with a wholesome cooking career, mainly to feed his husband, in his spare time. Redn is considered the Jack-of-all-trades in his group, Redn takes his charm and skill from his father, another famous detective in New York. Don’t commit any culinary or actual crimes around him, or else he will lock you faster than you can even imagine, unless you’re friends with him or the agency, then it’s all free-game for you. Loving husband to Troy’s brother
Kino Venti: 24
Wolf Lupinethrope
Pleasure of you to join the detective team!
Nicknamed the ‘Prince of Detectives’, Kino is the pure-hearted detective partner of slightly more corrupt Redn Devoni. Being the only son to two detectives, like Redn, Kino was raised on the virtues and morals of investigation. Give him a case to investigate, and he’ll swear on his life to solve it no matter how big or small it is. However, Kino is a bit more brutal when fighting in his beast form… so watch out.
RO:
HyperLink: 19
Quarter-Siamese Cat
"I’m not going to say ‘I’m In’ or ‘I’ve hacked into the mainframe’ with a hacker voice. That’s stupid."
A mysterious shut-in hacker and technician that works at Dragon Scientist’s laboratory. Despite her ominous presence and clothes, she’s a jumpy eccentric teenager in public. However, no one knows her past, not even her employer, and to add insult to injury, she always wears a strange mask around her mouth. Occasionally live-streams street races at night-time.
Romancia Giovanni: 24
Human: Italian-French
"I rather focus on the future than languish on the failures."
Another scientist in Dragon Scientist’s laboratory, he’s pretty much just their local mechanic that messes around. He despises being a failure and will rid any history of his wrongdoings. Despite his inferiority-complex, he is considered one of the most vital members of the lab, as he’s man with all the tools (come on, buying more is expensive). Occasionally acts as a mechanic in his friend’s street races.
Jumaz Torres: 20
Cheetah Lupinethrope
"Is my seduction working on you?"
The flirty and intrusive baker of the Moonlight’s restaurant and café. Jumaz is considered to be the a very useful asset to the team, being able to be quick in doing any job that is given to him. Despite his usefulness, he can’t help but annoy everyone with his constant flirting with anything that walks. Though at the end of the day, they can’t help but smile in his presence, except for his roommate, Wulff. Also works as an ‘actor’ with Nii and Troy’s brother.
Nii Chania: 25
Human: German-Asian (Taiwanese and Chinese)
"Have you had enough to eat?"
A motherly figure in the Moonlight’s restaurant and to everyone that encounters her, although she’s only 25, most of her colleagues consider her to be a mother-figure, no matter how older they are. Pure, sweet and charitable, everyone loves her attitude, and to put on the cherry on top: Nii is a fantastic cook as well! Though, she never lets anyone in her apartment in the evening nor on the weekends… hmm. Nii says she works as a ‘chemical cleaner’ as a side-job.
Wulff Bronzell: 24
3/4ths-Raven
"Violence and cooking go together like cheese and wine"
Despite Wulff’s stoic and responsible appearance as a head chef in the Moonlight restaurant, Wulff considers himself to be a extremely lazy and arrogant man. His roommate, Jumaz, considers this to be correct and frequently quarrels with Wulff, though they still stay as roommates even after the worst of fights. Despite his opinion of himself, his colleagues consider him to be useful and a large asset to the team. On his spare-time, he cooks and works in a gang of a close friend of his.
Graves Ferninad: 22
3/4ths Shark
Always keep your muscles ready for fighting.
Redn likes to nickname her the female Yomiel, which is a huge stretch considering Redn actually likes Graves. Considered as the ‘muscle’ out of the detectives, Graves is a hard-mannered fighter and investigator that doesn’t let her emotions get to her… unless she does… a lot more than she expects. Despite her attempts to be alienating, most of the crew loves the shark and consider her really cute. Troy deems her to be a quote on quote ‘tsundere’. Works as a ‘bodyguard’ in her spare time.
Yanziel Tiger: 23
Snake Lupinethrope
Lets have some fun!
Being the most energetic and giddy detective around, it’s not a surprise that she’s pretty much a party animal, she loves interacting with strangers and is one of the most friendliest detectives around. Despite her role in the detective business… she’s also a criminal, specialising in loan-sharking, counterfeiting and scamming in general, she works for a notable gang in the city. Talk about a double life…
Now with that out of the way here’s the demo!
Warnings: Crude humour, mild strong language, mild sexual humour, potential choices that’ll make you cringe
Demo Link: https://dashingdon.com/go/2876 (approx. 10.45k words with code)