The Night's Militant (Updated 05/12/2022) Codex Update and Save System!

Hosted Games Works In Progress
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I appreciate the kind words and advice, everyone! Having never been a proper author on the forums before, I’m blown away by the amount of consideration and help that you all have offered.

That was in fact my original intention, @LavenderEclipse, but the story and perspective would be so different from male to female, it would essentially be two stories under one label.

I’m not necessarily opposed to having choices make sweeping changes on game progression (I adore games like that for the replayability), but as @derekmetaltron mentioned I’m trying to stand firm on a manageable product to ensure I finish. The worst thing I could do, in my mind, is commit to a two story project where both perspectives are lesser due to lack of focus.

I’m not entirely throwing the suggestion out the window, and if I feel motivated I may even alternate updates for male/female routes, if I decide to go that direction. But the answer, for now, is just male MCs.

Hope that clears things up! Thanks so much for your thoughts!

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The idea does sound fun - I was always interested in playing as someone like this and the closest thing I’d got to it was Zachary from Techomancer.

Also, if you don’t want to include additional romances, it’s no worries. I’m pretty interested in current options as they are.

Also, have you read Wolfhound? The gods do remind me of Twins, one of many gods people worship in that world - the warrior twin, the wise twin and their father, all - encompassing and unborn.

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Maybe if this game does well you could do a second game with a female specific character as per your original suggestion that better suits such a character.

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@vera Thanka for the comment!

I can’t say that I have, unfortunately. It sounds really interesting!

I was very much drawn to the idea of deific aspects that modeled gender roles as opposed to power politics or simple happenstance.

Men in the story are modeled after the Father and are thus passionate protectors and guardians.
Women, meanwhile, are seen to reflect the Mother’s stability and wisdom.

This is why the church, and the kingdoms that follow its strictures, are matriarchal in structure predominantly, with a male warrior class.

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How much of a focus will the romance have? Is there an option to skip it?

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Of course! I wouldn’t want to railroad anyone into romances. The choice of which RO to pursue, or whether to pursue them at all, will be left up to you, the reader. As to the focus, I plan to make romances expansive and gradual, spanning the length of the story, but hopefully not so involved that the story feels incomplete without them!

I suppose this is a good segue to a topic I wanted to bring up. I called the established ROs “romantic entanglements” out of a lack of single phrase clarity for what I wanted to emphasize.

The stated romantic options are just that: characters that you can pursue a romantic engagement with culminating in physical relationships/marriage (or “The Pairing” as the Stellinite church would call it). This is far from the only loving relationship type that will be shown, or can be pursued, in the story.

I may be alone in thinking this, but modern culture places such a high value on romantic love, that it lessens, or even invalidates, other types of love that are just as powerful and pervasive.

I want to explore more than just romantic love (eros as the Greeks called it). I want to give readers the chance to form deep familial loving realtionships with their squad (could call it a bromance c:). I also want to explore the concept of love for your fellow humanity, as that is the most pervasive reason that one would become a Militant (aside from the less savory reasons).

On the flip side, I want to give readers the opportunity to experience discomfort, distrust, and even hate within their squad, so you could experience multiple read throughs and have different relationships with the cast each time, depending on your conversations, actions, and personality.

Of course, it’s easy to establish all these goals. The real challenge will be living up to them in a meaningful way!

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I disagree with your overall sentiment. I think it’s refreshing to see such a focused effort. Sure, it may limit some of the player’s options, but I think gender-locking the MC affords the author more time to flesh out other parts of the story without having to worry about how different societal aspects of the world would react to a character with so many different identity-potentials.

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And that’s exactly the thought process that I have going into this story. It may be pretty lean in comparison to what some are used to, but I want to make the world as immersive as possible.

If you’ll forgive me getting on a soapbox here for a second, one of the things that irks me the most about interactive fiction is when authors fall into the trap of giving readers the illusion of free choice.

For example, many authors employ the convention of having you describe your character’s physical appearance. Then, those choices become wholly irrelevant to the story, aside from a possible blurb in the stat screen.

Personally, I think this is poor design. You shouldn’t give readers meaningless choice. I’m quite capable of visualizing my protagonist without the author’s (probably) more limited options. At least give me a darn mention of my appearance later in the game so I dont feel that I wasted my time.
Soapbox over.

All that to say, I’m really striving to make every single choice matter, and every variable exponentially increases the amount of writing and proofreading needed. I want this to be a well-crafted endeavor, and, to that end, I’d rather produce a small, high-quality work than an expansive one of even middling quality.

Edit:Am writing the customization portion of the story now, so time to put my money where my mouth is!

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Personally I just don’t like being told what I look like, unless it is relevant to the story and happens early on. I’ve played games where halfway through I get told I’m a jock with washboard abs, or a thin nerd with glasses, and I’m just like… what? Where did that come from? Couldn’t you have told me that two hours ago? That’s the reason I like appearance choices, because it guarantees that that isn’t going to happen. But it’s also perfectly fine if it’s just never mentioned.

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The gripe about appearances was a rough example, based on the first thing that came to my mind (what I was writing about at the time).

But I agree with your sentiment as well. It’s disheartening even in novels to have your character perception shattered. I’m just more in the “make it meaningful, or never mention it” camp.

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Hey all!

Comin’ at you live with the smallest darn update you ever did see! We have a stat screen now! For all you lovely folks like me and @Bulk_Biceps that need to see a stat screen to get a feel for character expectations, I got ya covered.

I’ll now take questions.
Totally realistic in-person live forum commences

Q1
“Um, so like is there any added story with this update?”
A1
Fair question, fair question. The answer is no! It’s the same demo with stat screen functionality!

Q2
“Don’t you think you should have waited to update the game until you had something to add to the story?”
A2
“That’s a great question! Phil, (can I call you Phil?), look Phil, truth be told, I have no idea what I’m doing. I just started learning choicescript yesterday. Soooo, in lieu of making all the lovely folks at home wait for anywhere from 2 days to 2 weeks for me to figure this all out, I figured I’d put in a stat screen for my own sanity and bookkeeping, helping anyone else like me out there in the process.”

Q3
“I noticed you use, like, a lot of commas.”
A3
“Um, that’s not really a question… but yeah! I love commas! They help me claw back the tiniest bit of organization in the big ol’ ball of word spaghetti rolling around in my mind.
Sorry for that visual.”

Q4
“Can we expect this same level of weird, zany humor on the forums going forward?”
A4
“Unfortunately…”

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Hm, Imperious vs Jovial sounds odd as an opposed pair. They’re not really opposites. It’s not difficult to be either both or neither.

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Hmm… you’re right. I don’t even remember deciding on that pair… Maybe I was thinking “serious” and it ended up different when my brain transferred it to paper…

In any event, I changed the opposing stat to Severe. A bit more in line with my original intention XD

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huh well I’m intrigued so i shall continue to follow this with interest

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Hello @Goblin_slayer

Thank you for your opinion. I shared my opinion for what it’s worth as you have shared yours just now. Both of us can be wrong or right depending on what each person prefers. Putting specific adjustments to a game such as gender-locking is surely one way to flesh out the game lore and character interactions. There’s nothing wrong with that. Personally, I prefer a wide range of options especially for stories with great potential such as this one. That is because there are times when I get so invested into the game and the characters only to find out that I have a predetermined character or my character is gender-locked. And that doesn’t always mean checking out the demo itself, I can get invested into the story by the summary and RO description alone. Losing good WIPs to play because of such nuisances is frustrating and sometimes feels unfair to everybody except the target audience. Therefore, I was asking the author beforehand, whether or not I should be hopeful about any changes regarding the gender-locking mechanism of the game. So that when the changes I am hoping for come, I will be able to return to this game. That is basically it. I value your response, and honestly I haven’t thought about gender-locking from the aspect you are saying.

And it may sound selfish, but I only care about the variety of choices that Choice of Games/Hosted Games/Heart’s Choice/WIPs provide to the reader. Variety in interactions and reactions as well as the well written characters in the game. Because I am playing these games as a way to escape from reality and a way to feel confident that each of my choices won’t reflect on real people or world. That each of my choices be they bad or good are just that - choices in a game. I play these games to fulfil my dreams of becoming, for example, an idol or a soldier, wherever the imagination of the author goes. Or a way to unload myself from responsibilities of an adult. Aren’t any of these the reason all of us are here? Each of us have preferences and my preference just happens to be that I don’t like predetermined characters or gender-locked games (with some exceptions). These kinds of games lock me out from good content, immersion and overall confines the limits of my imagination. It may sound crude and demanding of authors, especially for the first time writers. And considering that I myself have not produced any games as of now, some people may think that I don’t have rights to demand things from authors because I am not a game developer and I have not gone through the hardships they may have faced. However, at the moment as an audience member I might disagree.

This discussion can go on and on depending on who agrees and disagrees with my statement. However, as @Eiwynn has said the author has already discussed this topic with us. I already got my answer from @Rav3nsblad3 . Therefore, after this reply of mine, I would like to abstain from further discussions of this topic. I accepted everyone’s opinion and shared mine. So I hope that you will be gracious and accept mine for what it’s worth. There is just no other explanation other than it’s my opinion.

Thank you.

Have a nice day/night!

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I think the beautiful thing about forums like this is the display of ideological diversity that underpins, and fuels, the creative enterprises. Posting a story here, from ones I’ve read to the short time I’ve had this topic up, powerfully displays this unique advantage–novelists simply don’t get this sort of audience interaction, as a general rule.

My story started as a tiny seed of potential within my mind, and yeah, with enough work, I could painstakingly grow my idea into something better than it started out as. But I don’t have to rely solely on myself. The beauty of community is that each person brings something unique and lovely to contribute, making the final product grander than any single person could fabricate while simultaneously greater than the sum of its parts. The emotion and care of each response, the little smiles conversation can bring, these are the things I’m most grateful for. Honestly, every person that wants to have a conversation with me about my story makes me smile. Makes me feel like I’m embarking on a worthy endeavor. Every contribution, however small, or seemingly insignificant, will contribute to what this story will end up as.

@Mei_Hiroshi I need to thank you again for your mature and well-reasoned response. Even if I’m unable to live up to your hopes with my story, I’m already exceptionally fortunate to have had your thoughts impact my thinking.

Thank you, everyone. I will endeavor to make my story worthy of each of you. Perhaps I’ll be able to help you smile, in some small contribution to how much joy you’ve all brought me.

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While no choices or character designs are available yet. The prologue does set up an interesting premise. I look forward to seeing where this story goes and how our choices affect it. Also I recommend having a save system as soon as possible that way it’s easier for people to explore the story more without having to start the entire game all over again

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@Clara_Wolfenstein

Ha! People have been begging COG to implement an end-game save-transfer system that ‘isn’t’ reliant on your f#@$ing email for years now… and they just keep talking around it, lol. I wouldn’t get my hopes up.

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? There is already a save system for Choicescript. CoG just doesn’t use it for published games.

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@Rav3nsblad3

‘‘I may be alone in thinking this, but modern culture places such a high value on romantic love, that it lessens, or even invalidates, other types of love that are just as powerful and pervasive.’’

No, I don’t believe you’re wrong about that at all. What I’ve noticed is that Western society in-particular seems to have shifted focus away from traditional values and more towards self-gratification and hedonistic pleasure-seeking. We went from one extreme to the other in less than a century, and we’ve learned nothing. The key lesson that we ‘should’ take away from this, in my opinion, is that extremes are undesirable, and should ‘never’ be implemented long-term.

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