You’re exactly right and onto something 
there’s definitely gonna be conflicts that arise with the Vanguards as their personalities develop and they form certain opinions 
4 Likes
Ah, I just want to play one who doesn’t understand half of what the humans are going on about.
7 Likes
Haha I love the idea of this! I am scaling up the route and options that are more detached/machine like. Will try to incorporate some moments of confusion as well to fit into this style of MC
7 Likes
1.- Would this interpretation of the classes be accurate?
Pre-Conflict: Hacker, Bioengineer, Mech Strategist, Tactician.
Offensive Mid-Conflict: Gunner, Skirmisher.
Defensive Mid-Conflict: Sentinel.
After-Conflict: Field Medic, Mind Medic, Survival Strategist.
If so, and if I were to cut corners, this is how the team would look:
K → Defensive Mid-Conflict unit → Sentinel, now Captain, versatile Tactician’s equivalent.
A → Offensive Mid-Conflict unit → Gunner.
F → Pre-Conflict unit → Mech Strategist.
T → Pre-Conflict unit → Cartographer, passive Survival Strategist’s equivalent.
E → After-Conflict unit → glass cannon Field Medic’s or Survival Strategist’s equivalent.
The dead teammate was a Mind Medic.
This crew is full of smart competent people, but as a whole, they might lack raw power.
So, if a synergy between the vanguard and crew’s redundancies isn’t feasible, then the ministry would have most likely sent a skirmisher, an additional Gunner, or a replacement Mind Medic.
2.- The fact the vanguard can be a Mind Medic is rather odd, no?
As semi-biological constructs, their processes likely leverage biopsychological insights, which might explain why the vanguard seems to count with a wide range of social responses from the get go. What we don’t know is what the programming constraints are, or what the lab training consisted of.
What we know is that vanguards are meant to be soldiers. Throughout the story we also learn that they are able to recognize and turn off stimuli at will. It also seems they aren’t expected to develop a sense of emotional interiority. But then you have Mind Medic vanguards, soldiers expected to recognize risky amounts of emotional stimuli.
Was it expected from them to use the turn-off feature frequently enough to starve the formation of an emotional core? Either way, this creates a troublesome duality: emotionally deaf devices expected to treat sensitive scenarios, or traumatized, if not outright anti-war ones.
That’s why, out of all classes, Mind Medics might be their riskiest move yet.
3.- Are vanguards incompetent?
Perhaps this has to do with the A scenario. I’ll be blunt, the requirements are high (25), confusing (evasion = biology, long-mid range scenario in general), and humblingly worded (vanguard uselessly flail around, trip on its own footing); to add to injury, we don’t come with a search engine installed, so we can’t trivia, or pull out statistical figures out of our bioengineered backsides like the stereotypical machine would.
This breaks the super-soldier fantasy, but in doing so, it opens a new path. Vanguards are the result of a desperate gambit, perhaps nothing more than expedient prototypes meant as stepping stones for something else.
So glitches, falling short of the ideal, and obsolescence are within expectation.
Within that very set, we can also expect our vanguards’ strength to lie in timely, manufactured numbers, with their weaknesses expected to be offset by their bioadaptability (weak vanguards growing muscles, emotionally deaf ones learning social ques, etc.)
That’s likely the ministry’s strategy, no?
5 Likes
I love all the thought you’ve put into this, thank you!
I’d say this is pretty close to how I envision it, with some classes being a little more versatile than others. Mech Strategists would be good at defensive mid conflict. Think operating mortars, grenades, loading/reloading heavy machinery, repairing broken parts of the trenches too. Bioengineers and Survival Strategists might work hand in hand after conflicts to identify and treat biological weapon aftereffects.
Yep I agree with your breakdown of the team’s classes and roles! Pretty balanced. In the next chapters I release, we will see the entire squad in action and how these roles are played out.
The Mind Medic class is indeed a rare assignment for Vanguards. I included this role because of wanting to feature a more emotional/conversational route for players. And it is a unique pick for a soldier that doesn’t necessarily involve guns and heavy fighting. It does, however, add a bit of tension for many of the reasons you’ve listed!
During their times in the labs, the Mind Medic Vanguards would have received training in how to recognize shell shock, ptsd, and other mental health crisis signs in soldiers. So that in the midst of battle they can act accordingly. Due to the armies consisting of more than your average humans (blood mages, archivists, and some others not mentioned yet) it can get extremely dangerous very quickly if one of these specialists has a mental break on (or off) the battle field.
Although most Mind Medics would be able to treat on the spot, I envision the emotionally-detached Vanguards would act as more of a warning system. Stepping in to apprehend, detain, and send away any soldiers that become a danger to themselves or others. Emotionally aware Vanguards, on the other hand, would work with the soldier and develop coping strategies or other solutions to keep them in operation.
Think in terms of the Mind Medic scenario given during Cap’s training. One choice put the squad’s safety over the individual(emotionally detached Mind Medic). The other put the individual’s safety over the squad’s (emotionally aware).
I love that you recognized this duality. The Ministry may not have anticipated Vanguard’s forming emotions. Even if this tendency was noted in the labs, the Vanguard’s creators didn’t think it would negatively impact their ability to monitor and care for soldiers mental well being. They expect Vanguards to recognize these emotional stimuli in others but not develop any core within themselves. Something that, depending on how people play their MC, may prove to be a big mistake on the Ministry’s part.
Not inherently. Everything in the labs was controlled and rushed at the same time. “Can the Vanguard walk? Yes. Can they fire a gun with accuracy? Yes. Good to go, send em on to the next testing phase.” Their creators wanted to develop a fast, almost factory-like process for giving the Ministry more soldiers. And you’re exactly right, the Vanguards’ adaptability is their strength.
I believe most of the issues you named in the A training comes from my own inexperience with coding side of things and wanting to keep things relatively simple as I learned. That was my first big attempt at stat checking and making various outcomes for them. I will be revisiting it to add some nuanced details now that I’ve got more experience with it all 
I like what you mentioned about pulling out statistical figures. I’ll look into how that can be implemented in scenes as well. Like being able to make rapid calculations and predict the angle of attacks via the more computing parts of your MC.
My reasoning with this one is that the biology skill involves heightened awareness of your body, as well as others. So evading the attack would mean knowing A’s reach and physical limits and how to step out of their range. I’m hesitant to lower the requirements specifically because your MC is going up against Flex, a highly skilled fighter. So I want defeating A to be a challenge that isn’t easily attained.
Let me know if there’s anything else I can shed more light on. I really do appreciate you giving so much thought into the story and sharing that with me!
10 Likes
Why would they keep that in then why not just make them blank zero personalities, But I do get why since there would be zero story otherwise.
1 Like
Probably comes down to either writing them off as simple machines that wouldn’t know how to have feelings even if they were told, either that or it’s simply worth the risk.
If you need a piece of metal that can hold a gun and pull the trigger when asked, then personalities are extra baggage, but when you need a soldier that can improvise and assess risk in complex situations, then a simple “blank slate” is probably going to fail somewhere along the line. There’s also motivation and willpower to consider; what’s more trustworthy, an unfeeling machine that’s only in this war because they were ordered to be or a passionate feeling person fighting for a cause they believe in? A person with feelings and personality is not only more motivated and willing to go further, but also more cohesive with other people who have a reason to fight
9 Likes
Really enjoyed the game, particularly how character focused this has been so far. I usually avoid lot of the more military IFs because they tend to focus so much on combat and pages upon pages of action scenes that just ain’t my thing (if thats some peoples thing, awesome for them. but i think those hyperfocused military hardasses are overdone 2-dimensional stereotypes, and fight fight fight kind of stories are boring). I don’t know if that’s something that’ll come along as the game progresses, but I think the more character driven approach works better with the man or machine (or something between?) story that the MC has going on.
3 Likes
They did make them as blank personalities, but once the Vanguards are out of the labs, any personality that develops is our of their creator’s hands. But yes because zero story otherwise is also true haha. In my opinion, it would be a poor interactive fiction if you couldn’t customize your MC’s behavior and personality (or lack of one, even an emotionless MC is a choice) 
8 Likes
Bingo! A key part of the Vanguard program is their adaptability. If that means developing a personality in order to fit in with their comrades, then they will. If it means remaining disconnected from emotion so as to appear stoic in the face of chaos to bolster the soldiers’ confidence, then they can be that too.
6 Likes
Thank you, I’m glad you’re enjoying it! There will certainly be some fighting later on, but the core of this story are the characters; MC and their influence on the rest of the squad and the world itself on a larger scale. My favorite stories/games are character driven so it feels natural to make this one character driven as well 
To me, that’s what makes the tension in any fight all the more rewarding, knowing each and every character you could potentially lose and celebrating with your team when(if) you all survive
I’m aiming to have a decent balance of both action and character to satisfy a variety of players. So that in a battle, there are many roles and directions to take. Certain ones involve more action scenes and fight fight fight stuff, whereas others puts the spotlight on the people going through all of that and scrambling to make sense of things in the aftermath.
8 Likes
Any chance of choosing what armour they wear, I want to be just a pure Juggernaut with a heavy weapon.
3 Likes
Uncertain on this at the moment. I will attempt to work armor in because I think it would be a cool aspect in a fight! But it’ll depend on how I end up tackling the battle mechanic specifics. I experimented with certain features in Flex and Tick’s trainings (the shields/weapons and health/stamina) but I need to mess around with those more to reach a point I’m happy with before I expand into different armor types but pure juggernaut with heavy weapon option has been noted! 
7 Likes
The pacing is a bit slow but overall the writing is pretty solid. A character driven war drama has a nice ring to it. I can’t wait for more.
2 Likes
Thanks for reading! Pacing should pick up more in the following chapters 
3 Likes
I might already be too late for the feedback, but in case you still find use in it, I share it:
1.- evasion = biology:
The thing is Flex’s melee is so physically oriented it’s hard no to think of Athletics as anything but a “That’s right! It goes in the square hole” solution.
Scenario: Block (Athletics), Parry (Technology), Taunt (Influence), Evade (Biology), and Analyze (Strategy).
Scenario Side-Factors:
.- Flex has a short sword and a large shield.
.- Does having a bigger shield increases odds of Block’s success? Does Evade works the same when the opposite is true?
.- Is a shieldless Athletics’ specialized vanguard expected to consider blocking the oncoming sword as the option most apropos to their strengths (consider every other option as a failed check)?
.- Succeeding the Athletics check without a shield triggers the following text “The fact that I have a [no-shield] is the only thing that saves me.”
Noteworthy Athletics checks:
.- Melee weaponry: “The nearest weapon, incase I need to fight (this one describes how the MC would improvise a weapon out of the platform they stand upon)” and “Which weapons pack the biggest punch.”
.- Footwork: “Cycle through combat exercises, visualizing the footwork involved.”
What I tie together is that Athletics could reasonably pass up for Technology (Parry) and Biology (Evade) in this scenario.
Personally, I’m okay with keeping the status quo, or any fix you deem necessary, but if you aren’t, then how about this unconventional angle?
.- Let stats, when beneficial, overrule others in scenarios they are specialized in dealing with (I don’t think anybody has tried it before, probably for a good reason).
2.- long-mid range scenario in general:
The mid-range weapons win or lose results seem to be mixed up. The goal seems to be to minimize Tank Health, while keeping Base Health as high as possible, but when the text and scores seem to imply success (e.g. tank health: 1, base health: 100), you lose, and when the text and scores imply otherwise, you win. Long-range weapons always succeed regardless of what you do, not sure if it’s what you intended.
3.- Very subjective, negligible nitpick:
When Page ask about the vanguard’s feelings about revealing their core, and you decide they should say the truth, Page’s answer is always the same sympathetic “I think anyone in your position would feel the same.” Which is nice, but sometimes the vanguard can say they don’t feel anything about it, or they can end their sentence with a question, which might make Page’s answer feel incomplete.
That’s all, thanks!
4 Likes
So I have this right, MC is a robot?
2 Likes
Cyborg, the Vanguards have magical, biological and cybernetic components. I’m also 99% sure we were Human prior to being converted into a Vanguard.
7 Likes
2 Likes
MC is a lot of things and for spoiler reasons I can’t say much more than that but a big theme of this story is what makes something human?
5 Likes