Calamity Control [WIP]

This was great!! Even tho it was short I still enjoyed it! And you helped me forget about the…interesting…class I’m in… ha :slightly_smiling_face::v:

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Sweet, it was cool to get a chance to meet everybody. I also like how you handled Taylor’s intro and the breakdown of all the character generation stuff with his intro, so thank you for that. :slight_smile: I’m definitely interested to see how these characters are going to bounce off each other and what leading them will look like.

I didn’t go crazy with proofreading, but here are a few things I caught just going through it if you’re interested.

stuff

I didn’t get a pic of this, but during the cafeteria fight flashback, you describe M!Taylor as a “no-bulshit kind of guy” - bullshit has two Ls, :stuck_out_tongue: Also on the same page in the choice menu you censor a**, which isn’t really a problem but seems kind of odd since bullshit goes uncensored on the same screen (idk about other languages but in American English I’d say bullshit is a much stronger curse word)

cc1

I’d recommend separating the two different speakers into two different paragraphs. Also, the underlined “his” should be capitalized.

cc2

cc3

I’m guessing that should be “sent off” and “touch”

cc6

weary is to be tired, wary is to be suspicious – assuming you meant the latter in this context. Also other’s doesn’t need an apostrophe.

I didn’t see any types here, but I noticed this page in particular switches from first person (I/me) to second person (you), so it might be worth going through it to make those consistent. Specifically “you were sure it could have lit the room” amongst mostly I/me pronouns. In retrospect that’s probably more of a phrasing thing. Just thought I’d mention it because it sounded odd to me. :man_shrugging:

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As promised (sry for the delay ) here are the typos I caught. Also take it with a grain of salt as I am not a native speaker myself :wink:

Summary


Only one a would suffice


I am not sure but I think it would read better if it where a new sentence :thinking: natives what do u say?


It’s short for a lack of time. Sort is a kind of something like : a certain sort of music


You mean prologue? Like the chapter before a stories main plot starts? Epilogue is an extra chapter after the main plot ended.


I packed my bag
And I would swap the waiting and the milling like:
I packed my bag and sat back waiting and enjoying the milling of the people below.
Because it would be the natural order of the action like first I sit to wait and as a consequence I watch the milling mass? But not necessarily better. Could just be a nitpick as a writer myself :kissing_heart::wink:
And it is … as I was finishing … or… as I had finished getting ready
Or just as I had finished packing my bag


In his wake

I hope that is okay. If you found something not to be just get back to me :slight_smile:

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An eternity later, I am back :))) It’s been a while, I’ve been writing here and there, but not nearly as much as I wanted to…hehe
I finally figured out how to make the damn Save slots, woohoo!
I changed the calamity even happening from 10 years ago to 20, though I’m not sure how I’ll keep it. 20 seems a bit too long…10 kinda short… 15 is just meh. ‘A decade’ just sounded better I guess, but not sure if the world would have changed as much. Might go back to 10.

Might be hanging a few more things, like the concept of the supernaturals ( I initially was picturing them all very human looking, but… I think I want snake boys and cecaelia…) I’m still debating this. Might just make them a separate species? or just lump them together by element, like the merfolk could be mermaids, cecaelia, water nymphs, selkies and so on…might go with this idea. yeah… it would actually fit my plans :thinking:

I also updated a new set of docs without properly checking them. Sooooo sorry if there are random passages :sweat_smile: I have tomorrow off work and will try to fix everything up to this point.

I have a question for you all. How much does it bother you when characters are gender locked? It usually bothers me a bit, but god, it would be so much easier to code some things…

Let me know what you think of the game so far :heart:
And please do send me all the issues you find in the game :pray:
More than anything I hope you have fun!

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Two things

  1. There was none of that jumping around that you spoke of

  2. There were more typos/coding errors that it kept interrupting my reading. There were no game breaking bugs. However I suggest making sure that the romance gender function is working correctly. Because it kept flipping between she her for one of them and he him for another. And I decided to make all of my RO’s female

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If people read the character profiles, and liked a particular character’s description, and/or personality, and these characters are currently gender selectable, but then the get locked to a particular gender later, there’s high odds of disappointment from everyone who was hoping to romance them, and then suddenly they’re “the wrong gender” for a reader’s tastes.

If they were locked from the beginning, then while I might feel a tad locked into specific choices that might not fully align with my MC’s interests, I have less of a problem with gender specified ROs (not including the can of worms that is their sexuality also potentially being locked to specific gender MCs, of course) than I do having gender choice, then losing that choice after. :thinking:

Having said that, with dozens of gender selectable characters, I can fully understand how…exhaustive…the startup sheet will get just to account for correctly applied pronouns, with the correct tense of speech. Then making sure that list of pronouns is specific to each character when the reader chooses to make one female, another two male, and then another two nb with different sets of pronouns they prefer.

That gets complicated, but it is more in the recursion of copy-pasting the lists, and tuning them per character that gets to be a drag. In the beginning, anyway; once all that’s done, you just need to have a cheat-sheet with each characters codified pronoun key that gets replaced with the correct word in the final product.

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Small update just to let you all know I’m not dead and the game is not abandoned^^
Regarding my last question, I decided, for now, to keep all the ROs gender selectable and I’m still liking the idea of a poly route (completely optional) with 2 of them. It just…feels right in my head, I can already picture the scene where that choice is made.

Also instead of advancing with the story I ended up going back and trying to make Taylor a bit customizable, for a bunch of different reasons.
Let me know how you all feel about that and also if you want to see any other customization options for both MC and T. I want to add more, but my mind is just kinda blank right now.

Hit me up with any errors you encounter or questions you might have. :heart:

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When you said Taylor was customizable, I was hoping their ethnicity would remain what it was before. Not sure this is a change I can approve, just because it makes them more “likeable” to those who would say no to them being brown. :slightly_frowning_face:

I already know who they were beforehand, so I’m going to keep those choices to what they were originally… If nothing else, this critique isn’t here to inflame, but to point out that giving players the option to make them fully white (I am white irl, btw) is nothing less than–accidental?–white washing. The unfortunate part is they were already an attractive RO to my MC before this change. I chose them based on who they are as a person. Not how they’re described as having “pale/dark” skin. With that said… You can take what I say with a grain of salt. I will still play, and still make Taylor “the right way” according to me, anyway when customizing them. Just expressing my own reasons why I find this particular change a bit sad. :bowing_woman:

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Thanks for the feedback! :heart: You bring some good points and it got me thinking what else I could do…
The thing is, I think Taylor fills a bit more boxes than the other ROs, as the only other human in the crew and already close friends to the MC. I was on one hand a bit worried of falling into the category of ‘token minority friend’ while on the other wondering if players who want to keep Taylor just as a friend throughout the game, or are just not interested in the romance options at all, would like to have someone closer in appearance to them. I was initially trying to make the race selectable for Taylor, so not just white, but Latino, Asian, Middle Eastern as well. But then I started overthinking and thought it might be even a worse idea to make the race selectable… Not to mention I had a ‘mixed’ option that gave me a headache on how to code appropriately :scream:

That being said, it might be a better idea to separate the customizable friend option to another character, like Zayley maybe and give these options to her. Maybe make her ethnicity selectable between 4-5 different ones and add little details she does that would reflect the culture of each… I would definitely be easier to code for a different character than a RO. Might also risk falling into stereotypes :sweat_smile:

I could also just scrap the entire thing… The idea was to be more inclusive and customizable, but I see how it could be interpreted as white washing as well :thinking: :sob: I guess I’m also backing myself in a corner in way since these details are not even relevant to the actual plot (magic and dragons, lol), but I’m stressing too much over them and adding more stuff to code :sweat_smile: Just kinda thought it might make the story feel more…real in a sense, despite the fantasy setting.

But that’s why it’s great to hear feedback and different opinions! :heart:

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I can fully appreciate this. It shows you’re really thinking about your story, the characters, and even the perceptions of the readers. It’s largely why I considered it “accidental” rather than on purpose. :wink:

It’s important not to force things, too. I almost didn’t post my feedback because I knew it would possibly cause stress. Your experimentation isn’t bad; it’s how you learn to design your ideal game. It might be neat to see it return with a different character. Even if that character is Zayley. She’s close to the MC, while still being just outside the RO circle. Neat features like her wearing something of cultural significance wouldn’t be a stereotype unless it suddenly becomes her whole identity. She’s still a person, and very important to the team. :slightly_smiling_face:

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I known its not nice to ask this, but, it was quite some time ago since the last uptade… is this wip on hiatus?

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Hehe, I think it’s ok to ask, especially since it’s been a while :yum: it just shows people are still interested, imo.

So, I was was strolling through tumblr and everyone seemed to be moving to Twine… and I decided to kind of give it a try, just to see how it works… Long story short, I like how it looks and the coding and variables are somewhat easier to manage in Twine, so I’ll be moving the story to itch.io. The decision didn’t come easy, especially since I felt like I was just getting the hang of the coding here, but I feel it just works so much better in Twine.

I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to make the game public in it’s new format yet, as I still have to transfer a chunk of it and fix some things. But I’m hoping to finish it this weekend. If not, next week. Was planning to announce it then, but I suppose now is as good a time as any. :grin:

As a bit of more insight on what’s going on, a brand new RO was born :sweat_smile: It solves some issues I had with the plot and I’m kind of excited for you to see what I have planned. Though it’s kind of evil and it will happen at the end of part 1, hehe.
I’ve also added 3 background story options for the MC that I hope you’ll like.
So I’ve had to rewrite some stuff to add the new RO, added a different Prologue, added some more things here and there, another non-ro character… as well as figure out the coding and interface things for Twine.

I am sorry I’ve been so slow with writing this. It’s been over a year and I don’t even have a full Chapter 1 out yet :sweat_smile: In my defense, Ch1 is written, just not coded yet. I’ve been working from home since the pandemic started and honestly sometimes it’s just depressing to jump from my work laptop straight to my personal one. But then I only have like 4 hours until I have to get ready for bed :sweat_smile: So yeah, it’s been a bit of a struggle, but as I said (to myself) when I started writing this, I’ll finish this story even if it kills me! * cue the dramatic music *

Anyways, I’ll get back to you once I’ve made the game public on the new site. And as alwasy, please don’t hesitate to write/ask me anyting. :hugs:

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Wait… you write and code separately? Does that method work well? I hadn’t even considered trying that. Maybe it just depends on personal preference. Of course, it’s the only option if the writing and coding are done by different people, but it seems you’re doing both.

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Hmm kind of :joy:

So I write the $ variables as i go, like the $name and $heshe. But for the actual choices I mostly leave them for later. I write #1, #2, #3 and move on sometimes. Same for *if options, I might write *if department = research, but not stress about all the brackets and spaces. Twine is a loooooot easier in this regard, at least imo, cause it doesn’t give errors if it’s not 4 spaces or 8 spaces or no spaces.
Same for stats :joy: I have an idea of what will go for each choice, but I don’t always stop to add them for each choice.

I don’t know if it’s a good method or not, but it helps me foccus. If I stop and worry about the code I feel like I’m not being productive enough in a way. I waste a lot of time figuring out the coding part :sweat_smile: And well, i think I’ve written most of it on my phone during work breaks and late at night in bed :)) much easier to skip the coding for when I’m at the laptop.

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Interesting story. Sci fi and unnaturals is something I thought wouldn’t work together but u did it flawlessly. Good job

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This is actually interesting. I’m curious and looking forward to what happens next!

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Eh, I kinda use this approach too… Though I go with twine.

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Wait so have you already moved it or are you going to move in the future cause I can’t find it on itch.io

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