Mask of the Plague Doctor - WIP [now in Beta!]

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Those are some really useful suggestions and observations - I’ll hopefully have chance for a proper longer response tomorrow (or, failing that, soon). Just wanted to let you know that I’ve seen and appreciate them!

[Edit] Okay! Got some time to do this. In a twist of cosmic irony, I’ve been cursed with some pestilence in my head and throat, so apologies if I miss anything. I read through all the comments when my brain was NOT full of cheese, so I’ve hopefully paid attention to everything.

Typos: Thanks for pointing these out, as always. Good to get as many as possible spotted and fixed. Next time I upload a chapter, they’ll be sorted (except for “(an) uproar” - pretty sure that’s okay as-is, “there would be violence, there would be bloodshed, etc,” but I’ll let @Mary_Duffy have the final word on that).

In the tannery chapter dream/vision sequence, I’ll take a look at the signaling for which options correspond to which skills. I know what you mean, it’s a little fudged because the “methods” of resistance don’t 100% correspond with the stats, but I’ll definitely see if I can make that clearer.

Yeah, I think this can be done better.

Summary

My intention is to have the MC/RO be questioning their attraction/affection in the latter stages of the game, for precisely the reasons you mention - “Did we just get together due to the shared trauma of our situation/our past? How do we feel about this?” But! Obviously I want to do this in a way that avoids players feeling “that’s gross, you’re taking advantage of someone/being taken advantage of.” It’s… not easily balanced, but I think if I can get it right it will add a lot to those relationship paths.

Any other thoughts on how to frame this first move towards romance? Perhaps if Ioco makes the move, and the MC directly asks whether he’s okay with this? I think you’re right that there needs to be a kind of “I care about this person beyond friendship, but this isn’t the right moment” aspect.

This actually does happen, but right now (for … reasons I don’t really recall and which no longer make sense!) it only happens if you didn’t burn the bodies. I think I’ll alter this so you still get to ask him as long as you pass the stat check for your body-burning motives.

Not sure how explicit it is in the text, but your options are basically going to be: keep Mayor in power, oust Mayor with Couvet, oust Mayor with Alviva, do nothing and let things take their course (one of the other three will happen, but passively based on stats - most likely Mayor in power/Alviva rebellion).

Noooo, I tried so hard to cover every permeation! Yep, that’s a balls-up on my part. Thank you for highlighting it, I’ll fix it for next time.

Regarding Ioco’s pyromania:

Summary

Ahh, I wrote myself into a bit of a corner with this one. I’d always planned for the MC’s tannery trip to be with Alice (for her investigative/theory skills), which means that the next time you do an “away trip,” Ioco is going to be the one you spend time with. Lucia makes sense as someone to go shake down market stalls with, and it still made enough sense for Ioco (as a plague doctor) to want proper disposal of bodies.

But, as you have observed, he’s also the guy who is very keen on respecting deity custom. I quite like the way it worked out in some respects (Ioco’s kind of torn throughout that body burning branch, having to convince himself this is the right thing to do - and you get some vague hints at his past.) There’s certainly a bit of whiplash with his personality though.

I think rather than trying to retrofit this so that someone else is advocating for burning corpses (that would take a LOT of re-writing), I should go back to the very first conversation and make Ioco’s beliefs a bit more nuanced. He’ll stay semi-theological, but if I make him sound more flexible it won’t be such an inconsistency later on.

Regarding the other aspects in that ‘barring people from the Sanctuary’ scene, I’ll give that another look. I want to maintain the option for the player to be for or against it, but, yeah, clearly some of it is coming across as a bit weird!

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I really like this idea! It’s awesome that you’re thinking about addressing something that we might tend to ignore in favor of willing suspension of disbelief/really wanting romance in the story.

I like the “Ioco makes the first move, MC checks in” formulation a lot. You might want to put it after some sort of internal interest check, though. (Even if I weren’t interested in Ioco, I think I’d be fine with it if he gracefully takes a “no,” but some folks would probably prefer it not happen.)

I definitely got his ambivalence during the actual body burning – it was really his initial support for it while we were still at the Sanctuary that surprised me. Either editing the very first conversation or just signaling his ambivalence a bit more in the Sanctuary conversation seems like it would work.

Hope you feel better soon!

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could you maybe, add save option to the demo? im trying to play it, but due to…personal reasons i rarely could play something from start to finish in one sitting. i usually keep the unfinished games open in my browser but sometimes it just reload by itself and it really sucks when i came back to play and found that i have to play from the beginning :disappointed_relieved:
and get well soon…

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That’s not something Peter can do.

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About loco I didn’t say anything due I am a extreme case but if someone takes those steps in real life probably would end without teeth. I directly hated him and wanted make it obvious and block anything related to romance loco. As i take it as an attack to my personal space I hate that as make me feel unsafe for personal reasons

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Are you saying you ended up on a romantic path with Ioco despite hating him? Yeah, that definitely shouldn’t happen. If you disagree with him a bunch and actively avoid hanging out with him (granted, you might dislike him but still wish to burn the bodies, so I can see how you might spend some time together by circumstance), then there should be zero chance of romance.

But even if you wind up in the scene together in Chapter 6, it should be clear which option/choice is the “not terribly interested in your tragic past, thanks” one.

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I didn’t save the data but i totally ignored loco and i was in a playthrough that was opposing him. So the scene is already weird for me I disnt remember what i choose . still i made a character that is very nervous and stressed if someone try to take initiative so maybe a choice to say I like you but I prefer control the rhythm of my relationship and maybe another choice of energetic rejects him in anger. I will try when repeat the game trying to get the same scene.

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Bit of a mini-update, everyone. Chapter Eight has been submitted for editing, hooray! Can’t say exactly when that will be back (and notes acted upon by myself), but I think it’s safe to say you’ll be playing it in April.

I suspect gaps between chapters will be getting slightly longer from this point. Earlier, I would do one per month without much trouble, but that was when they were 20-25k in length. Chapter Eight just ended up at 35k, and sometimes Stuff Happens (like me having flu in March … that sore throat stuff I mentioned further up, it turned unpleasant!)

My general writing discipline is to do 1k words per day, so if chapters continue to be pretty lengthy - and I have every expectation that they will - then the next three or four (three and an epilogue is what I have tentatively sketched out) will probably take a similar amount of time to Chapter Eight.

As a little extra - here’s some bonus material I dug out. It’s the original sketched map of Thornback Hollow that I made at about 3am some time in May (I think) of 2018.

Forgive the VERY rough nature, it was only ever intended as a quick guide for my own memory. I’ve stuck pretty close to this early layout overall, I think.

thornback_map01
thornback_map011383×1080 334 KB

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This is so interesting; somewhat similar to what I imagined with I read you WIP. That means you’re doing great with the description.

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Screenshot_20190331-081416
Screenshot_20190331-0814161080×2280 357 KB

Shouldn’t it be “barony”? Other than that, great game!

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‘Barony’ refers to the domain. ‘Baronship’ refers to the rank itself, so the usage here should be correct.
‘Peerage’ could be an alternative if you prefer.

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“Baron” is the rank actually.
So the correct usage would be “awarded a barony” or “made a baron”.

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I’m convinced. “Barony” it is.

In other news, Chapter Eight has been added! I believe we’re now at 180k words total/50k-ish for a single play-through.

Further Changes of Note in this version:

  • In Chapter Five, players who pass the stat check to justify why they burned the bodies can now ask the Abbot about the Dweller. One should flow into the other in a relatively natural way… I feel like I can still sort of “see a join,” but that’s perhaps because I know it’s there.
  • A tiny bit of foreshadowing with Alice in regard to something that can be learned in Chapter Eight.

Things I Should Have Done (but didn’t because I haven’t figured out how to make them work better yet, and wanted to get the chapter out there):

  • Rework the Ioco romance a bit in Chapter Six. Still planning on “have him make a move first,” I just haven’t figured out how to write it in a satisfying way yet.
  • Same for the Chapter Three scene about burning bodies discussed somewhat recently in this thread. Both remain on the “to do” list, however!
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Phew, it’s been a while. As confirmed in the title, Mask of the Plague Doctor now has nine playable chapters. I’m in the middle of writing Chapter Ten, and the game will conclude with Chapter Eleven and Epilogues.

With this updated version, MotPD has officially crossed the 200k word mark (210k). A single play-through of these nine chapters is around 56k.

Other changes:

Chapter One:

  • It’s now noted that Ioco can indeed break deity customs when it suits him, which will hopefully make his attitude in Chapter Three a bit less jarring.

Chapter Six:

  • During the Ioco romance opportunity, I’ve added some player dialogue asking whether it’s okay to embrace him (and noting that you understand he’s just shared a lot and don’t wish to take advantage). Might not be all the way there yet, but it should make it less weird.
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“Indeed,” the Abbot says. {(abbot_disgust) “Your past transgressions still weigh upon me. But, I…thank you for lending your voice to this union.”|“Your voice was a mediating influence. I thank you for it.”}

And the game froze when I hit the “the waiting is torment” to go to the next scene, I don’t know if that’s a bug or what.

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Is it possible to incorporate the save function? Or at least for now to jump straight to certain chapter?

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@stsword Thanks! The stray @ has been added. You’ve hit the end of the chapter (and the game, so far) with “The Waiting is Torment” so that’s why it just ends there.

@lynossa To the best of my knowledge I can’t add a save function (unless someone knows different). I could code a simple chapter skip option … thing is, you’d have rubbish stats and all the variable flags from prior choices would still be “false” by default so you’d fail all the checks, and stuff that should have happened in earlier chapters wouldn’t be registering at all.

Hmm. Anybody have experience with doing this in an elegant way? I do understand that having to play through the chapters you’ve already seen evvvveeeery time gets pretty old.

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I really enjoyed chapters eight and nine – chapter eight made me want to play again as a more mystically-inclined doctor (I’ve been playing as a surgeon mostly interested in finding the source of the plague and its cure) to see what other options would open up, while chapter nine had the juggling of the different factions that I had liked from the start with the Abbot vs Aylwin scene. I also liked that difficult choice at the end and the cliffhanger. :grimacing:

Typos

“In the usurpers manor,” he says, his expression darkening for the briefest of moments.
It looks like there should be an apostrophe after usurpers.

"A man named Rocelin Couvet is in town, and has claim to the Mayoral title.
This option looks like it needs a quotation mark at the end.

"And if it does, I’ll be sure to share your tale.
This line also looks like it needs a quotation mark at the end.

If there’s one thing I found strange was the reaction to our disappearance from town while we are in the caves. I know Lucia asks where we were, and perhaps I missed it, but I figured someone would have believed the doctors had caught the plague or just left town since all three plague doctors are gone and at the same time for what seems to be quite awhile. How long are they actually in the caves? :thinking:

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Congratulations on the word count! :smiley:

I’ll be sure to play through the Demo again and give my thoughts at a later point! Thanks for sharing all your hard work with the community!

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Right at this moment I trying to figure out what this disease is and how to best fight it. and from what I can figure, it seems to be an extreme case of insomnia to start off. then after a period of time, sleep deprivation kicks in and as the mind gets restless, hallucinations begin. all this leading up to the point, where the body can’t function without sleep, at which you fall asleep and then die.

because of this, the disease stems from insomnia and sleep deprivation, all other symptoms stems off from this. and we know that there is a sleep treatment from a herbal source. it is also known that fish are immune to this disease. what ever give fish this immunity would probably be the starting point of the infection which would tell us how it travels. but because of the fish’s immunity I believe that the illness is not waterborne, which means I can transmit between from touch, blood, or livestock (though I believe we can rule this out sense the town feeds on rabbits and they aren’t infected). I don’t think its airborne since then we would see it all over the country.

if you are wondering why I wrote all of this on a fictional illness, its because i’m bored and wanted to meta the ever living crap out of this

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