Progress continues. This is a screenshot from the second trial.

I'm not sure if I should include lots of sexuality changes (not like that, but changes to whether or not you feel comfortable in your female body). As it stands, the only way to max out femininity is to religiously follow the bimbo path, which is not my intent. I'll have to include ways to increase femininity without sexual actions.

I think I've worked enough on TTF for today. I might work on Cursed instead. Or maybe I'll tackle any of the myriad things that need to be done around the house so I can move in four days.

No Real Work Today

I'll have some updates tomorrow (with pictures, even!), but today, I have some things that need to be done around the house. I'm moving in five days! Very exciting.

Challenge!

So, talking with OTPiccolo today in the chat about the current contest run (fingers crossed!), we noted that RAGS (and RAGS derivatives like fever.dreamer's DayDreamer engine) seems to be dominating not just contests, but most of the content on TFGamesSite. I mentioned I probably wouldn't enter whatever the next contest would be, and he somewhat indirectly challenged me to look into programming alternatives.

So, I'm wondering if I might be able to pick up Flash or Inform or something. It's not my specialty, obviously (I prefer bending RAGS in new ways), but I do love a challenge.

Something to think about for the next few days...

Cursed Work: Scales

Taking some time away from some code is always a good thing. It let's you take things in with a relatively unbiased view.

In this case, I've been looking at the Cursed code, and noticed some really bizarre design choices. For example, player arousal is on a 1-100 scale. That makes sense, easy to track and so on. Player skill level (for the various skills) is on a 0-46 scale for some bizarre reason.

I know why I did it, actually. For each "level" of skill (from abysmal to awful, for example) required one more point than the previous level. So going from abysmal (the lowest) to awful only required one point. Going from awful to poor required two points, and so on. It makes a kind of sense, because it means that true mastery take more effort, but dammit, even when I set up the skill increases, they make more sense on a 1-100 scale.

So now I have to recode relatively significant portions of the existing code to account for the fact that the various scales in the game (skill, arousal, femininity, couple of others) will be 1-100. Sexuality will remain on a 1-20 scale, simply because the changes to it should be slow, single-point increments. It takes a while to convince yourself that you're no longer interested in one particular sex.

Anyway, that's just thoughts.

Cursed: Behind the Scenes

Who cares about theory? Let's look at some mechanics!

Some of this might be a slight restatement of stuff that I've already posted at TFGamesSite.

So, in Cursed, you play a man who has been transformed somehow into a woman. The causes are kind of vague, really. Anyway, once you're a woman, then what? Well, there's a couple of obvious things that happen, and a couple of things that kind of don't. First of all, your body is set based on prior actions. You can have small breasts, big breasts, or zonking huge breasts. There's a problem with the zonking huge breasts, though: if your boobs get too big, you'll lock in a bad end. I'm not sure if that's going to stay, but given the fact that I don't want breasts to be capable of getting infinitely huge, the best course of action right now seems to be if they get utterly (udderly) massive, which in this case is an H-cup, then you'll have to deal with the consequences. In other words, you'll have to deal with the fact that you really can't operate with breasts that big. Your butt size is variable as well, as is your hair length and color. I'm considering adding a height mechanic, but without any particular advantage or disadvantage to doing so, it's not worth it right now.

Hair length and color are relatively easy to influence. Color is a matter of dyes which, while costing money, won't be prohibitively expensive. The dye would be permanent (unless you re-dye it), reflecting the malleability of your body. Hair length would increase every week or so, or can be increased by special hair growth products. Hair is largely cosmetic: you can choose to do some different things with it in terms of styling, and some characters will like that, but for the most part it has little effect beyond your description. At least for now.

Breast and butt size are somewhat different. They influence a character's opinion of you (for example, more conservative characters might think less of player's with big tits). They tend not to get in the way of things, but altering your body, whether through breast, butt or weight changes, affects your clothing most of all. Changes are "instantaneous", in that when you go from, say, a b-cup to a c-cup bra, they grow within the space of one turn, but you have to build up to the growth in various ways. Your clothes will never fail, but once you take off an outfit after a body change, you'll notice that it doesn't fit anymore. There's a tailor available who will take an inventory of all your clothes that don't fit, and charge a flat fee per item. So, while you can change your body shape in a variety of ways, it's not necessarily the best idea, because you'll find yourself going through money rather quickly.

Money that may be better spent on different things. You start off with an apartment full of basic stuff, like a TV. However, these items only offer basic functionality. By upgrading your stuff, you can gain access to additional functions. For example, the basic TV lets you watch four or five different channels, but for the most part, you're going to find that there's nothing on. Getting the better TV gives you a total of ten different channels, and greatly reduces the chances of not finding something to watch. Getting the best TV (which requires getting the better TV first) gives you access to adult channels. Some things you can buy don't offer any benefits themselves, but instead just organize your apartment (for example, you can buy a large variety of books, but they will eventually clutter up the living room, so for a relatively low price, you can buy a bookshelf to hide them all, and yes, that's not a very good reason to buy a piece of furniture, but when you have more than a dozen books...).


I'm toying with an idea for descriptions. In other words, when your body fits in certain parameters, your description changes to reflect that you're a specific type of woman. If, for example, you were at the thin or very thin weight level, had a-cup breasts, and a barely there butt, then the description would reflect the fact that you have a waif-ish look. Add in black hair, and maybe you're a little bit of a gothic lolita in the right clothes. Things like that. I don't know how I would code it yet, but it wouldn't be terribly difficult. The way the "Player: Examine" command works right now, there's a command to determine certain personality traits, so changing it to include checks for various body effects wouldn't be very hard. So really, the only problem is what "special" descriptions there would be, besides the obvious things like "voluptuous", "tomboyish" and so on.

The game is almost stupid complicated. There's an "Examine" command to give you a basic idea of how you're doing (which will reflect fairly recent events as well, like if you've just had sex, are particularly horny, and so on), and a much more involved "Status" command that gives you lots of details. There's six options (because if I put it all in one command, it would be horribly long and take a while to go through and maybe you're just not interested in all that stuff), only one of which is not status related at all (it explains any sexual traits you've unlocked). The other five commands are Vitals (name, gender, cash, arousal status, and any odd physical features like a penis, or pregnancy), Appearance (hair, breasts, butt, weight, overall looks [I'll elaborate on this another time], makeup and currently worn clothing), Job (career track, actual job in that career track [again, something for another time], and the three job-related skills status), Sexuality (relationship status, gender preference [guys, girls, both], and your sexual traits), and Skills (non-job related skills, and your femininity: the degree to which you are comfortable being a woman). Just about everything in that's been listed can be changed.

I think that's enough for now. Eventually, I'll get around to talking about some other stuff in the game, but for now, there's things to do.

Actual Progress Made!

 Since the flurry of bug reports from the "early" version of TTF has died down a little bit, I was able to spend a couple of hours working on the game today. The second trial is supposed to be a little less complicated than the first, but I'm still struggling to figure out the overriding "theme" of the trial (the first is the quest, or more specifically, how you react to strange circumstances, i.e. a karma test). That being said, I've never let anything like being directionless slow me down, so three new TFs have begun!

 Tomorrow might be a bit of a minor work day, since I have other things going on, but we'll see if I can get anything done. Saturday might be a good day for some work too.

Not Much Progress

Unfortunately, yesterday was a "very little progress" day. It happens, especially when I have other things occupying my attention (in this case, a wonderful caffeine withdrawal issue). I did fix a few more bugs in the posted version of TTF, and figured out how the second trial is going to work, a bit, anyway.

Other than that, I spent most of my day organizing my thoughts and working on some non-game related projects. Hopefully, later today I'll have a better status update.

Trials Of Taihra-Firanae

This game was supposed to be simple. Supposed to be.

TTF originally started as a contest game. There was a vague outline (trapped in cabin, magic book, TG, trials to become a man again) and some idea of where things were going to go. Unfortunately, when I sat down to plan things out, a simple paragraph in the design document, written as a stream of consciousness brainstorming, kind of changed the entire direction.


Stats for the player:
Name (obviously)
Gender (male, female, herm)
Strength/Willpower (personal fortitude, affects checks requiring pure power and resistance)
Intelligence/Ability (personal skill, affects checks requiring deftness and knowledge)
Charisma/Looks (personal beauty, affects checks requiring manipulation and guile)

Just like that, I'd kind of locked myself into something much more complicated.

Several things changed from the design document. There was originally supposed to be about 10 kinds of TFs. After some additional planning, the list increased to almost 25, then up to 34, before being cut down to about 15. Many of them were variations on the same transformation (Princess/Innocent Princess/Empress, for example), but they were there.

The trials were originally supposed to be simple, short tests, a room or two, maybe a character, but when I realized that some of the transformations fit together in theme quite well, in surprising groups of three, well, all bets were off and things went out the window. I also realized that with the stat system I'd included, I needed to include some stat checks, as well as opportunities to increase those stats.

The stat system in particular was kind of an interesting development. I knew it would be a scale, because any kind of stat system needs to be both numeric and based on a scale of some sort. What I didn't know was how to include increases, so I kind of winged it. Eventually, I figured out that either using the stat in a particularly difficult situation, or using the stat in a situation where it's not your strong point, would be the best way. I cribbed that particular method from Quest for Glory. Stat increases are still somewhat random, in that identifying situations where you can earn a stat increases is almost impossible, but I think that makes it more interesting.

One of my private joys is that, after a few days of playing the incomplete version, people had discovered two possible "real world" transformations and assumed that I had based it on karma, like the first trial transformations, so they figured that was it. None of them figured out that there are, in fact, five real world transformations, and that the methods for finding a particular transformation was nebulous and mysterious. Which is exactly what I wanted.

Text games have a relatively low replay value. Not to disparage any particular game here, but when you're done with, say, Sierra's SummerContestGame (which I personally believe is a fantastic game, by the by), you're pretty much done with it. Sure, there are some variations with what I like to call Early Endings (where the game ends before you reach the real ending), but once you reach the ending, you've pretty much seen most if not all of what the game has to offer. What I strive for, what I find the most difficult to implement but the most rewarding, is giving players options on how they play through the game, options that have a very real effect on how the game progresses.

In TTF, for example, the Bimbo real world TF (which I'm guessing is one of the most frequent results for most players) doesn't seem like it does much in terms of gameplay. But did you notice that, if you give the shopkeeper a blowjob, you normally have two options? But that if you're starting down the bimbo path, that you only have one? It doesn't seem like much, but the second trial will have more variation on that particular mechanic.

So, that's some thoughts behind Trials of Taihra-Firanae (a name I totally made up, in case you're wondering).

Making Sense of Open World Madness

One of the things I've always liked about using established, "limited" game engines, like RAGS, is finding new and enjoyable ways to bend them, make them work outside the established uses. Text adventure games like Nuku Valente's Flexible Survival, or flash games like Xadera's Nimin Fetish Fantasy and Fenoxo's Challenge of Champions are particularly inspiring, because they're taking what looks like a linear engine, and using it to create the illusion of a sandbox.

I say "illusion" in this case because coding a true sandbox in a text game is pure madness. There are far too many variables to keep track of, and no matter what happens, there's going to be an option that you didn't include that someone will inevitably try. Taking a text game off the rails is all but impossible. You either go crazy trying to plan for every eventuality, or you plan for the eventualities you want to include, and go from there. So, sandbox in a text game, impossible. Illusion of sandbox in a text game, very possible.

But getting back to my original point, finding new and enjoyable ways to bend the RAGS engine. In the case of Cursed, that involves setting up a complex play world and populating it with interesting and, most importantly, varied events. Cursed is currently planned to last 365 in-game days, and while it's possible to get away with the majority of those days being relatively uneventful, some sort of overriding set of circumstances needs to propel the player forward, inspire them to continue playing the game.

The problem is that RAGS is very, shall we say, limited when it comes to randomness. On top of that, you have to balance the variety with the normality. So the challenge is that you have to figure out a way to keep things interesting, without making things overwhelming. Giving the player a challenge every two weeks in-game sounds fun, until you realize that each challenge takes four or five days. Overwhelming the player is as bad as boring them.

 Cursed is a game that balances the normality of life with the bizarreness of being changed from a man into a woman. So a certain about of normality is expected as the player (and the character) adjust to life. But at the same time, an expansive world in which nothing happens, especially after the incredible oddity of being changed from a man into a woman, is boring.

So, when you get right down to it, things have to happen. And they can't be player-initiated, because unfortunately, you can't trust the player to be able to find them, especially in a text game. You have to have something that shows that the player is making progress towards a goal, even if they don't know what the goal is.

Fortunately, in Cursed, the resident mystery woman Maria fulfills that role. She wants the player to learn something from the experience, and assigns tasks. But since the nature of the world is free-form, why would the player have to complete the tasks? They don't, but as with everything else, there will be consequences, which themselves will propel the game forward as clearly as if the player had chosen to complete the tasks.

First!

I do actually enjoy talking about my games, even when I'm notoriously tight-lipped about the details. The mechanics are secret for a reason. The creation process really shouldn't be.

So, in that spirit (and because a bandwagon of developers with blogs came by and I jumped on to it), here's my blog. It will hopefully be informative and helpful to people in regards to my game creations, and helpful to me as a method of keeping on track.

The game I'm working on right now is The Trials of Taihra-Firanae, which was created for the TFGamesSite winter 2011 contest. It's not quite done yet, but there is a version up at the site. Once that's done, it's back to the magnum opus Cursed (which I am considering renaming to Changes, but I haven't made that decision yet). And then, any other games that pop into my head will likely end up here as well.

Feel free to leave comments, which I will be likely to respond to, and enjoy your stay.