Erratic Beat {Date sim in progress}

[Pixie]

Hihi. First of all I'd like to apologize for posting this without signing up, but I keep getting an error when I try to register and so I cannot. I've emailed the administrator so hopefully that will be remedied. I've been browsing the forum for a few days to get myself familiar with it/work up the nerve to actually join and post.

Anyway, I've been wanting to do a date sim for quite some time now. I love-love-love simulation games and wish there were more released in America. As of late I'd been browsing around for game making programs, because though I do have some experience in simple programming and tend to pick programming up fairly easily, I certainly don't know enough about programming to do everything by myself. I had found a few possible venues, and decided to look just a little more before starting out. Thank goodness I did! I might not have found Ren'Py if I hadn't, and I was about to try a general game application in which I'd have to do a loooot more legwork.

Now, onto my actual project. I had a few different ideas, but this one is the one I'm pursuing as a first. It's probably way too ambitious, but I'm having a lot of fun with it so far as well as learning basics, and that's what's important. Its working title is Erratic Beat, which has some reasoning behind it on several levels. On one level, it's wordplay- the action centers around a shop called the Inverse Attic, and attic rhymes with erratic xD. Secondly, erratic means eccentric, and the characters are anything but normal- they are, excuse the pun, offbeat. Thirdly, erratic can also mean irregular, and is a term used to describe the heartbeat. Erratic heartbeat means something else medically than what I'm going for, but I think Erratic Beat works well.

The player assumes the role of a small-town, human man or woman moving into another town for the first time. The alternate universe it takes place in is full of nonhuman creatures, and although there are less of them than humans, they're definitely around and no secret. Being from a small town where everyone kept to themselves, your character has had little experience with nonhumans, and isn't exactly a social whiz with humans either. One day on impulse s/he decides to enter an odd-looking shop, and his/her life takes a bizarre twist, becoming irrevocably entwined with a multitude of nonhumans and a few humans to boot.

As mentioned above, your character can be male or female. You choose at the beginning, and I've actually split it into four choices. They're not named as such in the game, but I think of them as "voluptuous lady", "tough guy", "tomboy", and "pretty boy", determined by how you respond to the first question of Nina, the shopkeeper of the Inverse Attic. This doesn't have too much bearing on what you do (at least not at this point; I've got it stored as a variable so I could use it in the future); it's mostly for the player's benefit, getting to choose a little more than just male or female. However, it might give you a couple initial points for the "capturable" characters based on what their type (or types) is- think of it as making an impression. It won't be much, but it might get you acquainted with them a little better at the beginning.

So far in the way of eligibles, there are five girls and five guys that I have in mind, and you can go for either gender regardless of your player's. That includes Nina. She is human as well, though as was implied above, the majority of characters will be nonhuman. So far I've got Abel and Colette, eerie demon brother and sister; Marisol, a bubbly mermaid girl; Lillian, a sweet fairy girl; Tabitha, a civilized but energetic catgirl; and Seth, a werewolf boy. There are a few boys I'm debating the identity of; it's not that I don't have ideas, it's that I have too many ^^;;. Very likely I'll throw in an angelic boy named Celestine. Maybe eventually I can think about having more than ten characters, but for now, that's plenty for me. Feel free to make suggestions, though!

The characters will have affection points, as in you do something for them/say the right things/otherwise make them happy, the points will go up (or if you do the wrong thing, they'll go down). Eventually you'll be able to pursue an ending with your character of choice, if you have enough points. I may make some changes to that, but that's my basic plan for now.

One thing I will really be wrangling with is the concept of an inventory. The plot centers around a shop, and one of the ways to Nina-points is to buy from it. In that way she's easy to please, but she'll need more points than other characters to totally win over (and I'll stop revealing inside details now xD). Anyway, I'd prefer it to not just be a "gift" system. Some items will be automatic gifts, but some... take the Tea Sets for example. I want you to be able to have a certain type of tea set, because most characters have a favorite type of tea, and each tea set has one type of tea associated with it. I'd like for the character to be able to (for a small withdrawal of their funds) make tea with that, and other things. I really like item synthesis as a means to getting interesting gifts. I also just think it's best to be able to keep track of what you've got somehow. I don't need a complicated picture system. A list will do fine.

Of course, that's going to be really complicated to code whatever I do, but hopefully I can do it eventually. If anyone has any tips, I'd greatly appreciate it. I have a money system set up, and for now I have a simple point system signed up to objects- you buy an Ornamental Tea Set, the "orna" variable rises one, etc.

As for art, I have at least a decent skill, but only with traditional. I think I've come to a conclusion, though. I'll draw one base body for each character, clean it up, color it, and scan it, then add a border to it so it doesn't look completely terrible on a background (I can't do transparency on a scanned picture, even- I'm that crappy at computer art). Then, instead of drawing differing bodies, I'll just make face icons to show when the character is talking- that is to say, the main image won't change, but the face picture beside it changes with the character's emotions. That'll ease up the workload for me tremendously. I'm terrible at backgrounds, but for the moment I'm trying to find public domain photographs that are at least vaguely suitable, so there's SOMETHING to look at. One thing I'm really having fun with right now is sound effects xD. I'm making my own, and haven't needed many yet, but I've managed to incorporate a ringing bell. I also caught my kitty purring and played with it until I got something I could use as a sound effect for Tabitha.

Progress-wise, I'm not that far. I've been working on it all evening and have finished the first scene. I don't have character art done yet; I'm getting there with Nina's.

Screenshot

[PyTom]

Can you try registering again, and let me know if it works? I think it's the CAPTCHA table filling up, so I just emptied it out.

[Pixie]

Works now! Thanks .

[monele]

I internally squeed at the cast. That's the kind of cast I just go for XD. From the description, I'm imagining some very neat little game (well... maybe not "little" ^^;...) and the other sim ideas you have sound interesting. I'm not sure I clearly see how the game would play out (day to day choices?) so I'm curious about the details

[Pixie]

Hehe, thanks! I'm going in trying to design a game I'd like to play myself. I love fun, varied casts and mystical beings. I also love being given choices in games. It can be a little boring if things are too linear- not always, especially with an awesome storyline/great game play (and I doubt I'll have either right off the bat), but choices are always fun to me.

As for how the game will be, I'm kind of going to be feeling my way along and just seeing what all I can do, since this is my first time using Ren'Py. At this point I can really only describe what I'd like to do and what I think might be possible, but we'll see ^^;;. I'll be flexible- as my French teacher says, "Say what you can say, not necessarily what you want to say."

I was thinking a day-to-day system, splitting it up into three time blocks, "Morning", "Afternoon", and "Evening". Rather than using a timer of some sort, I'll base the passage of time on actions. I'm thinking you get two or three actions a time block (that is, you can do two or three things during Morning, two or three during Afternoon, and two or three during Evening). An action would be like "Visit the Inverse Attic" (which is the same as visiting Nina). From there you could go upstairs into the Burnt Grimoire without wasting another action (I mean, it's just walking up stairs =P), but if you want to visit with any of the characters there, that would take up time, therefore use up another action. The reason for this system is that I don't intend to put a limit of days on it if I can avoid it, because I don't see any reason to. Since there wouldn't be a limit of days, doing a ton of things in one day would ruin the game. With the time blocks, I might also make some things you can only do at certain times. In addition to visiting the shop and characters, I want there to be some places you can go to in order to gather things (like getting flowers from a forest), etc.

I'd also like to implement some "random" events, so that everything is not based just on the everyday choices (go here, talk to her, go there, talk to him, etc.) you make but also what chances to happen, what you do, and how that affects the eligible characters' opinion of you. I'm not sure exactly how I'd do this but I'm thinking it might be possible to visit a certain character/place and have it so occasionally instead of the normal menu you'd get (with options like Talk, Gift, etc.), an event happens. I think I could also eliminate events that have already happened from happening again, or do events that only occur after another has occurred, via variable. If I can do this, I think it'll have replay value.

Since there won't be a limit of days, I think I'm going to base endings purely on affection points. You won't automatically win if you fill up a character's affection points though; I'd want the player to choose whether to end or keep going by just having the ending option appear in the character's menu when you visit him/her. That way if you just happened to butter up one character enough to get the ending but have decided you'd rather go for someone else, you don't HAVE to end it there. I may also add special endings, but I'm already thinking way too far ahead of myself. For now I need to just be thinking of each character's main ending.

I don't think I'm going to be using strength/charisma/wisdom/etc., at least not at this point. Perhaps it'll be there, but it won't be a huge influence on how a character thinks of you, maybe just a bonus. I want the game to be less about actions you do not involving the characters and more about what you do for and with the characters.

This is all assuming I can code it, mind you ^^;;. I really need to get an inventory display worked out...

[PrettySammy09]

Yaaay! Anoter Date Sim project! Always good to see those around!

I wish you all the best luck! And also, welcome to the forums! Nice to have you here!

[Pixie]

Thanks for the well wishes ^^. I like your username, by the way. *Pretty Sammy fangirl*

[musical74]

First off...welcome aboard! You'll find out we are a pretty big mix of talents, ranging from artists to programmers to writers to gamers

As far as the game goes...I REALLY like the premise and what you've described so far. I love the idea of a fantasy setting. and really like the idea of making the main character male or female. I do have one question though: you mentioned that there will not be a time limit. So when you get a character's love points high enough and then decide *eh, rather not*....what happens if you do that with all of them?

This does look like a good date sim

[Mirielle]

This seems really promising! I'm really intrigued by the diverse cast and the title as well! I'm only a voice actress, so I'm kinda beginner at code...although it seems hard, but I'm sure you can do it!

Nevertheless I shall support you in this project! -wavesflag-

[monele]

I recognize so many little things from my wish-projects that it's exhilarating (user-activated endings, moving around, replayability...). I really hope this goes through as it'd give me a proof of concept to aim for .
If you need tips for the code, feel free to ask ^^

[Pixie]

Thanks, everyone! I didn't think there would be so much interest, wow! Definitely not complaining, though xD. I hope you guys enjoy it when it's finished! It probably won't be for a while, but I'll be working on it.

I have run into a problem, but it has nothing to do with Ren'Py. I was going to show you guys the possible base for Colette and found out that my scanner seems to have stopped responding T_T. I think I know why, but not how to fix it. There's another scanner in the living room, but that computer is used by my parents and also my sisters (even though my sisters have their own computer too -_-) so it's difficult for me to get on, and that scanner is bad quality. I'll use it if I have to I suppose, but I'd really rather not, and I don't know how that's going to bode for my art. I wish I could give you guys a taste of what it might be like. I'm combing through my art, and I don't really have anything recent, particularly of the style and caliber I'm shooting for with this. Maybe a bit like this aside from the screwed up eyes; this is an older picture. By the way, that is a man (but he's a werewoman pimp... xD); he's another character of mine that is unconnected to this. The best example I have of how I'll color it is this unfinished picture I did for my friend a long time ago. I use colored pencils then edit a bit with GIMP, mostly the blur tool. Here is a finished chibi in this style. It takes a while to do but I like the way it looks, better than my purely traditional coloring anyway xD.

That said, I have the basic designs for some of the characters in mind, I've started on Colette art, have decided to restart the Nina art, and I've done some basic practice sketches for Tabitha. Also, I don't think I mentioned Victor, a potential male vampire. I sketched a bit for him as well. I think he'd be fun to use- rather than your archetypal elegant or angsty vampire, he'd be easygoing, lazy, a bit of a playboy.

I also thought a little about vampires in this universe, since adding a Night stage and letting you choose when to sleep would seriously increase the amount I have to code (at least it seems to me it would). I decided they only have to sleep about four hours and can be active in the day, but shouldn't spend too much time in direct sunlight if they can avoid it, as they might start to feel faint or their skin might sting if they were in the sun for more than around an hour. Non-sun light sources and filtered light (through windows, etc.) wouldn't really bother them, and a decent amount of shade would keep them from starting to feel ill as quickly. Victor would sleep during Morning, so you couldn't visit him then.

Here's a quick but slightly more detailed summary of the characters so far. I think Victor and Celestine will be used. Possible spoilers (you might know some of these things early on in the game, and you might not) will be put in a spoiler box.

Girls
Nina Conrad-
Physical: Redhead with long, straight hair; brown eyes; barely tanned skin; curvy body type; streetwise clothing
Age: 24
Personality and Etc.: This fiery shopkeeper is extremely outgoing and has a loud presence without necessarily being loud (but she can get loud if you make her mad). She loves her shop dearly.

She always wanted to be a shopkeeper, and finally got the opportunity when her affluent grandfather, Nicholas Conrad, passed away. She misses him, but is glad she was able to put the inheritance he left her to good use by starting up the Inverse Attic and Burnt Grimoire. This makes it all the more dear to her, because she feels it's her duty to honor her grandfather by making the shop succeed. She hasn't had great romantic luck in the past, and although she mentions "sleazy" ex-lovers, she hasn't actually been in a relationship for two years.

Marisol-
Physical: Blue or blonde hair, I can't decide, medium-length and a little wavy, probably in a ponytail; vivid blue eyes; pale peachy skin; blue fin-ears and blue tail, but can shift herself legs to go on land; cute sundress-type clothing
Age: 22
Personality and Etc.: Marisol tends to get attached to and dependent upon others. She's airheaded and occasionally even spastic. With all the time she spends at the beach you'd think she'd be tan, but she spends most of her time under the water. Occasionally she lounges around in the sun, however. She keeps a room at the Burnt Grimoire, but is seldom found there.

Marisol used to live almost exclusively underwater, coming up to the surface on occasion. She liked to chat with humans, as mermaids are rare in the area and she mostly lived alone, but didn't venture into the town. One day she met a man and fell in love with him, and eventually she was spending more time on land than underwater. She stopped visiting the beach almost entirely. Their relationship did not work out, which left Marisol depressed for a long time. She has recovered, but still gets down in the dumps about it sometimes. To soothe herself and get back in touch with her nature, she visits the beach every day. When she becomes close to someone, she worries that history might repeat itself.

I'll edit this and add more later, as I don't think I have time to write it all right now.

musical74: Thanks! Have there not been many games with a male/female choice? I find that kind of surprising, if so.

If you do max out the love points with all of them, there's really not a lot to keep playing for. The goal ultimate goal is to end the game, but at your leisure. Once you get the ability to end the game with a character, it doesn't go away (unless you start to make that character hate you and lessen their affection points enough so that you don't have it anymore xD). You could also continue to try to get random events to happen.

At a later date, I might do special endings if you have multiple characters in love with you, but that's thinking too far ahead just yet. I think it would be funny if you got something tacked on after your ending with your character of choice if you managed to get ALL the characters to love you- a comical picture of all the characters ticked off at you for wooing all of them xD. But you still get your ending with your character of choice. I don't want to put too much angst in the game; it's going to be a pretty lighthearted deal. The most I'd probably be doing in a special ending like that would be a shot of the characters you didn't choose in disappointment (or maybe pairing up some of the ones you didn't choose; think Harvest Moon). For now though, I'm going to stick to one ending for each character that you get if you woo and choose them.

Mirielle: Thanks! A voice actress? That's pretty cool :3. I listened to your reel; I love the "bunny girl" voice <3.

monele: Oh, really? Cool! I hope it goes through too... it's going to be fun to do but it'll be even more fun to let people play! I wasn't sure anyone would be interested in this kind of game, but I guess I was wrong... so now I can't let you all down!

Thanks for the code tip offer, too. I have one thing I'm a little confused about right now, and it's going to seem super-newbish, but I am a newb. I've read through the tutorials about it over a few times, and I'm still confused about the difference between Jump and Call. Or rather, I understand Jump just fine, but I'm confused about Call- which is a problem, as it says Call is better for date sims.

Also, I'm thinking of doing something like this for the inventory. I'll have a menu option accessible from home (that's the only place you'd need to use an item, really) that lets you look at your items. Then, I'll have another menu under that listing categories (as I'm sorting items into categories; it makes it a lot easier for me) of usable items. Clicking the category, there will be a menu of all items in that category you possess (if I can use "if"; otherwise it'd just have to list all items) and how many you have of it. You can click an item to use it. I could also add an option to show you your gift-only items (such as teas) in the form of narrated message. I've thought of doing "combinable" items perhaps, and in that case, I'd give you a menu with constructible item categories and show which ones you have the right items to make (again, if I can use "if" before a menu choice, as I haven't tried it yet; otherwise it would have to show all items you could make). This would involve a LOT of variables and "if" but it sounds feasible to me... hopefully.

[musical74]

*makes note to get to know both Nina and Marisol*

Most of the games have a male main character...some have a female main character, but I don't know of any completed games that have a CHOICE of male or female when you start. It's *this is your main character, here ya go*. That's one of the reasons I'm looking forwards to this....at least for me, a new ground, the choice of the main character!

[Pixie]

Oh, really o_o? Wow, to think I might be a first... xD. Set main characters are all well and good, but I think it's more fun in certain settings to play the game as yourself, or if not yourself, to play the game as the person you want to be rather than the person you're told you are.

Take Monster Rancher, for instance. I'm a longtime fan and one of the things I liked most about the games from... 2 on, if I'm not mistaken, including both GBA games, and until 4 and 5, it let you choose your gender (grr, why did they have to take the games in a different direction? *grumbles*). I was just a kid when I first played 2, and it was probably the first game I'd played that let you choose your name and gender, and I thought it was just so cool to be able to be a girl and not have to be anybody certain, like Princess Peach or Yuka (Flying Dragon) xD. Not that I didn't like them, it was just nice to be able to imagine myself however I wanted. It sparked my creativity and I created a character because of it, one of my oldest and dearest, Tara Verenne. When I play taming games I tend to imagine it's Tara taming the monsters, not me (that or that I'm another of my game alter egos, game version of Pixie). By not telling me, "You're this, you're that," my imagination runs wild and I have more fun. It's especially good for games in which you shape things, I think, like Monster Rancher, which was the first simulation I played as well. Its relative complexity thrilled me and while other games were fun, I liked it the best. Playing it as long as I have, it's still challenging, so it's still fun.

... now I have to go play it again. Oh, memories. Anyway, yay excitement!

[monele]

I think he'd be fun to use- rather than your archetypal elegant or angsty vampire, he'd be easygoing, lazy, a bit of a playboy.

Yey, archetype reversal

Have there not been many games with a male/female choice?

As musical said, most VNs have a male protagonist... and if not, you usually don't get to choose anyway. Why? Hmm... because it's easier to write while thinking of a single gender... especially with most VNs revolving around relationships.
Now it doesn't mean you can't give that choice in a VN, but it also depends on how much difference it'll make to be a boy or a girl. In many RPGs or similar types, the gender doesn't really mean anything except for your own visual aspect. Items are genderless, quests are mostly genderless... Maybe a few variations in dialogues such as "ma'am" instead of "sir" and that's it.
If that's what you're aiming for, it should be easy to give that gender choice, but people might think "I don't see the point of choosing my gender if nothing else changes". Another way to see it though, is that it definitely boosts customization and makes things more personal, so it's not a bad thing in itself.

I'd say this topic is also strongly linked to the "fleshed out protagonist VS empty-shell protagonist" debate.

I'm still confused about the difference between Jump and Call.

Let's see... Jump is about jumping to a point of your script and never looking back. This is fine for most story branching. Call is about making a short (usually) side step, do a few things, and come back to where you were. In a regular VN, Call is almost useless since you can be considered "on rails", only branching at a few points. But if you're going for a more interactive experience where you can move around, go back and forth, etc... I think Call will be really helpful.

The following example is a bit silly but shows one case where Call would be useful :

Code: Select all

label start:
    "Let's look at the inventory"
    call inventory
    "Let's look at it again!"
    call inventory
#

label inventory:
    "We show the inventory"
    return
#

If you wanted to do this with Jump, you'd have to put labels before each inventory call just so you could tell it to Jump back there (and you'd have to store where you were before jumping, so you know *where* to jump back to). Well... Call does all that automatically.

Basically, if there's a bunch of code you're going to need multiple times and in multiple places, it might be useful to use Call for it.

Then, especially for inventory, there's the possibility of showing a permanent button on the screen and have it Call the inventory label whenever it's clicked. I used that in the Phoenix Wright conversion to display the Court Record (which is really an inventory).

[Pixie]

Bah, siren video games... I wound up playing a different game and I wound up playing it for more than 11 hours total, yesterday and today, instead of working on Erratic Beat or my NaNoWriMo @_@. I'm a bad girl!

Hee, yes, yey for reversal. Victor's the sort of guy who doesn't bother to button his shirt all the way and cleans his room maybe once a year. He also complains about having to go to bed, then complains about having to get out of bed. Imagining a vampire, so often portrayed as a refined and suave individual, going, "Go away! *whiiiine* Five more minutes..." amuses me.

Oh, I certainly understand why there haven't. I just figured it was something that might have cropped up here and there. If it were a visual novel I probably would go with a static protagonist. It would be easier to develop and in narration, if it weren't first person, you'd need a lot more "he/him" vs. "she/her" which would be something of a pain. I can also see it if it's a date sim but with little plot varation. For this purpose, though, I want it to be more personalized. The plot will not be too hard and fast as I'm envisioning it now- of course there will be a backbone storyline, but the meat of the game will be less that and more interacting with the characters from day to day. What you described is mostly what I'm going for. I know it doesn't make that much difference, but it's fun for me, others might enjoy it, and the extra code doesn't bother me, so that's why I decided to go with it.

Ah, I think I'm beginning to understand Call. You would be able to Call something, finish with that, and just immediately go back to whatever after the termination of the Call, and you can do it repeatedly... right? In that case, Call is going to be far more useful to me since it'll facilitate repeated events such as going to place A/B/C/etc., which most of the game will consist of.

That's a good suggestion for the inventory. I'll probably put in a display-only inventory call as a button just so you can keep track of what you have; I don't intend item use to take place anywhere other than your character's home (with the exception of gifting, which will be part of each character's menu).