Magical Boutique

[monele]

Already stated, it's a Ren'Py feature that lets you color already picked choices in a different colors. Darkened choices are the ones you've already picked.

[Jens]

Nuuuh . No kitties will be harmed during the playing of this game!

Aaand no getting nursed back to health with love and affection from the pretty staff?...meanie
Regardless, I just want to turn this into a petshop now.
(Matsuri Akino-anyone?
I bet you thought your references were oblique)

[musical74]

Maybe have a customer who wants to know if you can cure a cat problem, Framboise sees the kitty, and wants to nurse it to health?

I've noticed something, and I'm not sure if this is a glitch or not, but occasinally it seems to backtrack a day. What I mean is it SEEMS to want to go back a day without my wanting it to. It's possible that it's reacting to my mouse wheel, but if it is, it is EXTERMELY sensitive...has anyone else noticed this? Or do I just have to be very careful around the mouse wheel?

Oh yes, lest you forget....

MUST....PLAY...THIS....GAME =)

[monele]

It would be very surprising if there's no kitty at all in this game. I mean... it's me... I love kitties ô_o... And I'm still seeing how I'll put a catgirl in this... MUST PUT CATGIRL... Ahem.

Mouse wheel ? Jumping back ? It does sound like the mousewheel acting up. Rollback doesn't work like your regular VN since there's not many regular dialogues but mostly user interface parts. Rolling back usually gets you back to the beginning of the resolve phase. It should be a problem since Ren'Py rollbacks *everything* and even the random values should be kept (I haven't checked this though...).

[Jake]

It's possible that it's reacting to my mouse wheel, but if it is, it is EXTERMELY sensitive...has anyone else noticed this? Or do I just have to be very careful around the mouse wheel?

Just for the record, I used to have all sorts of trouble with my old MS "Intellimouse Explorer" in this respect; I'd be using the wheel to scroll through a document, let go and continue reading, then the document would jump up a half a page 'cause the wheel sensors thought they'd seen the wheel move. I figure perhaps I'd left the wheel in an unbalanced position and it rolled itself a short distance. Rare, but still noticable enough to be annoying. Occasionally things like IM windows would randomly scroll up a few lines.

I'm fairly sure it was just the mouse hardware acting up and nothing else - not only did it only happen after I'd been using the wheel recently, but as soon as I replaced the mouse (which had been relegated to my work desk) with a tablet the problem suddenly went away.

[PyTom]

Yes, the random values are kept. Once 5.6.3 is out, we'll have to see about supporting the new rollforward interface in magibou.

[musical74]

Sounds like I've got to be careful around the mousewheel then...

Day 129, 5032 in gold, and that's WITH getting more space....methinks I have a good system here =)

Noticed something odd, and only was able to get it to happen ONCE, so not sure what to make of it. I sent Fram off to the Plains to get clover and fennel...and she came back with, clover, fennel...and cinnamon. She wasn't able to find it there again, so I'm wondering if this was a glitch or an accidental find. Must say it shocked me when Fram returned with cinnamon in the plains...

[monele]

There's no cinnamon in the plains ô_o... I don't get it...
There should be a "log.txt" file in the main directory, could you send this to me ? (attach it to your next post, I guess).

If anyone has strange bugs, actually, try to send the log file and not play too much more before sending it so it's easier to find where it went crazy ^^;

EDIT : Actually I don't have enough log information to check what happened in that particular case, so the log won't really be useful ^^;. I've added things for the next time and will try to log things properly in case of bugs. We'll see what happens with the next version.

[monele]

Ok, I'll need opinions for the lab part of the game. Mostly, I'll be stating things as I see them, but I'll also have few possible choices for how it works.

- INTERFACE -

A listing of your ingredients on the left, a number of "tools" in the middle, and your mixer content on the right.
Click on one of your ingredients, click on one of the tools and the result is added to the mixer. For example, I click on Fennel, then on the bowl so I can crush it and I get Crushed Fennel in the mixer.
Once I think I have what I need in the mixer, I'll just click on a final button and a potion will be made out of this.

- RESULT -

Still to be decided. I like the "test on your staff" idea but it might be complicated.

- RECIPES -

While you could try to randomly mix ingredients, it could end up being rather... difficult (because of the number of possibilities) or too easy (if you find a potion for every combination). The idea is to have real recipes and have workers that can look for them. That's where I have more than one idea.

The workers would be sent to different locations (the library of Altoria, the catacombs of Dezrador...) to gather information (some requiring a guard, like the catacombs).

Now we have 3 possibilities :

- Exploring these locations gives random bits of information, all written by hand in the scripts, such as "One can do a Flying potion using feathers" or "It's said that one has to coat the feathers with something for the potion to work". Good point : one can be very vague or very precise, it's up to the one writing the script. Bad point : you *have* to write every bit of info, from the most vague to the final one giving away the full potion... unless you want the player to get 10 bits of info to have a complete recipe.

The two other possibilities are more automated :

- For each exploration, the game calculates a percentage of recipe completion based on talent, morale and recipe difficulty/rarity. For example, the Library of Altoria might have information on the Flying potion and the Zit Removing potion. Obviously, the later one being rather easy. Sending a Scholar to this place would yield the following result : discovered 10% of info about the Flying potion and 34% about the Zit Removing potion.
Add a bit of randomness to these results and the fact these locations are rather far away (3 or 4 days to go there or something) and you can see it would take about 21 days to discover the Zit Removing potion and 80 days to discover the Flying potion. It would be a bit shorter since your scholar would probably gain a level during the process.
Good point : it's very easy to make a recipe discoverable... just create it as usual (defining the required ingredients) and give it a difficulty, and that's it.
Bad point : there won't be a bit of *actual* research by the player. You will only get a recipe once 100% of it has been discovered.
Side note : as with ingredients, you could choose to focus on a particular recipe discovered in a location in hope of getting more info on it, but *exclusively* on this one.

- The last possibility. According to how the lab works, each recipe could be something such as :
3 Crushed Fennel and 1 cup of Berries Juice gives the potion of Laughing.
In other words : -number- of -processed- -ingredient-. The ingredient, the process, the quantity.
The first step of research would be sending your scholars to libraries. They would start bringing back the very first part of a recipe : its name and utterly incomplete instructions such as :
X xxx xxx and X xxx xxx.
Sending them again and again would bring back one piece of the puzzle each time :
3 xxx xxx and X xxx xxx.
3 xxx xxx and X cup of xxx.
3 xxx xxx and X cup of Berries Juice.
And so on, and so on... until you get the full recipe.

Good point : while similar to the percentage system, you actually get to see the whole "enigma" and you can try to fill in the holes by yourself. 3 pieces of what ? Who knows... try 3 boiled cinnamon, 3 cut feathers... who knows. And how many cups of Berries Juice ? Maybe you'll find out by yourself. That's when the lab is useful : you get to *try* to find out by experimentation before your scholars find out by searching.
Also, this system is completely automatic except for designing the recipe which is required anyway in all cases.
Bad point : It's still a bit random maybe?


For now, I'm thinking of mixing the percentage one with the last one. Each time a scholar goes, he ups the percentage of a recipe you can see, filling in the gaps. In the meantime, you can try to find out the full recipe on your own.

[musical74]

I'm wondering if it was a glitch, because I haven't been able to duplicate it...Fram is back to getting clover and fennel in the plains, and fennel and cinnamon in the lake. Still wondering how she found cinnamon in the plains tho...I have played the game since that oddity, and she's never found cinnamon in the plains again...screwball glitch?

Regarding the interface and result: I like both ideas. The interface seems easy to manage, and it should be something fairly simple, because you do not want to scare people away from playing it. It MAY become slightly harder for the *test experiment on the staff* if you make too many mistakes, and they are hesitant about testing your latest creation.

As far as recipes goes...I like both the first and third ideas, but the second doesn't seem to really fit with me. I would rather have the gatherers find out bits of info as they are gathering, and relate it to you. You need to figure out what to make of it, and go from there. Maybe take part of the first idea and part of the third? The base idea of the first one I like, but I am SURE I would hate having 97% of a new potion figured out and can't make the new potion until the gatherers/scholars get that last piece of info...and they never seem to find that one piece of info...UGH.

[papillon]

By the way, I haven't really been keeping up with this project since looking at the very very first demo, but I just thought I'd drop in the idea that if you can complete a cute fun management sim game with good original graphics/etc and get it onto the casual game portals for sale, you could become FABULOUSLY WEALTHY! Er.

(Did I mention Kishi is selling well?)

[monele]

Eh . As tempting as it sound, I've just never seen myself as able to sell anything of this kind ^^;. And I want to support the free amateur games concept ^.^.
If I find myself sick of my current job at some point though, I'll keep this in mind ^^. I see how Kishi would sell well People just crave for raising sims, don't they?

EDIT :

As far as recipes goes...I like both the first and third ideas, but the second doesn't seem to really fit with me.

I think I'll go with the third idea, unless someone else finds something bad about it in the meantime.

Btw, has anyone looked at the quest script and played around with it ?

[dizzcity]

Okay. Finally got around to having time to play this. Went through it twice, once up to 90 days, the second up to 45. It's true that the starting seems slow, but I guess that's fine for newcomers, especially if you add in all the quests and events that happen in the middle of things.

In terms of gameplay and resource flows, one thing I realised was that the economic model still crashes around 90 days or so, if you try to fulfil every order. I think the reason for that is pretty much because your resource input is limited to pretty much what Framboise and Pom can gather. The chain of production all starts with the ingredients. Not enough ingredients, not enough potions. Not enough potions, not enough happy customers.

The lab, recipes, quests and everything are really an add-on, but the core gameplay needs to be fixed first to run smoothly until forever. I think, off-hand, the trouble is that it's not an infinite cycle so far. I've documented in a flowchart below all the features currently implemented (black), planned for implementation (green), and types of quests as well as what they interact with (blue). I've also bolded the essential economic cycle, which is what I think you need to focus on right now.

I think the most important thing to implement right now is a marketplace where you can buy and sell ingredients. In other words, provide a way to change money (which is of little use right now), back into ingredients. That would change your chain of production into an infinite expanding cycle, which you can then layer quests and other interesting but non-essential features on top of.

As for the quest system, I had a look at it. Seems a little complicated and I don't understand a lot of things, but I'll keep staring at it until I do.

-Dizzy-

[monele]

Still going down after a while ? Darn ^^;... But I think you're right. Money is just useful to expand the shop... but expanding is only useful when you have too much of something... which just won't ever happen as long as we don't have enough of something such as potions or ingredients ^^;.
Buying ingredients was planned as a bonus feature but you're right... it could actually be a *needed* feature instead. I'll have to look into this.

About the quest : you can ask questions if needed ^^. It being in a rather drafty state, I see how it would be hard to get right away. But telling what you don't understand will help me make things better ^^

[dizzcity]

Edited my post above to include a nice flowchart. ^^

On second thought, I realised the problem with an expanding model like that reputation system is that eventually it will always hit a limit that you don't have the capacity to change the supply for. In this game, you can only control supply for the economy. You cannot control demand (unless you're willing to take a hit with your reputation), except to expand it through advertisements. There is no way to reduce it to match your current supply, except by not servicing customers.

Is there any sort of feature that can act as a balance against a growing reputation leading to always-growing demand? I can only think of being able to set prices, or introducing competing stores and market share. Of the two, setting prices seems to be the more useful and attractive one. But maybe there could be other methods. (A whole series of reputation/demand-reducing events, maybe? Seasonal demand?)

About the quest : you can ask questions if needed ^^. It being in a rather drafty state, I see how it would be hard to get right away. But telling what you don't understand will help me make things better ^^

I think it's mainly because I don't understand Python, so I have no idea what half the code does. The actual writing is easily understood, but I'm confused by the syntax behind the magasin and etalage variables. I can probably figure out how the day, loc and grimoire variables work, but the two above really stump me.

-Dizzy-