Talon City - Final Game Files Submitted, Releases on Nov 3rd

I’m glad you’re enjoying it! I’m having fun writing it, which I always take as a positive sign.

In response to your comment, I fixed the Genius issue. I had somehow managed to not include a single “set genius -1” command after any of those choices. That fix will be in the next update. I’ll look into the save issue too; maybe I forgot to reinsert the save code (I have to take it out every time I run testing because it breaks the tests).

I’ll be updating the link to include Chapters 8 and 9 in the next couple of days, so you pointing out those issues was very timely. Thanks!

Edited to add: Yes, it looks like I had ‘commented out’ the save code last time I sent in an update. I’ll undo that later this week.

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Really loved the story and the setting. There are a lot of possibilities for your characters creation and it doesn’t feel like you’re replaying the same character over and over again even tho you’re picking different choices. I really like it.

My concern is on boss fights. The experience you need to win is acquired randomly from dice rolls. So you either have to build one stat heavily and raise the “win percentage” and hope for best or replay the game again and again picking right items to carry.

Maybe thats what you’re aiming for but I can see how it can turn away some players when it will be released.

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That’s where the difficulty levels come in, but yeah. I get your meaning. I myself aren’t afraid to admit, I like my mc to kick ass.

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Game update! Chapters 8 and 9 are now included, taking the game up to 65,000 words.

  • Save slots are available again.

  • I have fixed errors reported by @Denzil_Melgior_Nagel. All options where you use a Stroke of Genius will now (as it should!) subtract one Stroke of Genius from your inventory.

  • Also, I found a bug related to use of *random where you could refresh the page where the die is rolled (or simply consult your stats screen and then return to the game) to continually add XP over and over. This has been fixed. The coding trick is to insert the *rand dieroll" command in the previous page.

So basically, everything should be working as designed. I played the entire game this morning through the dashingdon link and it seemed to be all good. But I could very well have missed something, so please again, report any bugs you find. Thanks so much!

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First, welcome! I’m glad you like the story! The setting has been in my head for about, uh, 4 or 5 years now, and I just had to finally get it all down. I love worldbuilding and I can’t wait to work with someone on a map as well.

Let me share my thoughts on why I structured the mechanics as I did.

  1. For players who want to just sit back and enjoy the narrative, there is Easy Mode. I mean, I designed that Mode especially for folks who want to rest assured that they will get all the way to the end in one playthrough. Unless you just flat out refuse to use your Strokes and Genius and Inventory Items, it’s impossible to die. You will need 1XP to beat the vultures, 2 more XP to defeat Boss #2, and 3 more XP to defeat Boss #3, so 6 total XP. The Strokes of Genius and Inventory Items combined let you automatically earn 7 XP. So you can sail through the game with little tension even if you fail every single other die roll (which is extremely unlikely as well).

  2. But ideally, I think a story like this needs tension in a “will my daring little owl make it out alive?” sort of way. Regular and Preposterous Mode (hopefully) provide that. If the player knows their MC has total plot armor, well, IMO that drains tension from the story.

  3. The die rolls. I think they provide transparency to the player, meaning you know before you pick an option what stat each option tests (which not all games do) and what your chances of success are using that stat (again, something that is unclear in many games). I mean, I could easily just instead pick an arbitrary stat value needed to pass a testing choice (as most games, including CCH do), but I’m wondering how that’s superior to making each option a calculated risk based on stats/luck, where the player knows the odds going in. For example, I could require a value of 3 for Talons to pass a Talons stat check, but a player wouldn’t know the arbitrary value I picked, and they might wonder “well I pumped one establishing test point into Talons…is that enough to pass this test?” Again, I’m not sure how that is superior to implementing some chance combined with a transparent disclosure of your odds.

  4. So yes, Boss fight outcomes are based on XP, which is a resource, and honestly that’s how official Choice of Games offerings are designed; with results from choices adding to secondary variables/resources that affect end game decisions. The main difference is that yes, there is some luck involved in passing the tests in the first place, but IMO at least the player will understand why they passed/failed the various tests and what they would have needed to pass them. There’s no, “I wonder if I would have passed that test had my Talons been a 4 instead of a 3?”

This is a lot to throw out, but I just wanted to share my view in building the game as I did.

I will add that the game will be completely balanced when it comes to choices. Each Testing Choice tests 2 different stats (in addition to offering a Stroke of Genius and/or an Inventory Item to be used instead) and those stats are cycled in different combinations, meaning by the time you reach Testing Choice 5, all stats will have been tested exactly twice. And by the time you reach Testing Choice 10, all stats will have been tested exactly twice again. There is no ‘best’ stat, there is no stat that is tested more frequently or which leads to better outcomes. My feeling was that this approach lets you build whatever kind of owl you’d like with no real disadvantage. I’d have to get someone to do the math for me, but I suspect mathematically it would be best to pump 1 point into each of three different stats, so that you have 3 stats where you have a 50% of passing, instead of pumping everything into one stat where you’d have an 84% chance of passing (but that stat is only measured twice out of every 5 choices).

Finally, with testing choices, your MC will always fall forward. Yes, failing a testing choice keeps you from getting XP, but you still proceed in the story as normal, meaning you’re not disadvantaged at all when it comes to passing the next testing choice, unlike some games that require higher and higher stat checks where some players might find themselves “locked out” of passing them after repeated failures.

Whew that is a lot.

I think I will need to find a more concise way of communicating this to readers in an author’s note at the beginning of the story. I would hate for the mechanics to dissuade anyone from giving the story a chance. I hope some view the mechanics as a plus, actually.

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Thats not what I meant heh. I like this mechanics tbf and I quite enjoyed reading “failing” outcomes. Plus it erases the supergod playthroughs and fits story tone very well.

So. I played demo four times, and 3/4 times I had luck only once on me (I had 1xp for boss fight) and it felt a little discouraging. The fourth time I used items so I don’t count this one. 1xp is still enough for a wintery but I became a little worried about third boss: what if there won’t be enough xp to defeat the final boss, how many people will actually replay the game it this will happen often.

Now that I think about it, if its the narrative they are after, most people will just use geniuses :hugs:

Thanks for that explanation, it is much appreciated. In fact, I might go as far as saying that was a stroke of Genius. I think peoples fear stems from the fact that they don’t know how much experience points they would need going forward in the game, but hopefully that explanation will clear things up. Come to think of it, no one is at an advantage or disadvantage. This system prevents even the game developer (should anyone else adopt it in the future) from making games geared towards favouring certain character types. Bloody excellent, if I do say so myself. Now I’m off to check out those other chapters.

Is it possible to get more save slots? First one always bugs and cannot be rewritten for me, and that leaves me with measly two, though I want to re-visit quite a few scenes without having to replay admittedly very choice-heavy chapters.

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So I found another error. I’m supposed to have one stroke of Genius left, but for some reason I can’t use it.

“Oh, well I didn’t think much of it. I mean, he was walking toward the stream with a…friend?”

“Yes, yes, go on…” Your feathers ruffle. You body shudders from your beak to your tail feathers. An animal slinks closer from the creek bank, sneaking up on the grouse from behind.

A furry, tan animal with bared teeth.

Bobcat!

The bobcat creeps closer, head down, claws retracted.

Where are the Guardians? How did they let it slip this far into the city?

There’s no time to wait for help to arrive. If the bobcat kills the grouse, you may never learn what happened to your client! You must choose now. Do you dare attack it? Will hissing scare it off?

You bob your head around to scan the area. You spot a canary high in a tree, but she would be of no help. Then you spot a mockingbird in the next tree over. She could prove useful; might you brainstorm a solution involving her?

Attack! (Talons Check) (17 percent chance)
Hiss at the bobcat! (Beak Check) (50 percent chance)
I have a stroke of genius! (Auto Succeed) (-1 Stroke of Genius)
Coat my talons with venom and drive it away!(Auto Succeed) (Requires Rattlesnake Venom))

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@Gapaot that would be an easy fix. Honestly I’m enthused people are playing it so I’m very inclined to respond to this sort of thing. I’m working from home today (“work work” not “working on writing work”) but over lunch I’m sure I can adjust that save command and send a new update, maybe in an hour or two.

And @Denzil_Melgior_Nagel thanks for the potential bug catch! It’s possible I set the limit command on the Strokes so that the code greys out the choice if you have 1 instead of 0 remaining. Since you specified you have one Stroke left, I’ll bet that’s the mistake I made. Thanks so much for reporting it! I will check into it asap.

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I just have to ask, we got Auvex romance, will we get Concordia one?!

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Not in this story, no. She’s important in serving as a catalyst for the MC to soften (at least a bit, depending on the player’s choices) and I think their relationship works best as a platonic one, at least at the start. Plus there are so many obstacles, the MC’s view of Feeders and overall superiority complex being one of them, plus uh the rather significant differences between the species…it would take a lot of character growth and development to even potentially get either of them to that place.

but…

I do have 2 other stories, a whole trilogy in my head, and a possible slow burn thing with Conk would not be totally out of the question (especially depending on reader feedback). Of course, if part 1 sells 500 copies, I’ll never get around to writing any of that. :slightly_smiling_face:

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@Gapaot there are now 10 save slots available.

@Denzil_Melgior_Nagel thank you again for pointing out that bug. I had coded ALL testing choices to include *if (genius > 1) instead of *if (genius > 0). I have no idea why my brain told my fingers to do that. It’s been fixed and the link is updated.

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I believe I found another bug. At this particular scene, I always roll a six, no matter how many times I roll and reroll. Note that I am trying to convince the Guardian.

Talon City is a city of laws, of Tenants, and there is no justification for this Guardian to attack a helpless citizen like this. If Guardians are allowed to disobey our laws, the city would start to crumble.

You take a deep breath and shift your focus away from such weighty philosophical matters and back to the reason you came to Brownneedle in the first place. If Cybil knows Galileo well, she might have information relevant to your investigation. But you won’t get any information out of her if she’s arrested or killed by this Guardian.

How do you handle this?

Convince the Guardian that Cybil isn’t worth another moment of her time. (Beak Check) (83 percent chance)
Use your body to shield Cybil, daring the Guardian to harm you instead. (Heart Check) (33 percent chance)
I have a stroke of genius! (Auto Succeed) (-1 Stroke of Genius)
Show the Guardian my Caller Token to get her to stop. (Auto Succeed) (Requires Caller Token)

It seems like I keep rolling sixes no matter what choice I’m using.

So here’s hoping!!! Though that means I’ll have to skip on Auvex romance but I’m okay with that.

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Let me make sure I understand your question.

Are you saying that:

A) you always roll a 6 for this particular choice for each playthrough? OR
B) are you saying that you rolled a 6, and then kept refreshing the page and/or consulting the stats page?

If you’re saying A, I need to look at it. But if you’re saying B, then the game is working as intended. Once you get a die roll for a specific choice, you can’t change the die roll on that playthrough.

I ran Randomtest this morning displaying text, and it showed the die rolls and they were a nice mix. For the first four choices, I saw 4,2,3,5 and 5,5,1,2 and 1,4,5,4 and 1,Bribe,1,3 etc etc

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It looks like I’m rolling sixes every time on that particular scene. What I did was save my game before making the choice. I didn’t refresh the page, but I did reload the game before rolling. I’m not sure if that would count, but I’ll just do another Playthru to check.

Looks like it’s my bad. Even reloading the game wouldn’t reset your role, no wonder I was confused.

Yep, the dieroll happens a page or two before each choice, so it’s locked in before that point (even though you don’t see it yet).

It’s done intentionally to stop players from refreshing until they get a passing roll. :slight_smile:

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So I have a quick question. Assuming we didn’t kill our first stupid assistant, Will we hear from her again, or will we at least learn her fate?

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