I missed or forgot about Azkaban-with-alligators… and that does indeed demote killing them from the most sensible thing to one of multiple sensible options.
Assuming it’s not a good use of your time at this point to write in new character development opportunities in Book I that apply to people who want to kill their depraved enemies… I expect you’ll be able to figure out a good in-game reason why you use nonlethal force on these particular enemies, and not just “they have to survive because plot, ok?”
@Havenstone
“they have to survive because plot, ok?” LMAO xD
I’ll certainly make a better reason. I just wanted to hurry up and get the update out before volume 2 is submitted so that it’d make sense when you don’t kill Falcon or the bandits.
@Havenstone It’s funny… I spent a lot of time when this game was in development suggesting ways in which it made sense to not kill them. In the original build you just killed them without a choice or a shred of remorse and moved on, and I thought it was such a waste of potential character development and the nice artwork Sam had commissioned. I wouldn’t want to choose the kill option myself, but it’s kind of odd to see this flipped 180 now… In the case of the assassins always felt like you had the tools to render the threat completely inert once you’d defeated them in open battle, so ingame, it was merely a matter of you deciding whether keeping them alive was worth the effort.
@Shoelip
I give you 100% credit for inciting my decision to spare their lives. I consider myself a decent story teller, I just never think ahead enough, and I usually need some prodding before the story can be something worth getting invested in. Haha.
I just desire a selfish reason to safe them could I make them my allies but without make them good. You know convinced them demon trick them so they want help me destroy demon, maybe obtain demon powers
I actually thought that’d be a cool option too, or at least somehow getting them to join you as allies on your adventure in some way, but I think Sam wants to keep it so they go away until chapter 6.
@poison_mara and @Shoelip
They won’t show up again until volume 6, but depending on how you dealt with them, they actually will help you on your journey. It was meant to be a cool surprise.
Well I about know that. I’m just saying that I thought it’d be cool to have some allies that travel with you besides your Boggart, but I get that if you had the choice to either imprison them or take them with you that would make for a major split in the paths the game could take that would affect every subsequent game. It’d be really cool of course, but also way more work.
@Shoelip
Sadly, I have to think of these stories mainly from an economical standpoint for now. Hence the series instead of the massive-Tin-Star-sized super book. If I could, I would make you be able to whatever you want, and have a lot of different paths. I think the replay value is still pretty good, though. Once I’m done with this series, I plan on writing massive stories like Tin Star.
And starting in volume three, you’ll have three more people traveling with you.
How much difference does that actually make in terms of carrying over choices? I mean, between making a series of games that follow one after another, and a single long game?
@Shoelip
Since I’m making Demons Among Men a series of relatively short volumes, it means that every time I make your choices really matter, it cuts down on how much you see on every play through. Even without two polar branches (taking the assassins to the prison, and bringing them with you), you only see about 20/86K on each play through.
If it was one big volume, it wouldn’t matter because the length would still be massive (in one play through, it’d still be about 160,000 words).
Even now, I have to worry about giving readers a decent amount of pages on their first read through. With 86,000 words of a non linear story, it’s proven pretty hard. Right now, I want to keep each volume pretty close to the 85,000 mark (even though Judgement of the Fallen will be 100,000 once the puzzle scene is added), but with two totally different branches, massive portions of text would only be visible to some readers, which would make each read through even shorter.
Sure, the replay ability would be amazing, but I’ve had a lot of bad reviews on the app store from people saying that they liked the story, but it was too short. It doesn’t seem like enough people go back and read it a second time.
So more negative reviews about the length than about the choices? I wonder if you’d have more possitive reviews for adding choices like that than you’d get negative reviews for things being shorter, but I guess you can’t really afford to find out when so few people actually give thoughtful reviews at all.
@Shoelip
All the positive reviews have said the story is amazing, the choices matter and there are some reviews saying the music and illustrations were good additions.
Even a lot of the bad reviews were saying they liked the story itself. Almost all of the bad reviews were about the length, though there were some about the character development (which ultimately prompted me to take out the deaths, since I guarantee you those people likely killed the characters)
Do you guys think this is a suitable reason for me not giving choices to kill your enemies? In light of this, I’ll be taking out Belluo’s death and replacing it with a double tap.
"However, killing any of your enemies is almost always out of the question. Although you’re technically allowed to kill a criminal if you feel your life is in mortal danger, it’s always better to be safe.
After you’ve killed a certain amount of people (the higher-ups don’t let anyone know how many, to lower the amount of deaths), your career will be put under heavy scrutiny.
After that, if you’re found to have killed another person under any circumstance but extreme necessity, there’s a chance that your demon bestiary and badge will be revoked."
Sam so if you are a demon hunter you couldn’t kill monsters? WHAT CRAP OF JOB ITS THAT? Sorry I know witches kill an entire city a hour ago, but nope, you couldn’t kill them, you only could use the power of unicorns and rainbows to fight them!!
Your universe seems filled with million of monster and psychos powered people in a medieval setting a hippie not violence attitude doesn’t fit at all. Its like a western when cowboys couldnt use guns and give hugs each other instead duel.
@poison_mara
Don’t get upset. I’m asking you guys to see if it’s suitable. There’s a reason why I didn’t go ahead and do it without any feedback.
You know I’m just trying to find a good reason to keep most of the characters alive. I’d love to allow you to kill them, but if you killed all your enemies, there would be like a tenth of the character development, which I don’t think is worth it at all.
@Fiogan
Well, killing a demon would make his body desintigrate and his soul latch onto your mind (you learn this from reading your bestiary) so it’s best to banish them also it’s just people in general. You decided to kill Sarrivan, though, because otherwise you wouldn’t have been able to escape the castle.
I’m not upset at all Sam, you already know how my tone is. Sorry if I sound rude, I was trying being funny sarcastic. Its like sound weird to your game setting so dont be angry with Mara right? Im not trying of trolling or something i promise
@Samuel_H_Young Sounds charming… wait, so if I somehow contrived to get a golem to kill a demon and it didn’t have a mind, what’d happen? Is that even possible? Now I’m curious!
@poison_mara The rainbow unicorn thing was definitely pretty funny. Now I’m trying to imagine that.
also it’s just people in general. You decided to kill Sarrivan, though, because otherwise you wouldn’t have been able to escape the castle.