Fallen Hero - (supervillain WIP) update 24 Jan 2015

Hosted Games Works In Progress
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So, I have been playing around with choicescript a little, and fallen in love with the system. I’m still a beginner (learned about it a week ago), but it seems like it is very logical and easy to learn.

Since I am a former game designer turned author who was in love with choose your own adventure books as a kid, and is very fond of Bioware games currently, this is kind of right up my alley.

So I decided to try it out.

The project I choose is an old unfinished book of mine, which was left behind when I started other projects because I got to a point where I simply could not decide what I wanted the main character to do. So, I figured I would put the readers in the same agonizing dilemma that I ended up having…
I am so very fond of the SF/superhero genre after all.

The game lets you play as a former super hero who returns to action after a decade, though this time on the other side of the law. Will you stick to the path of supervillany, or will you have second thoughts and try to find some manner of redemption?

The first four chapters are done, so I figured I would put them up as a demo, to see what people think since this genre is so very new to me. I’ve got some design notes on the last page of the game, that might answer some of the questions that might arise. There are a lot of things I am not sure about yet after all, I am literally learning as I write.

Still, it is fun!

Also, English is not my native language, so there might be some oddities in there since I have not put the demo through my proofreaders yet.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/55030415/web/mygame/index.html

If it doesn’t work, just let me know.

Update 12 Jan:

  • Removed a lot of the useless next/choices at the start (will add
    fewer but better choices there).
  • Option to skip some background exposition
  • The stat screen is expanding
  • Added Inventory system,injuries and friendship stats

Update 13 Jan:

  • Lot of polish behind the scenes for future stuff, hopefully that won’t break anything.
  • Tweaking a bit in earlier chapters, added a bit more at the end to bring the scene to a close.
  • Will prolly wait until I have a more substantial update next time, just wanted to see if I had managed to break something that didn’t show on the tests.

Update 16 Jan

  • Tweaking earlier chapters a bit.
  • Added more content at the end (up to chapter 6 now)
  • Fiddling around with the stat screen

around 14 000 words now, depending on path.

update 24 Jan

  • I’m currently working out of town in the weeks, so no internet access except during weekends. So got a lot of writing done, but not as much finished as I would have liked to show people.
  • Added more content, up to 17 500 words on an average playthrough now.
  • I have reached the point in the story where things starts branching a LOT. Going to be interesting to see how I will manage it. The next bit needs a lot of work… because this is where the earlier choices starts paying off big time.
  • Still has not come up with a title I like.
  • Still has not rewritten the start, will go back and do that after I am finished with the first story arc so I can have the first bit if the game “semi finished” as a demo.
  • The first three (of four) arcs are plotted and roughly written (some paths).

I now have the rough outlines for the entire game, tentatively it will be 4 acts.

In act 1, you build your character, background, stats, friends and enemies. It ends when you step out of the shadows and become a fully realized supervillain. This is fully planned.

In act 2, you juggle your supervillain career, with the possibility of connecting to your hero roots. It will have two main intertwining plotlines, with a few hard and important choices. This is fully planned.

In act 3, your choices will start come back to haunt you. But will it be villains or heroes that are the worst threat? This is vaguely planned.

In act 4, everything will start coming together. Or apart. This is vaguely planned.

52 Likes
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You’ve kind of messed up, you have to unzip the file first.

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How do you mean? According to dropbox, you can only share single files in their public folder, not folders… I thought the person downloading it would unzip?

Apologies, I have not done this before.

EDIT: I unzipped it in the dropbox, but then I can’t get a weblink to share on the folder. Should I just link and share all the individual files?

I looked around for tips, but didn’t find any…

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It’s kind of hard to explain ah,…
Did you put your whole folder in the dropbox?
Did you get the link for the index.html?

Edit:
No you just need to get the link for the index.html thats all.

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AH, okay! I did not know this. Now the link is changed, hopefully this works.

Thanks a lot!

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Works now, i read it soon seems interesting. I am kind of busy right now.

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Didn’t finish it yet, but love it so far.

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This is fricking awesome. I think you’ve done a phenomenal job. I’ve got a couple quibbles (too many “nexts” in a row, I thought the Psychopathor killed me, and something else I’m now blanking on) but if I were you I would just keep doing what you’re doing and then worry about polishing it at the end.

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@distracteddad Yeah, I was unsure how much I should push that it was a dream scene or not with Psychopathor, your dream goes a little bit differently from what happened in real life…

The too many nexts, was that at the start? Because I was pondering where to get the setting in, and sort of dumped it there just to have it somewhere. In my experience from writing books, the beginning needs to be rewritten once you’ve got to the end anyway, so I just left it as is for now. I was pondering mixing it in with the fight, but thought that might be too distracting.

I will probably end up splitting that info over the first two chapters, a bit at a time, and start the story with getting punched through the window.

And yeah, gonna worry about polish once I’ve got it done, just glad you enjoy it since it’s my first foray into this genre.

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@Dark_Stalker Glad you enjoy the start anyway!

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Thank you so much for your help by the way, sometimes the solution is too easy to figure out on my own…

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I’ve found that in this particular genre people like to be making choices all the time. So even if it’s something trivial (“do you sit in the chair or on the sofa?”), it’s a good idea to keep the reader engaged that way. Don’t overdo it, of course, but at the same time readers get a little frustrated if they’re just clicking next over and over again. If you’re doing a *page_break more than, say, 3 times in a row you might want to add either a *choice or *fake_choice.

I also remembered the other thing I was blanking on earlier – the sense that the story is going in one direction only no matter what choices you make. That the choices you’re making, in other words, are all about the window dressing but that the product itself is going to be more or less the same no matter what. Perhaps, though, that’s just a function of how far into the finished product this demo is.

Regardless, I think it’s great.

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@distracteddad Good to know! I will make sure to take note of that. I can see how it can be a bit repetitive to just fall into the click next coma.

And yeah, the story is going in one direction at this stage, since the first three chapters is basically a glorified character generator. You set your stats and stuff while playing the game. The fourth chapter was basically me trying to write an action scene and testing out things (I was worried that it might get too talky). Next chapter will be quite dialog heavy as we will meet some of the principal characters, and there the first BIG choice will pop up.

It just requires quite a bit more options being written, since I am a fan of dialog choices.

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When I gave the nanomachines over and selected a choice, it redid the page after.
For a while it seemed to me physical endurance was toughness because you had an injury stat.

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It’s a fun read so far, however only towards the end of the demo do I start to get that feeling of being a delightfully cold and calculating villain. But your response to distracteddad seems to suggest this is by design. May still benefit from some tweaks down the road though :smile:

Looking forward to your progress on this :smiley:

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@Dark_Stalker Ah! I found it. I think it is if you pick the “of course I know what I am talking about” answer, it also goes to the “I don’t really care”. Forgot a *goto and that didn’t how up in the testing.

Good spotting!

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@LordOfLA Yeah, you are not a full fledged villain yet, you don’t even have a name and a suit!

Give it time :smile:

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I finished it. I really liked the possession power.
I hope you make more body stats like strength, agility, stealth, etc in the future.

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@Dark_Stalker Oh I will.But I don’t add the stats until I actually have a use for them in-game, that way I don’t end up with a lot of redundancy.

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So theres no romance in this game?