@fantom Actually, I believe Tin Star is well over 1mil in total, which is a tremendous undertaking and unlikely to be topped by Vendetta (or any other game in the foreseeable!). Then again, Allen is not only the most prolific writer hereabouts, he’s also one of the most gifted - Marine Raider was just an early effort of his, but it’s the one that introduced me to ChoiceScript so I’ve always thought fondly of it even though every subsequent release has been another step up.
Yes, Tin Star was 1.3 ml words I believe.
@vendetta Wow 900k words? Haven’t seen anything that long for a while here. Like I said before your writing is good and the plot is very interesting and different.
@Vendetta Forgive me if you have already explained this feature (or if it is a closely guarded secret), but how do you code the Weekly Events in order for them to be so, you know, weekly? I would like to implement a similar system in the gamebook on the gamebook I am working on and it would save me a lot of time and energy to have an understanding of the system you use, but I understand if you would prefer for me to figure it out on my own.
@jcury The main problem is the nine backgrounds, tbh. In hindsight, I should probably have written the ‘basic’ game from the perspective of one background (probably Street Gang Leader) and then released each of the others in turn as separate updates. That way each one would’ve had their ‘own story’ threaded throughout the main one, sometimes with unique scenes and sometimes with scenes shared with one or two other backgrounds. Each additional background / release would’ve enriched the game world quite substantially, instead of the rather stuttering, occasional background-specific mention we currently have… Oh well, we live & learn - then again, I suppose it’s never too late. 
@initdoby5 It’s no big secret, I’m happy to share the basic idea I had to devise to suit what I wanted to achieve with the game. It’s actually a lot simpler than it may appear!
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The game flow is entirely controlled using the specific *goto_scene command. There’s not a single *finish command in Vendetta.
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There’s just a single ‘intermission’ style file for Weekly Events, so at the end of each & every Week in the game it uses *goto_scene to load that exact same file. All ‘Weekly Events’ stuff takes place in this single file.
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Similarly, each Week in the game has its own separate scene file (although the first - Demo - week has two files, simply because it’s around 70k word count in total so it loads faster broken down into two files). Although it varies a little (based on such as background, previous choices made, etc.) mostly each Week in the game - after the first, anyway! - is roughly similar in story length.
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Crucially, each time it loads the ‘intermission’ file at the end of a Week, it adds +1 to a ‘weekly_count’ variable. This way it always knows exactly which Week it’s on.
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After doing its ‘Weekly Events’ stuff, at the end of the intermission file there’s a redirection section, which uses the current ‘weekly_count’ to *goto_scene a specific week number scene file (i.e. the next, new week in the game).
HTH. If you have any trouble getting something similar to work properly, feel free to drop me a PM as I’d be happy to help smooth out the kinks.
@Vendetta Now that you describe it, it doesn’t seem that hard at all. That being said, it would have taken me a while to come up with a solution. Thanks for sharing your not-secret with me.
@initdoby5 You’re welcome. 
@Vendetta Well maybe you can still do that, like make it in to a series and make 2-3 parts. It would continue from where you left off, like if a mob boss or a political figure or a street thug.
@jcury I do fully intend to a do a follow-up one day - ‘Vendetta 2: Rise of a Mob Boss’ - based around the rise of the early Mafia, but other than having already made extensive notes on the subject, that’s really still just a twinkle in my eye.
I really don’t want to break down Vendetta #1 itself into multiple parts - or at least not successive ones - as the story it contains is a whole, with a start, a middle, and a definite ending. I may however use the playtest to try out some different ideas though, and see what people think. Focusing on one background at a time, for instance, holds definite appeal for me, with each one threaded differently throughout the main story. It would add so much more to the whole thing over time - perhaps a year or two in total - while also allowing for staged releases throughout that time. Quite a challenge though, but it sure would be fun to do.
@ Vendetta, then I’m glad you made the backgrounds as they are because as cool as it sounds having nine quite different games I do think knowing all the backgrounds as I do now the street gang leader is possibly the most boring of them all.
Then again even with only the street gang leader background the game would still be excellent but as it stands I favour the College kid background.
And now, to play this game!
Just some background. I started Life of a Mobster for Nanowrimo of last year. So, that means that I started putting together lots of notes through October and then started into it full blast for November.
And then, lo’ and behold, Vendetta: Rise of a Gangster appeared after a very long absence! I never played it during its first run and didn’t even know it existed.
The first thing I did was change the name (my original title was Life of a Gangster), the second was, I promised myself to never play this game or even look into this thread until mine was finished. With Life of a Mobster now complete and handed in, I can finally play it.
A few similarities, like respect, heat and rackets; which shouldn’t be surprising, since it’s the same general topic. But that’s about it. I’m happy to see that it’s VERY different. The biggest difference being the time frame. Mine takes place present day, this one in the 20s. Also, the writing style. Mine has some of the same terseness that Life of a Wizard had, but Vendetta is very story based.
Great job, @vendetta, I love it!
I meant something based off the background. I.e the college grad could end up helping his old college buddies with some trouble or the political bagman could have to deal with a new contender for Hugh Scanlans political power.
@Lucid I appreciate you taking the time to post here on the subject of similar game themes. FWIW, I’m sure my suddenly resuming Vendetta development after a ten-month hiatus came as something of a surprise (after all, not many WIPs come back from the dead!), and I’m glad it didn’t adversely affect your own plans. There are plenty of fantasy games hereabouts, why not more than one crime game?
Likewise, certain similarities - like those you mention - would be pretty hard to avoid given our shared basic theme… I really don’t see that as a problem either. Add to this our very different writing styles, it goes without saying that I wish Life of a Mobster every success: I will of course be doing my bit to help promote it out there - as I did for our distant cousin, NOLA is Burning…
It’s not personal, it’s business. 
@idonotlikeusernames It’s a fair point - different backgrounds appeal to different players for their own reasons - but you’ve also highlighted the main reason behind my ‘wishful thinking’ here: with so many backgrounds vying for space in the story, what we’ve ended up with is really just a pale shadow of the potential each one offered. For instance, I can’t help wondering if you’d have a better impression of the Street Gang Leader if that whole background had been better fleshed out throughout the main story, with plotlines, situations and characters unique (and in some ways, better suited) to itself.
Hmm. In fact, let’s pose that as a general question to anyone who’s ever played and enjoyed Vendetta (and who still reads this!). Imagine for one moment that there’d never been any mention of other Backgrounds (except perhaps as a vague, future expansion possibility), and instead the whole ‘Ex-Street Gang Leader’ thing took on more prominence throughout the story. How much, and in what way(s), would this have affected your impression of the game?
Brutal honesty would be appreciated.
New page, same info:
Demo: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/82562041/web/vendetta1/index.html
WIP Games Hub: http://choicescriptdev.wikia.com/wiki/Vendetta:_Rise_of_a_Gangster
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Rise.of.a.Gangster
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/vendetta_game
I would still have enjoyed it. However, I prefer the multiple backgrounds. In what I played so far each backgrounds tend to have their own spin on some of the scenes which increases the replayability. I think carry on as you are then have one part which varies depending on the background (maybe inbetween the main plot have a chapter devoted to a background story - like that war one or the political one I suggested.
However I wouldn’t say no to Vendetta originally having 3 backgrounds then paying for the other 6 in an upgrade bundle.
For example…
[Vendetta: Rise of a Gangster ] - Ex-street gang leader, College Student, Convict.
[Vendetta: Payback bundle] - Black Hand, Veteran, Ex-cop.
[Vendetta: White collar bundle] - Union Rep, Business man, Political Bagman.
Maybe throw in a new weapon with each bundle too?
The answer is that it’d look much like Chapter 1 does now. Chapter 1, regardless of the background you picked, is really heavily linked to stuff about the Hellions, and the reason that the Street Gang Leader looks boring is that every path still starts off with a lot of Hellions business.
Personally, I think that too much focus on that, specifically, would dilute the game, and I think there should be less focus on the backgrounds rather than more. The thing is that all of the backgrounds dovetail into one trajectory: your path to becoming a mob boss.
Imagine the game focusing on your past as a College Graduate. Why the hell should other gangsters care about your motherfuckin’ diploma? People like Russo and Mangano, what they gonna care about is that you came back home knowin’ how to run a racket and keep dumbasses like Dino pointed in the right direction. Likewise, the Hellions are kinda small time and most of the people you ran with are now runnin’ bigger things. You’ve attracted the eye of the Ginellis, and by the end of Chapter 2, you’re the boss of Navy Street, even if you told Mangano to take a hike, even if you didn’t ask for the job. With that kind of status and income, why the hell are you wastin’ time with the Hellions, except maybe to use 'em as muscle on bigger stuff?
I totally agree that there is room for a few of each genre.
Personally, I don’t care for IAP, although financially, they may be lucrative.
After playing the Demo, I came up with three comments:
-Famous names: You may need to remove the famous names before publication. Soprano, Corleone, etc.
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You have Scene End throughout. I use *goto_scene instead of *finish, and then include renamed *page_break. I think it looks nice to have a consistent Next or a personalized “Later that night” than Scene End.
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Morgue Save after name choosing. I got shot, then had to rename myself. Placing the checkpoint just after the naming might be less redundant to us accident prone players.
Just some thoughts. I like to help out when I read a person’s game for free. In my mind, it’s like my payment.
Great game! I look forward to seeing its release.
@Nocturnal_Stillness: I was answering @Vendetta’s question, not your comment, though I am definitely not in favor of IAPs to buy an extra scene for each background.
The background choice, as I understand it, is intended to be “Dragon Age: Origins,” not nine separate games. I’d like to keep it to the former.
Oh sorry. I thought part was in reply to my post. My apologies.
How about removing the rape option? I don’t think authors necessarily have to shy away from subject matter like that, but you haven’t handled it in any way meaningful. It’s just there and it’s gross.
Now that I think about it more, this entire demo is extremely distasteful. It’s like you missed the entire point of the “mobster genre”. The Godfather, The Sopranos, Goodfellas; these are all tragedies. Your game, so far, is all about glorifying violence and misogyny. Why is every female character a prostitute? Even in games like grand theft auto they try to at least shoehorn some morality into it. It looks like you’re just making a psychopath simulator. I’ll pass on this one.
@friendzone
Did you even read the same demo?
There’s no “rape option” that I can recall…?
Besides, try following the age old golden rule: if you don’t like it and have nothing nice (or more to the point, constructive) to say about something, don’t say anything at all (i.e. please politely refrain from posting).
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