Devlog - Scope Creep Management
The society has been fleshed out on and next step was making one type of event for each location type, as mentioned at the end of the previous devlog.
Or was it?
One of the main features I had in mind was that effects in one event can affect the next event you pick.
Two types of changes proved extremely interesting, but also extremely problematic for keeping the initial scope sensible.
- Losing your clothes - it's a tradition that in a lewd game the protagonist will end up naked at some point. I wanted to have it just be a state she is in and then the next event will be modified based on it. Most commonly it would reorient the next event's main objective to getting a replacement outfit
- Traveling with someone - if you meet a friend, what stops you from inviting them along to the next area? It would add a lot of changes to the story and would lead to interesting developments. They may make the event easier/harder and you may gain unique insights.
After playing around with different event concepts I came upon a fairly obvious but troubling development.
If I had 1 event that can get you naked in the prototype set of 8 events and 1 event that lets you bring a friend along, that balloons the minimum required event variations to 3x the amount (rather, 22 because initiating events can't have variant of their own change) .
But, in the final game it wouldn't be a big issue since I would have enough events written that there will always be an available event for the given location, right?
Wrong.
Locations types would appear multiple times in the same run, and thus I would need to avoid repeating the same event during a single play-through since it would be weird to have characters appear at multiple places doing the same thing and reacting in the same way.
Getting all I wanted in the initial design was not viable, so one of these three had to be removed:
- Non-repeatable events - I would need to make some generic/boring events for each location that could repeat because they are independent of ALL big modifiers, and could fill in the situation where there is no available specific event.
- Big modifiers - if I leave out this variety, I could focus on making events simpler at the cost of having no real big game changing stats, which would severely limit the types of events I could write.
- Player Map Navigation - if I removed the map and didn't let the player choose where they would go next, then I could design a chain of events with random variants that I want. But this could lead to samey play-throughs and limit player choice greatly.
I went for removing the 3rd option, despite already having map navigation coded in.
I am currently in the process of writing the first event chain and it's turning into quite a beast. You could get lucky and avoid most of the drama/challenge, or you can get totally destroyed by your opposition. I guess that's how it works for these games, it's more interesting when you are less lucky xD
I am considering to give it to more people to test once I have the first event chain implemented, but it may take a few weeks.
Adventure Gal
Lewd Roguelike Choose Your Own Adventure RPG
| Status | In development |
| Author | PowerOfSin |
| Genre | Role Playing, Interactive Fiction |
| Tags | Adult, Erotic, Godot, Pixel Art, Roguelike, Story Rich |
| Languages | English |
| Accessibility | Color-blind friendly, High-contrast |
More posts
- Devlog - Worldbuilding Effects on Game Design18 days ago
- Devlog - Map Generation32 days ago
- Devlog - First Look41 days ago
Comments
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Hmmm to be honest from what I encountered in other games and my own limited coding experience I think a potential solution to the general issue with location based events is to have common events that have different flavor text depending on the location.
This way you can avoid having alot of minor events that functionally do the same thing just in different locations, and if you want a functional difference in theses common events you can have a set of mini-events that act as extensions of specific outcomes .
You can also ultize a trick I seen with how the game stellaris handles localisation and differing flavor text. By which you separate the actual text into a separate file and utilize phrases such as "pubfail.1" the their place to cut down on the size of these events and make them more flexible.
This that of course can also be utilized for different levels of undress and can of be be done in parts for more subtle differences.
Granted though of course I am not suggesting you to do all this immediately since adding shiny sounding features on whims is premium scope creep.
I already have some support for contextual exceptions, which I had plans to make localized flavor too (like, having regular sex usually doesn't change the main flow based on location, but can sure be flavorful)
Bigger issue is that I want big changes to be more impactful to the story, outside of just flavor. I tried writing some generic events and they were just uninteresting. I realized most of the charm and flavor of these kinds of stories comes from recurring characters, but I cannot use them in these generic events if I want a coherent narrative.
If events were not the whole game, I would opt for these similar events with different flavor approach. However, since they are the main gameplay and reason to play the game, I decided it's a lot more important to keep events more personal, at the cost of keeping locations rigid.
I also attempted single choice events, instead of a few branching choices, and this also hurts the overall experience I am trying to get to.
I didn't mention it in the devlogs before, but I sort of have a few design pillars that I wanna keep intact:
Generic events may break the rule #3 if they keep repeating, and they also cannot usually contain #1 or they risk becoming more specific.
The map can enhance #4 and provides another #1 and #2 to the table, but #3 has a risk of failure down the line, and I cannot predict how far it can go so when I scrapped it, it took generic events with it.
Replies to you can be devlog posts themselves xD
But if someone goes down to read comments, they will see it, which works too :p
You have a good point just I do want to stress to avoid making your plans for the game too rigid as can lead to just much issues as scope creep long term. Though this isn't an objection to your current plans. Since naturally you would need to get your core gameplay loop down and figure out the rough direction you want to take the story first before you can implement more minor features to flesh out the game.
I will say like your past works so I will be following the direction this game takes regardless to see where it goes.
Glad to hear you believe in me xD
We will see how things will grow once the basics are settled. I do prefer to have a clear guideline set early so later when I need to make a design decision it will be easier to pick.