Vendetta: Rise of a Gangster - Resumed

@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 . . .

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/82562041/web/vendetta1/index.html

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Hi I really want to play this game bit your link won’t load ony I-phone is there after link 4 I-phone ?

@Stpeter182 , If you try the game on an iPhone, because the hosting site is webs.com, it is automatically set up for a mobile and gives problems.

To get it to work on your phone, click the link as normal, then on the page where it doesn’t load, go to the bottom and there should be a “classic view” button (or something similar). Click that, and it should work fine :slight_smile:

Ps: Glad to see yo back @Vendetta !

No words describe how excited I am about the fact that the game is being continued @Vendetta!

And I am not sure if you went to your other forum page after it all went out of hand, but I made another suggestion (suddenly I feel like a gigantic nitpicker), if you choose to be a war veteran the game says in the intro that you sometimes have nightmares that make you wake up screaming. Perhaps you can have an episode like this while sleeping next to your love interest? :slight_smile:

@andymwhy Thanks, it’s good to be back. The break did me good anyway, as I’ve got a fair chunk done today.

@Bikkje Hehe. Suggestions made to add depth and variety to the story is never “nitpicking” in my view–especially where it follows on from a specific background as I will eventually need quite a few of those for each one. I like this one, thanks. :slight_smile:

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YESSSSSSSSS!

Glad to have you back, we all need a break now and then.

A system in which stat increases are gradual and realistic rather than just making a choice and then being good at something? Capital! The unique events depending on your background and what you choose to do in your freetime seem like they’ll add a lot of replayability.

Perhaps they can also allow for some character development, both for the protagonist and the side characters, something along the lines of recieving aiming lessons from Mangano if you’re in his good graces, or Dino introducing you to some street contacts he’s familiar with if you’re amicable with him. But you have enough on your plate as it is, and I haven’t the foggiest how much harder that would make the already tricky sounding programming.

Really excellent work so far, it puts my own attempts to shame (but is providing me with plenty of inspiration to make improvements). It seems like there are some really interesting choices to make, and the initial plot is intriguing.

If I can make one observation - early on, when you think you are being followed, I did find it jarring that your character doesn’t make the connection between his sister and the kitten club and the person following him. Other than that though, really enjoyable and I hope to see more from you soon!

Can’t wait to play the next parts

Yes! @Vendetta thank you for deciding to take this back up! This honestly has made my night!

@Vendetta Never leave me again <33333

Thanks everyone, I’m happy to be back. :slight_smile:

@13ventrm My hope is that the “only-gradual” stats changes for a while also heighten the importance of your choice of starting background / initial stats, and thereby perhaps also serve to better define each one. As always, replayability is the most important overall design criteria. To my way of looking at it, so much time and effort is invested in one of these things that it would be a crying shame if a typical player did not immediately feel the urge to “try again” (and again, and . . .) purely for lack of sufficient variety; of different things to try or different ways to develop your character each time. That, to me, is the Holy Grail of multiple choice game design . . . but, I admit, it’s a tall order!

I like your ideas as they are very pertinent to those particular characters, and especially because it would help to build character relationships in more “everyday” scenes rather than always as accomplices “on a job”. Any suggestions along these lines are particularly welcome.

@bawpie I’m really, really pleased that you find it inspirational. I played just about all the available games before even sitting down to write my own, and I still often check up on what others are doing just to help fuel my own creativity. I find myself trying to emulate the atmospheric depth of such as Vampire and the terrific plot pacing of the likes of Zombie Exodus, while at the same time aiming to develop a unique style of my own and trying to come up with some new ideas to broaden the scope of what can be achieved with ChoiceScript. It’s a continual learning experience in more ways than one. :smiley:

Your point about the Kitten Club mention is well taken. One of the earliest scenes I wrote, I had it in mind that your character was pretending he had never heard of the place, just to see what the man volunteered on the subject. However, under closer inspection, that is not really how it comes across at all, resulting instead in that jarring first impression you mention. I’ll definitely take another look at that scene before the next update (and one or two others, while I’m about it!)–many thanks for pointing it out.

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Very glad to see you’ve decided to keep going with this project- as regards your desire for the player to feel as if they would want to retry the game so as to experience different paths, I’ve already played through chapter one with each background at least a few times just to see what various things I can see. I think you’ve succeeded in this already, although I’m not sure if I’d be a good model for the ‘typical player’.

Thrilled to hear this project is back on. Can’t wait to see the next chapter!

Hm, well for raising the coglioni stat I can picture playing five fingered fillet with Dino and the boys if you’re with them, participating in a prize fight if you’re with Chuck, or trying some new type of potentially dangerous brew Mangano’s come up with if you’re with him. I’ll get back to you when I think up some stuff for raising the others stats with the characters.

With War Vet he could have moment of shell shock, as personal even and nightmare. College Grad would have sided project of starting school, Businessman could be start is own company. Poltical bagman because alderman of Hell KitchenN Union orgizner a rise to be Union Boss or rep.

@Vendetta I’m so glad to see that you’ve resumed the game, and I’m excited to play Chapter 2!

@cheeetar Well, that’s certainly a weight off my mind about the possibility of any lingering minor bugs in Chapter One–if there had been any, you would’ve found them! Hehe. I’m not sure it would be practical to continue doing that as the story grows, but if you do ever spot anything a little ‘odd’ (doesn’t even have to be an actual bug) please don’t hesitate to mention it.

@13ventrm & @Rogar Thanks guys, thought-provoking stuff.

We’ve a lot of ground to cover to flesh out the game in future chapters, so if anyone has any rough ideas for particular scenarios or situations–ones you would find especially interesting–now would be a good time to mention it. While the skeletons of the main storylines have been plotted all the way to the end, through the next nine chapters, adding more variety and occasional new sub plots is a very high priority.

@Luxtizer & @A_Money Thanks guys, appreciated. :slight_smile:

Political bagman could have to deal with an election maybe play two parties against each other or even set up their own party.

Maybe the college grad/war vet can have some kind of reunion party with their former classmates/comrades as a weekly event which boost their contact and/or streetwise?