Additional thoughts...

Of course, if I include tattoos, then I have to include piercings, don't I? Hrm...

Tattoos

Had a thought about Cursed today (no, it hasn't died, fear not): a tattoo mechanic. I considered tattoos before, but then dropped it when I couldn't think of a way to implement it beyond "you've got a tattoo". Then I figured it out.

Multiple locations for tattoos (currently: upper arm(s), lower arm(s), shoulders, lower back, full back (takes up the shoulders and lower back slots), ankles, neck), and the tattoos themselves, while mundane, inspire different changes in your character. For example, getting the wings tattoo affects your morality changes, boosting positive changes and dampening negative changes. The rose tattoo increases your attractiveness.

Lower back would be reserved for "tramp stamps", which would have unique effects. The tribal tramp stamp, for example, would have a significantly different effect from the "princess" tramp stamp.

Getting lots of tattoos gives you the "Tattooed" trait, which...will have some kind of effect.

None of the tattoos will have game breaker abilities, though. They'll just alter things slightly. A tattoo that increases attractiveness, for example, might add 1 point to attractiveness. A tattoo that alters morality changes might only add one point to a bonus. And the scales are 100 points.

Location would also have a effect. For example, getting a full back tattoo might take up two slots, but it makes the tattoo 100% more effective. Conversely, an ankle tattoo doesn't cost much, but is only 50% as effective as a normally-located tattoo.

Just thoughts. Haven't really finalized anything yet.

Weekly Post Time

Honestly, I didn't really work on anything last week. LA Noire came out, along with a couple of other distractions (the Sims, to be honest). However, it did give me a couple of ideas of things to add to Cursed, so maybe that's not so bad (hey look, vampires!).

I'm back to working on things today. LA Noire is absolutely fantastic, by the way, but it's one of those games that's better played with someone, and I'm usually on my own during the days. But on the schedule for today is Trials, and hopefully getting most of Day 5 completed. Or some of it. If I can get to the Sleep point that ends the day, I'll be happy.

Small Update

I'm actually about to start working on Trials, just wanted to let people know about a slight change of plans.

Originally, the real world transformations were going to be varied, but limited. In other words, if you're a bimbo, then you're a bimbo, no other qualifiers. But then I realized that "affirming" a choice you've already essentially made is kind of boring, and the resulting change if you don't affirm the choice is jarring. So, instead, the choices you make on Day 5 give you a particular subset transformation. Sure, you're still a bimbo, but maybe you're a gothy bimbo? Or maybe you've decided to be a gothy geek girl?

Not all subsets are available for each main set. You can't, for example, start off as a bimbo and then get the smart subset. But you can also choose to affirm the choice you made before, so bimbo on Day 4 and bimbo on Day 5 can result in becoming very bimbo-y. The only problem I'm having right now is that I have to find just the right pictures for the subset transformations. Even the coding isn't that bad.

Just thought you all would like to stay in the know.

Creativity Re-established!

After I finished with the second trial, I kind of slowed down, stepped away from the game for a while, and only pecked at it without really doing anything substantial, so progress has been kind of slow. The problem (as I mentioned in chat earlier today) is accounting for all the possible variations that can occur, which is difficult at best, and extremely frustrating at worst. The last object in the second trial requires check for three different possibilities, and each of those possibilities has three more possible interpretations. And it all requires a lot of writing.

That being said, today was the first day that I really sat down and worked on the game in quite some time, and it seems that the time away has paid off. Not necessarily in progress, per se, but rather in renewing my ability to see where I'm going. Goals are important, after all, but getting to them requires a plan, and in the case of game design, it's a rather minute and detailed plan.

So, the good news is I seem to have figured out a few things. The second half of day five, which is spent in the real world as opposed to a trial, was just an unspecific "do things to influence things" plan. Now, I feel like I know what I'm going to plan to do.

And goddamn there's a lot to plan for. But then, that's the fun, I suppose.

I also replaced a few images, because some of the pictures that I was using were chosen on a "good enough, fix later" basis, and turns out today is later.

In other news: I think I'm going to rework/restart Cursed to be set in a medieval setting. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense to me. I might also work it in Flash, but I haven't made any choices in that direction. While this does not mean that the current version of Cursed will be thrown out the window, it does mean that it will likely be pushed to the back burner. Don't worry, though, all the cool features you've come to expect will (probably) still be there.

Slight Setback

So I was working on Trials yesterday and closed RAGS when the memory leak problem resulted in it slowing down (NB: I don't know that RAGS actually has a memory leak, I just know that when it's been idle for a while, it gets very slow loading stuff). I came back to it, and Trials wouldn't open. Kept crashing the designer.

Fortunately, I was able to restore a backup and reopen it. Since I religiously save most of the time, I only lost about an hour of work.

Day 5 is proceeding apace. The problem is that there's a lot of variables to consider. Have you had sex with a lot of people, or have you been chaste? Have you mostly had sex with men, or with women? Are you good, bad, or neutral? Did you finish certain tasks with certain objects in your possession? And on and on. It's a lot to keep track of (and yes, in case you're wondering, every single one of those questions is significant).

It's hard to keep going on this, I'll be honest. The problem is that once I realize a beta, the desire to continue with the game tends to wane, which is why I usually don't release betas. I prefer to release finished games.

I've also been thinking about Cursed, and I think it's going to undergo some significant changes. I might still use the build that I've got, but I'm thinking that it might be better suited to a different setting. So I might adapt it to something else, like a medieval setting. Same (overly) complicated mechanics, but just a different setting. It's something I'm considering, but since I'm not likely to work on Cursed until I finish Trials, it's not at the forefront of my mind lately.