@poison_mara May I join the bandwagon?
I just wanted to say that this was one of the best choice of games Iâve played in ages. I love all of the characters. Theyâre so realistic and still so lovable.
Iâm cheering for you here! Canât wait for the next part!
@jeantown @thesunfloweramazon My understanding of the Arthurian legend is primarily based on Mark Twainâs book, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurâs Court (itâs really funny at first, but by the end itâs pretty depressing). I think he was one of the first people to point out how much life in the Middle Ages actually sucked in a fictional book, though I could be wrong. I have no idea how historically accurate his book is, but it spends a lot of time raving about how terrible the church was at that time, and how it mixed Christian lore with popular pagan beliefs in order to gain more followers and establish complete control over the lives of the common people. But again, I donât know if the Catholic Church had established its influence over the population by the time of King Arthur or how much Christianity would have influenced Arthur himself. The whole book might be based on conjecture.
I also read in several places (including Wikipedia) that the Holy Grail legend was a combination between the Christian version and a Celtic story of a magic cauldron. You could interpret it as the original Celtic tale and include at least a passing mention of the Grail story that way. As Twain said, you could mention how the knights sometimes âgo a-grailing.â 
I do like the traditional/original mix you have going on. I get the problem with building a plot around ditzy Guen; in the first book, she wouldnât be particularly keen on going out to fight the Saxons, so she has to sort of break character in order to get on with the plot. I guess the key to working her into the story would be to could create a âditzyâ version of each major choice. Like maybe when itâs time to decide what to do with Mr. Evil Saxon (I never get his name right), she can say, âOh, bloodâs scary! Donât kill him! Ew! Blood!â Or she could say, âOh, heâs scary! Kill him! Kill him! Ew!â That way, her actions donât change and the plot stays the same, but the reasoning behind her actions gives them a more âditzyâ flavor. And then everyone around her gawks at how absolutely clueless their queen is 
I also had an idea to help establish Guenâs character at the beginning. I know that if I ask you to go back and change something, thatâll distract you from writing part 2, but itâs a really short addition. When sheâs looking in the mirror before the wedding, she could make some brief comment about her appearance to help the player create a mental image. Not like hair or eye color, but more like overall impression. For example, she could say that she looks âsmokey and mysterious,â or more âelegant and noble.â Whether that actually fits her personality is a whole other story. It would also be interesting to see if she fits Lanceâs type. Maybe when Morganna points out that Lance likes Guen, if Guen doesnât resemble his type, she could say, âThatâs odd, normally he goes for athletic/innocent/whatever girls.â That would give Morganna and the player a heads-up that something weird is going on.
Iâm sorry I write a lot.
Sincerely I prefer to let guen image as it is now. Any description would destroy our mental cannon maybe I imagine q black Guen chubby and ginger, why someone has destroy that image? Lancelot like ALL WOMEN in Spanish Don Juan tells I wish have as gold coins as women was perverted by Lancelot. Lancelot was for us in Xv XVI a sort of symbol of degeneration and perversion all the guilty English culture put in Guen we put in Lancelot instead.
Itâs quite an interesting idea @Mirabella with that mirror image, but i also think that would limit playerâs possibilities. There couldnât possibly be included every kind of look players may imagine their Guen, because the choice list would be waaay to long
I also like that itâs very âfantasyâ story. Arthurian legends have so many interpretations that itâs hard to come up what is exactly a âcanonâ. There are many other versions where there wasnât holy grail too.
Wish Iâd tried this earlier. I enjoyed the writing of the first chapter, and I think the story has a lot of potential to it. One concern kind of came to mind playing it, though.
It didnât feel like there was much recognition of most of the characteristics that youâre tracking behind the scenes. Half the job of a game like this is asking the player what the character is like, and the other half is feeding back the answer to the player a little while later. At the moment, you have a decent amount of the former, but not much of the latter. As far as I can see, Guenevereâs personality traits are only really checked at all at two points in the game - once when Lancelot asks you to ride with everyone to the battle, and then again in the final scene with Lancelot, when he talks about wishing heâd never left Avalon.
In each case, it only affects the phrasing of what he says to you, and has no impact on the plot. Thatâs not very much. Stats should only exist (i.e., be tracked) if theyâre going to have a reasonably substantive impact on the development of the story. Otherwise, all those reflective bits about what kind of queen youâre going to be might as well be *fake_choices.
To a certain extent, these things can be ignored for a first chapter; you need room to put your character on a decently established footing before you can look back and let those established characteristics affect the evolution of the story. But certainly for chapter two, I hope thereâs more cases where PAST choices and personalities manifest themselves in what happens.
@poison_mara and @trollhunterthethird Well, now I guess Iâm really going to have to get the poison apples in there somehow, or I could be in trouble.
@Kandrakaria Thank you and thanks for playing! working hard on part 2!
@thesunfloweramazon and @Mirabella Thereâs a lot of present-day Arthuriana I havenât read, but from what Iâve seen, different authors have done a lot of different things with religion. Twain certainly had a blast bashing Maloryâs version of medieval Christianity (and Malory in general), and Iâm very fond of Connecticut Yankee. Actual medieval Christianity was, of course, considerably more complex than Twain or Malory made it out to be, with plenty of bad, good, and in-between (because humans). I have a lot of strong emotions about both the good and bad elements of medieval Christianity, so maybe my decision to leave it out was partly because I just didnât want to have to navigate those emotions in whatâs ultimately supposed to be a fun story. That said, this discussion has gotten me thinking that maybe I could work in some grail stuff after all, maybe in part 4âŚ
also @Mirabella, I like your suggestions for ditzy Guen. Iâll keep thinking about that. I wish I could come up with a plausible motivation for her to go to the battle; the best I can do is imply that sitting around the castle would be really boring. As for the possible physical descriptions, I like your suggestion of using more general adjectives rather than mentioning specific details like hair color. @poison_mara and @ponku make a strong point that a list of description options can ultimately be limiting, but maybe it could be done if they were very general and almost as much about attitude as appearance (and if there was some kind of ânone of the aboveâ option). In any case, please donât ever be sorry for writing a lot.
@Dominic I agree 100% â one of the things I said in the original post is that part 1 doesnât have as much payoff for reputation stats as I would like (and by ânot as muchâ I mean âbasically none,â as you say). Particularly in a game that focuses on characters and personality, Guenâs personality should make a big difference. Iâm still wrestling with exactly how to make that work, but there are certain outcomes at the end of part 2 that can only be achieved through certain reputations (for example, some characters wonât ally with Guen if she doesnât have a reputation for being responsible / courageous / etc.), and there are some outcomes for which particular rep stats are a big help, and will need to be compensated for if low.
I had hoped to do more with the âhiddenâ personality stats that are being tracked in part 1, but so far thatâs not as easy as Iâd hoped. (Iâll figure it out somehow.) What Iâm finding, as I work on part 2, is that I think Iâm going to be able to do a lot with repercussions of choices made in part 1 and the first half of part 2. Hrothulfâs life or death will have consequences that impact how Guen reaches (or doesnât reach) goals in part 2. Same for Sir Bretta. So at the moment, itâs the choices themselves that are shaping the part 2 narrative the most. The reputation and personality stats are probably going to have more long-term effects, as they get more and more built up over time.
I think, in the end, it will work out. Part 1 focuses on establishing relationships with the main characters and on setting up Guenâs personality and intentions. Part 2 is going to make it clear that yes, her choices do make a difference and will have repercussions. When we get into the later parts, especially 5 and 6 where things will get very political, Guenâs reputation ought to matter a lot, particularly in terms of who will support her and who will not, and probably also in terms of what options are available to her.
Wonderful. I am fairly optimistic that the outcome will be enjoyable regardless - I did like this one, even without having that much in the way of responsiveness. You have a pretty fun writing style.
Perhaps thereâs some way in which personality traits could be interwoven with your stats? There are some fairly natural connections; kindness to light magic, bravery to combat, intelligence to leadershipâŚnot certain that any of the -visible- reputations would directly relate to dark magic, but manipulation might, of the invisible ones. I guess you had that a bit, in fact, in setting the initial skills. You could potentially use personality traits as a modifier on skills checks, in addition to opening and closing alliances, or perhaps even making certain reactions available or unavailable. (A high kindness, low manipulation Guenevere might not be able to choose to betray someone, for instance.)
Or! Somewhat in connection to Mirabellaâs ideas, with the âditzyâ GuenâŚyou might be able to sort the playerâs Guenevere, behind the scenes, into one of a number of personality archetypes based on their expressed personality, and then provide alternate -lines- for the player to choose - the same response and outcome, at least usually, but different words. Convival, fashionable people might get lots of exclamation marks, stubborn/withdrawn get clipped sentences without the pleases and thank yous, et cetera. Though that might be a substantial amount of extra work for you. A thought, anyway.
But, yes. Unrelated to that, I do think there are a few places where you could save yourself a decent amount of effort with a few tweaks to your coding style. At least, I noticed in 1banquet.txt that you put in four different âsecond choiceâ menus, instead of having a single menu with options removed based on your first choice. You also have unnecessary labels and gotos, like here in 1dressing.txt
*label name
"{petname}," I answer. I scratch little {petname} behind the ears, and he
*if (pettype = âcatâ)
purrs appreciatively.
*goto Lot
*if (pettype = âdogâ)
snorts appreciatively.
*goto Lot
*label Lot
âMummy,â says Gawain,
If youâre not inside of a choice (and youâre not using *else), you usually donât need to use gotos like that. The following would work just as well:
*label name
"{petname}," I answer. I scratch little {petname} behind the ears, and he
*if (pettype = âcatâ)
purrs appreciatively.
*if (pettype = âdogâ)
snorts appreciatively.
âMummy,â says Gawain,
It doesnât save you a lot of typing in any single instance, but it does add up.
@Dominic Great suggestions. Guen already gets reputation points based on her starting skills (and will again at the beginning of part 2). For dark magic, she gets intelligence points, because people may not know what sheâs really doing, but she sure spends a lot of time reading books. The plan all along for the hidden personality traits has been to use them to make certain options available or not; e.g. a Guen who has never lied may not get the option to lie about something important later on; a Guen who hates the other characters may not get options to be self-sacrificing for them. (Somewhere, buried in all the varied and wonderful discussion that goes on in this thread, like hundreds of posts ago, I talked about that plan.)
Iâm working hard to keep a clear distinction between reputation and personality. Reputation is only what people think of Guen, and is based on her actions and skills. Personality is what she thinks of/to herself. So an evil, manipulative Guen could have a reputation for kindness if she wants to play it that way. Similarly, Guen could have many different personal reasons for choosing the skills she does, so theyâre connected with her reputation rather than her personality. But obviously Iâm still doing a lot of experimentation to try to make all of this work. I think Iâll get there⌠itâs just going to take time and patience.
And ohmygoodness yes, my coding is like a manual of how to make everything three times more complicated that it needs to me. Iâm a writer, not a programmer, and youâre looking at my first-ever attempt at coding anything, using the earliest-release version of CS. (I still havenât upgraded it, but I plan to do that over the summer.) Iâm pretty sure the unnecessary labels happened because my if-statements werenât working, and adding the labels appeared to make them work, but most likely the real problem was something else. Iâve gotten better about some of those things â for example, I now know how to add a timer, which would fix the second-choice menus issue. But my coding is probably always going to be ridiculously inefficient, and the great thing about CS is that everythingâs simple enough that as long as the job gets done, it doesnât really matter that much.
Been playing COG games for years. Only joined the forum for the purpose of praising this game. Can I just beg on my knees for you to add more. I get the shakes waiting.
Awww, @shirette and @PurpleMonkey121, hang in there! If waiting is this hard between story arcs, just think how awful it would be if I posted the first half of part 2 and you got cut off mid-story and had to wait another six months to finish it! The wait is killing me, too â Iâm dying to be able to share part 2 â but the more I work on it and read comments here, the more sure I am that I need to wait to post the whole thing all at once, or Iâm going to be fielding a ton of suggestions/complaints about issues that wonât exist when itâs totally finished. But thanks again for reminding me how much people are looking forward to part 2. I needed that! Gonna try to write a ton today.
I will say this: I -love- this game! The writing is fantastic, and it really âpullsâ me in. Thatâs a very good thing. Iâm rather new to the CoG scene. Iâve played a good many of finished and WIPs and enjoyed myself thoroughly, a few really stand out and make a real impact on me. This is one of those games, I am -eagerly- waiting the next part, and the consecutive parts!
Awww ill take the first half of part two I wonât complain! 
oh the pain
Omg I canât wait for more! I love the dreams. Fit well with a power hungry Guen I think. :-)) oh god what I wouldnât give for a bit of chapter 2. Perhaps we can start a petition lobbying for the first half. Give us a taste!!!
@shirette Welcome to the club, Then imagine me i have to wait 3 books until Mordred really appears poor Mara :((
@JaidedDelphi Thank you, and Iâm glad you discovered CoG! Posts like yours keep me motivated to write even when I donât feel like it. Hope youâll enjoy the rest of the game!
@poison_mara I hope you realize Iâm terrified of what might happen if Mordred doesnât live up to your expectations. :-S
Itâs sad but there is a physical pain I feel while waiting.
@jeantown lol that would never happen because
1 you are an amazing writer
2 You will have my and other forum members feedback to ironing any possible isssues
2 Likes
hey guys. Whatâs your favorite way to play? I canât help but be a good wife and queen but when I venture off into other ways during replay I become obsessed with Morgan and wondering how they can be happy together. Canât wait to play mother guns though. And good God Lancelot is thrilling when you lean his way. Thoughts? Itâs so fun living through her I just canât wait for more.