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@Bugreporter Whew, really gave you a workout this time with so many typos. That’s what writing at 5 AM gets you, I suppose. And yes, I can add an option like that. Wasn’t sure if it got too repetitive to keep throwing the “let them choose” thing in there.

Well, I have a behavior scene of sorts on the list for year 13, where high Structure kids try to run away. Was not sure if I would actually do it though, might not be many people going that route to make it worthwhile. But if you want angsty preteen antics, have no fear. In year 13 or 14 you try to take them on a vacation. Dun dun dun!

Edgewick will be K-12; a lot of the private schools I have encountered tend to go that route, including the one my father-in-law taught at for many years. One stop shop for scholastics. Home school will be as well. The school will change for the public path, and that happens in year 12 (as that is when the kid is eleven). Boarding school is definitely not a choice. You might as well just jump from Year 6 to graduation and then spend the rest of the game coming up with ways to pay for your offspring’s therapy bills.

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@hustlertwo
In year 9.

Jennifer looks at you, s processing everything that has just happened.

Still

I think year 9 needs a scene for people who chose not to get a pet.
E.g. The child has a phobia of a specific animal that the MC has to help them get over. E.g. dog, cat, etc.

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I had a very structured childhood (about 80 Structure stat). Never once did I feel the need (or even a burning desire) to run away. I feel like deciding to run away is based on many factors- several of which would likely not be in the game. If there is a missing-child scene, maybe it could be because they weren’t on the bus/didn’t come home when they said they would (or something along those lines).
When I mentioned behavior, I was thinking more along the lines of school behavior (disciplinary action/ good behavior award) and bullying. Looking forward to the vacation angst scenes!

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I think the diorama section is my favorite scene so far. :nerd_face:

A few things I saw

A carryout order from our favorite Chinese restaurant, of course.
I’d add an ellipsis here and make the “A” lowercase so it’s like the other choices.

…a home-cooked meal
Add a period at the end.

Your absent-minded partner looks around. “So, what do we need to make this? And how long do we have to stay up to do it?”
Make this into a new paragraph.

It’s not very fun being here without you and Astro.
Add a quotation mark at the end. (It also looks like you’ll want to add a quotation mark for the ‘and my other friends’ line if you don’t have a pet).

Sure, they may have been the teensiest bit freezerburnt.
I think “freezerburnt” should be “freezer burned”.

A great many videogames are trotted out for the group to play,
“Videogames” should be “video games” – you might want to go back to the previous years to check for this typo, too.

It’s morning and you have a Metal Gear moment where you are forced to look in the mirror and say, “I feel asleep!”
Perhaps this line should change if you have the parent not play video games.

I wake $!{aname} up, tell work I’ll be in late and we scramble to come up with a halfway decent diorama as fast as humanly possible.

I think you should add a comma after “late” here. Maybe reword it too – perhaps change the “and we scramble” to “and then {aname} and I scramble” or maybe “and scramble with ${aname}” just so it’s clearer.
Edit: Actually, now that I’ll looking at this line again, since you already use the kid’s name at the start of the sentence, maybe “and then we scramble” would work better than the other two suggestions :thinking::confused:

Also, I just want you to know that I had written up a whole paragraph about this line:

“Sigh. Okay, what do we need to do?”

and how you should move the sigh outside the quotation mark or else it seems like you’re actually saying the word sigh, and then I press next and I see this:

But you know you’re doing that thing again where just say the word ‘sigh’."

:joy:

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@hustlertwo
How much of the in-game child’s personality is influenced by ‘nurture’ and how much is influenced by ‘nature’?
Having an alternate game mode (possibly unlocked after finishing one playthrough) wherein the child’s starting stats (including popularity and education/athletics) are randomized would be a neat idea (probably a lot of work, though).

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In year 11. In the surprise situation scene.
There should be a option to have pizza if the MC doesn’t like chinese.

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In year 11, in the diorama scene, when my child takes the bus as their primary transport to school and we made the best diorama, I still get the speeding ticket for running to get my kid. Perhaps change the wording, if the child takes the bus, to “You rush to get home before (aname)…”.
Or you could write “Today’s a special day; you are picking (aname) up from school…” and have the chapter proceed as normal.

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Sorry for the radio silence, pushing hard to get 20,000 words for January and prove that the November push was not a fluke. I will try to address everything that came up when I can. One quick question: I am writing the bully scene now. If the child fails to resolve it on their own, would you rather see the matter get better simply because something else takes the attention of the kids, or because you as a parent get involved and contact the other kid’s parent or the school?

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I would prefer that the reader has the option to step in (or let it stew and hope the bully finds a weaker target).
Can we teach the kid self-defense as a means of dealing with the bully?
And if we raised a popular kid, can they be the bully?

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I’d like the option to do both.

I’d like this option as well.

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This you get involved/let time go by situation only triggers if the child fails to resolve it on their own. They would already have had three options to do so (that you choose by suggesting them to the kid): fighting, trying to talk it out, or just ignoring the person. None of those are certain to work, though, and if they do not then we go to the fail state that I am trying to figure out. It’s the last part of that scene to do.

Yes, your kid can also be the bully. I have almost finished the being bullied scene but the bullying one has just started (they have the same title but share pretty much nothing after the opening), so I don’t know as much about how it will go. I do know it has a Great Santini reference.

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In year 10, in the option: “Yes! And perhaps that can be helped along if I stack the deck a bit.”
In the code for *if (playjob = 3), there should be a set cash -50.

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Only other suggestions I can think of aren’t as good as the ones already suggested I’m afraid. Make friends with/pay someone who is tough to deal with the bully? Tell your kid to bully the bully’s friends? Bully the bully, if your kid isn’t tough enough physically, mentally and/or emotionally bully them. But for me it’d be nice if things didn’t necessarily work out all good. An option where your kid continued to get bullied, possibly leading to them getting depressed/running away etc would be nice, as unfortunately that is quite realistic for some kids. Also, unfortunately haven’t had time to play the yp recently still(though tbf I have caught up on some CYOAS that were on my to read list for yonks) but when the issue first arises a dismissive response from the parent would be good I think. Like a choice saying something like, shrugging it off as not a big deal, and one that’ll sort itself out eventually, you(the parent) have bigger things in life to deal with, or getting annoyed and saying your kid should stop acting like a big baby and deal with it on their own.

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Oooh, I like that. I think the play was one of the last segments I wrote before the money intro (since it had been written for the year previous and just got bumped due to a lack of space and seeming more like an older kid activity). No reason to assume the $50 fell from the sky.

@CreepyPastaKittyFay I guess with this story I am aiming for something akin to idealized realism. Meaning, I am trying to make it as realistic as possible, while ignoring or omitting some of the worst, most awful things that can happen with a kid (either directly due to a parent’s actions or not). So while that’s a very common occurrence out in the world to tell a kid to stop being a baby, it’s not a choice here. At most you would just take a hands-off approach. You won’t be able to actually bully the child yourself (well, except in the bit where they are being a bully to some extent, in order to help them understand just what it is they are doing). This is also why your child can’t die during this story (nor can you, though that pretty much goes without saying since if you do the choices would end), they aren’t going to be raped or molested, you won’t have the option to beat them (an earlier scene did allow for physical discipline, but even anti-spanking people would likely agree there’s a vast gulf between spanking for discipline and smacking a child just because you felt like it), and all matter of other horrors that won’t be showing up in this story or any follow-up it may eventually have.

Does that lessen realism? Undeniably. But presenting things like verbal abuse as an option, even with a penalty attached, normalizes it in a way I am not comfortable with. I want to highlight different legitimate parental approaches and how they work. Putting jerk options in provides an implication I consider them equal to non-jerk options and that’s a no go.

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Maybe an option to buy your kid something to cheer them up/make them more popular/etc. would be nice. :thinking:

Since you’re going for an idealized realism I agree. It’d be like playing Harvest Moon and destroying a rival’s crops or something instead of just littering to get their heart level down.

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If the MC encourages the child to fight the bully, there should be options for the child’s plan of attack. Regular fighting (not going for serious damage, nothing “dishonorable”) should only work for high-Athletics children, while fighting “dirty” (crotch shots, hair pulling, eye gouging, etc.) should work for any child but have more serious repercussions than regular fighting.

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Hmmm. I just had fighting as an Athletics stat check. But it might be a good idea to expand it out a bit further and make it a choice between regular (which remains the stat check) and dirty (which insta-wins but does not carry the same benefits as actually winning).

@expectedoperator Making then more popular might be a whole other scene, since there’s a lot to go into with such a tall order. But a cheer-up bit would be a good inclusion in the fail state options. Keep it from ending on too much of a downer.

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If tactis were a thing, ambushing them would be good to, like your child starting a fight when the bully is unaware. Or using a weapon, like finding a stick, some nettles etc at school, or taking one to school. Or for a crazy option, going to school naked/semi naked with body paint on their body made to look like war paint, and on their face too, then letting out a war cry before attacking. Or just screaming crazily whilst fighting.

@hustlertwo Thanks for the reply :slight_smile: fair enough, will try to keep that in mind when making future suggestions now I am aware of this :slight_smile: my mind naturally thinks of dark and fucked up stuff though xd. So yeah, reading my post I don’t think I actually answered the original question :frowning: so I’d prefer if the parent got involved.

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Using bare fists and fighting the bully would likely have consequences. If there was a weapon involved, I believe that it would lead to an early game over/bad end. Unless you teach your child not to get caught…:thinking:

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Really? :open_mouth: At my primary school(grade school for you yanks, not exactly the same I don’t think but…) people used sticks, nettles and threw mud/stones etc at people’s eyes in fights literally all the time and they didn’t get excluded or anything, I mean they got punished, but not excluded…then again my primary school was as mental as it sounds xd. Oh if we told our child to scream crazily when fighting maybe we could prepare them by getting them to watch some Nicholas Cage clips xd…And another tactic could be for your child to act like a super hero, like approaching the bully and saying “Stop right there criminal scum! Your reign of terror ends today! The *super hero name will put an end to it!” And then playing their theme tune on their phone…Sorry as well as dark and fucked up thoughts, my brain is also filled with crazy ones xd.

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