In spanish tradition is common give sweet coal as only gift to naughty boys and families and mischief is let all untidy and food half eaten maybe even launch coal around. Also our fairy teeth aren’t fairies is a mouse That let you money in exchange of the teeth.
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I’d suggest you possibly putting it on the stats page as well, a glossary of sorts. Some games I’m familiar with have opted with that approach. It’s entirely up to you of course and whether you believe adding the choice on the front page won’t temporarily detract the reader.
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Yes
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The italics look good. I noticed the “return to game” choice and how it leads to an empty page and then back
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I really enjoyed the game. I love that there are multiple plot points, lots of evocative Christmas imagery (especially at the beginning when we get to choose our appearance; all the options sound wonderful!) and I especially love choosing the Christmas presents for specific children. I did find the stats a little hard in chapter 5, and I checked the code and saw that sometimes we needed > 80 to pass certain checkpoints. My instinct would be to lower that to maybe a > 70, but I may be the only one who had this issue.
Here are the screenshots of two issues I encountered
Something’s wrong in the coding here.
I’d actually told Flame that I would join him, but the second option seems to take it for granted that I said no.
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In the second I just assume my character is lying and pretending be loyal to klaus Like for me have sense.
Also game is still super difficult probably because I have no idea what is what still not enough stat rising at least for me.
Maybe some less difficult mode for kids should be useful due many people buy this type of books to kids
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A quick update: After discussing test difficulties here, I ran some randomtests to see how things were going.
It looks like tests at the 70% level for opposed traits were hard to reach, with some only having a 1.68% chance of success on a random playthrough! Essentially, you’d have to play perfectly to reach these.
So I’ve boosted these opposed traits, making it about 4x easier to pass tests.
Your feedback has been invaluable! I’ll probably be tuning the difficulty levels the whole time I’m writing this. Hopefully these changes will make it easier to know that your choices matter.
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I thought I’d update on here. I’ve been plugging away at Chapter 7. My idea here is that the Nightmare King (who’s been a sort of extradimensional antagonist) has messed up time and space in a child’s house, and you have to investigate.
The child can see you, because the barrier between the two worlds has been disturbed. You can affect things, move around chairs, talk to the kid, etc. but the parents have no ideas about what’s going on.
Basically, you unwittingly become the poltergeist from the famous movie. The parents get more and more freaked out and eventually leave, with another major event in the end of the chapter resulting in the complete implosion of their house by a spacetime anomaly.
Anyway, I’m not sure if this is the kind of update you guys would like, so I’m throwing it out there to see what you think! The chapter is still in the early stages, so if there’s any kind of choices, callbacks or material you’d especially like to see, let me know and I can add it to the mix!
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I just wanted to update on this.
I’m a bit slower than other people, so I’m still working on the next chapter, about 6K into it so far.
I decided to make it more action packed, the first climax with one of the three main enemies. It’s still the poltergeist house, but now it’s at the center of a battle between two armies, the elves of Mrs. Claus and the random creatures of the Kingdom of Dreams. You’re sent alone to delay the army until reinforcements can arrive.
It’s been fun getting to do more powerful things! Mrs. Claus gives you a hunk of her magic-infused fruitcake, giving you the chance to perform some truly powerful magic. And you get the chance to truly change the world: to broker peace with the Kingdom of dreams, to try and destroy them, or to use them to your own advantage.
Hopefully these updates are useful; let me know if there’s anything else you’d like to hear about. Thanks!
Edit: Actually, up to 7.7K! I’ve gotten 2.1K done in the last three days. It’s nice to finally hit a good writing streak! I’ve been trying to fully flesh out one major choice a day.
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I’ve updated Dashing Don with Chapter 7: The King Cometh
It’s almost Christmas, and trouble is brewing in the Fae world! You are sent alone to deal with the Kingdom of Dreams marching on an enormous rift between the worlds.
In this chapter, you can:
-make friends with extradimensional beings
-face off alone against an invading army
-become the leader of a cult, or destroy it
-haunt a Southern Californian home
-decide how to break the news to a child that Santa has died.
This chapter is about 11,000 words, and it’s one where big choices are finally being made and major plotlines being wrapped up or reaching a turning point.
Let me know your feelings about everything! Even if there’s nothing specific, sometimes just saying 'something feels off with _______" can be very helpful advice.
Edit:
I’ve started on Chapter 8, and it’s a lot of fun! This is a noir-based chapter, where you travel to NYC to deal with Krinkle Corp. You can disguise yourself as a thug, a child, a femme fatale, or a flamboyant masked-and-feathered individual of mystery.
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Chapter 8 is now up!
In downtown Manhattan, assume a noir-inspired disguise of your choice as you go up against a corrupt toymaker. Discover a secret of Mrs. Claus’s past, play good cop or bad cop in corporate negotiations, and intimidate guards by shoving an unholy amount of donuts in your mouth at once!
Thanks to everyone who gave me advice on the NPC’s romantic setup in this chapter. I decided to play the relationship between Hercules and Philoctetes subtly, like the other romances in the game. I’m open to advice and feedback. Thanks!
Edit: You can play up to Ch. 8 at the link in the first post
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Thanks, Adam_K! I fixed those two errors on Dashing Don. I appreciate it, because that kind of error is really hard to spot without people playtesting.
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Chapter 9: Flames Strike
In this exciting chapter, for the first time you are given a chance to betray Mrs. Claus and Christmas itself, and to take arms as a rebel!
Flickering Flames, former servant of Claus and incarnation of Loki, is leading an army of trolls, dragons, gargoyles and more against Claus Castle during Mrs. Claus’s weakest moment. Rally the troops and prepare for the storm, or take arms against your former friends to fight for glory and power.
This 11K chapter is now included in the dashingdon link at the top of the page.
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That oath check seems really high. Frustrating enough for me not to want to play through it anytime soon. I did several of the choices too.
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I’ve pushed an update to DashingDon correcting that. It was certainly too high. Please let me know if there are other checks that you felt like you should have passed but were unable to, that’s definitely the kind of thing I’m looking for!
I’m curious, what were the checks were at? I know one of my stats should have been in the high 60s, the next one maybe mid 40s. What determins loyalty? I know I picked that alot as well. Is that the happy helper one? Shapshifting was my highest, but that wasn’t a choice for this.
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Steadfastness is loyalty. The check was at 70. Going back to look at Chapter 1, it’s wildly out of my style compared to later chapters. I need to add more stat boosts.
For now, to help people through the beta, I’ve increased all boosts in Ch. 1 from %+20 per choice to %+30 per choice. I would like people to feel powerful in this game.
Thank you, I think that this feedback you’ve given me will make the current beta much more enjoyable for people who were losing a lot of challenges. I’d like to have your high stats higher than 60’s!
Edit: I’ve also pushed changes in a few Ch. 1 choices. Tinkering could be chosen almost twice as much as shifting, so I removed one tinkering option, added 2 shifting and 1 trickery, and changed the stats screen so the first choice returns you to the game instead of going off on a spiel about Christmas.
Steadfastness was 54 for me. I was either 70 somthing or high 60s for shifting, oh yeah I had an 80 something for gluttony 86 i think lol. 68 for happy helper.
I think this can be really good, stat checks should play to different builds to make it enjoyable. I know there were four choices and I think most will be able to fit into one of those for that check if they recieve the proper stat boosts or the check is at an achievable value.
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With my current changes I’ve just implemented, selecting one choice the entire time (like tinkering) will now give you a max skill of around 90.
Since most skill tests in the later game are at 45-65, this means that people should (hopefully!) be able to specialize in more than one area.
I’ve continued to make changes to Ch. 1, including adding more descriptive text in for oneof the choices. I’ve stopped, now, though, so if people are waiting for it to stabilize, it’s going to be stable for a while now.
These changes I’ve made will completely change the gameplay experience. I encourage those who have bounced off in the past to revisit the game and see how it feels!
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