[BETA] Interstellar Airgap - Steal the Secrets of the Universe! - Seeking feedback! (ROs in first post)

https://dashingdon.com/play/spokes/airgap2/mygame/

RO List at the bottom of this post!

Following a brief discussion with spoano, I’ve decided to open up a new thread to solicit feedback on my latest project. It’s mostly done! The epilogue can be fleshed out, but I’m not sure with what… you’ll know when you get there. If you’d like to provide me any sort of feedback, the world is your oyster. I previously selected a handful of beta readers but I don’t want to put too much pressure on them and really, everyone on this forum is so great and helpful that i’ll take any feedback you got. Specifically, here’s what I’m looking for:

First and foremost, i want you to tell me if something sucks. You don’t even need to be particularly tactful. If something’s a continuity error or doesn’t make sense or (heaven forbid) the game is broken, tell me . Email me directly (it’s my CoG username at protonmail) or DM me on the CoG forum or post in this thread! I will reply very quickly unless i’m asleep, in which case i’ll respond when i get up. I have some specific things i’d like feedback on:

  • Screen length. Readers during the WIP requested longer screens, and I’ve done my best to oblige. If they’re still not long enough, let me know.
  • Achievements! If I’ve done my job, there will be things in the game that are super cool. I’d like to lampshade those with achievements, and maybe add some others too. Let me know what you see that’s cool, and if you have any other ideas then hit me with 'em.
  • Romance. I like to pretend I know how to write romance, and i think i’ve done a pretty good job this time. But if there’s anything that’s super cringy or yucky or unfun, please let me know.
  • Everything else!
  • The epilogue! This version of the game carries you all the way through the “ending”, but I’m also writing epilogues for whatever situation the player might be in following the ending. What would you like to see there?
  • And MOST importantly, how you’d like to be credited for your help: real name, forums name, some other alias, whatever–DM/email me this, please.

30 Save slots are enabled, so save early and often and feel free to jump around and test different things out. The length is about 200k words, so i’m not asking you to complete the whole thing (although, of course, you can!)

The link to the story is above (under the picture of the space car), and also HERE!
That’s all! Thank you for your time. This project means a lot to me and I’d love your feedback.

-John

Edit 1 of probably many! Sorry, forgot content warnings:

This book contains:

  • Some potential opt-in RO sex (nothing super explicit),
  • some language (no slurs, but some profanity)
  • some violence (mostly avoidable)

Firmly between PG and PG-13

RO list!

Sergeant Duke Gale

Male, 39 – A former soldier, Duke found his calling in the totalitarian Panwestian Police Department. Decades of authoritarian enforcement and toxic masculinity have taught him to push away any sympathy that might get in the way of his job. He’s got a good heart deep (deep, deep, deep) inside – can you win him over?

Janelle

Female, 22 – The face of resistance in Panwestia, Janelle’s attempts to organize a rebel force landed her in jail… and potentially next to you on a rocket to the sky. A voice for the downtrodden, stepped over, and forgotten, Janelle is simultaneously an idealist and a realist. Don’t be one of the many who made the mistake of underestimating her.

Captain Kelly Sato

Female, 40ish – Captain Sato is in charge of interstellar inmate transport. Sixteen hour days are tough, but they’re the only way for her to secure a future alongside her son while he’s still young enough to make fond memories with her. Bring her in on the plan and you might unlock a softer side… or at least a more passionate one.

Professor Alex Harrell

Nonbinary, 29 – Does having one of the world’s most brilliant scientists teaching a rudimentary mining class on a space station make sense to you? It doesn’t make sense to Alex, that’s for sure. They want to get back to Earth and they want to get back to useful research. Maybe they’ll find love on the way? That’s up to you.

Danny Le Blanc

Male, 27 – When backed into a corner, the normally peace-loving Danny fought back against Panwestia in a way he never could have imagined. It was enough to send him straight to the asteroid mines. Danny’s not sure what he wants. After seeing the grimy way things really work, he’s kind of got a taste for power. Will you encourage him, rein him in, or stay out of his way?

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I’ll check it out when I get a break from my projects. I have a couple others I want to check out, but I stay away from playing any games to make sure I keep my ideas separate from others for one. For two my brain is scattered already :rofl:

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This seems interesting! I’ll check it out tomorrow. I’ll probably DM you my feedback since you said it’s okay, considering it’ll be long, for an almost finished project in one chunk :rofl:

One thing I’d suggest would be to put a RO list in the OP here. I know I tend to check that before starting!

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Great idea! i’ll pull them from my design doc and add them to the first post.

edit: Done! Every character is romanceable (romancable? romance-able??) regardless of player character gender–i know there are reasons to do and not to do this, but I really want everyone to get the full experience possible

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Hi, I’ve been really enjoying this so far but i must ask what is the code to hijack the ships? I’ve been trying for ten mins and I’m just confused

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You should get slightly different feedback based on how far away (higher or lower) you are from the correct code

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Great story but it seems that there is a bug at the ending. After having done everything with Janelle, I got 4 choices about what to do with the data. If I choose to use it for worldpeace or for helping the working class (Janelle’s special ending), I get the ending where MC become the head of Panwestian army and a lot of «error» messages between the paragraphs. If I choose to use it for world domination, Janelle leaves MC but there’s still mentions of her being around and helping MC investigating the data, and I get the «error» messages too. The only ending that seems to work is the one when MC sell the data.

How weird—yeah, you’re not supposed to be able to get that ending if Janelle is your companion. I’ll look at it this afternoon, thank you! That’s the only one that should have that issue, I’ll get it fixed soon

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Hi there! So I was playing and I’m also stuck on guessing the , I’d suggest making it easier in some way. I’m assuming the code is somewhere in the loud beep area, but trying to guess all those numbers will take a long time, so I’d suggest either shortening the code to, say, four digits, or adding more feedback text so that the area you have to brute force is smaller.

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Loud beep means you’re close-ish but over, static means you’re close but under. That said, it doesn’t sound like this puzzle is very fun, i’ll look at removing/restructuring it

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Oh and also, another thing, once you get back to earth and choose the option to push panwestia back into their borders and you start looking at emails, you get stuck in the three options of what to look good with no way to continue.

Huh. Could you post or DM a screenshot when you get a moment? Thanks!

Oh and another thing, if you tell Alex about your plan and then meet up with him when you hijack a ship, if you went solo it gives you an option of either take the professor, or take Alex because you’ve come so far with him, which I guess is probably only supposed to happen if you had another companion. I’ve really been enjoying the game though!

Here’s the screenshots of the loop I mentioned before

Summary



After selecting all three options does it reveal a fourth? either way, it should disable re-use of them. I’ll fix that shortly! Thank you!


What the hell happened here, ive done all the choices that improve my relationship with Janelle, and I’ve never even had interactions with Alex except when I asked the questions in class

Ah, i see what happened. I’ll fix it shortly. Thanks! just a second

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Yaa, thank you I was really tripping out about it

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Okay, i’ve fixed it in the dashingdon version, a very silly oversight :sweat_smile:

Game has choices and they make difference. You actually did that. It’s not read after read and almost no difference.

Game is much short. Can you do something about that?

Btw in the option of looking at people or something. Out of 3 options to find something. Trace money worked but 1 of other 2 didn’t worked and all 3 option stayed there. Kept reading. Had to load again