Rogue-Like 10/15 status update
So what's going on guys? Remember a couple weeks back when I was talking about the relationship mechanics? That's still been taking up a lot of my time. I also sent a lot of Kitty clothing sketches out for polish, and have been working on her alternate hair styles, the wet look, stuff like that.
But on the coding side, I've been working on relationships. The thing I was talking about last time was what Rogue would do (or eventually Kitty), if she found you screwing around behind her back, what if she broke up with you? Then I realized I should also consider what if you want to break up with her? Other girls might be hesitant to date you if they know you're with Rogue, if you want all of them at once, it might take some juggling to get the balance right. This has led to some very complex dialog trees.
So right now, I'm still working through the process of building up the options. I now have a proactive option to start dating her (rather than waiting for her to ask), and also an option to start dating her again after breaking up. Don't get too comfortable abusing these options, because there are time gates involved, and diminishing returns. This might be an easy way to piss her off, but each time is a bit more hassle to recover from.
The bit I'm right in the middle of is the "breaking up" sequence, which is a series of small dialogs that flow ever closer to a full break-up, but with opportunities to turn it around if you change your mind (although with some stat hits, she does not take it likely).
When I build these scenarios, I do them in a mostly chronological order. I start with dialog and logical flow. I write in starting points for the discussion, and then think what questions a player might want to ask to continue the conversation. Then I figure out the best way of having Rogue react to those choices, and move to the next thing. Occasionally it loops back around, or skips a step entirely. I work through in order how each choice would lead to each next option, all the way through the dialog.
Once I've done that, once the basic story has been established, the next step is to add in stats, and also stat-checks if I haven't already. This determines the penalties for a bad answer and benefits of a wisely timed one. It's not easy to come out ahead on a break-up conversation, but you can at least mitigate the damage, and there are actually ways to gain a little ground. After that's done, I throw in the "acting," deciding which expressions to throw in with each line of dialog. Overall, what could be a very simple system, instead is a rather massive one, offering plenty of different options depending on the choice you make, the choices you've made in the past, how each of her stats are relative to the others, that sort of thing. Those last two steps are what I'm working through now, and then I move on to the proactive "what if I also hook up with Kitty?" discussion. Once these are finished, I can begin making the mirrored version of them for Kitty's dialogs. I hope these will be fun to mess with once they come out.
Comments (20)
Oni, I have a question. I haven't played your builds lately so you may have changed the options around and I am going to look into the game again but why not also add in a subversive style into it as well that would allow the player to break her sense of self so they could date multiple girls too without having negatives happen and that would allow the player to choose if they want to be the romantic hero and have certain options or rewards and then the darker style of player who also gets certain rewards. It would add to the replay value since you would not be able to cover both sides at the same time.
Well, there are already a lot of little dialogs that happen if you focus on certain aspects of the game, and you can choose to have her act more submissively with higher obedience. I don't know about adding a hard lockout on any major elements though, because I don't want players to unlock everything available and then not be able to do the things they wanted to do. I want there to be more options at the top, not less. That said, playing through multiple times in different ways should provide unique experiences.
So any idea when the next update will be out?
Not sure, I'd still like to get a version out around the beginning of the month, but I need to tie up some loose ends. One thing I just finished was a shift to the "floating damage numbers" display that makes it so that it tracks the character's position on the screen, which is useful when multiple girls are active at once.
I didn't realize there was any logic to relationships :@ Hmm... Is one of the outcomes a perfect shit-storm? Or maybe it's just my life :( Sounds interesting tho, so I'm looking forward to see how you've worked this out :D
I have avoided having true "bad ends" in the game, there is no point where you should find yourself completely unrecoverable, no choice will permanently block off a future option, because while I think it's fun for people to choose to replay the game to try different routes, I don't want to FORCE players to retry because they've spent their time working forward and made some mistake that makes future progress impossible. It's a part of the irony that Rogue-Like is one of the least "Rogue-like" games out there. ;) So basically, in the worst case scenarios, you can really piss off one or both of the girls, really reduce their useful stats, put some time penalties on being able to seriously get back into their good graces, but you can keep plugging forward and eventually get back to where you were, and hopefully make some better choices.
I for one would like to work out a harem ending, maybe using the omega protocol with professor x to mold kitty to your whims or, breaking kitty to the point where she uses her powers to break into rogues room at night so you can dominate her at night, using overexposure to your power to create crippling addiction where she can't be apart from you.
A harem "ending" will be possible (there aren't technically any "ends" to the game, but you will be able to reach a point where every available girl is cool with you fucking every other available girl whenever you like), but it comes through convincing each girl to go along with it. I try to avoid sort of "cheap" takeover tactics like hypnosis or outright mind control of the girls, although there are certainly ways to play one off the other to advance both.
I would kill for a sequence of events where the girls "compete" for your attention, as mentioned by a person earlier.
It is an interesting idea, and I'm working out the mechanics for it, but I need to nail down some more basic stuff. It totally makes sense though, that if you can get the girls into a certain range of stats, they would be actively flirting with you and flaunting themselves and maybe squabbling with each other.
I wonder if the characters just need a jealousy score. So certain actions will increase it, and others will decrease it. As long as the girls stay under a certain level of jealousy, they don't care what you do when they aren't around
Don't give up.
Got to say I am loving the thought you are putting into this with the story and how things have the potential to unfold based on the players actions. Makes this entire thing more of a realistic human relationship simulator rather than just some porn thing. Because in life sometimes you fall in love then break up, find someone else, break up.... then end up having a complex on again off again thing with your first ex which might make your second ex jealous enough to try to win you back.
Thanks for the update, I appreciate being kept in the loop. Good luck and I can't wait to get a new build into my hands :)
Do we have an ETA for the next build? Sometime this month? :D
Hopefully. It all depends when I get this wrapped up. I'm debating whether to release with just Rogue's side of the relationship system and let people test that out, or to wait until I have more of Kitty's options filled out, even though some of them you won't be able to reach yet.
Sounds promising! And SUPER convoluted from a creation point of view, lol. Since it hasn't been asked yet, I'll ask the obvious ETA question (ballpark). Also : uh, "8/15 update" as a title? October might have been the 8th month for the Romans, but it's the 10th for us. :P
That'll teach me to post updates late at night. . .
What if you make one of them full obedience and no love, would they still be mad if you date the other?
A fair point, and maybe I should think through it a bit more, but currently having high obedience and inhibition makes things slightly easier than if all three are balanced. It's true that a high obedience/zero love character would not be as passionate about it, but she could still feel jealousy that you want to spend more time with this other girl. The thing to always keep in mind is that 100% obedience is not like "robot state," that would be like 300% Obedience, which isn't an option. It just means that she's as willing to listen to what you have to say as she's likely to get. If she's max obedient and also loves you as much as possible, then she's even more likely to listen. If she's max obedient and also maxed Inhibition, shes more likely to listen because she doesn't much care about not listening.