Blackout [GxB] [Mystery, Romance] UPDATE 9-3-15

[Kate]

EDIT: My new WIP link is here:
http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... 43&t=34118



I got this idea when I was thinking about typical mystery games. I heard about "Nicole" and wanted to try a mystery game with some elements of investigation processes, random events, weighted probability in a complex order based on a few points systems the game will track, and just stretching my fingers and my brain to the limit. I've always set lofty goals for myself, and usually I can reach them with effort. (I've written a book, btw!)


THE GAME:

Your character, the MC (Name input or assigned name, haven't decided) suffers from periodic blackouts after a car crash in the first year of college. It's time for break and due to the change in personality and the past semester's slipping grades, parents are forcing the MC to go on a vacation with her cousin to socialize and get out of the house. While on Vacation, some small things happen that catch the MC's attention, forcing her to figure out what is going on without succumbing to a blackout in the middle of spying on the suspects!


Structure:

Basically, it's a mystery with some set plot events, and a minor DSE- sort of feel. I incorporated several elements into my writing plan, but not skill stats or a day planner. That didn't suit my needs. So I'm using a few different points systems to track everything.

There are quite a few characters (8 plus MC), but it's nothing you can't handle when playing. All four guys (so far) will have romance options, and there will actually be a plot line for 7 of the characters (one of which is rare and a little more dramatic than the others) as the culprit. What makes this project unique, as far as I can foresee, is that the route is randomly chosen with a probability function after the main intro (so

you can pick a route you like if you've played it before by restarting and waiting a little to see what happens...*

) AND YES, I am so crazy as to attempt programming 7 routes into one game. The good thing is, a lot of events are repeatable and file size shouldn't get massive.

Also, in the plot, the MC has the tendency to black out if she doesn't get enough sleep, skips too many meals to investigate, or just by random (low) chance of the event being selected. (Lots of probability and random selection in this game. LOTS.) So that's an added challenge that will make spying on others/snooping very dangerous at times, with total sleep deprivation ending in death. There will be a few bad "death" or fail endings scattered throughout. I thought this would be a fun challenge to shake up the typical "girl detective" scenario. (This girl is like the anti-Nancy Drew character- she's kind of depressed due to her health condition and doesn't know most of the characters very well, not to mention she's kind of unwilling to investigate except the mysterious happenings are making her nervous...)

Points Systems (Tracking Framework):

The points systems are so essential to this project. To keep all the plot events endemic to certain characters organized, each route has a point value assigned at the beginning, simply "a_route_points = 50." All the major plot events for Ashley's route have to have the requirement for the route points to become accessible. There are also progress points. "a_prog_points += 1" and such, probably equalling 100 for completion, some choices making the game faster or slower.
- There's also the romance points, or affection points. Those are straightforward. (*

SPOILER/HINT!!!! Having high affection points means a certain man might come to your rescue if you blackout in a dangerous situation- so it won't necessarily equal a death/fail ending AND your points with him will go up higher!*)

- Time-progression points: so the player can choose 1-2 morning activities, 2-3 lunch/afternoon choices, and several evening choices that vary randomly or based on progress in the game. I didn't like the DSE package/it didn't fit my game well enough, and I'm not proficient enough to try messing with it, I think, so I decided to just use points in each day that passes.

Notably, the last two sets of points influence game play a lot: energy (if you don't sleep and eat, increases chance of blackout/death), and ANGER points. Anger points (just my dub for them) are if you get too nosy and investigate the culprit too much. You won't know for sure which character it is, but if you aren't careful, they might target you early in the game if they catch on to your investigation! Therefore, be careful with how you proceed in interactions with other characters.


I've created some fun hurdles for the player. Hopefully this sounds interesting!


Other notes:

I have an artist for sprites but I'm not sure yet about background art. I'm writing and programming almost all of this by myself and with the help of those who kindly help me with certain functions and other assistance. I'm probably going to forgo music and voices for simply text and appropriate background sounds/noises.

Some of my visuals, for your enjoyment:

photo.jpg

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What I could use help/tips/comments/feedback with:


Does this game seem interesting?
How many hours would you spend on a route, especially because these routes are ideally going to be very interactive, very changeable?
Would you replay it to try the other routes?
How much would you spend on a game like this? (and does having only sound effects instead of music influence this?)
- Any other suggestions Thanks!

[fleet]

The plot sounds interesting.
If a player thinks the VN is interesting, she/he will spend as much time as it takes to complete a route, and will replay it to see other routes (or ask for spoilers on how to get the other routes without a complete re-play.
I probably wouldn't buy the game (real life expenses take most of my available funds, and I have ten games in my 'to play' queue). I recommend you include background music.
Since you mentioned that you are doing almost all of the writing and programming by yourself, you should consider having several folks you know play test it and check it for typos/spelling/grammar errors and bugs before releasing a beta.

I wish you success.

[Heartstrings]

This game certainly sounds quite interesting, though I'm not sure how enjoyable a completely random path would be. The whole fun of a visual novel is being able to influence the game. I think small random events could be fun, but not the entire path decided at the beginning of the game. I think I would play upward of 4-5 hours on a path if it was very enjoyable, interesting, and not repetitive. That would be a lot of work though, so you probably want to go shorter. I wouldn't advise any shorter than 2 hours per path though. It's better to have a couple good long paths than a bunch of short repetitive paths. Similarly, if the other paths are to similar or repetitive, then I would probably only play 2 to 4 of the paths. I don't usually play VNs that cost money, so I can't give you a good idea of how much I would pay, but not having music in the game would definitely deter me from wanting to buy it. If you need, there are plenty of great royalty free music on the internet. You should check out Myuuji on youtube, he has plenty of free music under the creative commons licence. Sebastien Skaf too!

All in all, this is a VERY ambitious idea, but if you manage to make it interesting, long enough (without being slow paced), and differentiate the paths enough (and come up with a better system to determine the paths) then I definitely think you could make something great out of this.

Good luck man!

[Kate]

UPDATE:
I've now gotten most of my coding ironed out in the framework for the routes. It actually plagued me for awhile trying to get a lot of the dialogues worked out with their point-unlock requirements (needing X amount of relationship points to wink and smile at the person when greeting them, for example).
The other mess was that I didn't know about the joys and wonders of calls until I stumbled upon it in an unrelated thread!

I've cut down a lot of the randomness. Heartstrings was right, it was going to be a little crazy trying to randomize everything. Now a lot of it is simple cause-effect, and the ending will just be based upon choices. Only the random chance of blacking out will remain (and I've changed it to be more dependent upon the energy level- so if you play cautiously and keep your energy up, you won't have an annoying blackout...most likely.)
***To clarify another thing: romance is picked by the player. The point of the game is to solve what is going on, which is a little more fun if you have to figure out who did it. But the romance is picked in each route, and will have unique sweet moments in each route. There's only one route where really crazy, uncontrollable things happen... and that is on purpose.

- the random selection of route: once all 7 are played, I'll unlock a choose-route option. I'll post in later updates if that gives me trouble, though it shouldn't since I know about flags and all now.

I still haven't found an art style I like for my GUI and even the logo. I was hoping for something that looks shadowy or like ink splatters. I'd be willing to commission, if someone can show me something similar.

And a happy note, tomorrow I'm going on a 7 hour car ride for vacation, so 7 hours to program uninterrupted in the car. Everyone but the driver normally sleeps anyway, hooray! Makes me really happy. Thank goodness for laptops.

Also, I have some rough art sketches from my artist! It's like christmas... in July!

[Kate]

I've just hired my second Artist for the creation of my GUI elements, backgrounds, and coloring the sprites my other Artist created. Second Christmas...in August!

All but one of my character sprites have been drawn and approved (and I'm likely going to add a little headshot of the mc near the dialogue box) and I'm back to working regularly on it after a VERY rough summer job experience (summer camp is not for the weak of heart x.x, !) I'm going to work a little longer towards writing and finishing the plotting of the...plot before I change this to an official Work in Progress!

And, for anyone who is interested: I've gathered my favorite/most needed links from here and put them on my Pinterest board for Game Programming Links.
http://www.pinterest.com/katyauer/game- ... ing-links/

(I find it easier to see a key picture with a link rather than having to remember what the title of each certain useful link is... Visual learner, here!)

Ciao!

[Ina]

N/A

[Kate]

Update: I've added random encounters with each character that will occur in each route that offer the opportunity (if you are in the right place at the right time) for extra clues as to who is creating problems/up to no good during your stay at the lake house. So, for example, if you help one character find her missing phone, you'll gain several benefits: learning the password to her phone, a (free) glimpse into her room without having to spend energy points snooping, and even have certain conversations that may drop hints (True or misleading) about other characters. Progress points are also tracked in the game, so special events with the bonus knowledge that come with boost the progress meter and make it more likely to get the best ending- confronting the troublemaker/murderer and finding a way to resolve things (in some routes).

Thank you for the feedback, I'm just waiting on some finalized logo art and some re-drawings of characters and maybe some GUI before I move this to the WIP page. I understand that others might turn away when they see talk of money and commercialization; I am deliberating between releasing one route for free/a full game paid; or releasing about 50% of a route to tease and then offering the full game paid. I've estimated spending at least $300, if not more, on just the art assets, and that is a low estimation with backgrounds not decided yet. It would be nice to at least recoup some of the costs... I favor low pricing/higher sales rather than a high pricing/few sales approach.

Progress:
My script is mostly planned out, with part of the intro solidly written and the scenes are coming together, which will be written individually, by character. The characters are almost set to share with backgrounds, art will take awhile to display in color/clean copy... My artist is, like me, a college student. Busy busy!

This is a large project, I know very well. But it's enjoyable, it's my pet idea... and I hope it can gather a few eager fans, at least.

[Tatty]

Hmrn, I'm game. It sounds like we're in similar positions. I'm terrified of turning my work into a second job, as I know that'll wreak havoc with my desire to work on it; but I also feel taking time when you find it is always a good way to go about things. : ) I can tell you have a pretty good idea of what you want from your flowcharts, which makes me think you'll be in for the long haul - and I'll definitely play it.

One thing I'd like to mention is that forgoing music for ambiance can be very effective, especially if you want to create a more tense or horrifying atmosphere. I highly recommend finding or creating good ambient sounds that can be strung together for the purpose of atmosphere; the effect can be really quite sublime! : D

[Kate]

Update:

Logo is nearly finished. Other than that, little progress, mainly because three group projects started and are finishing soon. After that passes, I'll have way too much time on my hands...

NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) starts Saturday of next week- November 1st-so I'll be beginning the dialogue scenes and re-writing/editing the intro over the month of November. I've got plans and outlines out the wazoo; it'll be nice to push myself to get some good writing done. All writing; no programming yet beyond what I've already done. While it would be nice to work on both simultaneously, it'll go so much faster in the long run if I write all the interactions and wording first, then worry about programming it all.

(Oh, to scrap that intro that I've been staring at loathsomely... I hate intros, but unfortunately, they are necessary. It's rough trying to get over the inner voice that tells me my narrator sounds like a whiny fifteen-year-old with a bland attitude and little- if any- motivation...)

[Kate]

Merry Christmas to me!

The logo for Blackout

My artist finally finished the logo! I'm very happy with it. It's a little on the dark side for my game, but as she explained it, it's drawing upon the dark nature of the protagonist's depression and state of mind. Also, there's a lot of potential for death-endings if certain choices are made throughout the gameplay.

Soon I hope to have some plot/story bits posted, and maybe some examples of choices.

It will be quite a while with the GUI and other art assets, but hopefully the programming and writing will progress steadily anyway.

Disclaimer: may not make steady progress until after Christmas. Reason being? Bedbugs (mild case thankfully- lockdown/clean WHOLE house- Not kidding at all!!!!) and studying to re-learn algebra/maths to pass a standardized test after not taking a single math course for three years or more. Yikes.

[Kate]

Smaller Logo:

[Elze]

Apart from Nicole, there's also Date Warp, which is a mystery otome that will only reveal the final mystery after you uncover all routes. It's available on Steam so you might want to check it out and try the demo. So far I like the premise, but I'm not so sure about the "blackout and no bad end, but leading to increased affection" part. Otherwise, I'm looking forward to seeing more progress! C:

[Kate]

Apart from Nicole, there's also Date Warp, which is a mystery otome that will only reveal the final mystery after you uncover all routes. It's available on Steam so you might want to check it out and try the demo. So far I like the premise, but I'm not so sure about the "blackout and no bad end, but leading to increased affection" part. Otherwise, I'm looking forward to seeing more progress! C:

I've heard of Nicole, and Date Warp too. I may try Date Warp if it's available for Mac.

As for the blackouts, I figured for once it might be interesting if you are safe during a blackout and put that random guy the character chooses to romance to good use. Too often I feel the romanceables are made too "flat" and useless. I don't think it will be a frequent option, though, more like a one-chance save.

***I would like more feedback on this if anyone cares, about using the guy the MC dates as a protector during one blackout (say, if she's in the house and not out by herself somewhere dangerous) as an element of gameplay. I'm not sure how I would make different difficulty levels to disable it, to be honest, so I think I want to keep that feature. Let me know what you think!***

On another note- Progress Report! I'm moving forward and making progress coding because I've FINALLY figured out what I was doing wrong with some really layered dialogues. I'm sure I'll run into some more problems, but now it will be a lot faster for me to code and all I need to do is re-organize the little I had done before I figured these problems out.
-The long and short of it is that I need to remember to write down somewhere for myself what each flag stands for so I don't forget and have unaccessible conversations- that drives me up the wall.

Oh yeah, and I'm old school in some ways. I have a binder that I'm organizing and writing down all my flags and dialogues so I don't forget anything when I get it into the program. Downside is when I run into problems, may have to change (yet again) the way I organize things/my code/my papers.
-Has anyone figured out an easy way to organize separate conversations on paper? For now I'm doing one page per conversation chunk with each character. A waste of trees, maybe, but I'm not sure how else to do it without making a ton of work for myself... Just hate losing ideas and extra work arranging things.
*Explanation for why I use paper: I have a history of killing computers, and although my Mac has valiantly been strong, I would not trust technology to hold the only copy of all my ideas. Therefore, paper.

[Reikun]

Has anyone figured out an easy way to organize separate conversations on paper? For now I'm doing one page per conversation chunk with each character. A waste of trees, maybe, but I'm not sure how else to do it without making a ton of work for myself... Just hate losing ideas and extra work arranging things.

If your notes themselves are organized (e.g. only notes about one scene/character on any one sheet of paper), I would sort by character/scenes and then chronologically by in-game time.

If you're like me and takes notes about lots of different things on one sheet of paper.... sometimes I like to write a quick summary of what's on that paper (kind of like blog post tags, but analog.... HAHA) with a different color pen and/or highlight it. Basically, make your page summaries stand out/look different from your regular notes. Then stick everything in one place where you can easily find it later. Sort these kinds of notes chronologically by when YOU wrote it. That way less relevant/older notes are on the bottom of the pile since you'll probably look at them less as you make changes to the story/game. Good luck organizing everything!

[Kate]

Finally had time to do some writing for the introduction and the opening scenes! It's coming along nicely, and after I finish those, I can begin writing individual character conversation menus and branching events like the alternate dates with the other characters.

I'm so excited about this! Also, should be updating more often now because we're 70% done with our house remodeling/painting after all the bedbug drama.... So I can finally scrape the primer off of my poor fingers and get them working at the keyboard again!

(Anyone who has done some serious remodeling around full-time schedules knows how my life has been for the last three months...oh, and new stairs! Yay! I can say I'm DEFINITELY not a tool belt diva like my sister and the rest of my family members... but I've been stuck with dishes, cooking, general cleanup, washing walls, etc. since they figured that out finally.)

Hopefully some of you are staying interested! I promise not to disappoint with this one. Especially because I'm writing more than one route