Misfits Masquerade (WIP)

Hosted Games Works In Progress
1

Hosted on Dashingdon:
https://dashingdon.com/play/Eleckar/misfits-masquerade/mygame/index.php?cb=38268

This game has been my on-and-off creative writing outlet. I enjoy where it is going, and with summer break officially here I want to spend more time working on it. Even though the first chapter is not yet complete, I need your help finding flaws in my current writing so that I don’t waste time putting them into future sections of the story.

[details=Relevant Quote]“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

― Rob Siltanen[/details]

Abstract

You are an outcast designed to test humanity’s strengths and weaknesses. Through your choices – the paths you take, the one’s you speak with, and the ones you ignore – the world is shaped. Choose well, and choose often.

Notes:

2/3 of Chapter 1 Finished
~4,000 words per branch; ~12,000 words total
You can see a rough outline here (warning spoilers): https://docs.google.com/document/d/14f0cuEdNYlFJ0SS8KCvB9jsWiF4VDa_QZK94jeq4hCs/edit?usp=sharing

I am looking for feedback along the lines of:

1. The current content; do some sections drag on for too long, or do I need to flesh some things out?

2. Transitions

3. Character design

4. Clunky dialogue

5. What I can do to make the current section more enjoyable

6. If my product actually needs a warning label.

7. Anything else you want to share

[details=Version History]
First Posted: May 25

**5/26 - 5/27**

Agreements
Crying parents
Wind colors
Percentages into Dollars
Standardized Heightening
Hairy Makeup
Indecisiveness
Save System
Slothful Clicking
Angry Arguments
Obtuse Dying
Sinful Syntax[/details]

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Is this an entry for the contest run by @Lordirish?

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No. It’ll take way longer than that to complete.

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Ok. Just wanted to make sure, since the theme for the contest is a Masquerade too.

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[details=I don’t know what’s happening with the art links so here it is:]

1173×176 50.9 KB
1173×176 51.1 KB
1920×1080 243 KB
[/details]

Edit: Issue resolved. I hadn’t uploaded the correct filenames.

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Art doesn’t link properly if you load a compiled game to Dashington.

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It’s not compiled
(character limit)

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Then I don’t know.

Quick feedback - The warning is nice but if the content in the game truly is of a graphical nature you are going to encounter several resistance points to getting it published.

Just something to think about. The agreement thing has me gun-shy as a consumer already.

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It’s a tricky subject.

On one hand, this game is meant to portray the misfits of society – discrimination and all. There is also the matter of just what qualifies as “graphical nature.” Does killing somebody because you don’t enjoy who they sleep with graphic, or is it common in today’s world? Discrimination is also pretty complicated, from a writing perspective anyway – if the character is racist, ageist, sexist, etc. to what degree can they act before the content becomes “unsuitable for major audiences”?.

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I did a quick play, mostly I just skimmed throught the story. The PC is a humanoid robot? I think.
First, is it really needed to loop back to the questions about the things you noticed? Like the part where if you decided to nickname the big guy beast, the next page is a one-word comment then it goes back to the choices, you can choose the option again, but the text in the page could easily be placed in the page where you first noticed him. To me it’s kinda annoying, but I dunno.

Next, skincolor and hair color. There’s no asian skintone? Like yellow-ish skin. Southeast asian skin. I mean, i know the indian skintone are kinda similiar, but still…
I’m guessing you just forgot to put black in the hair option?

The part where your parents fight, are we gonna get a backstory or what. Our father seems really harsh, or was it just because I choose mother as fav parent? Then when you choose to sit with mom, and she tells you to sit with your dad to appease him, then when you comply and your father start bragging, she runs off to cry. Like why? I just choose to sit with you, and you’re the one who told me to sit with him. I know she’s upset but was that not enough to show that I listen more to her than the dad?
The warnings… For me I think it’s right that you put one.

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I’m back again! I just searched how to blur spoilers😂 and I’ve played it for the second time
Anyway, I found a bug. So my first playthrough character, when the father flirts with me😓 I choose the option to be quiet, then it goes back to the part where you woke up and pick your clothes and stuff, so I played it again and choose the retaliate option, and it plays until the end. Appearently, my first PC can’t wear makeup, and flirt back, but the second one can do both. The second playthrough goes smoothly, no bugs. The scene with father😐 well… uh… the warnings… yeah
Does that count as spoiler?

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@none
Thank you for your feedback!

I was trying to make it dramatic, but I think a ___ instead of a page break will be better.

Thank you for bringing these to my attention.

I knew that I was forgetting something. Yes, there will be a backstory.

This is interesting, as I’m not quite sure why it’s doing that. The code wouldn’t go back to that point, so I’ll have to rework large amounts of the scene.

Your stability level determines whether or not you need concealer (for acne) and the ability to flirt back Makeup would be a good addition.

Yes, that counts as a spoiler.

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Dramatic? Yes. But all 4 of the choices to be like that, it gets kinda irritating. Maybe the yourself and environment choice option doesn’t need to be too dramatic?:sweat_smile: or just change it however you like

Edit: I just realized I said makeup instead of concealer in the previous post, but if you decide to put makeup option, that’s great too

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New to the forum so please tell me if I’m doing something wrong.
I know you didn’t ask about coding errors and such, but I came across one and took a screenshot. It’s the in the last line.

1366×768 67.6 KB

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I would say that we shouldn’t have to type “I agree”, when it could just be a choice.

I’m a little bit concerned by the way the skin colour is presented, but I may just be overreacting; do any non-white people have any concerns?

I think a choice of heights (preferably with a description, e.g. small, medium, large, rather than a figure) would work better than having us input it.

Who do you sit by?

Can I sit midway between them? :confused:

Also, Mother tells me to sit with Father. I do, and then Mother leaves in tears… I did what she wanted me to do! :confounded:

"Sometimes I really don’t enjoy Mother. she can be such a bitch sometimes! I’m going to be honest: what makes matters worse is you, son! You don’t want to cut off circulation, do you?

You really do need to let loose every once in a while. You don’t need to wash up just to come downstairs, you know.

A changing body needs all the room it can get, that’s all I’m saying."

This should probably be a single paragraph. (If not, each paragraph would start with its own quotation mark, but I think that would be unnecessary here.)

My game crashed when I chose “To school!” but without any obvious error message. Is this just the end?

I agree that this part was kinda clunky; you could use *disable_reuse to prevent returns, and separate the two scientists so we don’t have to click twice to get to them.

I’m going to suggest you not kill gay MCs (well, not specifically them, at any rate), because that in itself would count as discrimination. This would also apply to any other minorities. Writing about discrimination can be unintentionally discriminatory, and it’s best to avoid this.

Good luck with the game! :smile:

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I don’t think you’re overreacting because I raised a slight eyebrow at the second part. It’s not the first half (the skin tone) that’s getting me but the part where you say “European/Indian/African” I don’t know how to say this without making it a big deal because it wasn’t offensive enough to stop reading or anything, but it seems like you assume?

In other words it’s like you’re comparing us to a specific race as if there’s no other color spectrum with these races or other races. Like so all Indians are golden brown, or all Southern Europeans have to be tan. And for those that don’t fit in any of these categories, we’re kinda left having to pick whichever suits us better. I don’t fit in any of these categories, I’m a POC but I’m not golden brown and I’m not dark, and I definitely wouldn’t compare my race to an Indian just because of my skin tone. In my opinion I’d be happy with you just saying you’re ‘pale, peach, tan, brown, black’. But hey, you’re the writer.

Moving on though, the agree part I feel like could be taken out like @ParrotWatcher pointed out. And me wanting to be a rebel, got game over before the game even begun and had to do the whole agree thing again. This might actually ward some people off, not everyone is patient.

Story wise it’s interested but there were just a lot of parts that I felt like my choices didn’t matter at all, either the narrator disagreed and kinda waved whatever I chose away or the story just continued . . . or I had to restart. Lol but it seems like this could be a great rebellious story so good luck.

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Above you mentioned 7 things but point 3 Is missing

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Okay. There is a lot to tackle here. Thank you to everybody for your contributions, you have given me a lot to go over.

Warning: Spoilers below.

[details=ParrotWatcher]Please try to use spoilers in the future.

Agreement and Height: Good revisions.

Skin color: I have added the option to disagree with being labeled and instead choosing a color with the option to say your own color.

I will add an option to freeze in the middle and think about it instead of choosing.

Yes. I’m not certain why it came out like that. Probably a case of misused *goto.

That is a good distinction.

Thank you :slight_smile:[/details]

[details=ToxicDreams][quote=“ToxicDreams, post:16, topic:26988”]
In other words it’s like you’re comparing us to a specific race as if there’s no other color spectrum with these races or other races.
[/quote]
I hadn’t thought of it like that before. I’ll add an option to retaliate to being labeled. [quote=“ToxicDreams, post:16, topic:26988”]
And me wanting to be a rebel, got game over before the game even begun and had to do the whole agree thing again.
[/quote]
I will try to add more detail pointing to the fact that you are going to die if you follow that path.[quote=“ToxicDreams, post:16, topic:26988”]
just a lot of parts that I felt like my choices didn’t matter at all
[/quote]
There wasn’t meant to be a lot of branching in these first two sections as they were specifically directed to build the MC, but which choices do you think are being directly ignored?

Thank you!

That’s certainly part of it, haha.[/details]

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This actually got me to play as a non white mc for once. I got called dark skin repeatedly by the creator. I don’t really mind but, then again you shouldn’t really trust me with emotional things (well at least by this forum’s common standard), but I do think he could have used more variety (race and skin tone) during the actual selection, I like my customization.

You’re such a failure making your poor mother cry!

Anyway same problem with father.

I was also mortified that there was a flirt back option.

@Eleckar “I agree” really doesn’t need to be there, it could be a choice or just have the warning at the beginning with the continue button.

“Now, your skin – what color is it?” %{YulchivName} asks.

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Uploading… I couldnt help noticing there is No black hair colour