Skin color/description

So in Animus i’m thinking of making a code similar to the one used to choose name, but it lets you describe your skin color/tone/look however you want to word it.

By including this one stat (Control) would have a description that changes based on stat level. The MC’s look would be changed by this such as. Your skin is now covered in swirling red lines. Your once beautiful (skin color) no longer stands out, instead you look as if you dipped your arms in a vat of demonic blood.

My problem is, that people may write something that doesn’t make sense grammatically. Yet I don’t want to make a standard choice, as we all vary in so many ways.

Any thoughts?

Well, i believe it requires basic coding to define valid words and you can add a warning that says ONLY ADJECTIVES. Hope it helps!

I don’t think there’s necessarily any true way to combat this, besides maybe offering a “are you sure this is correct” right after just in case someone missed something. Maybe even applying a tip that warns them to check out things and what not.

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I know you didn’t want to make a standard choice but you could give a a gradient of colour choices to choose from to make sure there’s a fair variety to choose from rather than making it self choice? It makes it easier to make sure that things like you’re trying to do will read properly. Otherwise it’s something that just might read strangely depending on what is entered but I suspect people will get the gist of what it’s supposed to mean.

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I think that’s a good idea. For example, the choices could include:

Dark
Tanned
Pale
Olive
Golden
Porcelain
Brown
Rosy
Caramel
Ivory
Ebony
Sandy
Beige
Almond
Chesnut
Honey

… And those are the only words I can think of off the top of my head. :yum:

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@needs-to-be-loved @ToxicDreams @Jacic @Avery_Moore

See my issue comes down to what you posted avery. I was hoping to allow this choice to have some importance later using the self input. If I do a standard choice with so many choices i’d have to write a little something for each. Not sure if thats worth the time when all is said and done.

Yet like you all agreed, im worried the self input will show up weird later in the game. Anyone ever done something like this? Or seen a game with a option like I envision?

I’m not sure exactly what you’re doing but yes I think I’ve done what you’re talking about and you shouldn’t need to write a whole lot of different things for each one.

There’s usually a few things that you can group into a few variables for example have your skin tone set as {skin} and then group the pale colours, the mid ranged and the darker shades into 3 categories (or as many as you feel you need) and you should be able to make a sentence that would make sense for each of the skin tones with relation to a colour change. For example if it was going from pale skin to deep red, you'd have something along the lines of "your {skin} is darkened with swirls of deep red." However if you wanted it to stand out on ebony or similar skin you could write something along the lines of "Your ${skin} skin is now slashed with bright swirls of angry red.

Anyway, short version is there’s only about 3 alternatives to write, even though you’ve given a lot of different tone choices. The other thing to watch out for is if you have anything starting with a vowel, you need a variable for a/an

Edit: just to make it clearer with avery’s example you could group “skin” variables like ivory, pale, rosy and porcelain into a “skin_tone” group called “pale”. You just need an *if for it to set them under a single variable.

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You don’t have to write different variations for each skin color, mind you. For a scene where someone mentions your white skin can make you stand out in a crowd, you don’t have to do the same for the other colors.

@Jacic @Szaal I see both your points. I have’nt done a dode like this yet so not sure how its going to work. If i do use it I want it to have meaning so ill take a few cracks at it from different angles, maybe post a test and poll. Jarcic your way might work more efficiently then a regular skin choice option. Thanks!

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Not really, you could just put *create Skin “Unknown” on the startup page, then when you code it, have a choice that goes:

*choice
#Pale
*set Skin “pale”
#Dark
*set Skin “dark”
etc

Then, the text would just be, “Your once beautiful ${Skin} skin no longer stands out, instead you look as if you dipped your arms in a vat of demonic blood.”

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What if you have the choice give several predetermined options, plus a write-in option? I see this used for character names most of the time, and I think it could work well here. The predetermined options would give an idea of what fits (if they’re all adjectives, the reader will see that that’s the kind of word you’re looking for), while the write-in option will allow the reader to specify their own choice if they’d prefer.

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I remember how they did this with humour in one of the 007 movies. Live and Let Die, I think it was. CIA contact with an afro (you don’t often see them these days) sauntered up to 007…

“Kind of obvious you weren’t coming out front. Not even with that clever disguise you’re wearing.”
“Hmm?”
“White face in Harlem, good thinking Bond!”