@HornHeadFan
If it’s too much work, then drop it. Your story’s lovely already, no need to give yourself extra work by having to navigate a clutter of complex code.
I am loving this! I thought the stats were my favourite thing until I met the characters. Then I thought the characters were my favourite thing until I attended classes. It kept on like that.
Possible error: In the exam for HELL, you are asked how many suits per year can cause you to lose your insurance. The ‘What You’ve Learned’ says the answer is 2, but the lowest option in the multiple choice answers is 3.
I really enjoy superhero things, and I feel like you’ve done a fabulous job so far of avoiding the same, tired cliches that are sometimes chewed over ad infinitum.
Also, I love stealing secrets! I feel like detectives and tacticians nearly have that as a job description… I also believe that one can steal secrets with honour - i.e., keep them to oneself and use only for good purposes (perhaps knowing someone’s secret weakness saves the person’s life after a sudden mysterious illness strikes, for instance). It also makes me wonder if there are people who at some point would be willing to trade secrets in order to ace Nil’s class. Or even just pretend to trade secrets and feed the MC a false line??
I like the age thing a lot. I’ve often been the odd one out age-wise (although often as the youngest - by two or three decades) and I feel like it does something to one’s perception of self. Actually, perhaps that’s an idea to make the age difference matter without a deuce of a lot of extra coding and writing? I could see something like 'Yes, you’re twenty-five - and that matters to you because you’re *always feeling a little out of place (-10 YAY) *a lot more experienced than these green ninnies (+10 HMMM) *six years farther along with martial training and sporting a sixth-degree black belt to prove it (+5 POW and +5 WHOOSH) *not nearly as nimble with that %@$& dumbphone (-10 SHHH).
Actually, Fio, if memory serves you can have 2 per year, it’s over 2 per year that causes you to lose your insurance, since it’s asking how many causes you to lose your insurance the answer is 3.
Right now, the game is great without the age, money and electives coming into it. Personally I see every character except Crook as being a teenager or in their early twenties, so I always play as a 19 year old. I could see how age could be worked in, but if you’ve already got heaps to deal with, just scrap it and make the default age 19 (or don’t even say how old you are).
The question is right, just oddly phrased. Think of it this way: how many strikes get you out in baseball? 3. So gow many are you allowed? 2.
I’m jumping on the you-don’t-have-to-keep-it-in-if-you-don’t-want-to boat because, you don’t have to keep it in if you don’t want to! I’m basically repeating what everyone’s told you but yeah, your story’s wonderful without the age, electives and money! I think @Fiogan’s idea about age is really neat if you decide to keep it in though! I have a few ideas but they seem really troublesome??? I’ll just leave them here anyway.
Money
You could use it to raise your hero stats or your relationships. Maybe new equipment, training for your character or tiny, but useful upgrades? You’ve mentioned this before but gifts for people or tiny gestures that improve Yay like donating to charity? Maybe you could do what they did in The Wolf Among Us where Bigby Wolf had some money and he had instances where he could use it. But once he used it, he didn’t have anymore after that and as you play along, there were other situations where money was useful and you think ‘I wish I kept my money.’ (I’m sorry if that did make any sense) You could implement it in your story where you have X amount of cash and you could use it on training if you want and later you’re on a date with your LI when you realise you don’t have enough cash to pay for your food. Whoops, should’ve kept that cash! This whole paragraph is a huge mess and I’m so sorry!
Electives
You could use it to raise stats as well. For the uniform class, I guess it would depend on class? Like for Brawlers, “you’ve learned how to further enforce your suit’s protection! Now with 2 extra punches before fleeing from your enemies! (+5 Thud)” or Tacticians, “congratulations! You’ve learned the basics of camouflage (with style)! Warning: not recommended on safari trips tho. (+5 Shh) /// Apparently, there are 50 Shades of Black. (+5 Shh)”
I was thinking that you could maybe discover secrets in Social Media? Like Tress and her pictures? *click* *click* *click* what is this? Who is that? Wait. That hair… I think I recognise that mask…" I’m not sure how it would work out though.
That’s all I have so far. I’m sorry if this wasn’t helpful at all!
@Samuel_H_Young @ceecrab Why, thank you.
@Saracenar @Pendrew Of course, you’re correct. Here’s to reading important exams more carefully… (that said, perhaps let ‘2’ be one of the answers to confuse other careless quiz-takers?)
Does anyone know of a hosted game WIP that might want to do a little quid quo pro with CCH?
I would be interested in dropping a reference to another WIP into my story (perhaps as a movie, tv show, etc) if the other author would do likewise (perhaps CCH would be a comic book or movie or something).
I wouldn’t really expect it to boost sales for either game but I still think it could be neat. I thought maybe someone else did this before but for the life of me, I can’t remember who.
@HornHeadFan
Most of us HG authors have got together and done this 
I’d be happy to do so with Colonising Kepler 62e
EDIT
Like TotDH is advertised in Unnatural as a court case 
@Samuel_H_Young, that sounds like a plan. Maybe have a kiddo or someone wanting to bring their super valuable Community College Hero issue 1 (with variant cover featuring Dirty Girl!) aboard the spaceship? “Mommmm! They only published 2,000,000 of these! It could go up in value!”
Obviously “Kepler” could be a sci fi movie that one of my characters references but I’m sure you have more creative ideas. Perhaps its up for an award or its just a cult classic. Or maybe someone mentions it as a example of making tough decisions. Hedonist is a bit of a utilitarian. Does Kepler have any utilitarian type themes?
@HornHeadFan
Yeah, and I could also have your brother reading it when you first see him in the story
It wil later in the story, when glamor is useless and pragmatics are essential. A sci fi movie reference sounds good to me, though! I’m sure Andy will have some really good ideas.
@HornHeadFan I just read Community College Hero for the first time after reading it on the first day you posted it. I completely ignored it without any interest for it because I don’t like schools/colleges as a setting (especially if it concentrates on things such as vampires or magic). Despite the setting, I love this. It’s very entertaining. Except a few typos and continuity errors, it didn’t seem to have any bugs. Great job.
Only continuity error I remember:
When I met Tress at the store, it said I met my Team H teammate. I’m pretty sure Tress was on Team B with me.
There was one more, but I don’t recall it.
@Fiogan, the somewhat confusing phrasing on the question was intentional. I thought McCormick, as an attorney, would expect the students to very carefully analyze the question. Putting in “2” as a trick answer may be a good idea!
@DSeg, thank you for the kind words, my friend. I know this type of story isn’t everyone’s cup of tea (really, nothing has universal appeal), but I’m greatly encouraged thaf you can enjoy some parts, even while not being a fan of school settings with unrealistic elements.
General comment. I think I may end up swimming against the tide re: art.
I realize some folks have strong negative feelings about IF showing images of characters, and can totally understand, but eeeevery fiber of my being wants awesome cover art showing either one main character (probably DG or Crook) or perhaps even the main 9 in Brady Bunch style.
If I had the talent or the money or the time, I would start each of the 8 chapters with a faux comic book cover image. Since I view this as pretty much a graphic novel in my head, it’s very hard to dump the “graphic” part of that equation.
I can’t really write much during lunch at work as I hate hate hate writing by hand but I sketch all the time, as evidenced by my avatar changing every other day.
@ceecrab, @pendrew, @saracenar, @shadowwolf0020, @fiogan, and everyone else who commented about money, age and electives, you are all awesome for giving such constructive feedback. Even though I couldn’t respond immediately, trust me that I read every word!
How does the rapist guy get away with it?
This was been a great WIP. Makes me feel like saying “I am the terror that flaps in the night!” or “I am vengeance, I am the night…”
So far this WIP has been really enjoyable. Played it multiple times so far to see different styles. The tactician has been really enjoyable so far.
As for electives…rather than anything in depth I think they should just be a stat boost. No need to get crazy.
Keep up the amazing work! I look forward to an update!
Good afternoon everyone,
I’ve been working intensely on Chapter 5 this weekend and my goal is still to post it to the thread by Memorial Day.
Yikes. I did not want Hedonist to come off as “rapey.” I thought I made it pretty clear in the “grading” scene with him that the MC has total control of what happens. I was just trying to take the stereotype of “somewhat perverted college professor wanting to bed a student” to the next level. As to his abilities to influence others, I’ve tried to be somewhat vague about that: does he has pheromones? does he have some sort of low-level mind control? or is he just very good looking and worldly? I hope to shed some light on that in Chapter 5 or 6.
Haha, I wonder about your archtype/character name now. What do you generally call your MC? And what archtype do you pick?
@Jlafavor21, I’m glad you see some replay value. I was trying to drive straight down the middle lane of “novel” versus “game.” I wanted to had a fairly linear story that also allowed for a good amount of customization and some unique scenes that you simply can’t reach in just one reading. For example, I’m writing quite a bit of unique material for each of the three “What to do about Contrarian?” groups. You’d have to read/play the story three times to get all of it.
And yes if I keep electives (I may save them for a sequel) I would just spend a bit of time on them.
@HornHeadFan Three Contrarian groups? I don’t remember the choice of Contrarian groups well, but I think I had the option to join only two. The one who want the heroes to deal with her and the other that want to leave her to the police.