I’ve begun work on my new game Madoc. In it, you play a noble who decided to sail to America with Prince Madoc. The goal is to found a new kingdom away from the conflict back home, but as many come to discover running from one problem usually just causes you to run headlong into another.
Currently it’s nowhere near finished, and progress is painfully slow. I’ve mostly been learning choice script, and setting down the game’s mechanics. I’m having some trouble (I don’t want to say creating, more like discovering) the proper characters for this story. I know what they are, just not who. I’m focusing more on the main story because of this with little paper notes for myself about where I want to insert the NPC’s. I’ve already inserted Alamo/Aloma, the other characters will be an artisan, a peasant, and at least two Native Americans, almost forgot Madoc and maybe his brother Rhirid. Jeez, how could I almost forget the guy the book is named after.
Still haven’t decided how I’m going to do RO’s. I do know it will be more sweet less steamy, I’m just not comfortable writing that stuff personally.
The RO’s will most likely be
-Alamo/Aloma: doctor/healer
Al cares deeply for others, it’s why they originally learned medicine, but they try to put on a
callous, apathetic, no-nonsense front because of pain that has been inflicted on them by
life.
-Madoc (Do you really love him, do ya now? or is it just the power/authority you crave)
-The two native americans (for love or just for diplomacy)
-the artisan
probably the armorsmith (for love or for the love of cheep armor!)
-the peasant (dang you must really love them, cause there definitely isn’t an ulterior motive
for this one that I can readily think of)
P.S. try to keep in mind that I’m trying to write this in a gritty real live way, some actions I write may put both sides in a negative light, but neither side is necessarily evil the europeans just want to build a new life for themselves, have come to far to turn back, and are scared of the native americans who they perceive as a threat. The Native Americans know there is only so much land and see the new arrivals as a threat to their way of life, which was obviously true.
Leading to the great moral question of what is more valuable a life or a way of life?
ok…error : voyage line 115: Non-existent variable ‘hours’
first that engrish, I personally don’t care since my own engrish can be horrible . But peoples gonna point it out…
You mean ‘Form a new kingdom’’ ? because form is creating a new kingdom . FIND a new kingdom mean you take over someone else kingdom .
Madoc the prince , why our choice is to love him or go total evil greedy? We can be loyale to his cause or side with the natives on principale . Right?
the peasant can be a spy of the court who is there to screw Madoc ruling lol
this definition of found. But I guess since we’re taking native American land both definitions work.
I’ll fix the bug now. It should be fixed now.
As for siding with Native Americans, any that aren’t friendly with the settlement would kill you on sight, so… good luck I guess. That being said the dream in the beginning is totally a possible ending.
Ugh, I struggle with this daily, as a relatively attractive young lady bordering on impoverished. (eta: side note - I say this jokingly and not egotistically)
Mostly just replying to this thread, so I remember to check the WIP (lord knows I never check my bookmarks).
It’s an interesting idea for a game, but there are a few issues.
When the characters speak, it’s difficult to understand who is saying what.
When asked “who where you before”, there are two options for male character, one for female, and a mysterious option with messenger pigeon, which turns out to be the option with the most character customization and stats explanation. There are a few problems here: 1) more options for male character than female seems unfair and unbalanced; 2) selecting one of this gender options will also give the character different skill bonuses, but it is not clear when a player first sees them, and most players here prefer to be able to select any skill for character of any gender; 3) sure, it is possible to do that if a player checks the pigeon option, but this is not clear form the text; 4) then customising skills, it is possible to get a skill with more than 100 points.
I think it would be better if either a) giving equal amount of pre-made male and female backgrounds with various skills, or b) just let the player choose gender, and only after that - skills and background.
I understand opposed pair stats for Callous/Passionate, but why Warrior/Best not try?
When deciding how to spend our day:
the explanation which activity does what only comes after choosing that activity; it would be handy to have an additional option which explains activities before choosing them;
it is possible to take more than 24 hours for all activities, in that case the player is sent to a series of choices to rearrange their schedule, but I couldn’t complete them because of these errors:
Errors
voyage line 151: increasing indent not allowed, expected 14 was 16
voyage line 143: It is illegal to fall out of a *choice statement; you must *goto or *finish before the end of the indented block.
Even when you don’t meet an error message, it is impossible to escape the schedule rearranging sequence, because “hours left in a day” never change, even when new hours for sleep and like are entered.
When writing an *input_number command, it is possible to list a variable as maximum number. That way you could replace 24 with the variable for remaining hours, so total number of hours spent on activities will never be more than 24, instead of going into -72 hours…
It is also stated sleep is important for MC’s health, but there is no health bar in stats.
Thanks for all the info, you actually hit about every point I wanted feedback on. The pigeon option was an attempt at a “joke” like phone a friend in a game show only phones didn’t exist back then, but since this isn’t a commedy it really doesn’t belong. I’ll remane it. The option gives you more control of building your character, but at the cost of the MC lossing all their past memories. My main goal is for the reader to have the freedom to shoot themselves in the foot. Example: not remembering who you are and not telling Alamo/Aloma.
Need to Nerf the pigeon option currently its a god builder, but as for going over 100, both Tin Star and The Lost Heir could go over 100 on certain stats. I’m not likely to make any requirements over 100, but I’d like the reader to have the option to focus entirely on one stat and get it as high as they can. Who knows, I might calculate what the maximum score is for a stat and throw a secret ending in just whoever is crazy enough to do that.
As for the knowing who is talking, I don’t want it to be hard to know that, but I’ve also decided to write the book in first person and don’t want to put a tag on every spoken line.
“blah blah blah” said Aloma
“Blahdy blah blah” I replied
I could be wrong and I may need to write it that way.
I’d probably write it play format before I did that though.
The main reason for two male options and one female is that Influence is going to be the hardest stat to build, and I’m under the impression that where as Noble males could have different levels of influence based on their parents any Noble who is female would have about the same amount of influence, at that time.
Sorry about the bugs yesterday was my second time writing the voyage file due to not saving before absent mindedly hitting close the first time. And I might have let that effect how well I checked my work.
I’ll definitely look into your suggestion on “hours in a day”
I’m at work, so I have not yet read the WIP, however, you currently have it labeled as alternate history. In that case, couldn’t female nobles have the same amount of influence?
I do look forward to reading it and will do so when I’m home in a few hours
I couldn’t figure out how to label it both alternate history and historical fiction. There are many people, myself included who believe that there really was a Madoc and he really did try to settle in the America’s. Yes, I could make female nobles have the same amount of influence, but towards the beginning of the story I want it to be more like historical fiction, and as the story progresses based on the MC’s level of influence society can change.
I’m more free to edit history after arriving in America due to the society either being massacred, integrating into Native american culture, or never existing in the first place. Does that make sense?
I’m totally cool with women having fewer options, in some ways, than men. It can be a nice nod to how sucky real life is. I would really recommend making sure you have multiple female testers, though, just to make sure nothing comes across as over the line:)
(it’s self is the same as “it is self” which doesn’t make much sense)
Also, this bit isn’t necessary:
It doesn’t really, but it sure does feel that way.
Be confident in your own writing. You’ve given us a metaphor for how your head feels. You do not have to remind us that it’s a metaphor! Embrace the strength of your writing rather than make excuses!
Ugh, I struggle with this daily, as a relatively attractive young lady bordering on impoverished. (eta: side note - I say this jokingly and not egotistically)
Mostly just replying to this thread, so I remember to check the WIP (lord knows I never check my bookmarks). why ?
(eta: side note - I say this jokingly and not egotistically)
(eta: side note - I say this jokingly and not egotistically)