Quill & Sword (WIP) - Sneak Peek pre-alpha (updated 7/7/15)

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/a3ov8iqkj50hewf/Quill%20and%20Sword.html?dl=0

Progress Report

The votes are in, and my other WIP, ‘Monsters’, will be receiving the bulk of my work for a while. However, I will not stop work on Q&S entirely- I will be working with my artist friend for NPC art commissions, and when there is extra time, doing little bits of work to get it functioning through the first arena fight. This means, though, that it may be a while until the next update goes up. But it also means that when it does, I’ll have a beginning that’s already fun to play (not that character creation isn’t- but I’m going to make the fights epic! In the meantime, I encourage my fanbase to check out my WIP ‘Monsters’, which I am also putting my heart & soul into (shrivelled and blackened as it is… ; P ) In the meantime, thank you very much for your patience, and thank you to everyone who cast their vote. Q&S will not go to the wayside, but Monsters will receive the bulk of my work for now.

Next update will include:
Finishing the first day, and because I’m looking at a long update wait, potentially the first arena fight, too. I’ll also get the first side quest done. Also, finishing the codex- that’s at the top of my priorities. It will help -me- stay better organized as I work on the game. All of this will amount to something akin to a long chapter. Please bear with the wait, and thank you.

7/7/15: (this will be updated monthly) This month, a lot of work has gone into behind-the-scenes work on this game. Hidden stats and game-structure. I’m also working on an in-game codex which is far from finished, but which I am making progress on. You can actually unlock what I’ve got so far by making an intelligence savant with a high enough magic. Additionally, I’ve managed to secure commission from an artist friend of mine for images of the NPCs, huzzah! You’ll have pretty pictures in the codex, eventually. I’ve expanded character creation, and created the very beginning of the game, including introductions to two other NPCs. There is, however, a LOT for me still to cover, and I’ve now got two WIPs to cover, so I’m going to hold a vote on another thread of which I should work on first: This, or ‘Monsters’. In truth, I can only really handle working on one at a time.

About the Game

Welcome to the world of Quill and Sword! In this game, you take on the role of a Diplomat- a warrior-paragon for your kingdom, in a world where war in the traditional sense has been revolutionized into arena-style single combat! Complete with the (attempted) feel of a manga or anime, you’ll be able to fight battles where your skills, weapon and armor choices matter; and you may win (even totally feel like a badass) or lose! You’ll have a wide selection of ROs available, each complete with side-quests! Yes, you heard that right! Side quests! The game will have the essence of a dating sim at heart. What kind of ROs? At this point in time, there are tentatively slated to be 8 male and 8 female, and one intersex-gendered ROs. There will be at least five hetero options for each gender, one bi of each gender, and two same-sex oriented ROs for each gender. Each will have their own distinct personalities, and in some cases, may be easy to romance, or nearly impossible, based on your decisions! Romances may or may not involve romantic and/or sexual content, depending on your choices. Friendships can be forged as well, and rivalries.

Watch your actions impact events around you! Play a game where more of the game is hidden under *if statements than Mortal Kombat has hidden in cheat codes! XD

I don’t have an official timetable for the game worked out. However, I DO have a framework. The game will take place over the course of fifty days, and each day will be broken into three sections- morning, evening, and night, each of which you will have the chance to choose what the MC does during that time. You might take a job to raise stats and earn money, or visit NPCs you like, or undertake quests, or encounter various events! Then, every five days (the week in this fantasy world is five days long), there will be an arena battle. You will choose who you fight, and each battle will be different- both based on your own weapon/armor/stats, and the opponent you’re fighting. Due to the game’s structure, it will be difficult to measure progress on the game, as it won’t follow the traditional scene-flow. Instead, much as in a dating sim or raising sim, you’ll choose from a list of locations you can visit, and each of those locations I’ll work on one at a time- which in theory could be accessed for the entirety of the game, but this means other parts will be blank for the entirety of the game until I can get those parts done. By this, I mean to say, progress could be a little odd once I get into the game proper.

There will be multiple endings! Discover how your actions affect the world and characters within it. What kind of Diplomat will you be?

37 Likes

I’m stupid so bear with me.
Isn’t cis gendered someone who kept their original gender?

And can we be the villian in glasses
I just want to be the ultra smart magic using super tactician.

1 Like

If I’m wrong about the meaning of cis-gendered, I’ll change it, but to my understanding it means someone that identifies as a non-binary.

And yes, you can be the villain in glasses, faewkless. You can be the ultra smart magic using super tactician. XD

You switched it. Cis-gendered are those who CONFORM to the binary, whereas anything other than cis (trans, agender etc.) are not cisgendered.
Besides that, I’m already in love with this game and that was just the character creation?

1 Like

Oops. D: I need a catch-all term for general non-binaries, please? Can anyone help- I’ll switch it up before the next update.

Yes, that’s just character creation. And the stats screen isn’t complete yet. You’ll also have a paragraph describing your appearance, weapon and armor, and fighting style, which I haven’t even started working on yet. And there will also be a section for your relationship with all the ROs (including the ones you can’t romance- because they can still like or hate you).

So based off of my memory and the previous comment I think you should swap out cisgender for either agender or intersex. (I may be wrong this is based off of memory and some quick checking)

(Agender is a lack of gender or being gender neutral intersex has gender its just not binary like just male and female)

Hmm… with regards to a fantasy world, I would like to garner opinions on using the word ‘changeling’ for non-binary. I want a catch-all term that sounds good in a fantasy setting.

Will there be racism.
(Not narrative racism I mean racist characters)
And sexism(^this)

That’s a good question faewkless. There are four ‘races’ of human in the world, basically lineages. There are not racial tensions between them- none at all. However, there are old rivalries and bad blood/memories between some of the kingdoms from the old war, so there are some biased opinions in that regard, and in some cases fanatical patriotism.

I got my intelligence stat to 100…
I didn’t know being a villian in glasses is that easy.

1 Like

Yes, if you choose correctly, you can play as a savant- a genius in one particular stat. Or… not be. But, let’s just say… interesting things happen when you play as a savant.

So I can be like those TV characters who suck at everything but is a god at one specific skill and is so good at that skill he blows you out of the water in it.
With one hand
Blindfolded
At the bottom of a lake
Filled with quicksand and snakes (you get my point)

Yes, there is a downside to being a Savant. You’ll really suffer with your bad stat (it won’t change), and there will be times you’ll really suffer for it. But that good stat will also do some incredible things for you, even early on. For example- try making a Magic or Intelligence savant, and you’ll see at the end that your interactions with the device Heannoya hands you will be different.

Or, in your case, it will be different if you -don’t- have your Int at 100…

This is quite interesting…I really liked the character creation and customization options; pretty curious in which they’re gonna affect the game and my mc. :grin:
You’ve made a really good job regarding the availiable content. Can’t wait the next update already. Keep the good work! :smile:

1 Like

Btw why is it that after choosing the boosted magic option (can see magic) I can’t train my magic even more? (I want to be gandalf)

Well… in the game proper… you can train it more. Though the game proper operates on fair math. If you’re above 100%… you’re above what humans are naturally capable of. Either you have the favor of some unknown god with you, or you have the blood of some ancient and powerful being in your veins.

100 is considered 100% of human capability. The maximum achievable (even though that limit can be broken, at that point it’s no longer ‘human’)

First of all I’d like to say, give yourself a pat on the back for all the effort you’ve put into the character creation in order to make all the choices meaningful in surprising little ways. I’ll admit, even though character customization isn’t really my thing, I had fun going back over and over trying to figure out which choices affected what.

Now for the nitty-gritty.

The first thing I noticed was an unnaturally large abundance of ellipses in your intro. I got the sense that you wanted it to sound… dramatic, but ellipses are… traditionally used for omissions, and sometimes for the occasional extra long… pause. And when used too often they… can get a bit annoying. At least in my mind, an ellipses used as a pause is just shy of a full stop and can be disruptive and awkward when used in the middle of a sentence when it is unnecessary. Please use them sparingly. Most of the ones you used can either be replaced by commas or removed entirely.

For choosing a kingdom, the descriptions were cool, but it felt like I was reading a codex. I’ll have to admit, my first instinct when seeing that huge wall of choices was to just skim over it and pick something at random. If possible, I’d suggest taking out most of the descriptions and either putting them into an official codex or have them in their own paragraph above the choice, and making the actual options be briefer.

For choosing the two skills you want to practice, whew that’s a mighty long list. I’d highly recommend splitting it into two choices. Something like: you can choose two skills to practice today, what’s the first one you want to work on? Then choose one of six options. Next page: What’s the second one you want to work on? Then choose one of the five remaining options. It’ll take a bit of extra coding, but it’ll be a lot easier on the eyes.

You could probably split the hair options into two sections as well. The way you have it set up it’s a bit difficult to tell what’s what from a glance. So maybe something like: you run your fingers through your (choose hair color). Next page: which is (choose style/length). Or vice-versa. Again, it’ll take a bit more coding, but it’s visually cleaner.

When choosing your clothing, the cut off sentence at the end is annoying and breaks immersion since you’re in the middle of reading all the options. Since it’s the same for all the options, just leave it for the next page.

I’m confused as to the relation of the childhood instructor to the MC. Depending on your choice of kingdom, for the binary options, the instructor either calls you boy/girl, lad/lass, son/daughter, etc. Is that just the different culture of each kingdom? Even if it is, the son/daughter one is especially confusing. Also for the non-binary option, for the kingdoms that call the MC “you”, it leads to the sentence, “Do you remember who you are, you?” Which is a bit weird.

Also, if you could give some name options instead of only type in that would be awesome! Not only does it help out lazy readers (like me :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:) but it also gives a sense of what kind of names are appropriate in your world.

I’ll say this again, the set up you’ve got going for character customization is really awesome. It just needs a few touch ups here and there. And since this is just the character creation, I can only imagine the amount of work you’ll be doing once you get to the actual story. Good luck!

1 Like

Many good comments.

Ellipses are a personal habit of mine. I actually think and speak in ellipses a lot; though I’ll look for areas they can be removed. It does no good for someone whose thought patterns differ from mine, though an occasional use is simply …me, stylistically. XD

chuckle Those descriptions are a synopsis. I want the player to get an idea of the flavor of kingdom they’re choosing, because… it actually matters. There may well be an actual codex later on. If there is, you can bet the descriptions will be a lot longer. :wink: For now I’m just going to apologize if they seem long, and stick with it.

Whoosh. If you had any idea… the actual size of the choice for choosing two skills is 2576 lines of code for that ONE choice. Because there are 64 of those menus; each with two skills blanked out. I -could- recode it, I guess? But to be honest, right now, I don’t want to touch that monster.

Hair is the way it is because it gives the ‘races’ a bit more distinction. NPCs follow the hair guidelines- so a savvy player might be able to guess the lineage of an individual by their hair and skin and eyes, maybe even some guessing as to what tendencies they might have in fighting. It’s a thin broth as to why I won’t change it, sure, but there are actual in-game implications. I know, I could still split it into two menus… I’ll think about it. I really will think about it- though if I decide to change it I’ll probably do other things first.

The thing about the cutoff with armor- I want to let the player know that there’s another decision with it, but if it’s more annoying than informative, I’ll take it out.

:slight_smile: Yes, the relationship of your instructor changes because of the culture in different kingdoms. That’s exactly why. The non-binary option is… well, when it comes to the instructor, it can often be rather disrespectful. Like in the military, being called a maggot. That concept, more or less. Guess that one sentence does sound a bit weird, though. Hmm.

Name options… I suppose I could do that without any problem. I think a lot of my prime name choices are going into my NPCs. But, yeah- I can come up with some. I’ll try carving some out for the next update.

Uuuungyuuu… such reminding… I’m going to have a LOT of work ahead of me. Especially considering I’ve got another WIP I’ll open up after CScomp judging is finished. That one is a very different approach, that’s about all I can say until next month. I’m glad you like it so far- of course I’m going to be in constant edit and touch-up mode throughout the whole process. This story actually feels easier to work on than the other, so far, though. But there are going to be a LOT of *if statements in this game. Maybe when I have what amounts to ‘free demo’ length, I’ll put the code up for viewing somewhere. Well, depending on Choice Script rules. Or maybe not until after the game is done. shrug I do know that working on it is going to be as fun for me as playing it will be for y’all.

And, player feedback will be an important part in the polish of the game. Most especially, any errors or funky writing should be brought to my attention, even though I fix anything I find, I don’t always see things that aren’t pointed out to me. Thank you for any help given by anyone. : )

I really like what you’ve got so far and I can’t wait till you update.

Nestled between two mountains at the Northern tip of the Dragonspine, on
the Western coast or Ur, Dominia has become one of the most bustling
cities in the Empire.

Should this be “or”, or is it a typo?

Ahhhhh a diplomat game! I’m like obsessed with this stuff so I’m really hyped to see more of this!

Though it seems you’re a different kind of diplomat than I’d expect. The war system you thought up is on point. These are fights to the death, I’d assume? The lore you’ve put out so far is definitely interesting, so I look forward to it.

Only thing - seventeen romance options seems like quite an adventure, lol. So you’re focusing more on the dating sim aspect of the game? And are some of these ro’s fellow diplomats you’d get to fell in combat? If these battles ARE to the death I’d be up for killing my romantric interest. xP

Liking it a lot, great job with this and good luck!