The Price of Emeralds (Status Update: 5/5/24)

Hosted Games Works In Progress
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Oookay, played the update. Man, I say it with all the fondness I can have for the story, as this isn’t a critique of the characters, just the “people”, but DAMN I hate all the ROs except R! :rofl:
I knew I wouldn’t like them, and I already had a special dislike for A, but now… JNLDBL - I wish my MC could just say screw it and not help them, consequences be damned. SO GOING TO MAKE THEM FALL. Man I’m SO SO SO PISSED!

I kind of wish it were possible to answer to R when they call, but on another hand, I wish even more for a scenario where, because of the non-answering from MC’s part, R decided to try and meet them in the museum, and also got trapped now. I mean, how would one even TRY to rekindle anything if there is no contact with the character whatsoever, right? :thinking:

That aside, I had three (coding) issues, two of which are pretty major:

Small problem when selecting MC's strenghts:

I did see it the first time around, but didn’t think much of it. When I select the first skill, there is a “note” that explains the skill a bit. But when I select the second skill, there is no explanation, which doesn’t make much sense since it isn’t as if one could select twice the same skill, so in theory, I can’t know what the skill is about. Obviously I can deduce it and I also can look at the description in the code of the game, but still.

Opposed stats coding:

There is a big issue with your stat coding. You always add to a stat, but only the stats on the left (blue) can be added to. If you want to add to a red stat, you actually have to substract from the blue stat. So for example, if a choice option adds to the bold stat, you put “bold %+(X)”, but if you want to add to the shy stat, you put “bold %-(X)”. For the game, the “shy” stat doesn’t exist, so it doesn’t add to anything if you put “shy %+(X)”. The stats on the right basically serves as a visual indication for the players and nothing more. Because of that, no matter how shy a MC can be, they’ll always stay at 50% in that stat since none of the shy choices register. This is an example of course - it’s the same for all opposed stats. So for Stoic you have to substract from Kind, for Composed you have to substract from Impulsive and for Shy you have to substract from Bold.

The bold vs shy check at the end of the WIP:

The code is like that:

*if shy > bold 
    Feeling trapped and like I might cry, I looked [i]'Ace'[/i] in the eyes silently nodded. 
    *line_break
    "Alright... I'll help you." 
    *goto boldshycheckc1_2
*if bold > shy
    Feeling trapped and very pissed about it, I clenched my teeth, looked [i]'Ace'[/i] in the eyes and nodded.
    *goto boldshycheckc1_2

But since the Shy stat doesn’t exist for the game, it doesn’t do anything - which did work out for me though - because of the previous coding issue, I had more bold percentage than shy even though I should have more shy. But if the game can’t make the check, it simply displays the first version of the text, so the shy one. I was lucky!
But anyway, what I was saying is that you’d have to check for: “if bold > 50” or “if bold <= 50”, for example. First one means if the bold stat is more than 50, second one means if bold stat is equal or less than 50 (so Shy is 50 or above).

I hope that helps! :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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I think the police will pin it on the mc whether we help the robbers or not due to mc’s missing phone that is just lying around somewhere in that museum to be found now. :worried:
Plus the mc is the one who cannot afford good legal representation so he is the easiest one to go after for the authorities too.

Even the police don’t like rats, which is how the mc will probably seem to them and the prosecution. A robber with remorse that came too late.
In any case with the mc’s rotten luck even if they are able to square things with the authorities they will probably still be fired for “carelessness and endangerment” and blacklisted from other musea and cultural institution. So they’d probably and up homeless, working at McDonalds…or both.

But that is just my take on it. Yes, for a truly equal share my mc may yet participate otherwise he will be apathetic to both the authorities and the robbers.

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Not necessarily. If the MC manages to somehow help the police to catch the criminals, like sabotaging the group, sending tips clues to the police and so on… Then who knows. I think it would be better than the MC just accepting such a fate without fighting, even if it doesn’t produce results.

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Jesus Christ R, stop calling. MC obviously doesn’t want to talk to you. :roll_eyes:

This chapter was great! We have R being a spineless ass, Ben being a MAJOR ass, and we got abducted by 4 hot RO’s. Things are really heating up!

Though, I do want to agree with Konoi. I would like an option to pick up the phone when R calls. It would make for some excellent drama. (I just really wanna tell R off. R, choices have consequences. You can’t have your cake and eat it too, you know? Seriously, what is going on in there head…)

HOWEVER, there are a few issues with the they/them pronouns. Sentences that should be “They are dead” are “They is dead.” Stuff like that.

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Welp…

I’m loving the demo. It’s interesting and I can’t wait to see where it’s going. That said…

The MC is a fucking wimp and I loathe all of the other characters except Fernando. Screw romance–I’m hoping my MC gets to destroy every last one of them. B needs a blanket party, right along with R, and all of the ones doing the heist need to be strung up and used as pinatas. Bastards.

I was playing with a stealthy, charismatic MC and the charisma is apparently worthless. Stealth, at least, got her out of the grasp of one violent psycho. Maybe I’ll try one with strength and stealth. I want her to beat the shit out of everyone!

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Im all good now, brother. This happened when i was back in college.

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That’s not the kind of person i am.

Damn straight, brother. B, im coming for ya :joy:

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@Thourne i’m gonna make the same remark as for Scale of Justice : change the title and add the update. Title - Update XX/09/2021. I almost missed the update here too :joy:

For the new demo : This time I chose to not stay silent right in front of R the cheater. And… Now I totally understand why people critizises him this much. Bad R, bad R :cry:

Ps : I chose academics this time around instead of stealth as second choice and it didn’t change anything in the dialogues. I tought maybe we would have a difference when talking about the items in the museum. I’m totally fine with the stats not playing a big role <3 !

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I’m mostly fine with them being inconsequential, but I do think there should be some sort of payoff to having them, otherwise don’t bother with them at all.

But if my MC can kill all of these bastards, or at least ruin their lives completely, I’m fine with the stats having no role. It’s funny–in the first demo release, I kinda liked A (my MC was just happy someone was making her feel like she mattered) but the second demo made me want to disembowel him and feed him his own intestines. Seriously, fuck these guys.

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Hi! I wanted to change the title, but it wasn’t giving me the option to change it or even the post at first, so I’m working on that.

The choices will matter but more so as the game progresses.

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Wow! This helps a lot, def one of those errors that seem so obvious in hindsight. I did consider the little -Note- to put twice, but I wasn’t sure if it came off as redundant for some reason? Hearing this, I’ll probably just add it in. Gonna try and get the changes updated quickly.

I might toss in a little more in between contact with R if I can place it in a manner that flows well and makes sense before the story progresses.

Thanks again!

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Everyone’s gonna disembowel somebody. Heh-heh-heh.

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We’re all just like a little gang of murderhobo gremlins here :upside_down_face: each with someone we wanna wreck

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Maybe Kao. :yum:

Like I said I don’t think my mc’s life can get much worse and it is not like life has given him many opportunities. Way I see it, at best the mc gets an equal share, the cops miraculously don’t find his missing phone and won’t pin it on him and he maybe has a chance to move on to a better phase in his life.

At worst this whole thing will get pinned on him, either through the cops discovering his phone or the gang ratting him out. Sadly that is only par for the course with how rotten this mc’s luck has been up until now.

On the other hand if my mc had to stay there with the one decent person gone or make a career change to fastfood and living out of a cardboard box he’d probably have been dead by his own hand within a year or so anyway. :man_shrugging:

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Yeah I’m noticing everyone has someone different they want to 1v1. I get that, I respect it lol. I might keep that in mind while moving forward and tweaking the game haha

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I kinda want my MC to disembowel all of them except Fernando. He’s the only decent character I’ve see thus far. And he’s leaving.

Which one is K? A is the one who tricked the MC into giving the tour, right? Not sure who K is. But I probably hate him, too, lol.

This is precisely why I (as a reader) despise every character except the MC and Fernando. Everyone else is constantly shitting on the MC, be it through cheating or bashing or using or threatening. For there to be any workable romance after this, someone is going to have to kiss the MC’s ass to an extent we have yet to see in any other game. Otherwise, I just want my MC to crush their skulls with a sledgehammer. If she’s going to prison, it may as well be for something worthwhile and that she actually did.

There’s always prostitution.

I don’t know. At this point, if the MC manages to get some of the money after helping these jerks, I don’t think she’d want anything to do with them. She’d just take the money and leave. And that’s assuming things go well. No doubt it’ll just get worse, she’ll get blamed for the whole thing, and have to be on the run with people she figures will knife her in the back first chance they get.

I am wondering how R fits into things, really. My MC wouldn’t call on him to bail her out of jail even if it meant dying a slow death in a pile of her own feces.

I did enjoy strength + stealth more than stealth + charm, at least. Charm seems worthless. With strength, at least the MC can fight back a little.

Yes, please give the MC the chance to level someone. At this point, I don’t care if it’s Irving or B or R or any of the rest, I just want to see her get a bit of payback for the way they all have treated her.

Angry or cold MC seems the best way to go with this to keep me from smashing my screen, so any chance to let that out would be great (even if it’s tricking Beth into eating something that makes her shit her pants–if you’ve never read the reviews for sugar free gummy bears, please do, because I’d love to see Beth or Rob suffer that pain!). Kneecapping one of them would work, too. :smiley:

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If the mc was super attractive they’d have been a super model already. And on top of it all the mc doesn’t seem very experienced in the act either. So that leaves being a cheap prostitute, which likely still means comparable earnings to fastfood and living out of a cardboard box. As right now the mc doesn’t seem to have the looks or skills to be a high class companion/escort. :worried:

At best we could say that the mc may have the potential to become really attractive for their age with a better diet, wardrobe and after hitting the gym for a year or so. But that requires money up front and has the caveat for their age as this mc is no longer a twenty-something.

Not if all the mc has to return to is his crappy job or unemployment and a fastfood “career” afterwards. :worried:

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Hey, maybe that’s not disemboweling, and karma bites back, but at least it’s possible to taze one of them. Small satisfactions :rofl:

It’s kind of funny how… eh… strong the feeling caused by the ROs are in this game, but at the same time, it’s not as if I disliked the whole thing or anything.

Still though, this IS a fictionnal story, so even if real life there would be no way for this to end well, I won’t be too pessimistic about MC’s chances here. I just hope it’ll be possible to sabotage the team and get them arrested. It would be SO satisfying. Or well, at the veeeery least, get A arrested. But eh, all of them would be better.

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I’m loving this book so far but I’ve gotta say this is the first time I’ve seen a WIP where pretty much everyone hates all the ROs at the start :joy:

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Hey, I like R!

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