JUST starting to knock around ideas for

[lamont Sanford]

skank patrol is a hell of a name

haha yeah, will prob go back to that next after this one.

[Shepard]

BTW... Are we going to see more of Mae (the asian girl from the nightclub) in this sequel?

[lamont Sanford]

BTW... Are we going to see more of Mae (the asian girl from the nightclub) in this sequel?

Was not planning on it but anything is possible. The details of the game have not even began to be thought of at this point to be honest just the broad strokes. One thing that I def plan on putting in the game is sound though...that is 100% happening (unless it becomes a problem somehow).

[ltpika]

I thought the last game needed scenes with all the girls teased, beyond the party foreplay. Perhaps not realistic but a genre expectation that should be addressed. Really wanted some angry sex with Ivy. Always like the "snooty girl who likes you but antagonizes you until you ravish her" trope. Like the swimming girl in Pervert Action Crisis "Ugh, if you want to rape me properly..."

[max.planck69]

Sometime lurker; first-time poster.

Re: Peril. Enjoyable game, although I could have done without the somewhat irrelevant alien plotline. Dates with Emily, in particular, were hot hot. And, of course, the hidden material was voluminous and well-executed.

If you seek to make a non-sequel with the same characters, the "it was all a dream" explanation--cue Becky with a cucumber, hair brush, coke bottle, and small dog--is an oldie-but-goodie. If the characters and setting stay somewhat the same, I have a few suggestions regarding what to explore in said non-sequel.

(1) Why is Pleasantville so damn seedy? Sure, many towns, particularly military towns, have "bad sides" and "good sides," but Pleasantville has a rather comprehensive drug dealer, strip club, seedy motel, massage parlor as prostitution front, group of moonshiners, and hidden, Russian-mob-run brothel. Who is running all this stuff? To whom does the money flow? Perhaps the money that built Samantha and Olivia's big, gated house isn't the cleanest... And Contessa, is there a mob connection there?

(2) Perhaps I'm just pining after more School Dreams, but... more threesomes! Katie doesn't seem the particularly jealous type, considering the possible ecstasy-fueled threesome with Olivia. Perhaps one could explore having Katie around as a partner rather than as a girlfriend to be cheated on and/or jettisoned? Granted, you would have to write double the interactions with just about every sexually-available character, but isn't that just double the fun?

(3) What other kinky stuff does Ms. Johnson get up to? Seriously, I want to know--that scene in the hotel was hot. Indeed, I rather enjoy the extra layer of parental interactions, perhaps even between the PC's parents and Ms. Johnson? There seems to be gossip, and where there's gossip...

Just some ideas.

[ExLibris]

One thing I would like to see in any hypothetical sequel is the PC's choices having consequences. It always seemed odd to me (especially compared to SD3) that the PC could date Contessa or Emily without affecting anything else. You can completely ignore Katie through the whole of the game and still end up with her at the end (along with Becky, who you barely interact with either).

How big is the town of Pleasantville intended to be? The problem with representing a town with a contiguous map is that it always feels too small. The town in Meteor is even worse, as it consists of a hotel, park and a couple of houses but is somehow big enough to support two universities. I suspect that's why (as the poster above me noted) Pleasantville's bad side seems so extensive. It occupies a large proportion of the game map, but probably a small proportion of the actual town.

Granted, you would have to write double the interactions with just about every sexually-available character, but isn't that just double the fun?

Actually, a three-person scene has three times as many interactions as a two-person scene, and a four-person scene has twelve times as many. This is why cut scenes are so attractive for authors.

the "it was all a dream" explanation

Personally, I'd be very much against this. Goblinboy did it with SD2 because the game wasn't working out as he'd hoped and, while he wanted to release it rather than wasting all the work he'd done on it, he didn't want it to be in continuity. Frankly, if retconning the first game is required to make the sequel easier to write I think you'd be better off just writing a brand new game. You might get away with retconning away everything that happens after day 5 (ie. mainly the alien plot) as a fantasy/dream of the PC, but it would still be a bit iffy in my opinion (especially since the alien plot is heavily foreshadowed prior to that).

[lamont Sanford]

Plodding along ...but at least I finally started.

[ZaphodB]

This is good news. I think the point about any works of fiction is that you have to remember what you get is highlights so the poster who complained about the town being too seedy forgets the fact that non-seedy parts are left out because they are irrelevant. Take Bourne, you only see highlights from his life you don't see him settling down doing the shopping, going fishing etc. Or GTA you can only enter buildings where something might happen. I could show several seedy areas of my town, but most people don't even know they're there or ignore them, but the character in these games we play tend to be fairly keen on sex and/or sleaze so just roll with it.

I think it's a bit of a shame Olivia changed as I liked her and Samantha as they were, and that dark haired girl (Ivy?) who was the gf of another character she was really hot. Even though I may be contradicting another post I made I guess the problem wasn't so much that the alien story was there more that it should have been more integrated. If for instance the departed Maggie and the PC were part of a UFO club and met up each evening after school then it might have helped. Also any chance of more celebrity visits :-)

All the best - if you want any help testing etc. just let me know.

[lamont Sanford]

Testing will be a long way off I am still in the first steps of doing the game and have yet to decide on how the games going to go. I will def keep you in mind when the call goes out for playtesting. Also re: the promo pic..that is not set in stone, so there may be (probably will be) changes from that pic. As far as the game goes. I am kinda stuck in the mud getting going so far but once I decide a direction things should start moving along.

[TheBrain]

Just caught up on this thread, I'll add some of my thoughts.

First of all I tend to agree with ExLibris that I don't a clear reason for this to be a sequel. This was one of my first thoughts about Peril in Pleasantville (let's call it PIP :P), since it's based on Goblinboy's School Dreams universe, but both the physical appearance and the character development is so different that the whole connection seems very vague. I think continuing with that is not a good choice.
Rather, why not start fresh? You have the character models already, they don't look anything like your previous game, so nobody will go like "but this was Katie!" or something. You can develop unique characters without being confined to anything. And I think you should really ask yourself why a certain character is in the game, what their purpose is, do they contribute to the story, etc. For example, in PIP I thought a character like Contessa was really underdeveloped and completely separated from everything else, and yet took up the spot as a "dateable" girl. Besides the few sex scenes with her she could've been removed without any consequences.
If you take a look at SD3 (or Meteor for that matter) you can quite easily see the necessity of some characters. In SD3, Molly and Becky were the main love interests (and had the most sex scenes because of it). Melissa essentially was the "fail condition", even if you screwed up you would have her at the party. Alison was quite a secondary character, but vital to the development of the plot. And then there's the rest of the characters who are more there to add substance, some bonus content if you will, but even then there's some who have some effect on the plot (the girl at the cinema, Charlotte optionally provides money, etc.).

Secondly, I think you should really consider what size of game you are aiming for. PIP felt quite empty: there's a lot of locations with nothing there; there are quite some characters, but little interaction options; and there's a lot of time with nothing to do. I'd rather see a smaller game that's well executed, than a larger game that just feels empty. And on that note, a smaller game with some replayability is probably also better than a larger game that you can only play once.
I disagree with ExLibris on the size of the town. For example I think Meteor had the size of the town spot-on, compared to the scope of the game. I personally never thought the town in Meteor to be small. But even then, you need to make concessions when it comes to gameplay. Getting around easily and intuitively is way more important than the actual size of the town (for example, in Meteor you just go south from your house to get to the college). Once again it's a matter of asking whether a location is really necessary, and whether the paths the player takes a lot are convenient. In PIP getting to your girlfriend was something like w,w,w,s,s,s,e,n? That's not convenient...

Thirdly, IF you do a story like the aliens in PIP, make sure it interweaves with the rest of the game. For a player, making choices that matter is important. For example if on day one you don't investigate whatever storyline there is and instead go on a date, then the story may escalate and prevent you from going on a date the next day. Stuff like that will make playing much more interesting and make the story part of everything the player does.

Finally there's just the stuff I already mentioned about your other games, mainly time management was a big issue..

[lamont Sanford]

Thanks for the feedback.

[ZaphodB]

I may be second guessing Lamont here but having gone to the trouble of creating characters for PIP which was after all and fantastic effort for a first game then he is quite entitled to develop them, which I'm sure he will, for a new game. Goblinboy is on what number of Gift of Phallus now? SD3 (if we ignore SD2) used the same characters as SD. I agree I never felt Meteor's town was too small because it didn't have redundant locations of which there were 1or 2 in PIP (or seemed that way if you weren't there at the right time) but these could easily be filled in for a sequel.

One of the things that worries me about creating a game is I'd have to get someone else to do the art (know quite a few GAs but given the type of game I'm likely to write I better not get them involved) but would still want some creative control over it. The RAGS games which use models are fine but I much prefer the artwork in Lamont's and Goblinboy's games.

[lamont Sanford]

One of the things that worries me about creating a game is I'd have to get someone else to do the art (know quite a few GAs but given the type of game I'm likely to write I better not get them involved) but would still want some creative control over it. The RAGS games which use models are fine but I much prefer the artwork in Lamont's and Goblinboy's games.

daz 3d is free and pretty easy to master. Also if you look hard enough you can get a lot of content for it without paying a cent..give it a look.

[ZaphodB]

daz 3d is free and pretty easy to master. Also if you look hard enough you can get a lot of content for it without paying a cent..give it a look.

Cheers

[ExLibris]

I may be second guessing Lamont here but having gone to the trouble of creating characters for PIP which was after all and fantastic effort for a first game then he is quite entitled to develop them, which I'm sure he will, for a new game. Goblinboy is on what number of Gift of Phallus now? SD3 (if we ignore SD2) used the same characters as SD. I agree I never felt Meteor's town was too small because it didn't have redundant locations of which there were 1or 2 in PIP (or seemed that way if you weren't there at the right time) but these could easily be filled in for a sequel.

Comparing PiP to the GoP series isn't exactly an apples to apples comparison. Goblinboy has written four GoP games, but none of the major characters appear in more than two of them (and they're mostly PCs, if memory serves). Additionally, the GoP games took place within the context of an over-arching plot (the war with the Valkin), and GoP2 ended on a cliffhanger that set up GoP3. By contrast, PiP is an entirely self-contained story. You could certainly do a sequel, but there's nothing about PiP that really requires one, and the fact that Goblinboy has done sequels to his games isn't really a justification either.

I didn't find the size of Meteor's map to be believable (or at least it didn't agree with my assumptions), but it was certainly playable which makes up for a lot. A smaller map has several advantages. It's easier on the player, and the smaller number of locations means that the author can spend more time developing each of them and making the gameworld seem believable. I personally prefer a travel system such as SD3 used, which gives the player the impression of living in a large town without forcing them to spend a dozen turns getting anywhere. However, given PiP's emphasis on the player stumbling across hidden content, I don't think either of those options would have been viable.