Voltaic | See Post #311

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#1

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Fight against your own mind to save your friends! After surviving a terrifying electrocution accident, you must correct the course of reality to prevent your friends from disappearing. Will you maintain their personalities and restore order, or rewrite their behavior to satisfy your own desires?

  • Play as male, female, or non-binary; gay, straight, bi, queer, or asexual.
  • Rewrite reality to benefit yourself or correct the anomalies to save your friends.
  • Raise your friends’ spirits, avoid social interaction, or tear the group apart.
  • Rebuild a broken friendship or burn the bridge to ashes.
  • Have some fun with a shy goth girl, a flirty underclassman jock or your closest friend.
  • Help your closest friend get the guy, steal his crush for yourself, or steal him for yourself.

DEMO

Hey there! Thanks for stopping by! This is a “memorial” topic for the unfinished interactive version of Voltaic. On Dec. 11th, 2020, I decided that I no longer wanted to work on Voltaic as an interactive fiction piece. The demo you will play (or just played) will not be completed in this form. Instead, it’ll become a linear book that I’ll self-publish.

The link will be posted here once I finish it. :slight_smile:

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#2

It’s finally here. :smiley:

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#3

#Oliviafor Romance!!!

Make it happen! Woot Woot!

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#4

Hey so could you tell me what “gyne” means?
I’m curious and the only thing I found with google was gynecologist and I’m assuming that’s not what you mean.

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#5

I’m interested to see what happens!

There’s not much to go on yet as far as characters. I’m always a bit wary when there are a bunch of pre-existing relationships, but I assume we’ll have some say in, e.g., what actually went down with Madison? My one comment is about Adrian. My first impression was him low key gossiping about Sabrina’s abuse home life, which was Not Great (but accurate to character, I guess?).

As far as plot goes…if we choose to rewrite our friends’ personalities, is that gonna have repercussions? Because it seems like a pretty garbage thing to do.

Bug? There are a couple lines that seem to imply the MC is female, even if you tell Sabrina otherwise. I said I was nonbinary.

  • Adrian’s journal entry – " I mean, he gets along well with pretty much everyone, but especially us girls"

  • “You haven’t even introduced yourself!” Olivia protests. “Come on. Max, Sabrina, you gals too.”

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#6

It’s short for “gynesexual.” It’s a term I took from here that’s used to describe an attraction to women/females/femininity for non-binary identities (straight and lesbian both imply a gender for the person in question). “Andro” is “androsexual,” which is an attraction to men/males/masculinity.

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#7

Sooo

poke

what are the chance for Olivian romance? my ex Madison to be all clingy inside but kicking me outside? and me making the two guys hook up…after they get drunk…and Sabrina…hum…Triangle romance with Olivia?..lol…Ohh…and werewolf…in the wood who steal our booze…lol…Oh and Jordan stealing the illegal stuff and blaming us for it…I can just see it happen!!! That bastard!!!

shrug…I’m just saying…Smoochies are important…y’know…like oxygene :smirk:

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#8

1.) The event that ruined the friendship between MC and Madison is pre-determined, but you will have the ability to fix the friendship or ruin it further. You can also either be friends with everyone else or ruin those relationships as well.
2.) That’s totally in-character for Adrian. Maybe I didn’t make it obvious enough, but he lives for drama and gossip. He also has questionable morals.
3.) I think it best not to spoil what happens when their personalities are re-written. :wink:
4.) Thank you for catching the bugs! Those are a leftover from when I was writing the game with a preset genderlocked protagonist. I will fix those on the next update.

If enough people request an Olivia romance, I’ll look into adding it. Your ideas are certainly interesting haha.

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#9

well I’m a sucker for smoochie lol My empire for Smoochie!

ahem…but…I would suggest writing a bit more to the story for…solid feedback . cose as it is , we dont have much of a background . Its just a group of peoples meeting up somewhere near the wood…one of them is angry and antsy to drink herself into oblivion…one is the mediator of the group…one is a comic guy who wanna play match maker…there is a goth girl…who is nervous and have a secret…there is the jock coming with an ass of a friend of his…

So…you know…need MOAR…:sweat_smile:

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#10

Yeah, no, that was pretty clear! To me, it seemed more deeply personal than, like, juicy gossip about someone we barely know, but I’ll admit that I’m not a gossip/drama lover. On that note, though, if we make a super shy or conciliatory MC, is there some explanation for our friendship? This seems like a High Drama group (which makes sense, for story!), so if the MC seems like a bad fit, is that addressed? (Especially since Adrian is set as our best friend. Like, it might make sense for some folks to be closer to Olivia than Adrian at the start? But obviously you have a better sense of characters/history/where things are going than me!)

Hahaha fair! Definitely wasn’t fishing or anything :slight_smile:

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#11

The point about Sabrina’s life being personal is a good one. I may look at that section again to see if I can make Adrian handle it with a bit more delicacy while still getting the intention across. I like your suggestion for the peaceful MC and I can definitely look into making the peaceful MC a bit closer to Olivia. That’s also an avenue to introduce tension between the MC and Adrian beyond relationship drama, so thank you!

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#12

This is a good beginning and I liked how the other characters were introduced in the story (Sabrina :heart_eyes:)

And I just checked out the stats screen and I was very impressed by the character portraits. I liked the design of it.

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#13

I haven’t finished playing the demo yet, but it’s an interesting concept, for sure. The portraits are cool, made me realize Adrian is my type :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

I just paused reading to note a couple things that made me uncomfortable. They bothered me enough I didn’t want to wait until I finished

Summary

Is it possible to just… not hug Sabrina? It feels like the only others options available are flirting or being kind of a dick and when I choose what I thought was a normal, friendly response, my MC suddenly hugs her and it’s kinda… yikes.
One, because I don’t hug people anyway. And two, she doesn’t seem like a hugger herself and since I can relate, I don’t want to be on the side of touching people without their permission, especially when they clearly aren’t that cool with it. The narrative even points out that MC probably shouldn’t have done that and that makes me feel even more gross about it. Not only do I not like games taking control away to make the MC do not-okay things but I don’t like when they try to make me feel bad for my MC performing an action completely outside of my control

And on Sabrina again, it sort of feels like she’s being pushed onto me, like romantically? The narrative tries to insist Adrian just wants me to be her friend, but dialogue both in and out of choices suggest he’s trying to set us up. (one of the choices when we choose how to feel about her- which is also an awkward time because I don’t know a thing about her even if the MC does and thus have no opinion- is literally asking if he’s trying to set us up and the dialogue after I chose the neutral “only met briefly” option, the MC even points out it sounds like he’s trying to sell him on a date with her) Which is uncomfortable because I’d really rather my MC be gay, if given the choice. :sweat_smile:

Also not uncomfortable but something I just noticed. I chose the quiet, “yeah pretty lame” option when Sabrina talks about the pep rally and it suddenly says “Adrian shakes his head at you, silently chastising you for even bringing that up.” I… didn’t lol? She did??

Olivia even glared at me. What did I do??? Sorry for being awkward with people I don’t know well?? :rofl:

And not related to that, think you could add saves? Those are pretty helpful for exploring options without having to start over again and again.

11 Likes
#14

This really isn’t that important and if it’s already been stated I apologize because I didn’t see it but, what country does this take place in or is it your own world? Just curious. Also, how heavily will our stats affect our friends outlook on us, like is being a firebrander gonna make everyone besides Adrian hate us?

#15

1.) The hugging is a totally valid point, I can definitely remove that. I hadn’t considered non-huggers when writing that choice.
2.) Adrian pushing Sabrina on you is 100% intentional. It’s relevant to the plot - he’s doing it to get something that he wants (and no, what he wants isn’t for Sabrina and MC to get together). Would you feel better if you had an option to say that you aren’t really into girls, or that you aren’t looking to hookup?
3.) Thank you for pointing out those issues with “yeah, pretty lame” dialogue option. I thought I’d made it clear with the “as if you somehow caused this” text that she was blaming MC but had no right to, but that probably didn’t read well. And Adrian’s reaction only makes sense if you choose the “FYI” option, so I’ll fix both of those. (The struggles of reusing text)
4.) I thought I did add saving, so I’ll check the files again.

It takes place in the U.S.! Stats will have more effects later in the game. It will primarily start to block off choices if one of them gets really high (like if you have a high Firebrand stat, some peacemaking options will get blocked off because it’s out-of-character). Additionally, characters may perceive some actions as not genuine if they go against a certain stat.

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#16

That makes sense, It explains why I couldn’t try and calm everyone down when meeting Jordan. I was kinda being more of a drama queen than Adrian and Madison combined lol.

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#17

I figured he was trying to push her on me for some reason or another, so that wasn’t really the issue. An option to say I’m not into girls would be cool, but I think I was able to tell Sabrina herself later (to an unrelated topic but still) that I’m not looking for a hookup. I suppose my issue was more about authorial intent. Like the narrative itself was trying to push me towards her in a romantic way despite me saying no, which has happened with some games and that’s why I brought it up. :sweat_smile:

Actually, it does. At least in my opinion. It just didn’t at the time because of the error before it, which just made me feel like I was being ganged up on for no reason lol.

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#18

I just looked over pretty much all of the Sabrina scenes, and I did notice a few spots where the narration could be interpreted as pushing a romantic relationship with her, so I’ll fix those. Overall, though, I didn’t really get a sense that there was an bias towards her. Is there any specific scenes/text/choices that seem to indicate a narrative bias towards her, or made you feel like the game was ignoring your choices in regards to your lack of romantic interest in her?

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#19

I’m really intrigued as to how this whole rewriting stuff is gonna happen so I’m definitely looking forward for more! The character portraits are really cool and I love it!

Summary

I tried playing every options (male, female, and nonbinary) just to see the character portraits and I’m just wondering, is there a reason why male and nonbinary mcs are white while female mcs are mixed? Or will we be able to change that? I like playing as my own nationality everytime there’s an option to do so! Seeing as how there’s already a portrait set for the MC, is character customization out of the picture?

Also it has already been mentioned so I won’t go any further but the game does imply we’re female when I play as male and nonbinary.

I like Adrian maybe because I also live for the drama (although not in a way I actively seek it or encourage it! I’m too passive for that) and also he’s cute. As cliché as it is, I’m also a sucker for the best friends to lovers trope sooo… is he an RO? (for a male or nonbinary mc since he’s gay according to our character bio?) I feel like he’s into Carlton but hey! That’s not enough to stop me until confirmed otherwise that there’s no way he could be an RO! And there’s this rewriting their personalities or maybe Just Maybe the object of their desires, which is awfully twisted (but totally interesting, we got so much power here?? I cannot wait to see how this works), so I’m hoping we get a chance.

During that part where Adrian’s talking to us about Sabrina I feel like maybe we should have an option reminding him (assuming that he knows since he’s our closest friend and we have told them everything) that he knows full well we don’t swing that way? And maybe an option to subtly (or Not) flirt with him or hint him that I might be into someone else (Him!!!)

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#20

I’m looking forward to where this story goes. The synopsis is super interesting, too bad the demo ended just as it was getting good :persevere: I’ll definitely be hanging on for this one!
(This gives me super strong Until Dawn vibes ngl, just without the wendigos… I hope :sweat:)

I can vaguely recall enjoying MC’s rapport with Mike in your last WIP and I love the character interactions in this one! I’m especially drawn to Madison and Jordan simply for how standoffish and anti-social they come across. There’s no chance I’m making up with Madison, though. Nothing better than some tension to spice up the group dynamic :triumph: Jordan on the other hand…

I also let Adrian choose whether or not he stayed so I didn’t get much of his character. Was that a mistake? Probably :pensive:

I’d prefer it if there were a choice to determine our sexuality though, just so Adrian wouldn’t have to go through the trouble of making hints about Sabrina when there’s less than nothing there, bless him.

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