Broken Pieces (WIP) - Update: 20-07-18

[Gabrielle_Erudessa]

Hi, everyone!

So. All right. Let’s go.

This is my very first game. Not my very first story, though, so, I hope that you’ll all find it engaging.

I had never programmed something before, so forgive me then warn me of any kind of bug. Also, English isn’t my first language and my keyboard is old, so ANY mistake that you find, please let me know. And I never wrote something with non-straight romance in the first plan, so please, PLEASE, let me know if I write something wrong or uncomfortable! Even if I really want to make this a story more dark in a sense, I also want the romance part to be the best possible!

Now, about Broken Pieces.

Everything began with a short story that was a retell of Little Red Riding Hood that is purely space opera and sci-fi, made firstly just for fun, and some loose ideas about working with robots/androids in a romantically context. I was curious with what had lead to the things in this retell (like the curse “By the Extinct Witches!” or the trolls), and really REALLY wanting something with robots. Add a music from Apocalyptica in the mix and there, Broken Pieces is born.

(Sadly you’ll not find Bid Bad Wolf or Little Red Riding Hood in Broken Pieces since this story occurs something like one millennium before the retell )

*The Context

The year is 3562. More than one thousand years ago, humanity broke the barriers, expanded through the galaxy and met other species, some of them really similar, others, not so much. There was war and there was peace. It isn’t a paradise, but also isn’t hell. Bad places and good places, bad people and good people.

For some centuries now, beyond some key governments and the Spider Empire, there are other two major players in the galaxy: FAE Genetics and WITCH Robotics, the major suppliers of non-natural soldiers and workers for every layer of society.

Where there is law and these corporations, you are less than a being if was created in a lab or modified beyond certain legal thresholds. More than fifty percent of the body substituted by technology? You are a machine that somebody can own. Created in a lab using DNA of more than one single species? You belong to the ones whom created you. An AI in its own artificial body? You must do only what is in your programming. More than ten percent of you DNA modified? Careful, somebody will try to own you if you aren’t already.

About eighty years ago, four galactic players started to rise: the Purist, the Hybrid Alliance, the Artificial Coalition and the Nautilus Society. The ones who want to put limits in modifications. The ones who fight by the organic-created. The ones who free the technologic-created. And the ones who want to nuke big corporations.

The tension between the corporations against the organizations has been rising for something around fifteen years, and there is already talk of galactic war.

And you are caught in the middle of this.

*The Story
You have been working now for ten years in a big corporation. FAE or WITCH, it’s your choice. Then one day, while testing a new “product”, as they call - an android or a girl created in lab -, everything goes wrong: you almost die, the “product” escapes and a good chunk of very important information is stolen. And your employers thinks that you are guilty. For sabotage of the experiment or for stealing the information or both, doesn’t matter, for all that counts your head is already on a spike.

Or should be, if your best friend hadn’t saved your sorry ass. You just wasn’t expecting to have to work for one of the organizations and pay your debt for being saved. And, for some trick of the destiny - or of the “products” would be more accurate - you are in possession of the stolen information.

Now you just need to discover what it is and… Why not trade it for your life?

That is, if you’ll be able to betray your new allies.

Or perhaps you don’t consider them your allies?

Oh, you worry only about youself, the others be damned?

It’s your story. It’s your decision.

*What we will have in the end?

• Gender choice: male, female, non-binary
• Chose your formal way of addressing (edited)
• 6 romances: the genders of them will depend of the sexual orientation
  . A defective companionship android that is a cinnamon roll
  . A search and hunt android that was sent to kill you/get the information (I love this trope, let me xD) that doesn’t understand organics
  . A human bounty hunter that “owns” the search and hunt android and was also sent to kil you/get the information that breathes sarcasm
  . An aquatic alien created in lab to be a diplomatic companion that is a double cinnamon roll who loves art
  . A huge alien with field doctor and military experience and that love the fine things of life
  . An alien with mental powers, complex of superman, manipulator and that the rumors says “no strings attached”
  . Possibility of a polyamorous relationship in one of the romances (edited)
• A lot of more characters, including your best friend Stephen that is FAMILY.
• Around 12 missions through the game that will influence the galaxy and shake the balance of power and, also, shape your character
• Questioning about what is considered life
• The story will span something around 4 years of the life of the character
• Pay attention to the music that inspired the name (and how I’ll write the romance development). I love dramas of characters that love each other but follow different paths and possibly end like enemies. In the end, it’ll be totally possible something like this, lovers to enemies.
  . Or best friends to enemies.
• At least 20 chapters? I’m terrible at planning in chapter-style, the final ALWAYS have at least 5 more.
• My cries of happiness for finishing it
• My screams of frustration because programming

*What we have?

• One chapter of 10,8k words that is more like a prologue, explaining better the organizations and corporations, building the character and putting the events in motion.
• Gender-choice
• Your best friend Stephen
• The huge alien
• A feel of what we have in terms of skills and personality traits
• My curses each time I wrote something wrong (just kidding)

*I plan

• One new chapter for each two months at most (my life is crazy and I have two academic projects to write for July)
• Correct every bug or writing mistake pointed and/or found
• Make a glossary
• Don’t pull out my hair because of despair
• Don’t procrastinate (much)

Updates

1: 20-07-18

• A new stat that will track your opinion about lab-created life
• A Glossary including: the four major species in the galaxy (Mintor, Nainnur, Drava and Spider), a short description of one minor species and a short history about each institution and its creation
• Additions to chapter one to increase immersion in the way the universe works AND correction of the spelling and grammar mistakes pointed (My keyboard hates me and I hate cognates between English and Portuguese because I made the most stupid mistakes because of the damn cognates )
• Mr, Ms, Zee, Child of the Doom… It’s your choice now
• It’s all on the demo
• Hope: finish chapter 2 until later August lol

I think I said everything I wanted and felt the need to say about the game. Any updated, you’ll know!

AND THE DEMO IS HERE!!
I hope you all like it! I would also appreciate any constructive criticism
https://dashingdon.com/play/gabrielleerudessa/broken-pieces/mygame/

[baka00]

Wow. For a prototype of a prototype version, this seems pretty well thought out.

[Gabrielle_Erudessa]

The story has been cooking and being planned on my head for something like a year or more. In a way, the only thing that I have to really do now is… Write

[micobolt]

Nice. I’ll try this out soon. Tell us what kind of feedback you want, if you want any. Good luck.

[micobolt]

First run was good. There were no crashes. But what seemed to be a problem was in a scene I was called Herr instead of Rafael. Overall the writing has good potential, but I do think someone should go over the writing because at parts the english felt rough. Like the line about the Rhinos and the rain. There’s some minor spelling errors scattered about. I do wish that there was more world building, for example before choosing an organization I wish I knew a little bit more about the organizations before I had to choose between them so I would have more context. I think you should talk more about or explain or expand more about the Alien races that appear. You talked about Mintor a little, but I feel like you could add more of an explanation or detail about them and the other races. Like what do they look like, what are they known for, abilities, and your possible past experiences. And I feel that using — those as a divider for thoughts or comments, they should be a bit bigger so it’s more obvious it’s different. Or change that text to maybe something like italic. I also think that I needed more of a transition from being myself to being Stephen because I was confused for a moment about the sudden change of perspective. I haven’t seen the first person narrative used too often in CoG or HG so I hope that I get see where you can take the story doing that.

[Umbreonpanda]

@Gabrielle_Erudessa

• Your best friend Stephen
• The huge alien

…Can we romance the huge alien?

[soprano]

Love the story so far. It seems very well thought out and the concept was engaging enough. This seems like it’s going to be a long and difficult project, and since English is not your first language, it’s bound to be arduous. I wish you all the best!

A few grammatical errors and some other stuff:

…all the metros were almost as fast as a snail when it was rainning and the solar batteries became empty.

raining

I couldn’t really remember a time where I wasn’t tinkering with robot toys,

when

…was handsome enough to, if he wanted, aply to be consort of a Spider Empress and…

apply

…in his words, I was 'a real cute who deserved to have a good time’.

Should be a real cute boy/girl depending on the player’s gender.

I laughed in a embarrassed way and said ‘yes’; I was attracted only to men, and Stephen was really too handsome to a ‘no’.

Some people may not like this choice. Even if they are attracted to men, I feel like they should have a choice in whether they said ‘yes’ or not.

…someone who wanted, to his horror, serious relationship.

Should be a serious relationship.

I thanked while bukling the security belt.

buckling

the car left the dome and become one of many between all the others flying around the poorest sectors of E-53-8 - the city affectionately called “Eseb” by most of its inhabitants -, the car accustic isolated, enough so the sound of the rain didn’t bothered us.

became, acoustic, bother

I let a breath out and foccused on another topic.

focused

We said ours goodbyes, I left the car and then…

our

Half an hour later, at the exactly hour I had been informed that my interview would take place, the same man wearing the colors of WITCH - iridescent blue and metal grey - that had called others before appeared on the room.

exact, in

They were dressing a male suit the color of navy blue, but the face was androgynous.

dressed in

Well, , you have a very surprising historic,

history

I was on hell, that was the feeling.

in

I had saw a guy being expelled from university for talking too loud…

had seen

…my answers needed be carefully made so I wouldn’t gave my real opinions away.

needed to be

…and technological advancement, they also tend to be extremits,

extremists

not with pontual actions like the Alliance or the Coalition,

I think you meant punctual? ‘Pontual’ isn’t a word.

…satisfied with my answer, and extended a hand on my direction.

in

We will inform you till the end of the week about the job."

Should be ‘by the end of the week.’

… I had already made the interview so I didn’t bothered too much.

didn’t bother

I faced myself on the mirror and made sure that my suit was…

in

I had raised fast and high on WITCH in ten years, and now I really had a reputation and a Phd. to take care.

had risen, Ph.D to take care of.

…but I didn’t went anywhere besides the WITCH facilities,

didn’t go

…ignoring the others cientists getting ready for the next step on the android creation.

other scientists

Satisfied, we all entered and I started dellegating the tasks…

delegating

…there was always something missing, something not quiet right…

quite

…fit for that kind of programming, wich had lead to almost one year of setback, trying to discover the problem. Now, we believed we had discored and fixed the problem.

which, led, discovered

This one, we had chosen to make resembling something asian Human, bringing some Mintor into the features in the body of a male on the peak of the adulthood.

This one, we had chosen to make resembling something like an Asian human reads better.

With a quiet sight, I activated the dimensional projection…

It should be sigh, I think.

It’s is… Cutting our firewalls as if they were butter." I turned and faced the cientists.

It, scientists

…a burst of motor activity, one of the female cientists screamed,…

scientists

I hadn’t nor the strenght nor the technique to make the android let me go.

I had neither the strength nor the technique…

At least he wasn’t tightening the hold and I was still able to breath,…

breathe

A sream tore its way through my body…

scream

He whispered cautiously, keelling beside the bed and touching his friend’s shoulder with a gentle touch. Him face squirmed into a brief grimace before relaxing again. Stephen let a breath out and shoke the shoulder.

kneeling, His, shook

We keep going, and some minutes after that talk,…

kept

Also, even after we input our name, the game doesn’t refer to us as such. For example, at one place it says “, good evening”; where as it should be “[player’s name], good evening.”

[Chopper]

Wow this is pretty awesome! I always love new wips and this is the most thought out I’ve seen yet. Keep going with this! I think it will turn out nicely! I also love the trope!

[Gabrielle_Erudessa]

Hi!
Oh, it’s no problem. It’s that I decided (at least for now) to use the formal pronouns of german, because I was like “what formal pronoun for the non-binary?”. ‘Herr’ it’s the ‘Mister’. I’ll make sure to let this more clear, my fail.

About the world building. Yep. I’ll look more closely on how to aboard. In this case I brought my style from novels and stuf where I present the world and every different things along the way (I didn’t read it, but I think it’s something a bit like the narrative from Steven Erikson, from The Malazan Book of the Fallen, by what my friends tell me.) But, well, yeah, on a interactive fiction this probably isn’t the best way to go about exploring the world. Thanks for pointing me I pretend to add a glossary (I didn’t yet because programming xD) and I think now I’ll explore a bit the return to the house after the interview to show more the world.

About the Englsih, it’s on the “to do” to find someone to help me revise

I’ll loke closely on what to do to make the transition between yourself and Stephen more organic, and the —.

Many, many thanks for all you feedback and support!

[Gabrielle_Erudessa]

Yes you can! Go get them!

[Gabrielle_Erudessa]

Many thanks, really! I will keep going, and good to know I’m not alone in my love for the trope!

[Gabrielle_Erudessa]

Wow!

Many thanks! it will be arduous, but I like challenges! Thanks, really!

And about the mistakes: wow. Many thanks for doing the list I’ll correct them right away! Thanks also for poiting about the choice about the attraction and Stephen, I already thought of an alternative!

About the name… It’s strange, it should show the name. I’ll look into it and discover what the hell went wrong with the codding to cause this.

(I love emojis, people, forgive me)

[Chinya]

@Gabrielle_Erudessa

It’s that I decided (at least for now) to use the formal pronouns of german, because I was like “what formal pronoun for the non-binary?”.

@Gabrielle_Erudessa

Frau (Female), Herr (Male) and Sie (Non-binary) when in formal situations because I love german.

You said that English isn’t your first language so I have to ask if German is your first language? Because as someone who speaks German and identifies as NB using “Sie” instead of “Frau” or “Herr” sounds kinda ungeschickt. You can’t really use it like that because “Sie” is a pronoun and not a form of address like “Frau” or “Herr”. German isn’t really a good language if you want to include people who favour gender-neutral language because there isn’t really an equivalent for they/them or other gender-neutral words. In English, you could use Mr, Ms or Mx as a form of address.

Edit: saying “Sie” is a pronoun is also kinda wrong because it’s just a polite “you”. So, it is a form of address just not on the same level as “Frau” or “Herr”. Or at least that’s the kind of “Sie” I think you are talking about.

[Gabrielle_Erudessa]

Hi!
Oh, no, it isn’t (my first language is Brazilian Portuguese, a gramatical nightmare ), but I’m learning and since you use “Sie” to address in formal situations, it gave me the impression that it could be used to address a non-binary person.
“Mx”… I’ll think about it, but from a person whose first language have A LOT of words gendered in the writing itself not only because of the article (a way for a female writer and another for a male writer, for example), I see some use the ‘x’ substitution/addition to make the word agender and it makes me really uncomfortable in a gramatical sense

I’m serious thinking that I’ll have to think of a way to seamless add a choice where you can choose your form of address, without “breaking” the narrative. Or other solution that doesn’t make me feel like if I’m deliberately murdering gramatics (like you made me feel now ).

Many thanks for your input and for bringing this to my attention, Chinya! Please feel free to warn, criticize and tell anything you think I should know or rethink

[Chinya]

Well, I don’t speak Brazilian Portuguese, so I don’t know what kind of grammatical nightmare it can be, but German is definitely that kind of grammatical nightmare where even a native speaker can get pretty confused
Let me give you an example how using “Sie” in a formal situation would look like:
Let’s say I want to say “It’s good to see you.” If we are friends or at least on a first name basis I would say “Es ist schön Dich zu sehen” but if we just met each other or are on a last name basis I would say “Es ist schön Sie zu sehen.” It really is just a polite way to say “you” and you wouldn’t use “you” as a substitute for Mister or Miss.

German is a real nightmare for someone who wants to use gender-neutral pronouns because we don’t have that. If I want to talk about a person whose gender I don’t know I still have to use female pronouns which would incidentally also be “sie”.

I didn’t want to make you feel like you were murdering anything, German is really hard. We literally have three different words for “the” and not really a rule for that. We randomly assign anything a gender, like “der Tisch” why does my table have to be male? I don’t know, it just is.

[Isabella_Taylor]

This story is very fun so far! (I’m very moody that we can’t romance Stephen though ) There’s a lot of spelling and grammar mistakes that I’ll point out later, as I’m a bit busy right now.

[micobolt]

One way you could do that, would possibly checking over the application forms, and fixing any mistakes like names, pro-nouns that sort of stuff.

[Gabrielle_Erudessa]

Sie as a formal you. I’ll keep that in mind, thanks
I think this confuses me a little because while we do have in theory a formal “you” for people you don’t know and the such, it’s considered a really old word that we see only in classical books or in the judiciary medium amongst lawyers and judges. Day to day, unless we are talking with someone in higher hierarchy or older (where you use Mr and Mrs), it’s just ‘you’ or first name.

I get what you tell about German being hard (I still love it more than French ).

In Brazilian Portuguese even gender-neutral words that work for men and women have a grammatical gender.

I get the struggle with “the”, we haver four words in this case (singular male, singular female, plural female, plural male; if it’s a group of female and male, grammatically you must use the plural male) For the people we don’t know the gender, the standard is using male pronoun, or sometimes the resource of “hidden subject”, where you don’t use pronouns on the phrase, but grammatically I just can’t do this in English.

About the table: totally random the process of assign genders. In Brazilian Portuguese table is female. It’s a mess to learn the genders of the words because they differ between German and Portuguese a lot of times

[Gabrielle_Erudessa]

I’m sorry for you!!! Stephen simply adopted you as brother/sister/sibling in the end, so it would be really strange for him! (But I understand you, believe me!) And I’m happy you’re liking it!

I would really appreciate anything you point out! Verify first if it isnt something that soprano didn’t point before, so you wont lose time saying the same thing I thank you in advance!

[Gabrielle_Erudessa]

Hmm… This gave me some ideas. I wasn’t keen on using this resource because I wasn’t seeing a way to do it, but now I think I got a way. Thanks!