Yep i tend to agree that playing this is going to be the only way to get a decent understanding of the mechanics your using. TBH while I love the idea of a VN that has more than a single story to tell (and even better yet multiple ways to traverse any single story) Im not so sure about the whole sliding scales bit.
Gender is a confusing enough issue today as it is, But at least most of us know who we are, what we want and like and what doesnt work for us. Trying to get a handle on NPCs who have random scales, that then get checked against scales players choose but might not really understand, and then adding randomness on top of that, sounds like its going to lead to alot of confusion, disappointment, and possibly frustration.
Still Im willing to keep a somewhat open mind and see what you do with it. Good luck!
Havent made a decision on this yet! It depends on what i settle on as the tech level of the novel.
Android or Constructs will look very different depending on what tech level i go for, everything from futuristic synths to steampunk style gnomish machines
Perhaps it's only because there is not an example yet in actual gameplay, but I'm not understanding how the sliding scales are supposed to tie into die rolls.
Let's say your character has a social score of 30.
This means you feel Maternal 30% of the time and Paternal 70% of the time, more likely to take the lead in relationships.
You are on a date with a female foxy business woman who themselves has a social score of 20, making them Paternal 80% and Maternal 20%. They used to being the one in charge.
For there to be a relationship success, one person must roll Paternal, one Maternal. It doesn't matter who.
In this example,
There's is a 14% chance of you being Paternal and them Maternal, and 24% chance of you being Maternal and them Paternal.
Total of a 38% chance of this date having a success outcome.
There will be other factors, like the npc personal preferences that may boost success rates
Ok... but my preferences apparently don't matter in the slightest? Where is the player agency? I'd rather choose and possibly fail than let dice decide what my character wants to do. It seems like the only possible way to have any agency at all in this game is to pick 0 or 100 for every single slider. This makes it completely impossible to choose to be a submissive businessman.
Your preferences absolutely do matter. the dice doesn't determine what your character wants to do, that's entirely up to you. based on choices made. If you are on a date you can absolutely choose whether to be submissive, dominate, or somewhere in between (as in let the dice fall where they may)
what you CANT control is how the NPC is feeling at the time. Their social roll determine it. If you choose to be submissive (or maternal) in the date, thats your choice regardless what the dice would have rolled. There might be a roll to see how well you pulled that off though, and the date would have to be in a Paternal state of mind to be receptive to it.
Lets again use the dominating foxy business woman. There may be a romantic reason for being on the date, or a story driven reason.
You want to give the date as much of a success as you want, and you are certain that the business woman likes to be dominate.
you may have these choices.
-- Lean forward and attempt to give her a kiss -- Lock eyes with her -- Start to reach for her hand, but pull back. -- Give her a warm smile (Neutral)
The first option would lock you into the Paternal roll, and your chances will be purely if the date rolls being in a Maternal state of mind
Where as the third option would be more submissive in nature. Second one will allow random chance (and has best chance of overall success), where as last would be if you going for the Friendship route
Now, Social is the ONLY slider that affects whether a date is successful or not. The other slides will help determine if an NPC would be interested in you in a romantic way, because the NPCS have their OWN preferences.
This wont be a game where every single NPC wants to get in your pants. Some will have romantic potential, others friendship potential, based on those sliders.
Yeah, I was definitely confused about that. I think maybe I still am. Part of the confusion is probably that literally none of this has anything to do with being maternal or paternal. So, what social score would you recommend for a character that is a submissive businessman?
Got a few races added in. For now this will be the limit of races, but i have built it to be very easy to add more (and more I plan to add!) Next step, will be allowing selection of Flaws
As a road map for next few updates:
0.03 - Add Flaws 0.04 - Add Edges 0.05 - Allow Stat Selection 0.06 - Add Storage System
Yes, i plan to use the Savage Worlds system for building characters with, and yes, it means what you can do in game will entirely depend on how you build the character
Please leave comments as i work on this! I will work on the actual character generation, but will need to think about getting assets made for the game as well to replace the placeholders
← Return to visual novel
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Hey all, just giving an update, hectic at work, but still working on next update
Running into problems with lists.. Mainly that a valid operation on the list keeps deleting the entire thing.
Anyway, just touching base so you know I am still here
Yep i tend to agree that playing this is going to be the only way to get a decent understanding of the mechanics your using. TBH while I love the idea of a VN that has more than a single story to tell (and even better yet multiple ways to traverse any single story) Im not so sure about the whole sliding scales bit.
Gender is a confusing enough issue today as it is, But at least most of us know who we are, what we want and like and what doesnt work for us. Trying to get a handle on NPCs who have random scales, that then get checked against scales players choose but might not really understand, and then adding randomness on top of that, sounds like its going to lead to alot of confusion, disappointment, and possibly frustration.
Still Im willing to keep a somewhat open mind and see what you do with it. Good luck!
0.02.5 is up and running
Will there be Android virgin!? 🤔💕🏃🏽♂️🏃🏽♂️
Havent made a decision on this yet! It depends on what i settle on as the tech level of the novel.
Android or Constructs will look very different depending on what tech level i go for, everything from futuristic synths to steampunk style gnomish machines
Perhaps it's only because there is not an example yet in actual gameplay, but I'm not understanding how the sliding scales are supposed to tie into die rolls.
For a simple relationship test:
Let's say your character has a social score of 30.
This means you feel Maternal 30% of the time and Paternal 70% of the time, more likely to take the lead in relationships.
You are on a date with a female foxy business woman who themselves has a social score of 20, making them Paternal 80% and Maternal 20%. They used to being the one in charge.
For there to be a relationship success, one person must roll Paternal, one Maternal. It doesn't matter who.
In this example,
There's is a 14% chance of you being Paternal and them Maternal, and 24% chance of you being Maternal and them Paternal.
Total of a 38% chance of this date having a success outcome.
There will be other factors, like the npc personal preferences that may boost success rates
Tldr:
Chance of success = [your social * (1-their social)] + [their social * (1- your social)]
Ok... but my preferences apparently don't matter in the slightest? Where is the player agency? I'd rather choose and possibly fail than let dice decide what my character wants to do. It seems like the only possible way to have any agency at all in this game is to pick 0 or 100 for every single slider. This makes it completely impossible to choose to be a submissive businessman.
Ahh! Seems to be a misunderstanding here
Your preferences absolutely do matter. the dice doesn't determine what your character wants to do, that's entirely up to you. based on choices made. If you are on a date you can absolutely choose whether to be submissive, dominate, or somewhere in between (as in let the dice fall where they may)
what you CANT control is how the NPC is feeling at the time. Their social roll determine it. If you choose to be submissive (or maternal) in the date, thats your choice regardless what the dice would have rolled. There might be a roll to see how well you pulled that off though, and the date would have to be in a Paternal state of mind to be receptive to it.
Lets again use the dominating foxy business woman. There may be a romantic reason for being on the date, or a story driven reason.
You want to give the date as much of a success as you want, and you are certain that the business woman likes to be dominate.
you may have these choices.
-- Lean forward and attempt to give her a kiss
-- Lock eyes with her
-- Start to reach for her hand, but pull back.
-- Give her a warm smile (Neutral)
The first option would lock you into the Paternal roll, and your chances will be purely if the date rolls being in a Maternal state of mind
Where as the third option would be more submissive in nature. Second one will allow random chance (and has best chance of overall success), where as last would be if you going for the Friendship route
Now, Social is the ONLY slider that affects whether a date is successful or not. The other slides will help determine if an NPC would be interested in you in a romantic way, because the NPCS have their OWN preferences.
This wont be a game where every single NPC wants to get in your pants. Some will have romantic potential, others friendship potential, based on those sliders.
Yeah, I was definitely confused about that. I think maybe I still am. Part of the confusion is probably that literally none of this has anything to do with being maternal or paternal. So, what social score would you recommend for a character that is a submissive businessman?
and, as a side note, setting everything to 0 or 100 actually will limit potential opportunities.
A Binary Male would have 0 Identity, 25 Physical on average
A Binary Female will be 100 Identity, 75 Physical on average
Even Binary Male and Female can be anywhere on the Social Scale though!
Got a few races added in. For now this will be the limit of races, but i have built it to be very easy to add more (and more I plan to add!) Next step, will be allowing selection of Flaws
As a road map for next few updates:
0.03 - Add Flaws
0.04 - Add Edges
0.05 - Allow Stat Selection
0.06 - Add Storage System
Yes, i plan to use the Savage Worlds system for building characters with, and yes, it means what you can do in game will entirely depend on how you build the character
Please leave comments as i work on this! I will work on the actual character generation, but will need to think about getting assets made for the game as well to replace the placeholders