Deadly Vice: Gluttony [Horror][Thriller][Some Comedy][Comm]

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KarmaLarma
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Deadly Vice: Gluttony [Horror][Thriller][Some Comedy][Comm]

#1 Post by KarmaLarma »

The Story

Deadly Vice: Gluttony is a horror-thriller (with some comedy elements) about a man who accidentally befriends a killer while on a resort for the super wealthy in Hawaii. Your choices as the anxious and stubborn recent lottery winner Harvey Lambert affect your relationship with dangerous billionaire Jason Bing by shaping your personality and changing his opinion of you. They also play into determining how well prepared you are to deal with possible attempts on your life and even navigating the eccentric wealthy socialites who seem blissfully ignorant to their peer’s “hobby”.
Image
(Background is just a placeholder)

Features:

Personality Quirks: There are six total personality quirks presented on three sliders in game, with one personality trait on each end. Your decisions change these sliders and thus change some of Harvey’s behavior. This can affect Jason’s opinion of you, as well as change how Harvey deals with certain situations. A Cautious man can better evaluate a situation while a Reckless one can react more quickly to an immediate threat.
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Squeamish Mode: This game will feature many Bad Ends since there are many ways to die in the story. Each death with have its own CG, some of which can be very graphic. To make the game accessible to more people without curtailing the gore for those who want it, I plan to include an option within the game menu called Squeamish Mode. With this turned on, the more gruesome deaths will show a toned down version of the CG.
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Branching Scenes and Decisions: The choices you make that don’t shape Harvey’s personality quirks will still affect the story. Characters remember things you’ve said to them and you’ll have opportunities to spend time with side characters or even more time with Jason if you so choose.

About the Project:

I currently have a small team of three for this project but as the writer/coder/sprite artist/CG artist/ect., I am shouldering most of the work myself. The help I have found is from my friends, one of which has agreed help with backgrounds and the other who is acting as my editor and occasionally provides writing for Hue who is a character she has provided for the story.
I remember reading once that you should write stories you would enjoy reading, so I’m hoping to fulfill a niche I feel often gets passed over in favor of romance and anime-inspired stories; character-driven horror stories of a quirky, very western style.

I’m starting a WIP thread here to help track my progress on the game and hopefully get some feedback from the community that will help make my VN better.

My current progress:
  • Full story outline
  • ~10k words, this being the majority of the first chapter with some optional scenes
  • A live composite system for Harvey and Jason’s sprites, allowing me to change their expressions by mixing and matching poses, outfits, brows, eyes, and mouths has been implemented. All eyes also have blinking animations.
  • Harvey currently has: 1 outfit, 1 pose, 5 brows, 5 eye sets, 5 mouths
  • Jason currently has: 2 outfits, 2 poses, 7 brows, 6 eye sets, 9 mouths
  • The main GUI with a collapsible window for tracking quirks (which has animated sliders when stats are changed)
Image
Some Harvey Sideimages
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Some Cropped Jason Sprites
Feedback Questions:
These are questions I would like to ask any forum goers who come across my post.
  • What do you feel makes a character charming? What can make you dislike interacting with them?
  • Do you think you would use Squeamish Mode?
  • Do you think it should be very obvious which decisions will affect which personality quirks (for example, a decision having the related quirk labeled on it) or that it should be left up to player to figure out so they have more to think about in their choices?
  • Do you feel the UI is confusing? Does the text look difficult to read?

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Re: Deadly Vice: Gluttony [Horror][Thriller][Some Comedy][Comm]

#2 Post by Mammon »

What do you feel makes a character charming? What can make you dislike interacting with them?
I think that your MC can easily be charming or relateable because they're an (presumably) regular bloke (just like you!) but whose behaviour recently changed significantly by becoming rich. If you can properly make him one/the kinds of recently rich people that your reader can relate to or imagines themselves to become when they suddenly become a millionaire, I think that you can make a really good and relateable MC out of him. With the other characters, it seems more likely that your MCs interaction with them will make them likeable. Considering these are probably mostly millionairs they can be weird and gimmicky characters without disbelief, but it needs your writing to make them good. Like always, it's the writer's skill and ability to make anything good or to make a surefire hit bland.

Do you think you would use Squeamish Mode?
Nah, I can handle gore. Unless you're actually intent to implement jump scares like FNaF, which are annoying and which I'd thus prefer disabling.

Do you think it should be very obvious which decisions will affect which personality quirks (for example, a decision having the related quirk labeled on it) or that it should be left up to player to figure out so they have more to think about in their choices?
Both can be good or bad, but considering that there's a bar showing your personality in the right down corner I wonder how you're planning to not show this progress. Unless you want to disable scrolling back after making a choice, people can just watch those arrows shift to determine the effect the choice had.
Personally, I can consider either to be good based upon execution. If I need to think what affects what, I like it. But it needs to be possible to decypher the game and the author's thinking process, which can be quite difficult to do for you. So if you think you can make the choices clear but not too obvious in their effect, that would be better. But if people will have to follow a walkthrough or play through the game on autoskip several times to try several combinations for the last few choices, then people couldn't understand your thought process.

Do you feel the UI is confusing? Does the text look difficult to read?
The font and UI look good to me. Pretty, especially the quirks part will be a real neat addition if it works well.
ImageImageImage

Want some CC sprites?

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Re: Deadly Vice: Gluttony [Horror][Thriller][Some Comedy][Comm]

#3 Post by Godline »

Your art is amazing, particularly the UI. <3

TBH, I'm more likely to purchase a game with romance in it, but depending on the price your art looks worth it. However only 10k for a full game is rather concerning if it's commercial. Most people want to get their money worth with commercial games and I wouldn't purchase anything for less than 30k-50k in the script. That's a minimum.

But that's just me, as a picky person. ;)

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KarmaLarma
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Re: Deadly Vice: Gluttony [Horror][Thriller][Some Comedy][Comm]

#4 Post by KarmaLarma »

@Mammon
Thanks for answering my questions! While I like experimenting with decisions in branching games, I know some people find it frustrating, especially when trying to get different endings. But you're right! I didn't consider that people can just back up and pick again if they don't like it. Too used to games that don't allow that, haha. Perhaps just keeping that implemented will be enough.

@Godline
Oh gosh I wouldn't dare sell a game that short, haha. No, that's just my progress so far. 10k is just what I've gotten done for the first chapter, which is almost complete. There's still plenty of other chapters I haven't actually started on yet, so I'm hoping it'll turn out a more than minimalist experience.

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Re: Deadly Vice: Gluttony [Horror][Thriller][Some Comedy][Comm]

#5 Post by Zelan »

What do you feel makes a character charming? What can make you dislike interacting with them?: This is actually a harder question to answer that I would have thought, but I guess having a character be a combination of likeable and... suave? is what makes them charming. Unlikable is a lot easier, haha - a character who is clearly bigoted, an asshole, or just plain annoying will get on my nerves real quick.

Do you think you would use Squeamish Mode?: I'm not sure - I'd probably have to see a few of the CGs in question before actually making the decision. Just having that option be there at all is super appreciated, though. c:

Do you think it should be very obvious which decisions will affect which personality quirks (for example, a decision having the related quirk labeled on it) or that it should be left up to player to figure out so they have more to think about in their choices?: I don't have anything to add to what's been said above, I think the rollback feature alleviates the challenge well enough.

Do you feel the UI is confusing? Does the text look difficult to read?: Nope! It looks great. c:

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