BEW - Ongoing Dev Thread (DAZ Artists Still Wanted)

[ExLibris]

Having played through this game a few more times, I've come to the conclusion that I don't really like how the difficulty system is implemented.

I'm not a big fan of how difficulty is implemented in Tlaero & phreaky's games because it seems very artificial to me to have the game arbitrarily end at a certain point due to a metagame decision. However, I understand that some people will want to play at an easier difficulty initially, and it doesn't affect my own playing experience because I always pick Hard.

However, in this game although you need fewer points to progress on the easier levels, you also have fewer opportunities to get those points. For example, during the office section there are about six places to gain extra points on Hard, three on Medium, and none on Easy. That means that having successfully played the game on Easy is no help when trying to play it on Hard, because you've had no chance to learn where the extra scoring opportunities you now need are.

Additionally, the choice of difficulty seems to be the main thing that affects how the story plays out. For example, on Medium difficulty you can't chase after the mystery girl when she passes by the bar, on Hard you can (and on Easy you don't even get to notice her). My personal feeling is that it should be the player in the role of the PC who makes those choices and determines how the story develops, not a metagame decision made at the start of the game. Apart from anything else, having 'difficulty' determine events forces the player to replay the game from the very beginning if they want to see a different outcome. It also makes coding more complicated since you have to constantly test what difficulty the player has selected, as well as produce parallel versions of the same basic scene for each difficulty level. That extra complexity in turn increases the likelihood of bugs and broken links.

I realise it might be a bit late in proceedings to do anything, but my suggestion would be to change the difficulty system to something closer to what Tlaero & phreaky use (ie. where what happens is determined by the player's choices and/or how many points they have) or scrap it entirely.

The difficulty of characterisation in an HTML game is that you don't get much text in which to do it, and most of that text is straight dialogue without inflection or similar metainformation. However, you can do a certain amount of visual characterisation. For instance, what Brad watches on television, how his house is decorated, what he has on his desk, and so on. All those things go towards defining who Brad is and making him seem like a more rounded character. The same applies to the other characters, although the player won't see as much of them. Also, don't be afraid of being specific. For example, what do Brad and Emily actually do for a living? All we're told is that they're business partners, work in the same office, and don't have any employees. That's horribly generic. Telling the player what kind of business it is would increase believability. It's also an opportunity for characterisation, since Brad and Emily are obviously going to be different people if they're lawyers than they would be if they were running a charity for homeless kids (both of which are possible based on the evidence provided).

Re branching storylines, while it's great that the player's decisions have effects downstream, bear in mind that the player only has one savegame slot. In a game of the size this is proposed to be, that could end up forcing the player to replay long stretches of the game just in order to see a different outcome later on. Increasing the number of save slots (if possible) or breaking the game up into parts (if it's possible to transfer variables between parts) might make the game more playable in that respect.

Anyhow, that's just my $0.02.

[ExLibris]

One thing that bugged me a little was not having visual cues about whether I was meant to hunt around between a few possible choices, or whether I was just supposed to click through to the next page after getting some exposition etc. Maybe you could come up with a convention with respect to either clicking the text on the bottom of the screen or else clicking in the image. But I'm impatient at these things, I'll look around a little bit and then view source if I get stuck. Maybe other people enjoy it as a difficulty thing.

With Firefox you can just tab through the available links, although the dark backgrounds mean they're sometimes hard to make out.

Anyhow, misdirecting the player as to the available links is about the only gameplay element that's unique to HTML games

[rabbie]

I never liked difficulty levels in games like this, i find it kind of restricts roleplaying possibilities when you are forced to second guess what the creator thinks is the best answer out of 3. i really like that you wrote "The score is not used at all to determine if you can progress.", i hate being stopped midgame because of score.

I like the idea of how the point system works in your readme, the fact that score is not anything and does not block progress (It does at one point, if you fail to get points at the office) Which makes me wonder what the difficulty was even put in for.

[tlaero]

Wolf, I'm looking forward to trying your game. I'll hopefully have a chance this weekend.

Regarding difficulty. Difficulty to me is just a mechanism to reduce the need for walkthroughs. One of the measures of success I judge myself by is the percentage of the discussion on a game that's not just "how do I do this?" and "can someone post a walkthrough," tempered by people enjoying the game. (Games without challenge aren't enjoyable.) My intent is that seasoned players play on hard while people figuring things out play on easy or medium first. The same is true of difficulty in a FPS, etc.

Wolf, you should find the path that most fits your goals. This is just how I see things with my games.

Tlaero

[fleet]

Wolf, you should find the path that most fits your goals. This is just how I see things with my games.

Tlaero

I agree with Tlaero. Read the comments and suggestions, apply those you think will improve your games/visual novels, but follow your muse. Heck, if I'd followed the 'advice' I'd been given at another web site, I wouldn't be making VNs today.
Have fun laming your visual novel.
Very respectfully,
fleet

[rabbie]

(Games without challenge aren't enjoyable.)

This is just personal preference though right? Ive enjoyed many games without challenge, lots of choice can make a game engrossing and enjoyable without making it difficult. When i was younger it was all about challenge for me, but now in my old age i guess im not to bothered about challenge and look for story, choice and good characters. My favourite mainstream game of last year was The Walking Dead by Tell Tale... Dialogue and story all the way while the straight shooters and hack and slashers in the same year didn't resonate with me nearly as much.

I can flip my own argument and say games that offer you easy sex are unfulfilling, but a binary score is not the only way to make something a challenge. The way this game seems to be heading is offering multiple partners and while choosing a wrong choice may harm chances with one girl they also may help with another...that is the kind of "challenge" that works for me but is much more awkward to do with games centered around one girl.


Of course, that's just me - The best advice is what you said, making the game you want to make is the best way to go.

[MaxHammer]

Hi Wolfshadowe

The first steps look great! I would like to join those who say that you should make the game the way you like it! Here at the lagoon all types of games come in and all find their fans and foes... You can never make it right for everyone but you risk loosing fun making your game if you listen too much to the others, not doing it for your fun, too. At the end you may even end up not finishing a great game due to the criticism....
I personally prefer the newer counting Systems like the one from Tlaero and also the one Chaotic is using (later one easy to cheat) because you get a hint where you are, as it is always different between real world and a game. Real world you can try (almost) everything, in games you can only do what is programmed, and this sometimes is not obvious or would not be your first choice but rather the first choice of the programmer. Real world you directly see the reaction, in a game you only see the pics that are prepared...
It sometimes seems difficult to find the locations to click in the pictures but usually when I have "learned" a style of a programmer I also better know what to look for.

Hope to see more of your game soon!
Gladly help with testing and proof reading of the text, just give me more time than one night only, this would be a bit stressy and I could not do it seriously ;-)

Thumbs up
Max

P.S.: seems the current Version has a gap in the bar, the files n1-bar39a seems not to be linked with n1-bar-40, as the "hand-Symbol" in my Firefox Shows up but no Change...or typo in the link. (EDIT: seems you stopped on purpose at this Point, at least there are some other spots like this at other stages)

[M]

Seven days does seem very ambitious, but if you think you can get it done you should go for it.

Just curious, how long did it take you to get this much finished?

[Wolfschadowe]

First of all, I'd like to say thanks for the great conversation here so far. As a complete newbie at anything even close to this, I am embracing the learning experience, and most importantly, having fun! I have a lot of new ideas for the game, and some will be great (I hope) and some will be bad (I'm sure), but sometimes the bad ones can lead to great ones. At the end of the day I know I can't please everyone and I'm not going to try, although so far I feel that I've got a lot of great advice.

One thing that bugged me a little was not having visual cues about whether I was meant to hunt around between a few possible choices, or whether I was just supposed to click through to the next page after getting some exposition etc.

I tried to be consistent so that there was one of three modes: All text selections at the bottom to advance, Hotspots in the image to advance while keeping the hotspot hunt within reason, and finally mixed mode where the text would also indicate an action in parenthesis if there were also hotspot options. I'm being careful about that as I build out the Strip club path, and will scrub the existing stuff to maintain the convention before the next release once that branch is completed. I agree, there should be consistency about it though.

Regarding scoring, I don't personally care for the "happy, mad, sad or glad" notations about relationship, but can understand why some like them. Generally in this game, when interacting with a girl, if the score goes up, she is happier, and if it goes down, she is angrier. The score is a result of all the girls relationships, and some key milestones, so a general indicator on how you are doing. Most gates in the game are a result of relationship though, and not everything that affects relationship also affects score. Anyone can cheat by turning on debug mode in the _game.js. Then score will also display relationship scores. No judgement here for using "cheat mode".

Having played through this game a few more times, I've come to the conclusion that I don't really like how the difficulty system is implemented.

This same thing nagged me as I was writing those scenes, and most of what you said here resonates. My idea was to include replay ability into the game, but I think I am doing it too much through metadata, and not enough through player choice. I think there is a good replay ability where we are expecting the changes based on our actions, and a bad replay ability based on operating blindly and hoping for a better outcome. I want to have a large game with a lot of branches to explore as the days progress, but I don't want it to be as labyrinthine as the AdrieneB game either. I'm open to ideas of a better implementation. Anyone have general ideas on fixing the difficulty/choice/replay balance?

I never liked difficulty levels in games like this, i find it kind of restricts roleplaying possibilities when you are forced to second guess what the creator thinks is the best answer out of 3. i really like that you wrote "The score is not used at all to determine if you can progress.", i hate being stopped midgame because of score.

I like the idea of how the point system works in your readme, the fact that score is not anything and does not block progress (It does at one point, if you fail to get points at the office) Which makes me wonder what the difficulty was even put in for.

I have a similar opinion when it comes with hard stops in games like this. I think any game should have a few here and there, but this is envisioned more as an adventure than a V-Date game. There are some critical fail points that lead to a hard stop, but for the most part, the idea is that even if we completely hose the relationship with one, we should be able to continue with others. In some cases, it may be possible to woo more than one, others may be mutually exclusive.

(Games without challenge aren't enjoyable.)

The way this game seems to be heading is offering multiple partners and while choosing a wrong choice may harm chances with one girl they also may help with another.

That's exactly the intent that I'm trying to build in. There will be a total of 5 possible partners. All can eventually meet each other and maybe some will like each other along with you, or just each other, or hate each other, or all of the above depending on your current story branch. The possibilities are endless...(Well, not really, I don't have that much time.)

seems the current Version has a gap in the bar, the files n1-bar39a seems not to be linked with n1-bar-40, as the "hand-Symbol" in my Firefox Shows up but no Change...or typo in the link.

Thanks, I'll look into it. Most of the problems that are lingering are pages referring back to themselves because I forgot to update the hyperlink in Adventure Creator. Hey Tlaero, how hard would it be to put in a check for that with a warning pop-up on save?

Just curious, how long did it take you to get this much finished?

That took about a month, mostly because the Bar scene is pretty intricate and each frame was about an hour to render. Plus, I like to have a "living" environment. which you can see a little of in bar scene. The waitress buses tables, the 'creep' drinks and ogles, the couple makes out, etc... I kind of like there being stories going on in the background fed by the player's imagination. Hopefully I'll get better at that as I progress.

I also left myself escape points. For example, the current game as I have it plotted has 5 possible love interests and 3 Acts. I could easily break those into 3 related games if it get's overwhelming, or wrap it up completely after each act. I can also leave off some branches, reduce the number of love interests, and etc. On the other hand, I have attachment points where I could add to it as well, new branches and love interests, but the game is big enough already. I doubt I'll add anytime soon.

Maybe this weekend I'll post a character proof for the strip club branch.

Thank you all for your input!

Wolfschadowe

[Rikwar]

Thanks Wolf so far I'm enjoying the game, I tried the Faith and Emily path ''seems I'm a nice perv''
So far I found the storyline 'conversation' well done, looking forward to more of your game

[jfrancois323]

By the way, i also like the idea of telling where "you" miss something !!

[xviii]

Loving the game so far. The characters are quite refreshingly realistic, not proportioned like fake port stars but still very sexy. You've done an amazing job for the first chapter of your first game, there really isn't much I can fault at all! Great work.

[karrek]

I can't find the recap scene. When I return home the text at the top suggests I should be able to sit and think about the day or go to bed, and I would assume the sitting and thinking is the recap scene, but I can't find a hotspot on the image to actually do that, only the link to go to bed.

[Josefus]

Hi Wolfshadowe

Gratulation.... That is a solid work. I like it.
Which DAz use you? DAZ3 or DAZ4.
Which figures you use.. that look is very good.
And which Render-Oprtionen make this nice pictures?

Yes ...this will be a good game... I look forward to the next download...

Thank you

[tlaero]

Wow, Wolf, there is SO much potential here! This is a phenomenal first effort. I hope you continue with it.

I love that you render your backgrounds. We mostly use photos and it limits us.
I especially love the way you make the bar come alive with people in the background moving around and doing things.
I think the dialog, especially with Faith, is great. Keep up the good work there.
The characters are interesting. Both Faith and Emily are believable and feel natural. That's rare in this genre.
I like the characterization of the player character. I played v0.8, so I didn't see the original "creepy" version, but this version works very well for me. The fact that he is disturbed by the suggestion that he's stalking her says that he isn't stalking. Also, the fact that he talks about it with the woman keeps it grounded. If it were creepy, Faith and Emily would have told us.

I really don't like that playing on medium gives you content that you can't get playing on hard. It's a rare game where forcing an expert player to play on easy is a good thing. I think if you want the initial choice to open different paths, you should call it something other than difficulty. For instance, in CfK, I could have scrapped the difficulty and made the initial decision be play type (naughty or nice). Maybe you could do something like that? Personally, I prefer additive difficulty, where hard can do everything and medium can do less, and easy can do still less, but as I said before, you should make the game you want to play.

The weird text you're getting is a result of writing the text in Word and copying and pasting it to adventure creator. In Word, you've got "smart quotes" on, which makes quotes and apostrophes curly. AC is a windows program so it knows how to display them, but the web is more Least Common Denominator and doesn't. The two solutions are:
1) turn off smart quotes in word (make sure you get the "autoformat as you type" for "..." too)
2) paste into notepad first to convert to ascii, and then copy/paste from there.
To fix the current mistakes, just open the files in AC, and retype the apostrophes.

I've struggling with the "things to click on the screen when there's text to click" concept. I've struggled to find the right balance there in my games too. If the player doesn't know there's something to click, he's got to search every page. That's not much fun. The balance feels off here as major sections of the game are inaccessible if you just miss one piece of paper. Then again, I did the same thing in LwK. Like I said, I struggle with it. Maybe I should add something to AC where the entire picture has a border if there's a hit target anywhere in it. Then people would know when to look.

Separately, I didn't like the spots where the say field and the hit target did the same thing. I wondered if there was a subtle difference or if they actually did the same thing. I think you should pick one or the other.

This is great stuff Wolf, I'd like to follow it closely.

Tlaero