Found a game breaking error when selecting the hunting option as hobby.
FortAlden line 301: it is illegal to fall out of a choice statement; you must *goto or *finish before the end of the indented block.
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Thank you. I just patched it, will update files on cogdemos in the morning since the site is being slow.
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Yeah…
Until they die.
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Such is war exspecially with the type of combat we see in game thus far so enjoy while ya can for never know how long we may have.
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Huh, I thought it would at least be sergeant, since sergeants were the ones who took leadership roles if an officer dies (which happens alot during ww1), so I thought it would be a rank most suitable for a PC with high leadership
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I mean, we can plan as a freshly graduated student
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All crazy on the western front…
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Well, like I said it is definitely not final. A lot of it definitely depends on player feedback, so if players feel like this would be more enjoyable, I am totally not opposed to adding it in. I think the situation you’ve described would be very fun to play out.
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In regards to rank you could allways look at what you want the scope of the game to be and entail as well how long you imagine the game to last from your starting point to finishing point. Let’s say for instance you wish to keep it essentially to boots on the ground level then having it be as was suggested sergeant level could work. Or if you want it to grow to let’s say tactical level beyond our MCs immediate location at the later stages of the game then higher rank might help
At the end of the day its your story your trying to tell and there is no one way to tell such a story as this. The potential possibilitys are litterially vast and while not a issue right now scope creep can easily become a thing.
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Oh most definitely, and I really appreciate you mentioning that. I’m definitely keeping my scope in mind and doing my best not to overpromise and underdeliver. With my current workflow, I typically try to start smaller rather than grander, and build my way up and out.
Current plans are to keep this a boots on the ground sort of experience, telling the story of your average soldier. As it should be pretty obvious, this book is very much inspired by WW1 literary works such as All Quiet on the Western Front by Enrich Maria Remarque, The Fortress: The Great Siege of Przemysl by Alexander Watson, and Under Fire by Henri Barbusse.
As such, I want to keep the scope of this story relatively grounded and connected to the experience of the individual, and at least for now, focused on one area of the war.
There are so many stories that I could tell, and would love to tell within this setting, and hopefully one day I can, but for now, current plans are to keep things a bit more concentrated to one area, and give the player tons of choices and branches within it.
We’ll just have to wait and see how things go. I’m sure we all know how quickly WIPs can change with time.
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Wanted to pop in here to say I really loved the demo! Your novel-writing background definitely shows (in a great way). I feel like a lot of war IFs lean more towards text-based games than stories with some game elements, but this one definitely feels more like the latter which I love. And the writing is super polished too!
I did have a couple notes for things I’d love to see expanded/add though. (Spoilers)
First is definitely more of the MC’s thoughts/feelings/reactions. The actual quantity of choices for this actually felt pretty solid, I’d personally just like a little more depth. Otherwise the only thing I didn’t see that would be good to add, is reaction(s) to killing people for the first time. We react to seeing our first death in the trench but there wasn’t really anything for taking our first life.
Second is character interactions. It didn’t feel like there were enough of them, so I’ve struggled to get attached to anyone. Even Victor’s death didn’t really impact me (though that may be partially because I didn’t choose the best friend option and I accidentally spoiled his death for myself by reading the comments first). I want it to hurt whenever a named character dies.
Next is a small thing that could already be planned, but I’d like the option to become a smoker later if we chose non-smoker at the start. Like war drives us to start smoking.
Finally, will it be acknowledged by our allies if we’ve been racking up kills? Idk if it’s the same for everyone, but I feel like I’ve been killing people left and right as a sniper. I feel like an absolute badass, especially since it’s MCs first time seeing action, but it would be cool if someone else acknowledges the fact that someone dies basically every time we fire our gun.
Anyway, that’s all from me for now. Keep up the great work!
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Firstly, thank you very much for testing out the demo, and leaving such a through review. It genuinely helps me immensely to have such detailed suggestions and responses, and will only help this story become the best it can be.
On your first point: I will have to take a long look at what I have written so far and try to find more places/ways to interject choices and allow for more freedom of choice. In the most recent update I added over 10 examples of this, but I’m sure I could find more places for it. Were there any particular chapters in specific you felt could really use an overhaul of this?
Second point, about reactions to killing enemy soldiers: This is something I will fix today, and have pushed out in another update tonight most likely. I’ll admit, I got so caught up in writing the story I had completely forgotten to even add that in. My fault for jumping the gun on that, haha.
As far as character interactions go: Like I said for the first point, I’ll have to take a long look at the story so far and try to find more ways to allow you to interact with characters. In my original draft of chapter 2, there was an entire extra story section involving Davis. Having him show you around the trenches in more depth, sharing the meal that was described, and having some chats. I cut it as to not have the chapter go on for too long (as this extra part was at least another 15k words or so), but I will explore the possibility of adding it back and expanding it. I’ll do the same for Victor as you make great points surrounding him.
For the smoking option: That is planned, it is already written out/coded during chapter 3 and is something that is addressed early on. There are a few extra things in there as well, allowing you to pick options on how you’ve changed emotionally/mentally/physically over the course of the small timejump that will occur.
Final point: In short, yes. Later chapters have a huge expansion on interaction and relationship changes, and part of that will involve how they feel about your actions. In story text, characters you become closer with will definitely make it known if they do not like something you are doing (without spoilers you’ll definitely see examples of this in Ch3 and 4 in a great way).
Sorry for the lengthy response, but I believe it is only fair to everyone who reads/tests this to have absolute transparency on the work. Again, thank you very much for testing, and leaving a comment.
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While not fully about what previous poster talked about i got to thinking about something a moment ago so posting question here and feel free not to comment on if to spoilery and the like. Earlier in the story it mentions general Augustus whom is a freind of our father I believe and how he wanted to be the one to deliver the conscription notice but couldnt. An far as I recall has no mention of during g our training phase despite at that moment being stationed at the same fort. Now there could be any number of reasons for this lol and im not even asking for him to appear at that point of the story. My question however is will there be a opportunity with him at some point relatively early in the story or is that something that might happen to mid to later parts if at all?
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Short answer with no spoilers: Augustus will appear.
For spoiler reasons I will not state when or how, but he will make an appearance.
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Yeah he only existed to give MC a reality check about the hero concept in the war. Goes to show how quickly things can go wrong out there. His death more personal to the MC since they were together since the start so it hit differently despite seeing some of our squad kick the bucket earlier. He isn’t dead to me since I grab his tags so he’s essentially still with me despite his tragic end. Hope our new squad mates are good ones when we meet them.
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When you meet Victor, he introduces himself only via first name, but there is no option to respond in kind, only full name or last name.
Is there a different story path for each career path? That seems insanely ambitious
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That may have been an error on my part. I had written one in, but it may not have carried over to the most updated file on cogdemos.
As far as career paths go, yes there are different branching paths based on your career path, but I try to keep things fairly centralized as to not let it get too out of control. At the current stage of the demo, the role paths you can take have lots of overlap, primarily standing out with in-story flavor text, and some unique player choice options.
The actual responsibilities and tasks of each role will be expanded upon much further in later chapters, but for the current state of things I tried to keep things tight-knit since it is 1, early in the story, and 2, just a demo. I didn’t want to get too crazy and ambitious right out the gate, especially since this is my first ever IF.
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I think different roles allow you to do certain things that others can’t but its mostly the same story. The sniper can snipe the sniper who surprised attacked us for example while the others probably have to stay down. I can’t confirm it since I only played that role so far
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This is correct. Like I mentioned in another comment it is mostly just unique flavor for each role that will be expanded upon later in the story. I didn’t want to have things branch off too intensely for the demo. I’m still learning and getting better at choicescript as I write the story, so I never want to overpromise and underdeliver. Better to start small but sweet and expand out and improve as you go along than trying to create some massive, expansive project right out the gate.
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