Diamant Rose [WIP, Finished story]

Hosted Games Works In Progress
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Alright, I had to get away from Golden Eagle for a little bit, just to collect my thoughts and restructure some plans. So, after I got back from the New Year’s vacation stuff and all that jazz, I gave myself a month to work on something completely different, but which had been knocking around in my head for a while. So now that that’s done, I’ll head back to quasi-France instead of real France.
Diamant Rose is finished as far as the story goes, but it is still very much open to rewrites based on feedback. It’s short and sweet, but hopefully with plenty of replayability.

It’s weird, I’ve never finished NaNoWriMo because I never thought I’d be able to achieve that kind of output for a full month, but now I have this thing in my hands with 67,444 words, but that includes most of the code in it too.
It’s also very funny that another spy adventure popped up in the last few days. That was kind of spooky.

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Diamant Rose

A mission gone wrong, an agent left behind in enemy territory, the planned escape route compromised. This was supposed to be an easy mission to find out who’s smuggling Soviet diamonds out of Crimea, but now you are right in the middle of a far larger mission. Somebody talked, your entire spy ring is either dead or disavowed: anyone could be the leak and you’ve been burned.
You must get to the truth, avoid your former allies, deal with new enemies, and compromise with known neutral parties in order to set things right.
Everything ties back to what happened a decade prior in Africa, you have to pull one those strings and find out where it ends.

LINK REMOVED

Diamant Rose is a romp through classic spy thrillers, paying homage in no small part to capers of the 60s, Bonds from Connery to Craig, and the works of le Carré. It takes place in the non-specific period of time known as the height of the Cold War.

What I need from you is the following:
Feedback, feedback, feedback. Don’t just tell me whether you like it, tell me what you like about it and what don’t you like about it. Tell me about whether or not it flows well, and whether the action scenes are thrilling enough. Tell me about which characters you like and why, which don’t you like and why. Do the characters stick in your mind or not? If you’ve played through Best of Us, tell me how this compares to that!
Remember to be constructive, please! The more I know about why you feel one way, the easier it is for me to understand the feedback.
Reports! Ah, the joy of reports. Tell me about bugs, typos, and continuity errors. Go into the raw files if you dare read through the madness, and point out where I’ve made mistakes. If you find a typo or weird sentence, copy and paste (or screenshot if easier on mobile) some words around it. It’ll make it easier to find the right place in the raw files.

Honestly I think that covers it, but if you have anything else to say, let me have it. If you have something lengthy that you don’t want everyone to see necessarily, send it to me as a PM. I’m open to critique. Also, feel free to voice opinions about the image above (currently planned cover) and the name. That’s all still malleable.

Have at it! I hope you enjoy it.

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Will there be any romances in here? :slight_smile:

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I simply loved it!! (20 characters)

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You the burn is fatal or just burned skin

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@Vanessa_Pang There is only one “Bond-girl” style romance option in Evony Lellouche. However, I am still contemplating on going back and making it possible to get on with Brandon Ides as well. That won’t be quite as meaningful in comparison, however, since he doesn’t take have as big of a role in the story.

@Harley_Robin_Evans Burned as in you’ve been disowned by the government, all your records have been destroyed, and you’ve been left to your own devices. Not actual physical burns.

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I’m really enjoying the story so far. (I love the artwork too. The contrasting colours are really eye catching.)

The only problem I’ve noticed so far is that when I look at the stats page, it only has the main character’s first name under “fullname” when I choose my own name. When I choose a name from the list of names, “fullname” is completely blank. (Also “fullname” should be spelled with an uppercase F and have a space between Full and Name, but that’s just nitpicking.) :yum:

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You missed one quotation mark in the boss-talking, if I remember correctly. I can read too fast sometimes, but I am very particular.

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Yeah, I had the variable and actual stat title reversed, so it wasn’t working as intended. I have it fixed on my side now, and I’ll push out an update probably later today just to give it time for other bugs and typos to turn up.

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So there is no character customisation other then the name? Was kinda hoping to play a female spy :sweat_smile:

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It’s never specified which gender you are.
If you find a point where it is - aside from a use of “Frenchman” to denote your nationality since that’s a hard one to step around - then let me know and I’ll fix it.

In general I wanted to leave the MC as blank of a slate as possible, aside from the odd thought here and there to let the reader know how a spy might work through information of scenarios. Even all the names are carefully picked to be ones that can be used for any gender.

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The given names feels more masculine to me. Or maybe its just me? Im not too sure. And there was the part when you’re in the hotel and a man walks up to you and hands you the car keys. That sentence there makes me think that i’m referred to as a man. Unless i’m misinterpreting it, forgive me :blush:

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Very interesting, yet another story by the great @Goshman. You do like to jump around genres, huh? . Well, as a self-proclaimed Bond fan, I’ll review it! Once I get the time, I’m already reading it, but I think I’ll only finish it later.

The fact that you cranked it up in a few months shows that at least you’re managing to write quickly. It reminds me on how I need to get started on my own WiP.

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@Vanessa_Pang It’s not just you, I assure you, but they are as close to genderless names as I could find. The French have a strange system for it, but it’s still easier to find genderless names in French than in English.
You’re referring to being called “old boy” I’m assuming? Yeah, I could see that causing confusion. I just really wanted to point out what kind of an upper-class English snob that guy is. I’ll have another look at that and see if I can’t make it clearer.

@Vertigo In a single month, not a few, a single month. I started on the 7th of January and finished it yesterday. But that’s neither here nor there. I was amazed at my progress as well, which kind of kept me going. Once I was halfway done, I didn’t want to stop because then I would lose the momentum. First time I’ve felt like that for a larger story, actually. I’ve felt it in scenes before, or towards the end of a fay of writing where I just have to keep going for that little bit more.

But yeah, let me know what you think. It’s not quite as grandiose and martini-filled as Bond until the latter half, but hopefully you will like it nonetheless.

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Ahh okay~ Thanks for clearing that up though! And yeah i agree with [quote=“Vertigo, post:12, topic:23760”]
shows that at least you’re managing to write quickly.
[/quote]
You’re really fast!! :astonished:

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Found a couple of typos while reading the prologue and chapter 1.

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It should be the.
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There should only be one had.
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Should be it’s.
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The the shouldn’t be there.

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That’s actually a past perfect, so it needs to be “had had” in this case. The rest of them are going on the list of things to fix. Thank you!

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There’s a “no more-*selectable_if” error during the part where Remi? Reine? is unloading on you when you find out that he isn’t really dead. I haven’t replayed through it again to see if it is a total game-crashed, but for now it doesn’t let me get past that point.

The writing and flow of this game is fantastic, but as others have stated before, it feels like there are a lot of… masculine pronouns. I’m fine with playing as a male, it was just a bit awkward when my MC was called an “old boy” when I gave them a female name :sweat_smile:.

Edit: when you put input the last name and first name, all that shows up on the “fullname” is the first name.

Edit 2: specifically, it’s “line 348: no selectable opitons”. I’m more inclined to say that it’s a game-crashing bug, as I’ve played through twice and cannot get past that point.

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Clearly we now have to engage in a high-octane battle of wits culminating in a car chase and explosions. :smiley:

I found a bug here: [quote]“I have it, . It’s a much bigger operation than we thought,” your partner tells you and once more you stop him. [/quote]
Either there’s a ${name} missing, or the name variable is set to blank somehow (I chose the name Maxime)

I’m definitely picking up on the le Carré, possibly with shades of book-Bond. It feels more serious than what I was going for!

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I enjoyed this story a lot @Goshman - for an experimental piece I think it is quite successful.

If you wish, each sub-plot location can be further be expanded later to help form a normal epic which we are used to seeing from you. For example, the Sevastopol scene could easily be expanded into a major branch.

The only thing I didn’t like were the choices leading to death by “giving up” … I tested one just to make sure I really knew it was so ( the point where the assassin can kill you in your stolen car) - this just seems a way to frustrate those either not paying attention or those that just don’t see the choice for the death it is.

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TBH I kind of assumed the main character was male too. You could always throw in a gender choice, just to clarify that that player gets to decide their gender. That or make the choices of names a mixture of male, female and unisex names. :blush:

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