Dominion: Sins of the Father (Chapter 1 complete) Revised 01/11/17

Hosted Games Works In Progress
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https://dashingdon.com/go/957

Welcome to my CoG contest-entry-in-progress! The purpose of this forum WIP is to gather feedback as the game progresses and to in turn hopefully improve the content for a stronger contest entry. The game will be following the Choice of Games game-structure, and thus somewhat different from my other projects and a somewhat new experience for me. Writing in this manner is at the same time, both rewarding and challenging. But that aside, you’re interested in the game itself!

The contest has a deadline of Jan 31, 2018. Thus, I’ve developed for myself a schedule I will be attempting to stick with, which translates easily into a release chart which may be useful to YOU:

Deadline: 13 months
Roadmap: Chapter 1 - End of December
Roadmap: Chapter 2 - End of February (three way split, ‘2 chapters of work’)
Roadmap: Chapter 3 - End of April
Roadmap: Chapter 4 - End of June
Roadmap: Chapter 5 - End of August (small split?)
Roadmap: Chapter 6 - End of October
Roadmap: Chapter 7 - End of December (eight way split, ‘2 chapters of work’)
Roadmap: Memories - miscillaneous (I’ll be working on them at various times)
Roadmap: Editing DONE, contest submission - End of January
Goal: ~250k words, ~30k per chapter, ~15k per split.

More immediate roadmap:
Successful? Integration of changes to chapter one. Finished.
Currently working on first of three possible branches for chapter 2.

The game is intended to be ‘intelligent sci-fi/fantasy with religious and mythological tones ala Xenogears or Evangelion’. Once I gain more insight in how the game comes across to people, I’ll have a better idea of how to coax the game in the best direction for it, but for now it’s going to likely seem like there’s a lot going on that may be confusing in certain ways. My hope is that answers will come which will clear the confusion later in the story, but I would still like to gather impressions and thoughts on your reaction to this approach.

With regards to time constraints, the game is not liable to be as wide as I otherwise would make it, but I’ll be relying on you all to inform me if there’s enough variety.

You’re entirely welcome to speculate and communicate on anything regarding the story. Some things I may not be able to confirm or deny until certain in-story information is made available, but I will happily explain what I can. In fact, please do- I’d like to see what you can guess at before the information on the truth of the matter becomes clear. And of course, any bugs or continuity issues, please inform me of and I’ll stamp them out as quickly as possible.

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It’s going to be hard to be more confusing than Evangelion :stuck_out_tongue:

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Well… that much is true, I suppose. XD

I’m a bit apprehensive. I’ve got a challenge of making a game suitable for CoG standards that will please the judges, which is still an enjoyable game for the public and not -too- rushed. Hitting the sweet spots for things essentially on the first go, like replayability and length and enjoyment and pace and cohesion.

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You are brave letting all your competition see your work this early.

It will be hard to have this and Monsters both active.

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I’m aware. I’ve already informed the Monsters forum that work on Monsters will be slow this upcoming year. I plan to work on Monsters when I get ahead of schedule on Dominion. Which could mean little time indeed, or perhaps a month here or there. I seem to do a lot in one sitting with Monsters each time, though. It rarely ‘gums up’- just gets wider and wider beyond my expectations sometimes.

As for the competition. Well. If competition works harder and produces better contest entries than I do, they do deserve to win. I’m not measuring myself to other projects- I’m measuring my project with itself- to be the best I can produce for the competition, succeed or fail.

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I’m a fan of Monsters despite my relative silence on the thread, and I enjoy Evangelion, so I’ll definitely be following this along.

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Thank you. I’ve already recieved some input on some things I can do to improve the game in a CoG direction.

This is, for me, being written in a far different way from Monsters. I’m not certain how closely the two can be compared, if at all other than with me as author and whatever ‘style’ is inherent in my writing, but the feel of the writing is likely to be quite different. At least, so I think.

Also, yes, I’ve noticed your likes on the Monsters thread and that you’ve been following along for a long time. Thank you for that. :slight_smile: And thank you for your support here. I’d love to hear what you think about Dominion once you’ve gathered up thoughts on it.

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I’m a little confused at Power/Freedom. I thought at first it meant freedom of movement but then that should be covered by Agility. So what’s the dealio?

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@Sneaks My in-game self-notes for the stats:

*comment Light -increases from light/heat/life based magic. Not inherently good.
*comment Shadow -increases from dark/cold/death based magic. Not inherently evil.
*comment Strength -increases from relying on physical strength or durability, overpowering opposition.
*comment Agility -increases from relying on quickness or stealth, out-finessing opposition.
*comment Power -increases from magic use with no regard for loss of life, magic addiction, and extreme egocentricity, or otherwise self-serving power-hungry action.
*comment Freedom -increases from magic use with careful regard for life, resisting magic addiction, and self-sacrifice, or otherwise selfless conscientious action.

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Ok having played this now I think this is better than monsters. Looking forward to future content :smiley:

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I will give more feedback after I run through a few more times but a thing to point out the long intro had me skimming the text till I got to the next choice. I know it is the beginning of the story and you have to do the world building, but keep the player involved.

After the introduction, to the story flows well with choices and actually brought me into the game and made me curious as to what I missed in the forward.

I do not mind an author to introduce new words and such, but the bolding of the text and parentheses are kind off putting and takes me out of the story. Just write word (if it is used in a magic context just bold it).

"I don’t not believe you, but time has never been a wave that has moved for you.

A double negative from you? XD For shame!

Overall, I am liking what I have seen of the story and this is my first impression of the game. With game development, impression and observation can change.

Keep up the good work!

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Why does the magic magnifying armor decrease Freedom?

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Thanks Pace.

With the words of power- hmm. To explain them, I’ve used real words in various languages that are combined together- always three of them. The parenthesis mark beginnings and endings of words. Italicized letters indicate letters that are a part of one word, but not the other. If you’re ever curious what’s actually being said, you can google the word parts, such as ‘nangfa in English’.

I do plan to rework the very beginning slightly by adding an action memory first thing.

Sneaks, magic in this game world is addictive in nature- rather, that is to say, the method through which magic can be utilized. Tyrael has no knowledge of this upon first awakening, and similarly neither does the player. Magic consequently has huge political implications, and those with access are politically advantaged. In a sense, you could think of Tyrael as a supersoldier or special agent, though following the initial path of being hungry for power ties in and leads to being a greater subject of social control. Magic is …regulated… in a sense.

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So I could say no I won’t be a druggie go drug yourself old man. Because I wouldn’t be a druggie for all gold of universe. I see what happened in Dune… nope no drugs for me. Or we would be forced to use the magic drug?

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I see what you did there.

Depends on if you try to fight the addiction or not. Redemption is certainly possible- but it’ll be a harder road if you try changing your mind later on in the story.

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Perfect… I would love beat this within magic. It is the route I follow in Unnatural 100% human. Is funnier that way is a hard core difficult version.

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Like the concept, but a little to no transition between memories and amnesia states. Overall very good, very few grammar and no spelling mistakes. Keep up the good work! Hope you win!

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Interesting. The title gave me ideas, and I was not incorrect - though there’s enough variation in the story/details to make it feel unique. I dig it so far, definitely want to see what tricks you have up your sleeve!

I have to agree with @Pace675 and @GIO443’s comments as they were things I was thinking as well. The parentheses, bolding, and italics all at once is rather jarring.

The jump from the present to your memories & back again can be hard to notice - I don’t know if a formatting change would work for the flashbacks, or if something visually on the page as opposed to in the writing would help…

I’m going to run through this some more tomorrow, but in the meantime a few typos: First is before the fight with Azrael, second is after you take out the kev’lari guards (I think?).

Come then, we’ll not pretend to like each other through talking civily with one another.

civilly - two L s

The dizzy feeling suddenly comes back to focus, and I regain my feet, though there’s still a sour and nautious aftertaste in my mouth.

nauseous

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Thank you.

Stamping out the typos won’t be hard- I’d never have known if you hadn’t pointed them out.

I’ll need to rhuminate about the magic. I could in theory remove the bolding, but I wanted to use it to indicate intent for magic.

On the memory transitioning, I figured a page break upon entering each (and upon exiting) with a small amount of forewarning would be reasonable. I’m not sure if italicizing the majority of text within memories would be CoG in feel/style, but in theory I could experiment with doing so if it would be considered a reasonable idea.

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They want as little Italicized and Bold as possible - that is one of the things they ask you remove right away.

Not sure what to suggest about the magic word generator - perhaps removing the different type faces and the punctuation marks would be recommended here. Having magical words bolded or italicized would be tolerated as long as there were not too many of them…

but your tendency for complicated punctuation would be needed to be reigned in once a CoG editor started in on the game
( this is all my impression. ymmv)

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