Hello everybody, thanks again for all your feedback and words of support. As always it means a lot to me.
Progress this month has been a bit slow as I finally caught Covid. While I was isolating in my room I refrained from doing work on my computer on the game but I day dreamed up a few beats so it wasn’t all wasted time.
I’m all recovered now and I have debugged and polished chapter 8 titled International Gangster. Some people who played the demo post October 1st will recognize the first few thousand words of the Manila chapter but otherwise this is new material that nobody has seen.
The chapter ends on a cliffhanger and doesn’t finish the Manila storyline. It sets the stage for the conflicts the MC will have in Manila and also digs deeper into the role money laundering plays in the Triad civil war.
Most of the arcs don’t factor much in Chapter 8 except for the Macau Job arc where the MC faces a difficult choice between Spin and a new recruit. There’s also quite a presence for Donnie who unveils a new line of investigation and her online database system.
The other four arcs don’t factor into Manila until Chapter 9.
Thanks again everyone and as always feel free to be as brutal and undiplomatic as you care in the feedback. You don’t have to worry about sparing my feelings.
I’ve just added another chapter that picks up just after the last cliffhanger.
This also includes potentially the game’s first sex scene. (EEK!) The first of many. I was a procrastinating about doing it but in the end (no pun intended) it wasn’t as painful as I thought it would be.
If you add “even” : (not a word for word quote cause idr it but) “For once Seiko seems self conscious, awkward even.” .Would flow better than before but seems kinda short as a standalone sentence. Maybe could throw it into another sentence as more of an offhand thought/comment
Might wanna rephrase or restructure around it a decent amount if you want to incorporate her saying that, because even if it were the word “get” the whole sentence/her saying that seems randomly placed there
Is there a built in stat check for the Seiko fight or is it a guaranteed lose?
Favourite line/section this update was the: Not the face, im pretty
Not sure if its worth rephrasing, could just cut it out to not have to struggle with trying to use the word put in referring/describing to how a scooter moves (no offence, its kinda tricky to use)
Definitely shouldnt start 5 sentences with the same word. I can try and help rephrase it all once all the screenshot/comments are done later today. Or someone else can help but dont be afraid to message me if i forget
If you are trying to use “mangled” uhhhhhh normally its used for disfigurement/grotesque. Can use “tangled” but its very common
For some reason all of the screenshot upload order are in reverse, soo the bottom ones of the batch of 5 are sooner in the story than the top for all three of them (and theres a 5 screenshot cap per post it seems )
" Who’s " would be more appropriate imo than actually spelled out as it is
Not sure why this guy gets to be known as first name and last unless for fun/ya like em. But besides that this whole section once introducing him is kinda weird.
Played off as a tough guy since security but a weak backbone in allowing/not pressuring us to disclose. Maybe could have the character simply say that we arent a cop to put em more at ease, which would make more sense in having him drop the matter of who we are.
Or if we were a cop itd be kinda late for Eddie to be worried about who we were since we were surrounded already with babyface+gave us the address later on already. Let alone bringing us into the living areas over there
Thanks for raising this. I need to make it clearer what Eddie Pronto is asking for here and why he’s asking it.
The MC works for a Triad but isn’t a member (hasn’t been sponsored and undergone initiation). I haven’t made the distinction or Eddie Pronto’s intent clear. Thank you so much for point this out.
The initial draft of the game was set in the present and featured fictional protests. Then the real protests started which presented me with a challenge as I didn’t know where it was going and I also didn’t feel like I could do the story justice. I also received some negative feedback from a Hong Kong resident to this effect and I felt the best way to honor it was to backdate the game to 2008 which opened up new possibilities for me.
Both the Donnie and the Punky arc touch upon this. I haven’t developed satisfying endings for them yet.
Thank you for the recommendations I’ll have a look at them and they are both very interesting. I’ll check them out more thoroughly after I’ve finished my writing for the day.
I would like that very much, thank you for the offer.
I’m glad you’re enjoying it.
Thank you so much for writing to me I appreciate it.
It’s been a very active week for me in the project, the cooler temperatures are a boon to my productivity and I’ve been inspired by all the people doing Nanowrimo this year.
I also added a new Stat “Mental Health” which goes along with Hurt and Tired. Mental Health effects the difficulty of some checks, a low mental health makes passing some checks more difficult. In some instances players can use Mental Health as an attribute to overcome obstacles.
Mental Health is reduced by failing some checks. There’s a lot of choices in the game that aren’t emotionally healthy. Making bad choices doesn’t automatically reduce your mental health but there can be a difficult stat check which if failed will reduce the MCs Mental Health.
Passing stat checks and making healthy emotional choices improves Mental Health. It’s often the case that the player will have to chose between Mental Health or progress towards one of their goals.
Later on in the game there will be more dramatic consequences for low Mental Health in the plot.
I’ve also been working on Chapter 10 Parabellum Wedding, it’s not ready for playtesters yet. This will involve a lot of love scenes/fights as the B side plots come to a head in Manila. I’m hoping to have this uploaded next weekend.
There’s also a big surprise addition to this project. I don’t want to give any clues just yet but it’s something I’ve been doing a lot of work on it and I’m very excited.
Have a great week everyone. Thank you kindly for all the messages of support and feedback.
I think this is better, my mc is charming, but not much of a political activist. I mean he tries to do what he thinks is right…but then he also likes to have enough money to live well and for him that requires more money than for most people, so those two things are constantly in tension. Which is why he has a background as a good detective but a thoroughly corrupt cop.
Really trying to make my poor mc into someone like Majima, eh?
Only the Punky and Donnie arcs touch on Hong Kong politics. The other arcs mention it but it’s not something the MC is active in.
I’m hoping that I encourage players to role play it the way they want to. There are people who go quietly insane while behaving in a totally normal fashion.
I’m also working on a “Dark” option where a high value in Dark can act as a substitute for mental health.
Love the way you wrote about the manila section,
Especially the taxi scene ranting about jeeps and motorbikes.
I recently arrived in texas 3 weeks ago from the philipines. i do miss my country and mangoes too.
I like this WIP, there’s a few spelling mistakes and missing words, but there’s a core of passion and turn of phrase that many other games haven’t got.
The only issue I found is instead of calling it by its actual name you used Manila Chinatown instead. I think you should use Binondo to make it more authentic. (I’m a Filipino)
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