Project Omega (WIP - Mature content - Chapter 1 done)

I’ve recently begun to make a real push on trying to actually work on my game rather than daydream about it. And holy batman but I’ve managed to finish chapter 1!!

The game is set in a future where people can augment their bodies with a variety of technologies. Three main corporations dominate the economy, to the point of competing with the government. This unsteady equilibrium is shattered by unexpected events and you play as part of a mercenary group who get caught right smack bang in the middle of it all.

Future plans for the project include but are not limited to:

  • Work with or against any of the three corporations as the balance of power shifts over the city.
  • Earn the support of the local police or work with one of the gangs to rise to power.
  • Get your very own AI pet!! Choose from three distinct categories that develop according to their own rules and gain new powers as the story progresses. These powers can help (or even hinder) you.
  • Choose from 4 different starting meatstacks (explained in game), each with their own benefits, cons and unique side stories as the game progresses.
  • Choose the order that you want to complete some missions, with consequences for your choices (I am going to completely regret this one).

Before I ramble on a little bit, here’s the link for chapter 1. Please note this game contains violence, strong swearing and some mild drug references. Going forward expect more of the same.

https://dashingdon.com/go/1606

I’ve been marinading these ideas for a long time now. I frequently pull over to the side of the road when driving to jot down more ideas. What I didn’t have was any sort of tangible progress. So I’ve finally made a real push to get it done and HOLY CRAP but it’s hard work. It’s great once you get into the zone but trying to find the time and energy is a real eye opener. My respect for anyone who has written something to completion has increased a hundred fold. Kudos . Now that Chapter 1 is done I’m actually really nervous as well to publish this but, as I keep telling myself, this is the whole point of it. I go through phases of liking and then loathing my writing so i’m apprehensive to see what people think. I might as well find out now rather than 20 Chapters down the line whether people like it!

Things I’ve learnt:

  • A vast amount of choices seems good but when you spend hours writing them all and then you see 5% of them and they’re gone in a couple of clicks it’s a wake up call.
  • CSIDE is incredibly useful in providing a consistent IDE wherever I am. Thank you!
  • This is going to take a LONG time to do.

Known issues:

  • There’s a potential situation where if you don’t take any ammunition you’re a bit stuck. I’ve covered all bar one situation but please, for now, just take the damn ammo :stuck_out_tongue:
  • Pistols are probably going to be phased out. I came to this conclusion right at the end of the chapter and it involves recalibrating a complex piece of code to do so i’ve just let them in for now. This will also help with some pacing issues in the same scene, hopefully.

Edit: Updates:
I’m not going to commit to a firm timeline because that never works. Time is tight but motivation is high. We are talking months rather than weeks for updates though, just so that you’re expectations are in the right place. It will be worth it though!

Right I’m going to stop rambling and man up and press the create topic button…

Edit: Shiny polls!

Which meatstack did you choose on your first playthrough?

  • Synthetic Meatstack
  • Veteran Addict Meatstack
  • Reptillian Meatstack
  • John Doe Meatstack

0 voters

What weapons did you choose on your first play through?
(I wasn’t sure how to force people to choose 2 options on the poll so this will have to do)

  • Pistol
  • Boomstick
  • SMG
  • Gauss Rifle
  • Kinetic Knuckles

0 voters

edit: Tracking progress

Progress/Work journal

17/07/2017 - redesigned first half of chapter 2 to make it flow better. Tidied up mess of comments and variables from startup file. Started implementing structure logic for Chapter 2.
20 and 22nd /07/2017 - Prose, prose and prose. Ironing out some continuity glitches with the upcoming story.
24th/25th 07 2017 - Prose and fixed distance bug in the van chase when charging on second turn.
28th - Prose and implementing basic clothing selection/customization.
3rd August - Next set of structural logic setup and started filling in prose. AI companions started!
4th August - Prose

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I think this counts as mature content not adult content an I think there is a tag for mature content

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Ah okay, thanks. I was struggling to find the relevant tags. Will see what I can do.

I think there is no need to mention the mature content in title when you have tagged it as mature content but I may be wrong so maybe @Eiwynn can help our fellow forum-goer :slightly_smiling_face:

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I can’t open stats - It comes up with error 404 " file not found "

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Stats are going to be shown in Chapter 2 as I didn’t want to overwhelm the player (and I need to whittle them down!). I completely forgot to find out how to disable them though, thank you! :smiley:

edit: Uploaded choicescript_stats file to remove the error.

You guys handled it good as far as I can tell. If there is more to be done, let me know.

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Do this

In startup

*create stats false

In starting of choicescript_stats file

*if stats = false 
    *goto end

( in end of the file)
*label end 

For clarification label end is a empty label

And in the starting of chapter 2

*set stats true

Edit- I liked the game and you got a clever way to ask our gender :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I don’t know anything about my MC for now and the fighting scenes is one of the things that I will be looking forward to.

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Thank you dungeon_master for the code and kind words. The story will start filling more of the world and the MC’s situation in the next chapter. I wanted to start with a bang to try and draw the player in but now I’ve just got to try and keep them interested. Depending on the general consensus though I may need to drip feed a bit more into Chapter 1.

I know that in next chapter we will get to know more about the world and our past because you showed us the reasons of that - a gang won’t tell everything to anyone before they know for sure that he is the person they are looking for and due to the memory loss we don’t know a thing so it’s perfectly going well with respect to story

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Congratulations on finishing chapter 1! I did a quick playthrough and everything seems to be looking good so far. The meatstack options are great, but are you planning on adding to them in the future?
The fight scenes are done well, in my opinion. Maybe the van fight could be improved a bit, but so far I really enjoyed it. :slight_smile:

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Thank you! I’m not currently planning on adding to the number of meatstacks, but you will be able to heavily customise your MC (both with augmentations and your physical appearance). The main problem with adding more meatstacks is purely the amount of coding it takes. For every (relevant) choice I have to write 4 things.

I also really didn’t want for whatever meatstack you chose to be perfect from the get go. It’s meant to be jarring. It’s meant to feel a little uncomfortable and far from ideal as that’s what the MC is feeling. It also makes any changes you make to your MC later on more personal, imo. I think providing more options would give a level of flexibility that may make it harder to portray this.

That being said, I’m open to hearing about any ideas for other meatstacks. If there’s one of the current ones that ends up falling a bit flat I’m open to swapping them out. What did you have in mind?

I will look back over the van scene when I get a chance. I do remember struggling with that one so it might need a bit more spit and polish.

Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback :slight_smile:

I enjoyed the first chapter! Thoroughly enjoyed the van chase scene, although my pistol and knuckleduster combi was pretty useless lol. I think the writing is really good at conveying the sense of disorientation the MC is probably experiencing.

Fight scene was interesting as well. The flow is good and I get a real sense of the tension and excitment in that scene. Great job and I’ll be looking forward to the next update!

P.s. picked out some minor typos, I’ll dm you :slight_smile:

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Promising start and I always like mc customization. Currently having a hard time choosing between the synthetic and John Doe forms though.
How human does synthetic one look anyway? Are they past the uncanny valley? If so mine’s eventually going to be one of the most handsome robots out there. :grin:

Well if we can (extensively) customize them later on they don’t need to be perfect right from the start.
I find it curious though that the synthetic one is lacking in physical power, robots usually tend to be quite strong and durable, but then I guess that’s what nanofiber muscle upgrades later on are for, I guess (as well as looking more like an adonis) :grin:
At least the synth face already seems to start out as the cutest. The muscles to really complement it and a more personal hairstyle (not to mention better clothes) can come later I guess.

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It’s sad how excited I am to get feedback on this :stuck_out_tongue:

Yes the pistol doesn’t really add anything new and seems to fall flat for everyone so I’m definitely going to look at writing that out. I really struggled initially with having too much power with weapons. I want them to be good at certain situations but really bad at other ones, so when you’re caught off balance there’s a real “ohhhh shit” moment. Originally pistols were going to have two ammo types (spoilers for later!) but it just messed up the flow of battles.

Thank you for the typos! I’ve reread the code so many times I’m pretty sure I’m not reading it fully anymore so anything you guys can spot is massively appreciated.

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Why not replace them with laser pistols? Everything is better with lasers in sci-fi.
Without the pistol my mc’s wouldn’t have a decent close range weapon, as I tend not to play in-your-face melee fighters, unless it is a martial arts game.
The Gauss rifle and pistol combo did well-enough for me.

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Your van scene reminds me of a mix between the Matrix freeway scene and a fast and furious heist scene … keep up the good work.

Only thing about the “meatstick” selection is you can save a lot of time by a quick explanation in the choice body of which strengths each has. instead of cycling through them all.

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Firstly, epic username.

Synthetics are very humanlike (Google a program called “Humans” from Channel 4 in the UK for an idea of what I had in mind). Since most people are going to want their new custom made synthetic to be perfect, most synthetics are going to be pretty well sculpted but this is not always the case. The particular meatstack you get if you choose Synthetic is not designed with combat in mind but yes you will be able to upgrade the combat efficiency as you go. Whilst each meatstack is initially better suited to certain roles you’re not going to be limited to a certain playstyle because of your initial choice.

Alongside Synthetics you also get less humanoid robots (mechanoids) like the receptionist you meet. I did think about going full robot for the MC but it felt like too much of a shift, I still want you to be fundamentally human.

Clothes will also be coming! Along with custom tattoos and piercings (should you choose). Are there any other customizations that you guys would like to see?

Thank you for your feedback! :smiley:

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Especially if you get to make the pew pew pew sounds! :smiley:

Lasers will have some overlaps with the different ammo types. I’m not sure how I’d do different ammo types if the weapon was based on lasers though (frequencies?).

The Boomstick is a close range weapon alternative if you don’t want to go hand to hand. It’s not exactly quiet though…

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Wow that might have to go in a tag line for the game when it’s ready! :smiley:

Good idea, I was worried about information overload but maybe I can do a summary and then a bit more in depth when you select the one you want. I’ll have a look and see what works.

Thanks!

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