My last couple of weeks has been devoted to main story and sidequests, so I kinda wanna share my thoughts over whole aspect (plus I haven't wrote much recently).
Game design is not simple (duh) despite how it might look like from first sight. You really often have to face with things you decide demand more work than the others, this is especially true, when your experience is low and you have tons of ideas. You basically have to make sacrifices and be prepared with bad results. This is not exactly about me, but more of a warning to those, who decide to start their own projects. Thankfully, I frequently question myself over what is the best course of actions, so amount of stuff I have to throw away into the trash can is fairly low.
Speaking honestly, Strive is fairly troubling genre, because of the limits I went with when started planning over it. I started with pretty simple "I want like FC but more personal" or "I want like JONT but more slaves and sandbox", but then quests came in with combat following behind. The problem is that while core gameplay is very managy-sandboxy, and combat somewhat complements it, main quest used to serve as kind of tutorial with some more plans to expand it to provide more goals. Character quests, on other hand, are very out of picture from this. You could say they break the usual routine with introducing characters with special abilities or being time limited. Well, to be honest, originally I only thought about them as little side stories with niche rewards for their completion, but as stuff kept piling, I couldn't quite hold myself back from getting into small story writing (i guess quite shitty fan fiction level would be applicable here).
You see, originally I thought about them as small fun pieces with little details, but as I went working on them, I just can't help but want to explore more options with them (speaking of which, you will be able to find some new pieces for existing sidequests in next patch). In the end I feel like I dedicate them much more time than I originally intended and that's not very fair to people who want sandbox management game first and rpg-ish experience second. So I will likely be focusing much more on gameplay (locations, combat, management, etc) until the point where I'll be able to draw a line and say "Yes, this certainly satisfies me enough so I can probably try writing some new sidestory now".
Now, about the main quest. As I already mentioned, I have fairly vivid picture of it in my head already, so my most questioned part was "how much stuff I want to put into that". And, I think, my reasoning here should be pretty straightforward: we already have heavy focused management gameplay and few fairly rich sidestories about characters and the world with always existing option to add more, so the best solution would be to make main story fairly short and easily consumable with as few sidesteps as possible. Basically I just want to make it and put it away instead of endlessly dragging it akin to temptation I have with side characters.
One last thing I want to bring up in this post. I feel like I quite lacking in community connection department (although I'm arguably not very socially active person overall), but I do have more initiative to share my thoughts, reasonings and ideas now. There'll be a vote a patreon on what would you like me to do, be at monthly Q&A, more insights like this, maybe something not quite related to strive but to other games/gaming in general, or even some sort of streams (unlikable). You are still free to express your thoughts just in the comments, naturally.
v0.3.40b
ReplyDeleteBrand - mouseover text says it takes 10 mana and 1 energy. It seems to take 11 Mana and 20 energy.
In fullscreen (1080) sometimes the function buttons in upper left (ie in town Mage Guild/Market etc... and in Outskirts (ie move through/escape/heal) overlap the color text describing the area.
Attempting to Train a slave to Apprentice Body Control from nothing, says it requires 30 Confidence, 2 skill points and 150 gold, the slave has more than 2 skill points, over 1000 gold, exactly 30 Confidence and cannot train due to lacking stat
Probably you have confidence round up and real conf is 29.5+. Try bumping it slightly. I'll take a look over the rest though.
Deleteone day as Headgirl bumped her to a displayed 32.
DeleteSo, yes, likely just rounding.
Hey man, new posting.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all: keep the good.. no wait, the >great< work. Seriously, the game is awesome.It feels polished and proffessional.
Now some feedback and critics/opinions/suggestions (which I guess is the thing you find more useful).
One aspect I really enjoy is the pretty straightforwardness of interaction. Dunno how to explain it, but it feels like that. This character does this, that character does that, period. But, at the same time, it feels kinda empty. Personally, I like your approach of getting away of the super-descriptions of FC, but it could be nice to have some sort of relationships building between player-slaves-slaves. Yeah, Cali says "I love you" and that's all. Instead of side quests, some one-shot/repeatable events could work, and would be a lot simplier to do.
About side quests, it also feels kind of empty. I'm not the type of player that has 30 slaves getting milked, and keep collecting more. I usually have one specialized for each role, and a couple more that are the ones meant for selling to requests. So basically, for me, there's isn't much to do actually. So again, instead of long sidequests, maybe some simplier "adevntures" could work: you're exploring the forest, find a cavern, a bit of dungeoning, and find some type of reward (be an item, find a character, "rescue" someone -maybe a special slave/character-). Again, much simplier to do than a branching sidequest, and like "events" you could take submitted contributions or ideas (after some revision of course, it will still take much less work).
And then, the player. It could be cool to have some more depth. I'm not talking something like CoC o TiTS, but maybe more like Slavemaker. There's a mild amount of player development, but lots of content aimed just for him. Specific encounters, building a type of personality or social role etc. Sounds complicated, but they actually don't really affect stats (less coding), just build on character for the player's mind. Unlike Slavemaker, your game feels a lot more solid, and the slave building system is a lot more complete and better overall. (Plus, I frigging hate playing with manga characters, in my mind your game is really dark,gritty and realistic.)
Something else: as far a sex-scenes descriptions... what about having a edit-write text box? Like the one you get to write the name of slaves? It could work well with the already working system of "load your image", adding customization to the game (something not common in games). So, we get the basic text if it's fine, or for more "personal" player (like me, I'm sure there's a lot), we can spend more time adding details (and maybe solving the "relationship developing" mentioned. We could simply write down who the slave likes and what they do/prefer when sexing).
Anyways, despite the amount of "critics", I really like the game, it's one of the few that didn't got me bored and still keep playing (and checking daily here).
Best regard!
Thanks for the feedback. I do want to focus on the exploration aspects next with perhaps some interesting encounters and that sort of thing. Speaking of Cali, she gonna have an additional intimacy scene next version. Custom slave description is a good idea I kinda forgot to add when switched from old engine, so it will probably be back.
DeletePretty awesome! To be honest, I miss the "dogging" option (I guess it's forbidden or something like that) so having the option for custom sex description could solve pretty much any complaint or specific desire from players, and leave you free for some other work. Win-win.
DeleteAnd for encounters and events... what about having "interesting encounters" like you said, in the wilderness, and some personal events on cities? It will add more content and reasons to roam around cities instead of just checking the stores. So, "exploring" the Red District triggers an event in which the player is involved, nothing fancy or code-troublesome, just a branching dialog with no in-game stats consecuences. It won't require any complicated coding referring slaves or the player, just text descriptions and some minor coding for options. (example: you find a lonely alley, and there's a small encounter were you don't fight, but solve it through text options, either running, bribing or "submitting"). That kind of stuff is simple enough to add content without complicating your time, gives more options, and doesn't have real game effects (unless you want some important effects, which would be even cooler)
As of now nothing is 'really hard to code' as most parts are laid out. The real problem is these kinds of events require lots of dedicated writing and when I have to deal with dedicated writing I rather devote it to the quests.
DeleteDouble thumbs up then. Waiting patiently.
DeleteBtw, I see you added some portraits... are they included in the downloads, or there is some extra download?
Sidecharacter portraits are included, fan-made portrait pack has to be downloaded and installed manually.
DeleteSigh...Really disappointed that you're focusing so much on the story and not the gameplay. Stories in sex games are usually boring or pointless, sorry to say it but its true. There is no point to doing any of the main or side quests, other to get a kinda plain and boring pre-made slave.I hope you put some effort into improving the main parts of the game and not the throwaway story that most people will skip anyway...but if you really have a boner for it atleast give us a reason to play it, idk a spell or more sex options, not a slave i can make myself. But hay im not you'r dad nor do i give you money, so feel free to ignore me. im just salty over a week of what i think is wasted development time. If you put this much work into the next update im sure it will be great.
ReplyDeleteI dunno, the gameplay feels quite complete. There's a lot to do with slaves, and what the game lacks precisely is story and content. For people wanting just farming slaves, there's a good lot of games out there *shrug*
DeleteOne week of development is really nothing considering I'm working on the strive for more than a year. And as I'm said I will be going heavily through gameplay aspects next time. It's just that there's not really much I could add, besides more revampings. I also don't think story is entirely negligible. I do tend to pay more attention to gameplay in games I enjoy playing, but having a plot/characters I enjoy following is an entirely different feeling I often enjoy a lot more.
DeleteAs others have said, the gameplay is fine, fleshing out the story is a good idea, as a good story will make the game last longer for those not fond of constant micromanagement.
DeleteWhat really needs improvement is the writing for the sex scenes. Having better variety is a bit necessary, maybe having more influence on the events based on character stats and relationship to the players character.
what is JONT?
ReplyDeleteJack of nine tails
Delete1- Farm manager doesnt get exp.
ReplyDelete2- Maybe make it so when choosing to kill captured in combat you get mana. In the intro lore text it is said that that's one way of getting it. Ofc i understand that it wont happen if it damages balance and/or your vision of sex as important part wont allow it.
Just downloaded 3.40
ReplyDeleteStarted a new game. After some minutes, the game freezes, andthe background window starts running like crazy, in a infinite loop. I can't get a clear pic because it doesn't lets me do anything aside of watching it running, but here's something:
http://prntscr.com/f30w8n
Any specific action which causes this?
Delete+1 for bug. It happened when i pressed 1 on keyboard to attack.
DeleteWhat's your OS and which data folder you used?
DeleteSeems like a sound problem. I just set sound to 0% and game works fine.
DeleteThere's no specific action, seems like eventually (after some minutes) there's an error with sound and falls on that loop. I was just reading the description of a slave when it happened. It happened a second and third time while checking some other stuff like stats. Evidently it's some action sound, since Anon above had it on combat.
Again, sound set to 0% fixes this, or at least lets you play.
Gimme a sec, I'll take some screens.
There's no action sounds so it's probably some sound driver issues either on your system or in godot code.
DeleteHere's a screen with music volume 0%:
ReplyDeletehttp://prntscr.com/f31upu
And here's a screen with music volume 50% (same for any percentage above 0):
http://prntscr.com/f31vc5
As you can see, the error pops right at start game.
I have some idea how to fix it. Gonna try it out in 0.4.0a version
DeleteI'd love, if after further unlocking by main quest that someone above want's to ignore but can probably be made un-avoidable, is if the lab/alchemy can be expanded upon to the point where total species conversion can occur.
ReplyDeleteOf course, to avoid abusing such a thing you could make the options for rare or normally un-available species unlockable through either further progress or side quests, which could be ignored.
By putting them behind side quests then they become completely optional, but a main quest shouldn't be skippable, avoidable maybe, but not skippable if the player wants to unlock more then the most basic options (Buy, sell, and sex, nothing else).
Playing the version on Newgrounds. When trying to access the slaves in the jail via buttons in the slave list, the tab for the first slave in the list opens instead.
ReplyDeleteEr, I mean, let's say I have
Alice (Cat)
Betty (Human)
Cali (Wolf)
--{{jail}}--
- Donna (fairy)
Emily (human) (training)
and press the "stats" icon in front of Donna's name. Alice's Stats tab opens instead.
Maybe rather than devoting a lot of time to creating custom sidequests focused on unique NPC's you create some sort of side quest generator that gives different interactions between you, your slaves, and randomly generated npcs. This could create more albeit shallow story content for people to explore and add some mechanical complexity for people interested in the sandbox-y management stuff. Once the framework is there you can just kind of add more sidequest content as you think up new ideas and things to add, padding out content for the game overall.
ReplyDeleteOn a side note, I'd be interested in seeing more lactation content outside of sending lactating slaves to the farm to go braindead and never see you again. A breastfeeding sex act only accessible to lactating slaves would be nice, or more management involved with the farm stuff. As someone who enjoys that kind of content the farm is kind of a let down right now.
Overall though I'm super interested in the development of this game and I hope you get more support. Thanks for creating such a promising game!
Great ideas. +1
DeleteThe random quest generator would add a lot. Normally, I spend a lot of time just running around checking cities and wilderness looking for slaves, mainly because I don't have much to do, since I'm not the type of "build an army of slaves". Having something (like quest/events/encounters) to find will give reasons to explore constantly rather than spam the end-day.
As for milking, it could be easier to have an option to milk on the farm. Instead of adding a sex option (which would require to take out the cow out of the farm), you simply go to the farm, pick your cow and milk it (then you get the "sex" scene). Ditto for egg layers.
The problem with randomly generated quests would put game into the roguelike category basically (imagine story by random stuff assembled together). I don't think this is very good idea, because roguelikes require way more work put into their aspects so they actually feel unique every time. On the other side custom quests and characters can give much higher impact even if it's only few times. To put it simply, I think randomly generated quests and generations would make game too different right now.
DeleteSpeaking of lactation (and more), I do plan to put some more work into sex actions and general slave management and interactions right now, so breast feeding will probably be an option in next release.
I didn't really mean for the randomly generated side quest stuff to replace hand crafted stuff, moreso compliment it by giving a side objectives for particular slaves. It could be simple things like find x kind of creature, (Centaur or naga for example) get x item, go to x place with a particular slave. Just as some small task to do on the side that could create opportunities for the player to create their own history and story progression for that individual slave. Even if there were relatively few combinations in events or steps it would give the player a little more to do even if you saw repeated events. Like WuzzFuzz says above the game can become stale at times when you're not directly trying to change or alter one particular slave.
DeleteIf you'd like to avoid random stuff that's fine but with what you have so far I think something like what I've proposed would fit in well and give you more places to hook new content into. But it's your game so I won't push any further on it.
I do want to make some reputation related events soon, but I have fairly hard time imagining what you describe in any reasonable quantity. Even if I add some random task generator for the slaves, it will become really repetitive quickly and I don't really think there would be much of a reward to offer, although I might think about it a bit. If you could compose some sort of list with possible tasks-rewards, that would be helpful.
DeleteWell, I was thinking more like generic quests, the like of "I need to get rid of spiders-find n kill spiders-get reward". But having slave related mini-side quests is much more interesting, although might be more complicated.
DeleteMini quests could be really simple, to put a very silly example, someone has to "fix" a potion, so you can have one of your slaves "fix it" (most likely the one at the lab), the reward could be pretty much anything (from some alchemy item, to raise the skill used for the quest, or even the slave gaining reputation if you implement it). Honestly, ideas for mini-quests can be endless, as pretty much everyone would be willing to contribute.
Rewards could be:
-items, fairly simple.
-An increase of X skill, a stat, or a a plain skill point. Since they're not dependant of level up, shouldn't cause troubles with the system (i.e. having more skill points than levels)
-Reputation, if you're willing to do it. It could raise the price, give better income (whoring, dancng), be required for other events (need X reputation) and so on. A reputation system is something that could add A LOT, both in content depth and game-wise.
-A slave. Though it would be quite the reward, reserved for an important quest (or not! The slave could actually be a challenge!)
-Key/trophy items. We players love "gotta catch'em all". For fun, bragging rights (a particularly rare or difficult prize-quest), or simply stating the base for more content upcoming (as a key item)
--Functional items: not "equipable" or consumable, but could give bonuses. A special milker to upgrade the barn, and that type (for the lab, etc)
---One-shot items: a scroll that lets you summon a sort of special demon, and you have to fight it to enslave; the map to a cave in Gorn where you find a powerful Taur and fight it to enslave, etc. Similar to a slave reward, but since these are special, you have the added difficult of fight them (and you can save the scroll for when you have enough strength). More so, if you're willing, they could be one-time opportunities for truly specific slaves... the demon could be a Succubus/Inccubus, the Taur a Minotaur, etc. Unique slaves, basically.
Overall, rewards can be very varied, I guess it depends in the complexity of coding something new, but as you said, you've pretty much have the basis for almost anything!
Sorry to be longwinded :p
Note: since it's "Strive for Power", I guess the Reputation system -and consecuences- would make the perfect addition.
Delete*thumbs up*
Speaking of the farm...
ReplyDeleteit feels kind of empty indeed. So maybe, a way to add content without complicating things too much, is to have other critters to capture, much like snails.
So, since we have Beastkin, which have human-like intelligence, and a physique mixed of human and animal, we could have Beastmen (for a lack of a better term), which could have similar physique traits but animal mind.
Basically, Beastkin are human-to-beast creatures, as if a human shaped physically into a half-beast. And Beastmen could be the inverse, a beast that shaped physically to half-human. (could be explained as magic experiments, or simply that an x% of birthings are like this).
This could lead to encounters like snails, in which you might either fight to capture, or just lure, and then you can send them to the farm as cattle. They could fit the roles of regular farm animals, and of course, lead to sex scenes (involving the player, slaves, or beastmen) without incurring in straight beastiality which might be forbidden in certain countries.
The physical differences could be simple: while a Beastkin taurus is more or less human with bullish features, a beastman could resemble more a Minotaur. Basically, they retain their animal look, but with a more human upright standing.
Actually bestiality will make a return soon.
DeleteAwesome. Farm related?
Delete(btw, if you don't mind, I'll send you a set of generic portraits you could easily implement if you want. They're generic and non descriptive graphically, but it might look more visually friendly than the grey squares in a battle, and it's not a butt-ton of megas to dwld.)
To be honest I do want to make farm bit more overall interesting personally, not sure how all that gonna turn out, but we will see.
DeleteAre the portraits belong to you?
Since farm is being discussed, I'd like to mention that it would be nice to have some sort of passive mana generation.
DeleteThe "portraits" are not really portraits. As as i've said, generic and non-descriptive.
DeleteBasically, it's a set of 3 colors (for each sex), for each race, and a specific symbol-rune for each race (you might find them useful for something else, who knows. They're easily recognizable, and can be associated fast, I've thought on that.). So if someone wants to keep strictly to "text based" game, they won't be bothering in that regard. They're -for now*- just colors and symbols.
* I am a professional artist, and I've been meaning to send you something, but first I need to finish installing all my tech equipment (lost it some time ago, and got a whole new set), and I'm somewhat busy on other work to fully commit to something as big as dozens of portraits. For now! (I do have a couple sketches drawn, Gorn and Frostford slave sellers)
A different symbol for each race, color of the symbol for different genders... How about different background colors for different age or beauty? Something that would be apparent at first glance.
DeleteI thought about it. But then I would have to make thousands of combinations, or Maverik would need to develop a graphical system that can create random combinations. And if he can do that, then drawing pics separated in pieces (face, hair, age details) would be relatively easy. Unfortunately, neither option is fast, so better stick with simplicity. Besides we already have the details when hovering the cursor on battle, or just checking the slaves at home. ;)
DeleteSounds nice, I'll be waiting for it then, thank you :)
DeleteThe version on Newgrounds, when I ask about fairies at the slave market, the manager says "$name" instead of the name.
ReplyDeleteSame version, Cali's quest. After talking with the guy in the bar, I went to Sebastian. The "ask about mercenary" button appears, but clicking on it does not display the text. The mercenary recognizes the note from Sebastian, and tells about Shaliq, but the "enter the bar" opion does not disappear. In Shaliq, people don't bring up the topic of bandits.
DeleteI suspect this might have happened because I had Sebastian sub-quest running when I went talking to the mercenary. The one about the farm. Also, at some point during all this, the Fairy Manager's picture got stuck on the screen.
If it's a web version, It's very hard for me to debug it right now tbh. It has some weird issues with whole animation thing and I'd suggest systematic save keeping/reloading in first place.
DeleteOh, well. I'll just keep listing whatever bugs I find, because I have no way to tell which are caused by the version being online, and which are caused by the version being number so-and-so.
DeleteThere was an event where a slave got kidnapped, and there was a choice to give chase (-25 Energy) or do nothing. Both the description before the choice and after the choice were garbled, like so: "{Line A, for a branded slave}/{Line B for a non-branded slave} {Line B repeats}"
Delete