Community College Hero: Releasing Soon

Hosted Games Works In Progress
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Some typos from chapter one:

  • “You’re almost through the gap when you feel fingers wrap like steel bars wrap around your ankle.” - should probably remove the first wrap there
  • “A entire generation of citizens were born in the Z-Cities.” - an
  • “Each member of the Dozen is easily capable of engaging a entire platoon…” - another “an” typo
  • “The Dozen struggled against Prestige and now they have a whole new school of Z-People do deal with.” - to
  • “Savior School promotes a more inclusive admissions system, accepting students with abilities classifed…” - missing an i
  • “I like that Savior School has a move inclusive admissions policy.” - more
  • “…and a regional special effects make-up challenge. are all extremely impressive achievements.” - period abrupts sentence
  • “When it comes to attraction, its more about the person than the gender.” - needs an apostrophe
  • “I turn to the pink-fair-meets-masked-swordsman girl beside me and…” - missing the y in fairy

Some other things in chapter one:

  • “But you can’t dwell on that right now. You’ll have plenty of time to focus on your father’s death six years ago at the hands of the Diabolical Dozen.” This seemed like kind of a heavy bomb to drop so quickly at the start. It might be better to be even more vague at this point.
  • You can’t seem to opt out of having an extra touch anymore-- is this on purpose (for story reasons maybe?) or did the option just get deleted?
  • Also noticed acrobats don’t have the option to choose a revealing outfit, which is understandable but it seems like the kevlar jacket would offer the same amount of protection as it would for most of the other costumes.
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@RedRoses I know it used to be possible to romance Mob without flirting, but I haven’t tested it with the new update. I think you HAVE to flirt with Crook to get his romance. Haven’t tested the others.

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I realize this is a highly subjective complaint, but I really preferred the old opening. I feel like the first few minutes of the game is now bombarding me with too much exposition and too many inconsequential choices.

The only really new information is the Z-shield stuff, but everything else feels decompressed and less efficient. I don’t know how much of that is down to extra words, and how much is down to having everything broken up to poll my opinion on what I just read. One question about whether I preferred Speck, Savior, or Prestige is now functionally four questions, one for each school and one for how they relate to the dozen, and I’m not sure it adds enough characterization to justify how much it slows down the pace. Same thing with adding extra questions about your childhood, your dad, etc. I don’t object to these types of “fake choices” on principal or anything, but sometimes less is more and I just want to get on to actually doing something.

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[quote=“HornHeadFan, post:1472, topic:2143, full:true”]
Half of me says, “this is a comic book style story and some (large) level of disbelief is required.”[/quote]

Like violating the laws of grammar, i think it is best when authors violate the laws of reality on purpose instead of accidentally.

And just because some parts of the story are implausible doesn’t mean you can’t signal to the readers that other parts are will be plausible. Lots of really popular fiction totally ignores some parts of reality, while sticking with other parts faithfully.

You gotta decide what laws can be bent or broken.

I’m not recommending that you put more backstory up front there. I’d probably still lean towards less. Though as a player i’m sure i’d want to uncover more about the origins of it all further in the game/story.

“This year, a villainess named Lady Ash leads the group.”
It seems a bit odd to me that this is common knowledge.

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Sick child in the house so it’s been a long night. A few comments/responses before bed…

@Kingston, yep I’m working on the Combat Wombat (Chap 4) and Rain/Shine (Chap 5) sparring sessions so they are bypassed presently. I really want to make sure readers get to showcase whatever equipment their characters have during those bouts, so I’m reworking those scenes.

@OtherGrimm, checking on the Sharpshooter bug. And Crook will start the flirting in Chapter 2 if your character is attracted to guys, but yes, you have to flirt back to get anything going.

@RedRoses, yeah the archtype descriptions are too long. Sometimes when you write in notebook and only get a line or two, you don’t realize how much text it is on the game screen. I’m condensing those. I’m thinking about the “it” issue. I wasn’t sure if “they” would be equally offensive to some folks, and to be honest, it sounds weird to me because I associate that word as plural, and using “they” would probably sound weird to many others. In addition, it’s not even clear if Nil is a person (could be an alien, technological being, a “creature” of some sort, etc.) so that further complicates matters. Still, I’d like to avoid insulting anyone if at all possible.

@Caligae, thank you thank you for catching all those typos. I’m a bit embarrassed so many slipped through the cracks. And yeah I’ll probably at least drop the “six years ago at the hands of the DD” part.

@Wonderboy, I’m likely going to keep the new beginning, although I’ll probably streamline it a bit. I felt compelled to insert a few more fake_choices because I realized that most other games don’t go for more than two pages without some sort of choice. I’m the sort of reader who doesn’t mind a few pages of text, especially at the start of a CoG/HG story, but I’m probably in the minority.

@eleazzaar, I could also write in that a few times per year the shields came down for 12-hour periods several times per year to allow the military to bring in food and other supplies or something like that. I’m committed to using the Z-shields as a part of the overall story arc but I’m not opposed to inserting some more realistic details over the course of the series. And I agree that plugging in more details over Parts II and III would allow the reader to obtain more information about the specifics in easy-to-digest bite-sized chunks. I don’t plan to write too much more about the Zenith issues in Part I.

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Watching community college villain or finding out DG’s secret hmmmm… secret.

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Sorry about your kid. Hope they feel better!!!

A lot of the time, people use “they” to convey someone gender-neutral, like here. It’s considered the gender neutral pronoun, by many people.

To be honest, I also feel kind of agitated about the “if Nil is even a person” argument because that is only a statement in fiction. In real life, we don’t have aliens that we know of or creatures or technological beings to discuss this gender/pronouns thing we have with, and fiction doesn’t exist in a vacuum, so it feels a bit dismissive to me, though since you’re a sweetheart, I’m inclined to believe you don’t mean to be dismissive. It’s kinda like how people try to use mutants as an allegory for gay people, but gay people don’t have superpowers.

If you want to use a singular pronoun that would convey Nil’s unknown gender, how about these? That way you can say something like “Nil’s profile on the college website says ve prefers ve/ver pronouns. You’re not completely used to it, but you’ll try to use them.”

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Alright! I think I’ve addressed all the errors/typos and I’ve also made some changes to the text in response to some comments. Basically I think I have a clean stats page and 80% of a clean game. This will make beta so much easier, as I don’t really plan to edit much from this 80%. I might address pacing and any segments with too much exposition, but I’ll tackle that when I’m totally done with the story.

@Dark_Stalker, it’s just my way of guaging reader interest in a possible CCV gamebook without actually promising to write such a story! Yes, I agree that a dating scene may be more entertaining but I hoped readers might choose the CCV option on a second readthrough.

@RedRoses, yes I am a sweetheart - my wife tells me that several times a year, and not just on Valentine’s Day! And you’re right that I don’t mean to be dismissive. Non-binary gender pronouns have certainly not worked their way into my sleepy (and red stateish) part of the country. To be honest, I’d never read or become aware of spivak and related non-binary pronouns until I read the Heroes Rise trilogy. I need some time to decide how to address Nil, especially since Nil’s identity is obviously a bit of an issue, so for now, I decided to just “write around the pronouns,” which is surprisingly easy to do.

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Thank you, I really appreciate that. It can be hurtful watching people argue why they should be allowed to refer to individuals as “it” and ignore the real-life connections that makes.

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@HornHeadFan Did you update the link with those changes, or not yet? I just tested and got the same error with the Hero Stats as a Sharpshooter, so I wanted to check if it’s still the old version or not (or if it was updated, let you know it’s still a problem).

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I think I accidentally “fixed” that one offline somehow. It should be good now. I just played from the link and was able to access the stats page as a sharpshooter with no errors. My apologies.

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Great update I was wondering if stoic is going to be romaced because with the archetypes you could me her and the mc a brooding couple that only needs to say a few words to show that they care about each other and in combat don’t need to say anything to work like a well oiled machine. Also will the archetypes effect relationships with romances friends and enemies anyway can’t wait for the next update

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Hi, just a brief gripe about Jacob’s second scene.

If you choose to visit Jacob again, you get a short scene where he asks you about your favorite hero in Speck and your favorite hero overall. I feel that the scene seems a little incomplete, or out of place.

First of all, there is no mention of how you got to the hospital bed; you simply are. Right before I clicked next, I was in a training session with the other students; then the next moment, I’m in Jacob’s hospital. We have a conversation that consists of him asking 3 questions. Then suddenly, the entire thing is over, and we’re in Test week,

It just seems kind of forced, if you see what I mean. Other than that, I really like this game and I’ll be sure to buy it if it ever gets finished.

edit: One more thing. Why is the soldier called a soldier? I mean, he pretty much tanks hits, doesn’t move much, and relies on his eyes and his ranged weaponry. Shouldn’t that make him a Fortress or a Tank?

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In honor of ‘C-Wom’, I’m raising awareness that today is the official Wombat Day. Everyone celebrate!

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I always thought the X-Men allegory was great. When people look at mutants we see these humans with amazing abilities that are great people and we can’t understand why the normal people don’t accept them. This then makes us turn and wonder why people can’t accept gay people who are just a little different and are great, amazing people. Just my two cents.

By the way, great update HornHead.

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Give it up for wombat! \o/

http://www.free-picture.net/cache/animals/wombat-funny-cute_w520.jpg

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I do still love the allusions to your next game

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@Reaper_General, romancing Stoic won’t happen in Part I but it could possibly happen down the road. I don’t have any plans to have the personas affect much of substance. For now, they’re more like window dressing to help the player develop a bit more personality with their character.

@Wyrmspawn, that’s really the only scene I’m not quite happy with. I do plan to change it. And “soldier” was an homage to Captain America. In my head, I used 4 “street levelers” from comics; Daredevil (Acrobat), Green Arrow (Sharpshooter), Batman (Detective) and Captain America (Solider). I suppose “tank” or “brick” would work but I think I’m sticking with what I have. I’m tired of changing variables!

And yay for Wombat Day. They are actually really cute animals.

@Thespianbrony1, yeah I liked the X-Men comparison too. I always thought, “Huh…why do ‘normal folks’ in the Marvel Universe hate people who were born with powers but love heroes who gain them through radiation, super-serum, etc?” It just seemed so arbitrary, but maybe that was the point.

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Can we have an option to not have anything special on our costume?

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@HornHeadFan…why you keep writing solider,I will never know :smiley: