Model Citizens: Unmasked (WIP - Update March 11, 2022)

Yeah I see it now. I’m reading more carefully and I see the difference. I would assume that the MC’s fiancé/fiancée is going to appear next time?

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Hey, I’m not sure why but I can’t play the update from my previous saves? :frowning: It takes me to the last page that says it’s the end of the last update? I’m on chrome by the way

I did remember my past pt’s well enough to just replay from the beginning though and I did my self-insert one. I felt like the length was alright. I love that you included a fake-dating option with Ricky btw :smiley: I haven’t done my Wesley pt which I think would be interviewing Yolanda? I’m gonna try and figure out what I’m doing wrong with dashingdon for that

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Did you start Chrome in a private session (or the equivilant)?

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I don’t think so?? I’m not playing in incognito mode if that’s what you mean and I have cookies saved

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Ya - Dashington’s requires that mode to work properly. I’m not technical, so I can’t explain why… :confused:

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Ugh that’s weird :frowning:

Tried that out and it didn’t show my previous saves. Maybe it’s just a chrome thing :cry:

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@Mxm124 I can’t say for sure when you’ll run into the Ex, update-wise. You do see and interact with them during this chapter, and it should be fairly soon once we catch up with where the game started at.

Hmm…

Y’know, It might be my fault. (In which case, whoops…) When I first uploaded the demo I realized I forgot to put the sm_init command back in and had to reupload it quickly… But that might’ve gotten a li’l screwy somewhere along the line, maybe? I think it’s fixed now but it might’ve messed up any previous saves. Sorry. :sweat:

Alright, well, that’s good!

I’m glad you liked it! (You can thank Lucy for that. I was writing her dialogue and trying to think of her reaction to Ricky and I knew Lucy was the kind to immediately jump to her own conclusions so… Yeah, it all just kinda went from there.)

The Yolanda 1x1 interview isn’t written yet, unless you mean the QnA? (Which is pretty much done, save for the wrap-up).

Either way, sorry again if it was my fault it messed up! I hope everything works out well. :sweat_smile:

[quote=“RenaB, post:609, topic:22922”]
I’m glad you liked it! (You can thank Lucy for that. I was writing her dialogue and trying to think of her reaction to Ricky and I knew Lucy was the kind to immediately jump to her own conclusions so… Yeah, it all just kinda went from there.)[/quote]

Thank you Lucy for letting my live out one of my favorite fanfiction tropes :laughing:

Yep, meant that just got a little mixed up there :cold_sweat:

I restarted and did a test save and now it’s working!

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I usually follow Ricky’s path but I reaalllly enjoyed the statue cover story. I think it was super fun being able to find and point out the various contradictions. I actually think the numbering works; mostly because it helped me remember which question I DIDN’T choose when I replayed. The only thing is that the numbering is a bit wonky. I got really confused because it said Question 7 and then I realised it’s because you skipped Question 3 and wrote Question 4 instead. So you might need to fix that haha.

Another bug I encountered is, after I caught Yolanda out, it made me now ask the remaining question I hadn’t chosen (and then the game ends). If that’s not a bug though, I don’t really see how me asking the remaining question would make sense since I finally got the answer I needed anyway…?

One thing though – I don’t get why question 2 and question 4 don’t contradict each other. For question 2, Yolanda says that Red Light has helped her on several occasions and then for question 4, she says “Well, seeing as I’ve never met him it’s hard to discern any opinion I might have.” Isn’t that a contradiction considering she says he’s helped her while both claiming they’ve never met?

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The one you meet is the one who isn’t your ex, MC isn’t supposed to see them again just yet. If you want to meet Raf, you’ll have to have Lucy as your ex

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Thanks! I didn’t realize that.

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You aren’t meeting your ex at the party, your will meet the one who isn’t your ex.
If you want to meet Raf there, you need to marry Lucy.


A bug for you @Renab

if ((divorcee = Lucy) and (love = true))
For a weird moment you’re thrown back to Lucy, who often had that same, unconditionally determined look on her face when she would speak about her hopes, her dreams… You’d never quite seen that same look on face, even Waltz, with all her focus, only barely reminds you of the kind of fire Lucy so, sometimes carelessly, carried. You shake the thought away.

It should be divorcee = “Lucy”, instead of divorcee = Lucy.

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Lucy- always the one to help you live out your favorite tropes!

It’s all good! I made it sound a li’l confusing when talking about them as well.

Yay!

Yay! I’m glad you enjoyed it and that it seemed to work (at least mostly, haha).

I’m also glad you enjoy that kinda system, it takes a little longer, writing-wise, but I like it better than just handing the readers the answers so long as they’ve asked the right questions. Adds a little more interactivity and detective-style deduction to it. Which will only be more fun as time goes on and the puzzles get a little harder. :spy:

[spoiler]That’s because Question 3 is hidden!

… Though thinking about it, maybe I should switch 3 and 7’s placements then? So that it doesn’t look like it’s skipping anything if the player doesn’t get 3?[/spoiler]

Whoops, yeah, that’s definitely an error!

EDIT: I pressed enter and it posted instead of putting in a new paragraph… just, uh, ignore my technological incompetency.

Anyway, think I fixed the error!

Hmm… good point. I’ll go in and change the reaction to that one. There’s one other that’s a minor boost to the audience which I think this could count there as well.

Whoops! Thank you! Fixed it. :smile:

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Looks like I’m too late on the question 2 and 4 contradiction. The main problem I’m seeing with the questions is like how after you bring up the contradiction between 5 and 7 connections between other questions seem to make more sense than they would if 5 and 7 haven’t been brought up.

More on the 2 and 4 contradiction; the questions themselves have small relevance to each other, but the way Yolanda answers, they contradict each other and MC comes off as dense when the contradiction goes completely ignored.

After I finished pointing out three contradictions in the interview I went with the “That’s everything I have to say option” and it went to the question 1 and 4 contradiction then sent me back to the contradiction choices with the everything I have to say option greyed out.

I’m not sure if this is due to a difference in choices, bias toward Raf, or whatever; but I feel like Lucy’s part in the no Ricky scene moves too fast while Raf’s scene is done well. I’ll try to get around to it tomorrow, but let me look through the code to form a better opinion.

Sounds like my social life to be honest…

Yep just make sure you don’t hit the end credits!

You can never be too sure though. Don’t risk it!

It was much worse. You’d have to have been there to know how bad it was.

Hold on, I’m sure I can pull a few strings in Hell…

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Could you point out which ones?

Yeah, I tried to follow what I thought would be the most common train of thought but I probably messed up on a few and others saw things I didn’t. Which would mean I either need to change how it affects the stats and/or change Yolanda’s originally response to the questions asked.

Hmm… That’s odd, I’m not getting it on my end? I’ll go through again, but do you remember which questions you picked beforehand?

Huh, it’s funny funny, I actually had the opposite worry while writing :sweat_smile: (Though that was mainly because I wrote Lucy’s first then tried to copy the same context and conversation content while changing everything from Lucy’s responses, personality, actions, etc. to Raf’s responses, personality, actions, etc.)

That being said, you probably will find a difference in length in their conversations in the future.

Lucy is kinda a fast-talker. She’s very intense, so when you are talking to her, all of her concentration is on you. It’s like its just you and her in the room (or you and her and whoever else is involved in the conversation), but soon as something else catches her interest? Or she decides she doesn’t like you? Then she’s gone, bam! Like that. It varies from person to person- the more she likes you the more she wants to talk to you and spend time with you. But Lucy doesn’t mince words or have time for minced words, she’ll say what she wants to say and that’s… that. This can result in Lucy seeming a little too blunt or harsh but it’s really just her honesty speaking.

Raf, on the other hand, is a lot slower and roundabout when it comes to talking. He’s shy, and almost always worried about how his words are going to be received, so he takes a lot more time to say what it is he wants to really say… and sometimes he just doesn’t say it at all. That being said, he’s also very attentive, like Lucy, but unlike Lucy he likes taking things, even just conversations, slow. Sometimes this can come across as gentle and kind and other times its can seem a bit less honest or direct.

I tried to get that across, while keeping the conversations around the same length, here? It probably didn’t turn out exactly as was wanted, though. But, yeah, any feedback you have would be amazing!

Well, to be fair, cats are extraordinarily cute, some are fairly cuddly, and I’m sure if you take a cat to a fancy cocktail party you’ll be the life of the party. (Or the cat will… cats have a tendency to steal the spotlight like that.)

I’m sorry Revenant, but I’m a loner, and a loner’s gotta be alone.

But risk is the spice of life!

… Or, wait, I’m getting that wrong, aren’t I?

Amazing!

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I think switching 3 and 7’s placement makes sense! On a side-note, though, how do you get that extra question?

Re Lucy’s part moving fast, I kiiinda agree. Actually, when I’m w/ Ricky and then I talk to Lucy, it feels fine. It’s just when I’m alone that it feels rushed. Mostly because I don’t get options for a response, so maybe giving us the chance to actively respond will slow it down?

EDIT: Okay, ignore what I said, I found out how to get that question. Definitely wasn’t straight-forward though! And re-playing the game I’ve been finding new paths and conversations to enjoy, so that’s really fun.

It seems like, though, that you get a lot more info if you go down the sculptor-interview pathway rather than going with Ricky. It’s not a criticism, more of a curiosity: is that supposed to level out or is it just that some pathways will provide more information that other?

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These are little things and wouldn’t necessarily fit in with the answers. For instance after pointing out 5 and 7, 1 and 7 (which I think you’ve got something mixed up in the code, I’ll get to this later) would make me suspicious of her answer. After both the 1 and 4 and 5 and 7 contradictions, 2 and 7 would also be suspicious.

Honestly it’s just stuff that would make more sense after contradictions are called out and would probably have to be twisted to fit the context of previously pointed out contradictions. It’s a means to the same end of proving she’s been bribing Red Light with the only difference being whether you’d like to be particularly malicious about outing her. At least, that’s how I see it.

It’s not something I’d tell you to expand on or change, just something I could see a malicious character using to sew further seeds of doubt.

I’d either go with calling her out on the contradiction, changing her response for one of the questions, or giving her an, “Oh, [insert poor excuse that probably isn’t fooling anybody here].”

I went through it again and it didn’t do it again. Must’ve had something to do with my cache or something. I’m pretty sure I’d make a shitty beta tester.

Adding onto what @stuck_in_bed wrote: since Lucy seems like she would make a lot of physical contact with her friends (friendly punches on the shoulder, dragging them away from a group to talk, and the like) maybe try to have her interact physically with MC more. I think I would have Lucy try to immediately talk about college days like, “Hey, MC you remember college right?!” “Lucy, I’d love to hang around and talk about college but my elevator is here. Bye!” With MC running like an antelope from a lion toward the elevator.


When calling Yolanda out on 1 and 7 (I looked at the code too) and got this:

“Miss Waltz,” You read over her two answers once more, to make sure you’ve got everything right, “You say that you don’t know the hero Red Light, and yet you also say that you’ve hired heroes in the past to protect the Chat Blanc.”

In question 1 Yolanda states she’s met Red Light yet it reads (quite hilariously) as if the MC doesn’t realize there’s something wrong with questions 2 and 7.

I’m a wallflower so… no complaints there. But I’mma still have to shank a bitch if they try to catnap my kitties.

I miss that commercial… There are a lot of commercials I miss…

I think it goes something like this: life is the risk of spice!

In what order do you want the news, good or bad news first?

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Cool! I’ll try and do that after I finish up Lucy’s add-ons (and just revamp that entire section 'cause boy howdy now that I’m looking at it I’m remembering why I put,
right before that section begins.

Will do! I’m probably going to leave the Ricky part alone for right now because, as you said, that’s pretty much entirely made up of talking to Lucy.

I’m writing in some more sections for Lucy right now as responses, so hopefully that’ll help.

Yay! I’m glad you enjoy it. One thing that I really want to be my goal with this story is to do just that, and have a bunch of tinier conversations that the MC can find and/or stumble upon that can change the story in some way, if only in how the reader thinks about the characters and situations. (And some of them will have a larger effect than others, of course…)

But I kinda like the idea of tucking them away into these tiny not-quite-so-obvious corners, even if it means most people might not find them or read them I just like the idea that these snippets of information are hidden away, and could help the MC out later on.

So what I have sorta planned and try to do with these different paths is kinda like what I did in the beginning of the game where you chose to go to a restaurant, go research, or contact Finley. Each will provide information but the key is that they provide different kinds of information. And also it depends on what each MC emphasizes. So… yes, it is on purpose… But I wouldn’t say that one provides more info than the other, it just provides a different kind.

So short answer: Yes

Long answer: Using the Ricky-or-QnA example, [spoiler]going with Ricky allows the reader to get more clues into the MCs past, and more information about Raf/Lucy. Granted, the latter of these two isn’t anything directly stated but the MC can start to get an idea about Raf/Lucy’s coming role in the game. Also, depending on your choices, the reader can start to learn more about why the MC reacts so… negatively, to seeing Raf/Lucy again. And a bit more as to why the MC is working for The Rust to begin with.

The QnA, on the other hand, provides information that has to do with the MC’s case, as well as the opportunity to get some extra information that wouldn’t be available otherwise (i.e. the key to question 3 which will come in again once I write the end of the QnA session).

Yolanda’s interview, while not written yet, is planned to also have more to do with the MC’s case… or learn more about Yolanda herself.

So it all very much depends on what the reader/MC wants to focus on. Do they want to focus more on the MC’s past? Ricky will provide the most information there. Are they more concerned with the case? Well, either interviewing with Yolanda or going to the QnA will help there. Do they want to focus on more personal relations? Yolanda’s one on one or meeting Raf/Lucy with Ricky might be good there. Or are they more concerned with the MC’s own past and troubles, and want to know more about why the MC works for The Rust? Raf/Lucy can provide some insight as to that.

Granted, none of this is obvious when you make the original choice of how you want to get to the party. But by that same vein, I don’t really want it to be? A big part of the game, both in the surface-reporter-story and in the more hidden nuances like this, is about finding information that’s hidden without any clues, developing your own leads, detective-style stuff like that.

That, and it is, admittedly, kind of fun to see what people choose and run into, on purpose or on accident.

Some that are like this will be more obvious- like the first choice. Researching and talking to Finley are pretty obvious choices for an MC who’s concerned about the story, going to a restaurant to eat, on the other hand,
doesn’t exactly help you investigate… But that works well for an MC who’s main priority isn’t just the stories.[/spoiler]

I hope that helps! :smile:

Hmm… though you do give me an idea:

I already had variables in the background that would set the contradictions as true and then just use those instead of the question booleans if the whole ‘choose which contradict each other’ model didn’t work out. As of right now, those contradiction booleans are just kinda floating in space not providing any purpose.

But maybe I change it, so that they’re set true after the MC points out the contradictions, and then I can add a little extra text (or maybe even the option to recall her previous contradictions) in order to back up the MC’s point and perhaps even change the outcome a little bit?

Ex. Something that wouldn’t be considered suspicious if the MC asks before they point out the contradiction that might seem suspicious after would hurt the MC if they choose it first, but help the MC if they choose it after the contradiction (because that way they can point out its similarities to her previous lie).

Sounds like some good ideas. I’m gonna re-go-through that bit and see what I can mess with to make it a little better.

Oh yes, she might very much try to do that…

And it might very much backfire on her. Or on anyone from the MCs college days that is…

Whoops! I’ll need to fix that up. :sweat_smile:

So… a cat burglar?

Back in the golden age of ads.

Of course! How could I be so silly?

At the same time. Having every other word be from the good news portion.

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Hey @RenaB if it’s not too much trouble could you possibly provide a snippet of dialogue between the MC and Lucy when they first meet? Like after the five years. If you did it I would offer you cake and my everlasting adoration. And if you don’t you still get :birthday: And my adoration.

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Right, yeah, that makes complete sense! It would definitely make sense as a IRL situation too because obviously someone who’s going to dedicate their time to one specific task won’t make time for the other.

Just a few more things:

I just played over a few times and I saw that if I picked the “paying off Red Light” question, Yolanda would be like “Ah, yes, another question MC?” But if you choose that question first (or choose to remain silent and then ask that question), it wouldn’t make sense because…well, it’s your first time asking a question. So I think that needs to be tweaked a little.

Aaand (obv this is just a suggestion, I know nothing about coding but I imagine it’s not too easy to add everything in seamlessly), I think it’s super cool that all the information we get is grouped together in our notes…would it be possible to have somewhere that also enumerates our contacts too? For example, at the gala, instead of getting info, we can talk to the Chat Blanc person and get an invite. It would be nice to keep track of that.

But seriously, I just want to reiterate that is a really really well done game. I love the plot, all of the characters, and you exceed every expectation with every update. :slight_smile:

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