Mute Recruit [WIP][Comedy/Sci-Fi/Cartoon]

[Aussie Ben]

Plot:
Mute Recruit is a 80s cartoon comedy themed visual novel. As a leading supervillain, it's up to you to hire some new henches. Unfortunately for you, your alien overlord partner, Thistle, takes great delight in seeing you constantly fail. After all, Thistle wants to take over the world before you do! After you manage to place a hugely successful personals ad for new recruits, Thistle decides to interfere, and transforms them all into mutant animals, or "Mutes". Your goal is to appeal to your ideal recruit, getting them to like you enough. Thistle's goal is to see you get mauled.

Failing that, if you make it to the end, you'll have to take part in Thistle's gameshow gauntlet - Mute Recruit. You don't get to choose your henchmutants here - they'll choose whether they like you based on how you've treated them throughout the game. Reach the end of the show, and you'll be able to pick from the mutants who haven't dropped out of the game!



Progress:
At the moment, I'm posting this in here as I've been keeping it to myself. I've been working on Mute Recruit for a while, but just posted my first screenshot on Twitter tonight. Someone recommended that I post a topic about it on the Ren'py forums, so I'm doing that too. I've got a fairly good idea of how I want the game to progress and function, but feedback and thoughts are certainly welcome.



There's still a lot of work to do on elements such as UI and things like that, and I have to work on the story more. But, progress is coming along nicely, I think! A good start, at any rate.

Thanks for taking a look!

[Sslaxx]

That someone was me!

Looking like fun, and it sounds a fun (and nicely 80s) premise, too!

[gekiganwing]

Mute Recruit is a 80s cartoon comedy themed visual novel. ... Thistle decides to interfere, and transforms them all into mutant animals, or "Mutes".

I thought about 1980s animated series which had both a plot and anthropomorphic characters. The first thing that came to mind was the original Thundercats television series. A couple seconds later, I thought about Battle Beasts. After searching the web for that title, I was reminded that it was a line of toys, and that it never had a TV or movie spinoff. That said... were you inspired by any specific show, book, comic, or other media?

Your goal is to appeal to your ideal recruit, getting them to like you enough. Thistle's goal is to see you get mauled. Failing that, if you make it to the end, you'll have to take part in Thistle's gameshow gauntlet - Mute Recruit. You don't get to choose your henchmutants here - they'll choose whether they like you based on how you've treated them throughout the game.

I'm curious as to how this will work. Is this mostly a story about friendship and teamwork? Is this a plot driven romance comedy? Or somewhere in between? If you're not sure about what to focus on, then think for a while about your intentions. Consider whether you want to write about characters getting along as a team. If romantic relationships are at least a part of your story, then think about how much emphasis they will have.

[Aussie Ben]

Hi there! Thanks for replying. Mute Recruit takes its main inspiration from the 80s series of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - particularly the bickering chemistry between Shredder and Krang, as well as their two mutant goofs, Bebop and Rocksteady. While in the initial series, Shredder took two of his thugs and transformed them, for this I thought it would be more fun if the player had a lot more to evaluate from, but had to strike a balance between appealing to the thug they wanted, and also being appropriately villainous.

The overall functionality of the 'game' side is that there are two types of 'meters'. First off is the 'Villain Meter' - this keeps track of your villainy, and is increased by being suitably nasty to your prospective candidates. Each mutant also has their own 'Appeal Meter' - the more this is filled, the more they'll be eager to be hired with you. Some actions will increase a mutant's Appeal Meter at the expense of the Villain Meter (and vice versa), so it's up to the player to juggle both of these elements.

At the end of the game, players have to take part in Thistle's ridiculous game show, Mute Recruit. This inspired by the game show "If You Are the One". In this show, a bachelor is on display for 16 women, and they can choose to buzz out at any time when the bachelor is presenting themselves. (It can be pretty cruel at times!)

The basic ruleset (which I've cut down a bit) is:
- Initial reactions (Women get to buzz out after the bachelor has walked out on stage)
- Learning about their occupation
- Learning about their interests
- Remaining contestants are whittled down to two by the bachelor
- Bachelor selects their desired woman, who can either recject or accept, and the show ends

I've got the base structure all laid out, but I'll need to test the more detailed stuff to make sure it's fun. If the stat stuff ends up being less fun than I expect, then I can always strip it out and make it a straight up choice-based visual novel. Nice to have a back-up plan just in case!