Crystal Valley University WIP (Updated 5/28/19)

I’ve begun work on my new game Crystal Valley University. In it, you play a young adult starting college in a world where monsters and magic are part of your every day life. I plan to make this game pretty character driven, limiting and unlocking choices based on how you play your character. It will be a drama/romance/slice of life with a larger underlying conflict that the character and their friends (if they make and keep any!) will have to deal with before the end of the semester.

Currently it’s about (4%, 1 Chapter, ~4,000 Words) done, and I plan on updating about every week. There should be an intro scene, 12ish chapters, and possibly an outro scene. I plan to have each chapter be a week in game at the moment.

To play the demo, go here: https://dashingdon.com/play/been/crystal-valley-university/mygame/

I fully understand that this is EXTREMELY early in the process to be putting out a “demo” (if that’s what you can call 2% of a game!), however, I really wanted to start a topic so that I can keep updating my game and have a place for it.

This is my first post, my first story, and my first game, I’m a complete newbie at everything, so bare with me.

5/13/2019
Posted game with about half or a third of intro chapter completed
Mostly just setting up character forming choices
Character appearance choices are purely functional atm, no flavor text
There is a final screen showing most of the choices you make, that is just for my testing to ensure all of my variables are working properly
That will be gone by the next update!
Looking for feedback on:

  • Overall interest (though this is mostly a guilty pleasure, so I will likely continue whether there is a lot of initial interest or not!)
  • Stat screen, make sure to check it and make sure everything is working, I’ve done a bunch of tests and it seems fine, but more eyes always help
  • Number of physical characteristics available to choose from. So far, gender (m/f/nb), species (6 total), skin tone (3 shades), and body type (4 choices). (More/Less options?)
  • I’m in college myself so I have plenty of fun anecdotes and events to draw from, but if you have any things you’d like included, let me know!
  • Finally, bugs or grammar you aren’t fond of. Let me know!
    Thanks!

5/18/2019
Character creation and intro chapter complete, waiting on betas!
Looking for feedback on:

  • Grammar, bugs, etc.
  • Anything you love or hate!
  • Nothing too specific this time around
    Thanks!

5/28/2019
Added on physical appearance to the races along with a better history and tweaked other minor things about character creation. Also started the move in day chapter, though it’s only the very beginning. I will still update the next part of this story in a week, though the updates after that may vary between every one or two weeks because I’m not getting a lot of story content each update and don’t want to bore you guys with micro updates!
Looking for feedback on:

  • Grammar, bugs, etc.
  • Anything you love or hate!
  • Nothing too specific this time around
    Thanks!
116 Likes

Mom’s dialogue has that comma that shouldn’t be there. I believe the same happens for dialogue later on where you place the comma outside of the parenthesis. It should go inside, as in: “Here is a sentence,” she said.

Screenshot

A minor formatting thing is that you might want to leave an extra line between your paragraphs so they don’t look like a large block of text. Additionally, for future development, you can consider giving the player a summary of each species so they can read before deciding on which one to be.

No bugs that I’ve found! Looking forward to more.

2 Likes

Hey there, and congratulations for beginning your first game,

Overall interest: enough to reply here. :slight_smile: There isn’t much of a plot yet but the premise has potential, let’s see where this goes.
Stat screen: didn’t find anything wrong.
Physical characteristics: what about adding some stranger options for the non-humans? Snow-white fae, green or blue orcs, fur color for lycans, shorty or very tall fae, that kind of thing. This part feels odd without some flavor text for the species options. What does fair or deep skin tone even mean for an orc, if we don’t know what an orc is like? (d&d orcs? LotR movies orcs? etc etc)

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I like the premise that you are setting here and I have personally not found any bugs or anything that has not already been commented on. I also agree with one of the comments saying that you should have some description on the races weather it be through the stat screen or in the actual text. I also think that you should bump up the number of skin shades. I’m not saying that its a bad thing to only have three but in my opinion you should have different colors for each different race. One example I can think of is Oni’s they are Japanese daemons often described having skin colors such as red, black, blue, upon many others. Another example is the Orc’s. Orc’s have a funny history with skin colors. Most times they are described as a shade of green but than there are other times that they have shades of orange, gray, and other colors of the like.
Again if I have not said this before all that I am saying here are suggestions that I believe would increase the immersion in the world that you are creating. I hope the best and I will be watching this grow along the way.

4 Likes

@QuincyAdams Thanks for the grammar feedback! I think adding some info on the species is fair, I’ll look into adding that for the next update.

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@thearchangle_mike Definitely see what you’re saying! I replied to the other similar comment about this. I had wanted to do that, but will have to look into the coding! Considering how I want this to be character driven, the more choices, the merrier! I’ll add a few player choices on skin hue where it’s needed, grey and green orcs, blue and red oni, etc.

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@Rosencrantz That was definitely an idea that was floating in my head! I just wasn’t sure about the exact coding of it, but I’ll get on researching it for the next update! As it stood currently I planned to just pick one color for each species and use the fair medium and deep modifier on it (ex: oni - deep red, etc.). However I agree that especially with something like Lycan it would be limiting to make them shoehorned into having brown fur and only getting to choose light medium or dark! I’ll go get on that!

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Great! There aren’t any problems that I can see in the stat screen on my end, and since it’s a small sample of a WIP, I don’t really have any criticisms, yet.

I’m very interested in the story’s setting since it seems to be a modern world much like ours—the lore behind the various creatures and races could be pretty fascinating and would make for an incredible story. Also, how the magical world clashes with the real world (a topic dwelled upon in many urban fantasies but only just.) Only a little snippet of what’s to come and I’m already asking questions, lol. I can’t wait for more! But don’t feel rushed by my enthusiasm.

Well, I liked that there weren’t any spelling mistakes so far, and I like the theme

@Cithrel I plan to definitely touch on magical relations, however I’m conflicted as to whether I want there to be a real difference between the “normal world” of humans and the magical one of monster or whether I’d prefer this to be an entirely separate universe where they have always (or possibly just for a very long time) worked together as a society.

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I like this WIP so far. Sounds interesting!

+1 Bookmark

In the end screen it says human human

@Bizimo Thanks for the suggestion! I’m actually coding the race descriptions into it as we speak. Also, I mentioned it a bit in the original post, but that end screen is mostly just to make sure all of the choices are working. I was trying to have a lowercase and an uppercase version of the races, but the way I coded it didn’t work. I think I know what I have to do to fix it though. The end screen will be gone by the next update entirely, now that I’ve got the hang of the variables!

Okay I knew that the endscreen would be gone later but for some reason I thought it would be important. I deleted the part with the races because you already answered it. But thank you for the answere anyways. Like I said I like the premise and look forward to this WIP. Also I love character driven and slice of life stories

Could you tell us what the creatures are like a Lycan and that please

@Harley_Robin_Evans
Lycan is just another word for werewolf.
It’s a text game so you are free to imagine them as you please (could be more humanoid like in the movie “An American Werewolf” or a giat beast like in “Van Helsing”). That is, unless the author decides to give each race more detailed descriptions.

Personally I like to imagine the Oni on this game being very similar to those from Shadow Warrior.

2 Likes

Great concept. Im 100% interested and will buy the game. Hope you finish him.

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@Harley_Robin_Evans
I plan to have the choices and then once you pick, it will give info on the race, and give you an option to select it or go back and pick a different one!
@IvoryOwl
The Lycans in my world will be transformed 24/7 (hence why I went with Lycan over Werewolf, since I tend to think of the transforming kind when I hear it). As for the other races there will definitely be descriptions added for next update, but I’m toying with the idea of having a completed character image after you finish making your choices if I can get a specific image to show depending on multiple variables. Not sure if that’s a good idea or not.

Anyone can reply to this not just the @ above. Does anyone have any opinions on the inclusion of a character portrait if I can figure out the code?

Also if anyone could point me to help for getting an image to show if multiple variables are chosen, that would be great. Like multiple true false maybe? Not entirely sure if it’s even possible! Possibly a whole lot of if statements leading to different images under different labels?

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First of all, I actually like the concept of a university student. But it is premature to comment upon the game still I will try my best to help you. Spoilers ahead.

  1. The game doesn’t have a prologue or something like that. I feel like I am directly thrown into the game.

  2. Setting names and genders are too direct. It would be nice if you managed to change it, for example: ‘You see a certificate of your high school with your name in it. It reads (your name)’ something like that. This applies to other attributes also.

  3. I am not extremely good with grammar, so until now I didn’t find any fault in it.

  4. The stats screen appears to be good but I can’t comment upon it as I didn’t see any application of stats in the game.

  5. I didn’t find any bugs in the game.

  6. I would recommend a few extra races plus each race should increase certain stats or should be given a certain advantage in the future updates.

  7. Until now the story is good but premature.

This was my thoughts after the first playthrough of the game. Overall the story has great potential. Looking for future updates.

Thanks for the feedback! Each race does effect stats as it currently stands actually! (Apart from human, but I felt that was fair because each other race has a plus and a minus, so humans have neither a positive or a negative stat). I will be adding a sort of “confirmation screen” where you will be told about the race you choose and given the opportunity to keep it or pick a different one so it’s more clear. Not sure if I’ll add anything to the gender select screen, but it’s not a bad idea. I’ll consider it! Same with adding the prologue. I kind of prefer to get right into it, but I’ll play around with how it feels to have a prologue!

1 Like