[WIP] Future Cops (CH1 demo - updated 26.10)

Ah, your post didn’t show up until after I replied to the previous comments. I agree they/them/their would be the best option for the robots (if you choose the “other” option on the male/female/other screen the player’s pronouns get set to they/them/their as well so I can quickly recycle that code and apply it to Remus etc)
And yes, I should add more physical description (of just the robots? are the human NPCs description ok as they are now, or does everyone need to be described more?) I’m also considering having illustrations…

I personally would enjoy a better description, though illustrations are not necessary.

I think it might be kinda nice if it’d be possible to have the option to set the genders of npcs instead of having it randomized, kinda like how that Mecha Ace game allows you to set the npcs’ genders? For me at least, I get used to the NPCs being one way, and it can distract me if they’re suddenly different the next play through. If that’s too difficult though, I can suck it up :smile:

Ok, more description seems to be the general consensus so it shall go on my to-do list :smiley:

Hmm, maybe I can allow the option to customize the game for ‘experienced players’ a little (like npc gender, skip intro etc) if they prefer, like some other games (the one I can think of off the top of my head is like what Apex Patrol did) as an option right at the beginning?

@everyone who requested the they/it pronoun switch:
While I found it’s possible to change the robot pronouns quite simply based on a *gosub command, the problem is that “they/them/their” pronouns are technically ““plural”” while “it” is singular - as in, if I have “It says ____” then if it’s changed to ‘they’ it comes out as “they says _____” which is grammatically incorrect… the ‘s’ needs to be taken off the end. So I’m not really sure how to work around that :frowning:

I suppose a variable with the option “it says” or “they say” could be created but then I’d have to create a variable for every single word I use to describe the robot speaking…

Is there a common alternative to them/they/their pronouns that’s like… grammatically singular?

It’s just that if they’re supposed to blend in then making them androgynous is at cross purposes. Most people are at least concerned with a person’s sex and/or gender. It’s a huge part of our biology, and not surprisingly, culture. Lots of people will be made at least mildly uncomfortable by them if they’re specifically made to be androgynous because they’ll seem less like what they’re used to and comfortable with.

For the Scientist being a politician thing, I was just commenting on the fact that the political process right now is very anti-science. In the US at least you HAVE to be Christian (or at least pretend to be) to have any chance at all of being elected president. And having a poor knowledge of science makes you seem more personable to the masses. Gaining political office is about how well you can manipulate and deceive the public, not about any actual merits you have that would make you a good leader or decision maker. Having a scientist run for office was just funny to me because it’s something that would never happen these days. Or at least they wouldn’t make it to the point of being one of two possible choices, especially if they were female. Yeah… the political process is kinda sexist too. Combining ovaries with intelligence is usually a recipe for unpopularity.

Shoelip has a point here. and although you could argue that that is part of the reason that people is against them,it doesn’t make sense for their creators(who you have said are mainly pro-robotic) to want/let them have to overcome yet another obstacle in order to be accepted by human society.

@Shoelip, @AdamGoodtime, Oh, okay I kind of see what you mean then. If I said it looked like a male/female but kept the pronouns as it, would that make more sense?

Wow, I never know that you had to do that to run for president… I am kind of setting this fairly far in the future (a hundred years?) so I am kind of idealistically hoping there’s some more equality… in the future… Maybe I can switch the Humanist and Pro-Robot candidates genders? And instead of a doctor have some kind of rich benefactor who backed the AI process… idk? :\

None of that stuff is required by law. It’s just stuff that the public or at least the media seems to feel is very important. Changing the pro robot candidate to just some wealthy person rather than an actual scientist would probably make it seem a little more realistic though I think.

Ohh, I guess I misinterpreted that! XD
Yeah, obviously, public opinion is what decides the vote in the end… I think I will change the scientist to a wealthy person; we already have one scientist in the form of Dr. Zhao :stuck_out_tongue:

@enterprisi since it is charisma, technology, intelligence, a better description could be “community affairs offices” or “interrogator” or “negotiator”. Administrators can be rather uncharismatic.

@Shoelip but it’s the future! And everyone accepting a female scientist running for a top office points out the social progress quite well.

Hmm, the actual track is administrative, like ‘organizing the teams of people’ so charisma would need to be high for that, so you get along with them…? I dunno. Would a PR/HR kind of job be more suitable in that case?

It would. But if you don’t want to just hand wave it and say “Our problems are solved because it’s the future” then you kinda have to ask the question “How did this happen?”

1 Like

Well, I’ll try changing some of the stuff you suggested around to see if it makes more sense that way, probably updating the link once I finish the dinner scenes and the questions XD

Of course you can always just hand wave it. My initial comment was more a joke than anything else.

@enterprisi then what about leadership?

@Shoelip well, it’s just the beginning of chapter 1, and the focus of the game is the human/robots relation and not human attitudes towards other people. I don’t think that society becoming more progressive is something unbelieveable. Just look on how prejudice against women, non-whites and LGBTQ people decreased over the last years/decades.

There’s a big difference between more progressive and no one having prejudices though.

Who said that there are no prejudice at all? They probably exist but are small enough that s female scientist can expect to be elected. For example, Obama got elected and reelected, although there are people who can’t bear a black man in the white house. Fortunately they are too few to make a difference.

Sure, but Obama is the first president ever to not be a white male. Instead he’s a half white male, and he’s also half black… so he’s half each of the two biggest racial demographics in the country. I don’t really know whether people are more sexist or more racist, but that’s not really the biggest issue. He’s still a politician through and through, and that’s the real issue. That’s why I focused a lot more on the fact that she was a scientist and didn’t even mention her sex at first. Scientists don’t generally run for office in the first place because in general they are more interested in increasing knowledge than controlling it.

@WulfyK I just kind of lumped leadership skills into charisma, in fact charisma is kind of an umbrella term for the player’s like… likeability, people skills, leadership, that kind of thing XD Charisma is probably not the most accurate term for the stat, but I didn’t know what else to call it…

@Shoelip nah, what you said did make sense and it was good you pointed it out, I think changing it makes a bit more sense anyway. We’ll see how it turns out :smiley:
Also, Cassander Fitzroy is a great name for some rich moneybags person… :stuck_out_tongue:

Meh, I’m a Humanist. Dang Robots, Dang Oil-suckers pushing for robot rights.