First off, welcome to a side project that popped up for me after working on CScomp. Essentially, this is a personal experiment of sorts, to work on expanding my coding and trying new things. I do not expect to update this often- my main project is Monsters, and shall remain so. Though the nature of this project should allow me to work on small chunks in such a way that progress need not be done more than a few pages of writing at a time. It’s incredibly bare bones at present- mainly simply the coding to make it functional in the long run, although there’s still a lot left to implement even with that. I’ve chosen to make the code for the game open to the public to help inspire things that can be done, and provide a structural overview for how a project such as this can be organized (being different from the usual setup for a choice game). I do indeed realize that there’s not much ‘game’ at present, and derived from that, what is there so far is more tedious than fun. However I’ve provided a project roadmap, though with no timetable. Although in the long run I think there’s a lot of potential in a game such as this, my goal here in posting this at this stage is more to provide inspiration for other prospective authors, and discussion on game design and process. Thank you.
~Shawn
Ah, P.S. There may be sporadic unannounced updating. But you probably won’t want to expect much or risk being disappointed. At present, this is likely more interesting for writers interested in coding than readers.
Amazing concept and awesome game usually it’s the other way around but it’s nice to see some role reversals here (usually you’re the child being raised).
Thank you both. Eventually there would be interaction to help develop MC’s and child’s personalities. Yearly birthday and random events- which would also break up the monotony of training and add more by way of potential gains or losses to the end result. Training still needs a bit of tweaking- not that it’s bad, but I’d like to tune things a bit further.
“You We trust most with this. Go. Now!”
What’s up with you and we both being capitalized?
Also after having maxed out a few skills I feel like it would be quite useful for the game not to show the maxed out skills as choices. There’s no point really.
I mean c’mon by 13 she was a master of Combat, Dodge, Magic, Leadership and Ettiquette while halfway through mastering guard and organization.
Another thing for quality of life could be a “repeat training” option that will just do the same things you chose last time. So instead of having 6 clicks to do a thing you will have 2 (select repeat, click next).
Odd that the game ends at 20 I honestly expected it to end at 16 but that’s just me being used to CK2.
Still I love the concept and there is a lot of potential here. Parent-Child interaction, protection from people chasing them hell maybe you could even brush them off as bandits rather than assassins. I like it and I’d like to see more.
The We (and Our) are capitalized because they represent the ‘royal we’. Which is essentially that a king or queen represents their country, and speaks for the realm as a whole. That it is being used in that scene even though no one else is around who might care, is like a sort of formal speech. It would be a little like a Shogun addressing a high-estate Samurai. ‘This is still an order, not a request’.
XD Yes, I know the training needs further balancing, such as making it universally more difficult when younger. Not showing maxed skills as choices might happen- though chances are if it does I’ll want to add a ‘let them have free time’ option. Both as a safety net when you don’t want to worry about a skill going down, and as a selectable choice no matter the circumstances.
I think there’s a lot of potential in a game like this, too, Once the training begins being broken up with roleplaying sections, and the balance is worked out in training to strike a balance of not being able to max out most everything easily.
I would tackle this by first seeking a balance on training. Having a straight shot through training, as it is now, allows a lot more ability to see how the child turns out at the end quickly, and makes it easier to adjust for balance. The approach I’ve taken with this game is to work out the coding first, which would continue to be the approach I’d go for- work on the coding that still needs done, which mostly regards stat-balancing… but also considerations like figuring out repeat training coding, and so on.
chuckle I’ll look into that. Probably just slipped up there.
But you do bring up a point of note: There’s a small chance that your ward can be a minority in sexuality or internal-gender. Neither are dealt with yet, but this is determined at the beginning.
I have thought of a way to balance it that is similar to the day off mechanic. Why not have a stress bar? Studying non stop causes that after all and the only way to lower it is to give the heir a break.
The consequences of the bar? Maybe after 60% it will increase the chance of training doing nothing and of training causing a negative result. At 100% that chance can be 100%. This way you can’t just train non-stop, it will slow down the speed at which you max out skills and add more management to the game.
This is a management game right now, so may as well add more management. Maybe even buying equipment for teaching but that would require cash, which would require work, which would require a massive amount of coding.
As for making it more difficult as a child… why not have some skills easier to learn as a child and other more difficult? As a child our brains are very malleable to ensure that we quickly learn important skills such as language and whatever survival skills our parents teach us. Heck we are so good at learning new things that a child can learn a foreign language by just hearing it in some cases. So it would be interesting for some skills to be easier at a younger age and others harder. I dunno, just a thought.
@Blazerules That’s certainly a common mechanic in raising sim games, and it’s a good idea. I was already doing something a little similar with obedience and behavior, although stress as another factor towards only negative influences is a solidly good idea on slowing training down. I’d probably attempt to implement it so that if your ward fails a training because of stress, they default to not gaining or losing any in the area being trained.
Coding in stress wouldn’t be hard, though it would take a bit of time. I’ll probably attempt to implement it, now that it’s been mentioned, considering I think it’s a good idea and something I have a good idea how I’d do in terms of mechanics.
Also- already do have it in the works where some things are easier or more difficult to learn at certain ages. You can see hints at this in the code in the training section, the second-to-last. There’s a comment in there about not being able to post the code for each year because it gets ridiculously long, but is necessary. Though it isn’t finished, and will, almost without a doubt, be the longest most gruelling part of the coding in the whole game, considering it will require the alterations for each year on each stat/skill affected. It’s also not apparent, or even indicated, in the game itself, just in the code. Which I kinda want- hidden variables, essentially, as well as known variables. Like… with raising Pokemon.
I have plans to have Birthday events that would be something along the lines of what you’re mentioning by way of equipment, in the form of Birthday gifts.
Though, each of these things would be their own sit-down-and-grind-out session of code-work.
@Knightstrike There is some inspiration drawn from the Princess Maker that was partially translated to English- (don’t remember if it was 4 or 5), Cute Knight, and Tales of Wuxia, as well as the style of mechanics often found in dating sim games involving stat-raising.
This is all very interesting to read due to the coding aspect of it all. Hopefully you wont end up getting in over your head with how complicated it will get. Now let me add to that complexity.
You have obedience and behaviour… why not have affection? The heir wont automatically like you because you are their parent after all and I know tons of kids who despise their parents with a passion. I can see it being a stat raised through the roleplay sessions and it could make for a fun or even adorable addition. Heck it could effect the heirs performance both negatively and positively. For example having high affection would cause the heir to try harder because they don’t want to disappoint you and having low affection will have the opposite effect. But it’s just a thought. Seeing how this is a Parent-Child relationship kind of game on top of being a management game I thought such a bar would fit quite well.
chuckles There is already something equivalent to affection. Although this is presently cosmetic, because it doesn’t directly translate into training, later on it will potentially influence some factors in role-playing sections, which might in some of those affect stats/skills/training. Thing is, right now, there’s nothing storywise to gain or lose affection, and nothing to show the affects of high or low affection, so until later, it’s a cosmetic stat.
I’ve been going through your code, I like it. Complex, but it definitely works and I can see how you’ve thought through everything. I like the previous discussion on making some skills easier to learn at a young age and some easier at an older age.
Is there a reason your score doesn’t simply do something like:
*set score + (intelligence*4)
And repeat for all stats?
Ah. Basically because I didn’t know you could multiply with CS. Well. That’s probably something I could change at some point even though it’s a little work, simply because it might look a little more tidy. Though it probably doesn’t matter. …Basically, I didn’t do that because I didn’t know I could. XD
For anyone who is curious, I want to push out another update for ‘Monsters’ before doing an update with this, but will be slowed at doing that by work and wanting to read through all the CScomp entries. I’d probably just do more codework when I do get to this, though. And once I do get around to it, it would probably take no more than a day or two to update the code in one or two ways, such as stress and some other factor of game mechanics.
This really reminds me of Princess Maker (though maybe you were implying it through the title) and Long Live the Queen(Hanako Games),which despite it’s sugary graphics is dark as hell. It’s an interesting twist the MC is not royalty/nobility. Usually in CoGs,when there’s a monarchy involved the MC is usually one or the other. This ties into me liking WIPS where the MC is not the most important/powerful person in the story. There are only a couple I think of that do that. I really like the game so far and excited for what further updates will bring.
BTW,can you be evil or at least a jerk in this game?
Edit: Never mind! I just read your post about being inspired by Princess Maker,just ignore that part.
Here’s my Princess… err… I mean, Knightess. She may be blind as a bat and not the sharpest sword in the armoury, but she gots mad combat skillz and can tear you apart with words just as easily.
I’m guessing there’s not much more to do than meddle with stats at this point?
@Asura Yes. There are a number of factors that are randomized at the beginning of a game and persist throughout, including the ward’s gender, traits, orientation, birthday, and minor variations on stats. Stats, thus, could probably be called procedurally generated.
And, yes, still way too easy to train up skills. They’ll eventually play in to role-playing segments, but for now they’re mostly just ‘there’, and contribute to the final score. It’s very very basic at this point.
@InfiniteDreamer And, yes, Princess Maker is a bit of a draw regarding the name. Had trouble coming up with one- I’ve played both games you mention and quite a few more, like Cute Knight, Tales of Wuxia, ect. : ) There are quite a few ‘maker’ games- eg Fighter Maker, RPG Maker… it just seemed a reasonable enough name for my intent.
Role-playing is not very implemented yet, except at the beginning, but yes. So far there’s only one alignment-defining choice, but eventually there will be more- and thus being able to play evil or good or neutral will be possible.
