Magical Boutique

[monele]

Yay, I'm glad ^.^. Didn't it feel too slow, though ? I thought having to wait 1,5 month might be too much... Of course, in the real thing, there will be events in the mean time which should avoid getting bored.
On that topic, I'll post a little patch later... can anyone say first quest booyah?

[monele]

>> Patch for v0.00003 (141kb) <<
Unrar in the game/ directory (overwrite the files)
I can't guarantee any compatibility with old save files

-- NEW --

* The first quest! It still needs better text but I wanted to have the concept working before anything else.
* quest.rpy can be found in the game directory for your modding curiosity. You'll probably need things that aren't there (object functions and stuff) but I'm sure the interested ones will at least be curious to see how that first quest works. Keep in mind that the system might change as we get to more complex quests or event types (gathering events will need to be added for example).

-- UPDATE --

I realized I removed the intro scene and left some debug text ^^;...
Btw, do you guys want to keep the intro (choose the name and boutique name) or don't you mind for now ? (knowing that the name isn't displayed anywhere except for the character sheet anyway)

[DaFool]

I don't mind the removal of things we've seen before, provided you add it back in for the final version.

OMG, I can't wait to check out this new mod. The older version I was playing until around 2 months, when I encountered the same crash as Dis when I ran out of money. But that was the older version.

[mikey]

I liked the demo generally, but then I felt that the main thing I wanted from it was kind of missing - the gathering of ingredients is okay, but I couldn't find a way to brew something myself - it was all pretty much a given thing and the vision of a potions lab was replaced by daily chore assignment. I still found it to be very refreshing, but I'd like my Magical Boutique to be more of a place where pretty girls and I have fun organizing and mixing ingredients - and less of a management. I really love the names, Framboise is some kind of a fruit, right? (no, didn't check google, I have my pride ^_^) And also, I liked the speech bubbles, the menu, and of course, I would have liked some conversation with the girls.

However, don't really mind me if everyone is telling you differently, you know I don't like any form of management sim or RPG, so my opinion isn't really what you should go for to make it appealing for the intended audience. I just wanted to offer some opinions from someone who isn't really into tracking numbers.

[musical74]

Going check out the mod in a bit...

No, I don't think it was too slow. It did slow down a bunch, but keeping in mind that there will be quests and events in the finished version, that should be OK as far as getting up to speed goes. I would leave the speed of getting the reputation up the way it is now, it's easier to manage!:)

One thing that I have been curious about...how do the customers KNOW that you have Breath of the Just? On day 8 Framboise gives you the recipe for it, and you start selling it once get the blueberries...so how does the first customer who buys it know about it? Word of mouth? By that, I mean, say a guy goes to by weak cure, notices you are selling this fancy new potion called Breath of the Just, and mentions it to friends? Just wondering...

mikey: maybe monele will make a mod so you can experiment with potions? Actually, this sounds kind of fun...experiment so that, by trial and error, you make new potions or more powerful versions of exisiting potions. Hmmmmm...I love the way it is now, but at the same time experimenting with making new potions would be fun

[DaFool]

I'd like my Magical Boutique to be more of a place where pretty girls and I have fun organizing and mixing ingredients ... I would have liked some conversation with the girls.

Yep, I'd definitely welcome the opportunity to flirt with your employees

And that means all of them are pretty girls with french names.

... And then there could be a quest / event where the Department of Labor comes knocking on your door, and discovers that the girls are working full-time with no work permits, and are underage...

[monele]

I don't mind the removal of things we've seen before, provided you add it back in for the final version.

That's the plan ^.^. I just get sick of seeing the intro after the 10th time when I want to test something quickly. And since it doesn't add much for now... Everything else should stay though, since it's clearly part of the game.
(oh, there's also the fact that the intro will need to be updated...)

the gathering of ingredients is okay, but I couldn't find a way to brew something myself

I'm seriously thinking about this. I noticed I strayed far from the original idea of the lab. It somewhat came back with the fact Scholars could get you new recipes, but other than this... nada. So yea, I'll have to decide how one could discover potions. The old idea was that you got into the lab and could try (once a day) to make a potion. You'd get the list of all the ingredients you had and you would select one, click on where it would go (pot, alambic, burner) and then activate things (burrrn~, crush) and mix the results and get an unknown potion. Then... you'd have to try it on a willing guinea pig... "Framboise, c'm'here a sec' " and get to see either a neat result or... something probably funny.

And while the recipes say you need "1 unit of fennel", it doesn't mean you wouldn't need to heat it and then crush it to get the potion. The idea is that one *might* find new recipes randomly, but with enough possibilities, it would be a rare occurence and you'd at least need 90% of a recipe steps to have a real chance.

How does this sound ?

I'd like my Magical Boutique to be more of a place where pretty girls and I have fun organizing and mixing ingredients

Don't we all ? ;o;.... Ahem... But I see your point ^^. While there won't be *only* girls (don't try to dress Pom up, please...), relationships will be part of the deal.

Framboise is some kind of a fruit, right?

Raspberry ^.^

And also, I liked the speech bubbles, the menu, and of course, I would have liked some conversation with the girls.

Nyaa~... This will come in due time my good sir ^.^. Relationships are not coded in yet but when they will be, Saturday will be "staff day". Either you'll treat everyone to some place (restaurant, ye olde zoo?), or you'll at least have some boutique lunch with chit-chat.
Hm... and I should add just regular events so it's not just *all* numbers

However, don't really mind me if everyone is telling you differently, you know I don't like any form of management sim or RPG

It's okay . You actually remind me of things I wanted but kinda forgot along the way.

It did slow down a bunch, but keeping in mind that there will be quests and events in the finished version, that should be OK

True ^^. I'll wait before panicking

how do the customers KNOW that you have Breath of the Just?

They use our magical catalog... Err... :3... No, actually, I put a starting reputation of 1 or no one would *ever* ask for it, since there's no quest to boost its reputation.
In the real game, getting a new recipe would be the first step. The second one would be advertising about it, either through some gameplay system, or through a quest about that potion. As long as you get the potion off the "0" reputation, you'll get customers for it.

Word of mouth? By that, I mean, say a guy goes to by weak cure, notices you are selling this fancy new potion called Breath of the Just, and mentions it to friends?

But this is an idea too. I mean, you don't need to know what a shop has before you enter to buy it. You can just... look at what they have .

maybe monele will make a mod so you can experiment with potions? Actually, this sounds kind of fun...experiment so that, by trial and error, you make new potions or more powerful versions of exisiting potions. Hmmmmm...I love the way it is now, but at the same time experimenting with making new potions would be fun

It really wasn't planned as a mod but a part of the game ^^. Just kinda forgot about it ^^;

Yep, I'd definitely welcome the opportunity to flirt with your employees

Tsk tsk! :3. We'll see ^^

And that means all of them are pretty girls with french names.

I want diversity so... nah . But you should have enough of Framboise, Pimimi, Shadora and Nadja to begin with .

... And then there could be a quest / event where the Department of Labor comes knocking on your door, and discovers that the girls are working full-time with no work permits, and are underage...

My magical boutique has become a pleasure house ;3;. What's this potion there? Aphrodisiac??

[musical74]

*wonders who Shadora is*

I hope you do go through with the idea of experimentation, and finding a willing guinea pig to test potions. It will add people to the target audience, I think...you get those that are playing the game because it's a management sim, and you get those that are playing it because you can fiddle around with making new potions. Example: you want to test an experiment of one fennel and one amber, where the fennel is crushed and heated, and then mixed with a slice of amber. You call Framboise to the lab for a second, and ask her to test this experiment...and she gets a lovely...splash of water on her face! OOPS, sorry Framboise, here's a towel...the next day, you try an experiment with fennel crushed and heated and two bits of cinnamon. You summon Framboise to the lab again, and she comes to the lab, with a towel this time...she tries the experiment...and she suddenly feels MUCH better about herself, and feels more confident about her abilities. Viola! A Mood Enhancer!

So Pom's not into cross-dressing, huh?

Generic question: Right now, all the gatherers say the same thing *I'm back! Here's what I found!* and the brewers say the same thing *It was a good day of work* or *We ran out of ingredients*...what is the possibility of having Framboise and Pom say different things when the gather, and the hero, Framboise, and Pom say different things when they brew? While it won't really make a difference as far as playability goes, it would be nice to have all the characters say their own things.

[monele]

Shadora : You'll know soon enough

I want to go with the experimentation idea. I just need to decide how it works so it has a real incidence in the game and stays useful throughout the game.

No, that's not part of Pom's interests :p. He'd even be rather touchy about the topic.

I already answered that ^^ Yes, each character will have his own lines. Hopefully, more than one per task.

[Jake]

Waiting for large software packages to install at work makes me think about random stuff far too much, so here's some more random thoughts...

I want to go with the experimentation idea. I just need to decide how it works so it has a real incidence in the game and stays useful throughout the game.

The other thing I'd be worried about is that if it's deterministic, then it would represent a significant loss of gameplay on the second and subsequent runs through - if you already know that ground amber plus burned fennel equals medium heal from a previous game, there's no experimentation factor anymore. So my first reaction is that the 'discoverable' potions would probably need to have randomised recipes...

...but then they'd probably end up feeling rather... well, random. Fish scales and clover are curatives in one recipe and intelligence-enhancers in another, just 'cause that's the way the [figurative] dice rolled. Not to mention that potions that are worth a lot might end up being gather-expensive in one game and dirt cheap in another.

Perhaps class all the possible reagents into broad categories such as 'plentiful', 'uncommon' and 'rare', with cropping-up-at-gather-spots frequencies to match, then randomly give certain items from certain classes a modifying effect? So, say, one uncommon item has a medium-increase effect on a potion, so where it takes 5 clover to make a Fox's Cunning (IIRC) it might take 5 clover + 2 fish scales to make a Fox's Extra-Cunning; one rare item gives a super-increase, a combination of two uncommons has a time-extend effect, and so on...

Off the top of my head -

Potential Benefits:
- The particular reagents which bestow the modifying effects are different each game, not all reagents will necessarily do anything to all potions, so there's always an experimentation factor.
- The game-balance part depends on the rarity classes of the reagents, which can be pre-determined, so the game is roughly 'as hard' each time you play it no matter which random combinations do what.
- The experimentation can continue to have an effect throughout [most] of the game if you restrict it to only modifying existing potions - so you still have a trickle of story-unlocking potion base classes, but you can expand your grimoire by modifying these a bit as and when you want.
- Similar collections of reagents having similar modifying effects makes it feel more logical and consistent.

Obvious Disadvantages:
- On the other hand, if there's not a spread of different modifications that can be done to different potions, it might feel - if you'll excuse the pun - a little too formulaic...
- You might find that to get the most basic modifications you need reagents that you don't see until you visit some remote location with some character who joins late in the game, so parts of the lab might be cut off from you by bad luck.

[mikey]

Well, I must say that IMO formulas should be fixed and non-alterable. You could share "secret" recipies with friends and as you pointed out - if it's randomized, it will FEEL random.

However - I'm not terribly certain about classes either - it does feel really logical and sounds good, but brewing similar recipies with similar ingredients... that's more cooking than chemistry. Plus, I'm not sure that several versions of Fox's Cunning will be perceived as something new. The thrill of finding something entirely new is the main drive for alchemy, at least for me.

The proposed system kind of takes away the joy of experimenting and leans once again more to logic-driven RPG-ish gameplay. The simple fun of mixing a green and a blue liquid and getting an orange one with a cool name is what I'd like to play for (personally, of course).

I'd therefore be for more recipes, maybe an overkill of recipes so that you can't unlock them all at once - this way you will know there are more to experiment for and maybe you'll have the motivation to forget about geting rich with the potions you know, and experiment some more to get the ones you don't know.

And, this just in to my head - make a LOVE potion

[PyTom]

I think it's important that the game be reasonably deterministic. Once you totally abandon determinism, it means that it's impossible to write walkthroughs for the game, which are useful for players (like myself) who have limited time.

Nondeterminism also makes it much harder to analyze and understand the game, and balance the gameplay. You could (admittely, with very low probability) have a game where the only thing the customers ever buy is the dried frog pills... and is that very fun? Randomness makes it much easier to have the system break down after a while, and for that to not be caught in testing.

And, this just in to my head - make a LOVE potion

Heck, make nine of them. (Let's see if anyone gets this reference.)

[Jens]

Heck, make nine of them. (Let's see if anyone gets this reference.)

So...what do I win?
On a related note, try adding a testing cat(You probably can't tell but actually I like cats).

[monele]

Hmm... While I enjoy touching at a more mechanical way of doing games, I've always been disappointed by other such games because it felt very impersonal... lacking a lot of story/mood. So... I'd lean towards the deterministic idea for the most part. I'll try to see what randomness can put in. But basically, randomness should be for the gameplay part and determinism should be for the story part.

Another thing is that I'm really not sure about how potions should be. For now, they're totally unique and anything related to their effect is just flavor (text and picture, no stats). I can keep it this way which permits any kind of potion. Potion effects should be mainly discovered through the story.
Yet, I might be tempted to try and make a Morrowing-like system : each ingredient has 4 properties ; as long as a property is found in 2 of the mixed ingredients (up to 4 I think), the resulting potion gets that property. The trick is that there are ill properties and you'll most often get these instead of good ones ^^;.

The simple fun of mixing a green and a blue liquid and getting an orange one with a cool name is what I'd like to play for (personally, of course).

Well I don't plan on having potion mixing. Just ingredient mixing .

I'd therefore be for more recipes, maybe an overkill of recipes so that you can't unlock them all at once

And that's where things get hectic. Having a gameplay based system similar to Morrowing would mean just creating many ingredients, giving them properties and then... just looking at what results you get through all possible combinations. It's actually even fun for me since I wouldn't know what can happen until I try it out.
The problem is that it means I can't keep track of all the possibilities and potions won't be linked to story bits :/.

Unless... we mix both systems, picking a few results out of the list (the most interesting ones I suppose) and reusing them for story things, while letting the player discover other things. Deep against shallow

Nondeterminism also makes it much harder to analyze and understand the game, and balance the gameplay.

That's a big concern for me ^^;... The more variables, the harder it is.

On a related note, try adding a testing cat

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

[musical74]

Cats everywhere thank you, monele! =)

One thing of interest I noticed, not sure if this was intentional or not: when you are given a choice, (show Fram the potions Vs show her the register, gather ingredients VS make a new potion VS make $$$) one of the statements is darkened a bit - what appears to be the *correct* choice. Noticed it in the mod too...was that an intentional thing? Or is it a case of *the darkened statement has the most positive aspects*? Just wondering.