Constellations (WIP Title) (Chapter One) Major Update 3/14/18

[anon76587618]

My dude!

@Dankman

I could go with something vague and ask you to surprise us. It is your story to tell…but frak that. I want space whales, I want wars in the stars, I want operas that operate in outer space, I want a student council that doesn’t take no for an answer. (But really, surprise us)

Pfft. I’ll listen to suggestions and add my own surprises, too. XD

@Dankman

Hoping for more people on the chaotic side of the alignment scale. As for the current main cast, the shorty who sounds like Youjo Senki in space sounds super fun

My good dude!! Youjo Senki!

All honesty, I made the shorty three years back (I didn’t know what that anime was) in a different story I was making. Originally a leader of a crime syndicate but I didn’t want to make her outright evil, which I don’t think she is.

I see the uncanny similarities so I’m trying to deviate from that (so she’s bound for change), so when I saw the anime/manga, I’m like “oh.”

Somewhat different, but working on the differences. All the characters are a little inspired (2 from literature, 2 from anime), but not based of.

@Dankman

Well, not all romance has to get physical/sexual. If there was one between an anthropomorphic personification of a Zodiac sign and a human in the story, I wouldn’t mind. It all depends on how you approach the romance, and how comfortable you are with the aspects of that relationship.

I know it doesn’t have to get physical, but it still puts me off, personally, a little. However, I’m sure if I can get to like a character enough, I’ll be fine with it. XD

@Dankman

Tangent, would other characters from other parts of space not have different zodiacs? Would these alien zodiacs exist in the story?

I’d think they would. There’s the Chinese zodiac, also, to keep in mind, so I’m guessing there’s different kinds out there.

@Dankman

A side story about the war in Voljensky, where we can help one side or the other, stop the war with peace, or escalate it to new heights.

Seems like some people also want that.

Moonlight picnic? Kidding…

@Dankman

A Chaotic Neutral build, doing stuff that provides more conflict and not caring about what happens next.

All honesty, I’m trying to get all types of characters from the D&D chart. Add some guideline on what characters to make.

@Dankman

Being able to customize our appearance is always nice, even if it’s just a cosmetic choice. In terms of personality, a combination of stats and the dialogue choices we make that interact to let us choose unique decisions would be cool (but maybe a bit more difficult).

Hmm, sounds cool. I’m not too familiar with the programming yet, then again, but perhaps midway through I’ll be comfortable enough to experiment with that.

All in all, high five mate. Glad to see quite a lot of anime fans in this forum? Wahaha. Thanks for this, too!

[anon76587618]

Hi guys! I’ve been developing the magical aspect of the game, and I’m fine with the progress I’ve made with it. However, my proposition is just way too complex. Brilliant in theory, painstaking in practice.

Proposition

My proposition needs a little background: In modern astrology, all zodiacs are organized into four elements: Fire, Earth, Water, and Air.

Great! So I developed four types of magic that exist in the game: Light, dark, arcane, and nullification. Disclaimer that light and dark does not necessarily mean bad or good. Arcane is something in between. Nullification is the type of magic which restricts something, so it’s mainly defensive or binding skills. Depending on your element, you can only use certain types of magic.

So that’s going well. Next, I thought that it would be wonderful if you can cast skills by drawing constellation paths. You can only use the skills that correspond to your magic type.

That’s where the trouble goes: in terms of combat, the skill you use in the fight will be branching MAJORLY. I already made the list of constellations and their uses, and it helps not all of them are for combat, but that’s just a little bit too much, right?

Some sort of system has to be done for all of this, and that’s complex. I believe that I’m just going to put it in the idea box and just let it stay there until I’m ready for the sort of thing.

If you guys have some sort of idea or suggestion, then feel free to give me your opinion. I’ll have to dwell on it more, though…

If you want in depth information on this, I used a Google Doc to brainstorm my ideas for it (below…)

Edit: I insist on the “holy-heck” aspect of this thing. Just too much. ACK.

[ParrotWatcher]

@anon76587618

Great! So I developed four types of magic that exist in the game: Light, dark, arcane, and nullification. Disclaimer that light and dark does not necessarily mean bad or good. Arcane is something in between. Nullification is the type of magic which restricts something, so it’s mainly defensive or binding skills. Depending on your element, you can only use certain types of magic.

Well, one potential issue with that is that Earth, Air, Fire, and Water are all equivalent and connected (often cyclically), while Light and Dark form their own pairing, Arcane (which is basically “magic”) is something else, and Nullification feels less like an element and more like the absence of elements. Obviously I’m not saying you shouldn’t do this kind of magic system, but linking it to the astrological elements seems a little arbitrary.

[anon76587618]

Hm… you’re right. I mean, I was getting this idea while going to sleep, so I was pretty drowsy. I’m still trying to think how to work it out, since I feel like it’s a major aspect of the story, and I don’t want to start it before I’m unsure about the whole thing. Nullification actually is the absence of elements, or at least the contradiction, but I was iffy on that too. Astrology is the whole source of the magic, so I wanted it to be linked somehow. (I used elements mainly because they correspond to the ‘perceived’ behavior of a certain zodiac, such as Taurus being seen as a down to earth kind, so they perhaps will use type skill X.)

Anyway, I’m still working on it. Perhaps I’ll get a new, strange idea again when I ready to go sleep. Just a thought or two, really.

Thanks!

[needs-to-be-loved]

Oh, we’ve come to the magic part. Drawing myself out of this magic discussion then. But one thing before i disappear. Your link doesn’t work since we don’t have acces, assumably because you didn’t click the “share” on google drive.

[needs-to-be-loved]

You mentioned you don’t know how to use constellation skills ? What’s the academy for!? It’s a great way to give them an opinion about which does what but if your concerns are more over to the side of coding, I can’t help you much there, still figuring out things for myself

EDIT: Guess i need to put the phone aside and sleep… I thought you asked for ideas about how to implement them in the game. By first sentence i meant, if you find a way to put those skills into the game, it’d be nice to be taught in the academy about which skill does what. You see me here struggling with all the astrology and zodiac thing so i would need the knowledge about the skills before choosing which to cast.

[anon76587618]

Edit: Oh, yeah! Well, of course they’ll be taught if it ever gets implemented. Yes, I did ask how I might, but I was also asking just some general opinions on it. If they ever do, which I’m pretty doubtful of, they’ll probably get their own section in the stats for referencing as you go through. I’ll add schema so some readers won’t get confused.

Also, that’s fine! My concerns are just whatever opinion you have to give about it, coding or not. Like ParrotWatcher, it’s not just necessarily about the code, just the magic system — not that kind of system, system but yeah.

[violet]

@anon76587618

polyamory

right, I also seek options to coerce read: force my MC into love triangles/squares/polygons with NPCs. heh

[anon76587618]

Whoo, it’s been four days?

Good news, bad news — ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

Good news is that there’s progress and that’s wonderful. Since there was a strong interest in Voljensky, I kind of looked at that too, but I’m not delving into that too deeply until later. Trying to make the demo and the whole process is fun, really.

Bad news is that I’m an idiot with ChoiceScript. It’s nothing too severe as it breaks my game, more like it works but convolutedly and with more work that I’m supposed to be doing.

Example of idiocy

The normal thing to be doing:

How I was doing it:

I KNOW. I thought it was weird when I was playing with ChoiceScript too, I was like, “why does it work like this? (・_・ヾ”, and I realized it wasn’t how it’s supposed to be until now. The only reason why I realized it was because some people suggested going into the other code of other games to learn a thing or two, and well… there has been major self-discovery there too…

Though everything is OK, and if you thought the screenshots were weird, it makes more sense if you read it, okay?! ∑（｡･Д･｡）

Ah, well, everything’s trial and error. I kinda think it’s funny.

Anyway, I hope you guys have a great weekend! ∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿

[needs-to-be-loved]

I don’t think what you did was wrong though. I don’t know if there are cons about it but as long as you put page breaks as its supposed to, it won’t mess up your code. Or i don’t know the difference between labeling and writing below the choice

[anon76587618]

I don’t think it’s wrong per se, but it’s convoluted for a little flavor text here and there. Just a little +Work… ;;

[anon76587618]

Short status update only?

I’m really having a blast, to be honest. Research, especially. I feel like I’m learning a great many, and thank goodness for the Internet. I get to search up things like “artificial gravity”, “when will be able to go outside the solar system”, queries like that. They give me answers, and I sometimes get more information than I need — hopefully, no infodumps — but then I also get a ton of inspirations from other mediums, and wow, that’s a bliss.

Of course, I also searched up “how much research is too much” which is a little ironic, but honest, I’m not procrastinating (I hear it’s a sin that some people forget to write when they’re doing too much of it). I have written a good three-fourths of the playtest, I’m thinking? I can never be thorough with coding errors, so I can’t call it a demo, but hey.

I am hoping that when I finish it, it’s at least slightly tolerable. Best way to meet your expectations is to lower them! ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

[needs-to-be-loved]

It’s better to progress slowly than to publish a rushed game. So yeah, here we are, waiting patiently (maybe not all).

[anon76587618]

Another annoying weekly update!

After bleeding all over my keyboard because I need to learn how to code asdfj, I’m entirely convinced that I’m a masochist. Good news it’s a learning experience and I got it sorted. Bad news is that I wanted to chuck my laptop out the window earlier, but I’m thankful I kept trying, anyway.

I can show what I have now, but I’m partially unsatisfied with what I have. I wanted to write more, but there was a stopping point I can’t ignore. Perhaps I can polish the writing in a day or two and then release it, but there’s still not much to offer as of right now. Just exposition (although important, still meh), which is why I wanted to write more. There’s just so much I wanna write!

BUT, I think it should be a priority to get some feedback on the prelude and first chapter (which are halves to a whole) before I proceed.

Ah, well. I’ll just worry over the quality of my writing a little more (even though I sorta rewrote the beginning a nice three times now) and then show it to you guys in a bit.

Have a good weekend!

Bonus

[anon76587618]

Zzzzz…

On my last post, I said I would release my game in a couple of days, but I got caught up in my studies and family.

Since then, I added more changes (such as more freedom for the player to have opinions on several things, including their situation, his or her father, etc.), and also more conditions.

When I was testing it, I was going, “huh, I’ll change this,” but I didn’t write down all the changes and revises that I needed, so I’ll probably have a few writing mistakes here and there. Most should be fixed, hopefully.

Not to say I’m too proud with what I have right now, but I’m optimistic for the next chapter or so. It’s just exposition, so I hope it doesn’t bore you. I hope a certain character doesn’t make you wanna punch her in the face… too much, either.

Anyway, I’m tired, and I’ll have a break by next Friday, which means more time for fixing and changing. While I’m still unsatisfied with what I have, I’ve taken on the advice of others to put it out, anyway, or it never will . Plus, I need some feedback on it, anyway, so I know what I need to change, specifically. Especially bugs. The tiny buggers.

To those of you who like sneaking on codes, I like to put comments as if I’m talking to myself — which I am — because I’m an utter lunatic, so have a good laugh at that, will you?

Demo: https://dashingdon.com/go/2413

(P.S.: Sorry if my writing is just off. I’m not a native speaker — should I have warned you guys of that earlier? Ah…)

[cedollete]

so I finished the demo, and I really enjoyed it!!! I think the plot of it is super intriguing, and it’s off to a super promising start. let me just say right now: do NOT worry about not being a native English speaker haha, your grammar and spelling were completely fine. (The only grammatical mistake I noticed was at the end of the prologue-- or, at least, the part with the black background about your father-- in the sentence “he never let’s you go,” it should be “lets” instead [as let’s = let us], but otherwise your grammar was really good.)

I thought that Aries presents an interesting mystery about how exactly the dreams work, and I think that she also seems like a fun character, so I’m pretty excited to see how that turns out. I also really like Pei so far, but to be fair, I’m a HUGE sucker for robot characters so that probably plays a really big part in it haha. Still though, I’m really curious in learning more about how the androids (who I forgot the proper name to already oops) work in this universe!

I do have some small critiques though, which I’ll mention right here:

Critiques

• Even though I think that the other characters’ dialogue is all pretty good, I will say that I thought that some of the dialogue choices of the main character are a little bland? That’s something that noticeably improved as the story went on, but I’d maybe try to spice up the dialogue in the Aries section specifically a bit more, as it all felt kind of samey to me. (A good example to counter this is when you get to tell her about why you’re interested in going to the school-- even though all of the answers get the exact same response from her, it felt good for at least branching out my own characterization of the protagonist.)
• I did think that the ending (with the countdown and everything) felt a liiiitle bit cheesy? I really like the idea of where you’re going for with it, but I feel like none of the dialogue options to think about are really interesting enough to warrant it (for example, “How did things end up this way?” and “Why did things end up this way?” are both so similar that I feel like one should either be deleted or drastically reworded). I’m assuming that’s not final though, and just because you needed an ending for the beta haha.

Don’t take those critiques too close to heart though-- like I said, I really liked the beta overall! I did a second playthrough to get to double check all my critiques and I was also able to notice just how fascinating the setting is, I can’t wait to find out some more about it. I also really like how you give players the option to be told exactly when their statistics with someone rise/fall, I reaaaaally strongly prefer when games on here do that because I actually find it a lot more immersive, in a weird way haha.

Can’t wait to see where you go with this in the future!

[anon76587618]

@cedollete

he never let’s you go,” it should be “lets” instead [as let’s = let us], but otherwise your grammar was really good.)

Ugh, right, that. I was going to put just, ‘lets’, but then I saw somewhere else a let’s, so that got me “???”.

@cedollete

dialogue choices of the main character are a little bland?

Oh, probably because I was aiming for the MC to be a bit of a blank slate. Though, I agree with you on that one. I was a little unsure about it all, honestly, and I also felt that I needed to change it. Probably will later.

@cedollete

I did think that the ending (with the countdown and everything) felt a liiiitle bit cheesy?

I was searching up, “how does the launch feel?” in which astronauts write down their account on how it felt like, and one of them said the kind of thoughts that went through their minds when it was about to start. Mundane things. To be honest, I did want to expand on the first chapter, but

@anon76587618

I’m partially unsatisfied with what I have. I wanted to write more, but there was a stopping point I can’t ignore.

Thank you, overall! At least most of your opinions confirm my suspicions, and I really like that. I’m also thankful that there’s some redeeming point in the midst of the rough start (ughghghghgh).

Edit: SHOOT, I just realized I was going to change some cliche things in the story. Thanks for reminding me. So THAT was what I forgot. DARN.

[anon76587618]

Meh, minor changes now as of today. Nothing so significant that anybody who already played should go replay it to see what’s changed. I’m pretty sure there’s a lot of things I need to fix, but it should be improved, if only slightly.

Don’t feel like any of the changes are significant enough to list here. Just more “IF IF IF” statements and reworking of some dialogue choices, which I still think needs work, but will continue to change over time (I’m obsessing over the symmetry of the choices). Oh, and grammar shtuff and a bit of the cheesy launch. :>

Thanks to @cedollete and @hoda_alvah for the feedback!

[Blank]

I’m bored new demo testing time I will bug you when I’m done reading you have been warned

[Blank]

I have no idea what that should say I only know it’s wrong XD