@13ventrm wrote: “May I ask if we’ll be able to significantly improve our character’s stats in the game, and if so, in what form? The small bonus to the coglioni stat when I dared to try the still whiskey amused me, certainly a much more subtle way of stat improvement. I think these subtle but constant stat changes help the immersion and realism, like the small benevolence increase after saving Carina, or the small notoriety increase after the truck job.”
Rescued the above from the old thread as it touches upon a very important aspect of the game and seems a good starting point for a new thread, especially as the next significant update is at least a week away!
For the most part the main story will have only subtle or relatively minor stats changes (there will be exceptions in extreme circumstances) as the full game will not be short–at least 150,000 words, or the length of a fairly typical novel–and the gradual changes to your character over time have to reflect that rather than leap to excellence in all things. The overall idea is that this should also (hopefully) better reflect your choice tendencies over time, so your character develops in realistic fashion.
That said, the big thing I’m working on atm is a “Weekly Accounting & Events” thing, which kicks in at the end of Chapter One (the end of your first week in the story). Chapters 2+ will each cover several (4-6) “weeks” of the story. You will periodically be briefly taken out of the story, at the end of each “week”, in order to collect income from your ongoing businesses & racket operations and be able to spend that cash on any of a variety of things, if you so choose. Or you can keep hold of it for future investment in more businesses & rackets, or a combination of the two. A few choices later, you’ll find yourself back in the story from precisely where you left it, ready to start the new “week”.
The “Events” part of the weekly interlude is the complicated (for me!) bit. It’s already over a thousand lines of code and climbing. This essentially lets you choose, from a wide variety of options (currently 24, more to come) governing what you will do in your “spare time” over the following week (i.e. not specifically, necessarily covered in the story itself). Some of these options will directly affect the main story, some will give unique (and sometimes, temporary) opportunities and lead to new sub plots not available by any other means, some will affect your income over the following week, and some will influence your Attributes–e.g. you can spend your “spare time” over the next week specifically aiming to improve such as your Firearms skill, if you so choose. These “weekly” stats changes will be more noticeable, for the most part, especially compared to the subtle ones reflecting your actions in the main story.
Most of the benefits from these “weekly” options are not fully implemented / realized until the end of the next week / start of the following week, of course, at which point you can choose a different option for the forthcoming week, or stick with the same one if you prefer to pursue excellence in one particular way (and if it’s still available to you!).
Finally, it’s worth mentioning that of all the many “Weekly” options, only a bare handful are not conditional and will always be available. The majority are specific to your background, your stats, your current circumstances, or your “history” in the game to date. You will typically have perhaps 8-10 to choose from on most weeks, but both the number and type of options will definitely vary from one week to the next.
I’m hoping to have a playable version of “Chapter Two” (probably including about 4 “weeks” in that one) available in the next 7-10 days, all being well. Feedback on this whole concept would be very much appreciated, especially as it’s heading in a completely different direction to the way most existing ChoiceScript games are designed.
In the meanwhile, if you haven’t tried Chapter One yet . . .