Gaast

[daprgast]

Gaast

A Fantasy management game, inspired by Slave Maker 3, Otherworld, and Evil Genius.

Links

The game: http://daprgast.itch.io/gaast

Dev blog: http://gaast-game.blogspot.com/

Feedback and bug reporting: http://goo.gl/forms/cvpFxyTssF

Overview

The story of Gaast centers around the players management of a building and the residents of that building.  The player could be managing a university, military school, inn/tavern, brothel, monastery, theater, or any number of other buildings.  

The player’s job is to organize the grounds of the building, and set schedules for the residents.  Residents may be tasked with teaching or learning in a classroom, cooking in a kitchen, cleaning the building, guarding the storeroom, or any number of other tasks.  As the residents take part in these tasks, their skills improve, leading to more effective work, better earnings, or perhaps graduation.

While the residents go about their scheduled tasks, events can occur which may distract the resident from their task, lead to a bit of extra gold, or earn a favor for the player.  For example: just before his class, a male student catches a glimpse of a female student changing in her dormitory, arousing him and distracting him from the lesson.  Alternately, after taking good care of a particularly handsome customer in the brothel, he reveals himself to be a minor noble traveling in disguise - he tips very generously, and promises to return, gaining influence for the player.
Gameplay revolves around managing resources, consisting not only of money, but influence, favors, and the residents themselves.  The players backstory, and the type of establishment can dramatically change the player's experience from game to game.

Screenshots







Gameplay

Currently the only thing to do in the game are to observe the events (there are only 2, and they should be easily accessible), build rooms in the empty spaces, and assign people to perform tasks in those rooms.  As of now there are only two characters available (The player's avatar, and an assistant), so the player will need to play the role of a teacher for the assistant.  I am focusing on a university style building as of now, so the available rooms and activities reflect that.  Eventually the player will determine what type of business s/he wants to run, and available resources will be based on that.  Characters in game each have unique personalities, based partially on their race/nationality, and they are able to develop relationships with one another through events and actions they perform.

Fetishes

Currently there is only one adult event in the game, and it involves heterosexual group sex.  I personally plan on writing homosexual, heterosexual, and bisexual events, involving many different fetishes, driven by community request.  In the future, I also plan to allow users to create their own events, and any fetish will be welcome. Each event can have a number of tags (e.g. gay, straight, orgy, anal, etc) - all the tags in events currently available to the player will be listed in an options menu, where tags can be disabled, preventing the player from seeing events that contain that tag.

Technical Details

The game is currently in very early prototype stages.  The framework for a room building system, scheduling system, event system, and a character creation and management system have all been created.  The next phases of development will be to add an "interview" system, where the player can screen potential employees/students/teachers/etc, as well as a housing system.  I have done very little balancing as of now, so build times, training times, etc should be expected to change.  While characters currently have unique personalities, and there is a system in place for characters to develop relationships with each other, there are currently no actions or events which influence them, so it is not noticeable in the game.

Artistic Details

As you will notice if you play the game, there is little in-game art outside of the building and its rooms.  I haven't been able to find satisfactory "anatomically correct" models, or sexual animations, so I'm sticking with featureless capsules for the time being.  The individual scenes of an event can also have images associated with them, but I am not an artist and thus the scenes I've written don't have any.  Assuming there is interest in the project, I will eventually either hire out the artwork, or find an artist willing to partner with me.

Team/Contact

I (daprgast) am a software developer with approx 7 years of independent game development experience. This is my first adult game, and I've really wanted to work on one for quite awhile - I'm having a blast finally doing it.

I am currently the only person working on this project, and I can be contacted at:

daprgast@yahoo.com

Known bugs

You cannot destroy/demolish a room once built.

 

[daprgast]

So a lot of people have downloaded it, but no one has said anything.  I'm guessing that's a bad thing...?

 

[err0rred]

Eya, dude. Long-longtime lurker of this place popping outta nowhere to give you encouragement:

Give it a little while. The big thing starting out is people are playing your game, that that number of downloads is going up. Take pride in that!

Those who want to comment will come out of the woodwork, like me for example. Buuut that doesn't mean you can meet them halfway. Apologies if this doesn't need to be said in as much depth as go into, but there may be a few reading through who might need this, but set up a feedback form on Google Drive. Seriously, the biggest hurdle to leaving is the medium in which that feedback gets through.

drive.google.com. Go New->More->Google Forms. First thing first, set up a 'Choose From A List' option, asking for what version they're playing. This means you'll need to create a new feedback form per published version, but it's as easy as one-two-three-three-three via duplicating. There's a techy way to have feedback sorted depending on this sort of thing, but all I know of it is that I know of it.

Next Set up questions, some 1-9 Scale questions. No, not 1-10, that has 5 directly in the middle, force them to pick a side and not let them be in the middle. Because that makes them think. 1-9, then put a Paragraph text on ones you want more feedback on. Don't let them BS their way through answering, be direct and ask for an exact answer. No, 'what did you like about the game', more, 'What three things in the game did you enjoy the most and why?' and 'what three things can be improved?'

Note that I didn't ask 'how fix' in that question. That'd be a separate one. Keep them separate. How the player thinks a problem should be solved is not always the way you want it to be.

Also, having a Paragraph form for bugs works too. Actually, might want to use a separate form for that, up to you.

Here's how one will look like! You don't need to have as much fun with it as I did. Once more, maybe it's a bit of redundant info for you, but hey. Worth repeating.

When you're done, click send, copy the link given, and stick that link directly into your game, right on the main menu. I'm looking at it right now. It's a beautiful menu, you have tons of unused space so I recommend to make use of that. Slide the menu slightly to the left, add a panel to the right with a scrolling textbox. Theme it like a notice board, perhaps. Use it to list update notes for your game, but stick that link to the feedback form right there at the top of it!

I'll tell you what though, I'll get back to you once I've given the game itself a play (might be tomorrow though). I was going to mention the UI scaling, but you've been clued onto that already. Only thing I can steer you towards is the new GUI/UI system Unity has, but I myself have to fight with it to understand the way it's supposed to work.

 

[daprgast]

Thanks for the feedback, I really appreciate it.

I'm not really trying to rope people into bug testing for me atm (it is just a prototype after all). I'm more interested in whether people like the theme and overall idea.  

My main concerns are:

It's a little more complicated than my main inspiration SM3, in that you have to schedule for multiple people, but I'm hoping to get around that with the ability to create template schedules which can be assigned to multiple characters.  

I'm not sure people will like that there are a large amount of randomly generated characters.  There are named NPCs already (not in the game yet), but even so the majority of characters in the game will be randomly generated.  In some of the scenes I've written already, I've had to skimp on character descriptors because of that, which kinda stinks.  I was considering generating some random features for each character - similar to CoC - but that would be a lot more work, and I'd rather keep it simple to start.

 

[Tomashu]

You wanted feedback so here are some bugs:

1. In main menu after starting buttons act like there to the left from actual position.

2. Scrolling with mouse wheel is realy slow.

3. Starting new game will have gold and time from previous game.

4. "There is an event" no close button, maybe becouse someone was talking at the same time.

5. Main menu (esc) is behind other windows.

6. Can't set anything for units (can only select activity - any).

7. Starting new game after explore will give explore anyway.

8. No description of buildings (purpose/cost).

 

[err0rred]

I'm a bit later than I'd like, but here's what I got from messing with it.

Of what you have, I like. Pre-Prototype is Pre-Prototype, completely understandable, but what you have shows you know what you're doing. Really, I've... subjected myself to games that people don't know what they're doing in (and passed them on to wince in amusement to the complaints of a buddy of mine). Keep showing that as you move along and people will take notice.

Of the things Tomashu listed, I've also run into points 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 (though 8 is less a bug and more an omission). After double checking, I confirm point 1 as well.

And by point 7 Tomashu means:
Play Explore->Quit to Menu->Play New Game->Get Explore Mode.

Continuing on:

• Middle-Mouse Clicking to rotate the camera to a near-top down perspective locks the camera in that top-down perspective. I can rotate, but I can't angle the camera anymore.
• The 'This Is An Event' screen appeared on my second playthrough, not my first, and I could not figure out how to get it to go away and the game soft-locked. There was no other event going on, I perceived it as the Choose Assistant Event was about to trigger and it was a tutorial.
• WASD/Arrow keys for moving the camera are far too sensitive.
• Font: The 'u' looks like a 'v' enough that I keep reading it as such (me being nitpicky there)
• Schedule Scenes appear underneath the Scene Text when both are on screen.
• I can skip character creation without creating a name or placing any points in skills (Error pop-up needed for former, Confirmation Message needed for latter)
• Confirmation for Quit would be nice to for safety.

Expanding on the schedule glitch:
I can get it to work in a lecture hall. But in the Dormitory, setting a schedule and then clicking Select Activity->Any locks all the time slots on all the rooms, and removes the set schedules of the other rooms as well.

Glitches and bugs out of the way, here's some feedback on what needs to be worked on a bit more, some you probably are already doing, some are me suggesting a few things, but it's mostly me listing all the stuff I written down:

• As a Management game, where are all my numbers and quantifying/qualifying statements? Proto-be-Proto, sure, but when giving a choice between the two assistants, seeing a bit more of their stats and abilities is needed (this one you probably know). Until then, perhaps an extended breakdown of each assistant on the choice screen.
• The bars for the skills are a good visual aid, but can be supplemented with an exact number for the statistically inclined.
• I would like to know what each skill does via pop-up or little box to the side with changing text.
• When first starting, I had no idea I was to just wait until the Assistant Event to start. Until then, I had no idea what to do, what buttons did what.
• I can click on all the rooms I build, but why not the pre-existing rooms? Can I see the kitchen? Can I see the bathrooms? Potentially see the capacity of the kitchen, amount of chefs, set quality of food and possibly sneak some aphrodisiacs into the drink? That sort of thing.
• Alternatively, destroying a current room to build a different one

At this point, I can't suggest what you should focus on building more--the management aspect or the narrative aspect. I lean towards the former, but my final opinion on it is get everything to a small microcosm of the game and expand on one aspect from there.

In terms of creating the many random characters, perhaps delay that a bit, but keep it in mind as you work. Essentially, create a few defined characters but have the game treat them as if they were randomly generated, I guess that's the gist of what I'm trying to say.

For the moment, that's all I have to say. I hope it's helpful and I kept most of my sleep-deprived crazyhead in check. If you've got questions on some techy/codey things, PM me. I'll lend a hand. I've been working in Unity for around 3-to-4 years now, C# stuff.

 

[daprgast]

Thanks a ton for the feedback, I really appreciate it!  It was really thorough - I was not expecting that.

I didn't put a lot of effort into resetting the game world on exiting the game, so it makes sense that there are a lot of problems with that.  Also exploration mode (along with load game) button should have been disabled - sorry about that.

I'll definitely have to look into the menu issues, thanks for pointing those out.

The dormitory (and private quarters) does not currently have any activities associated with it, so it makes sense that it locked all the hours out, but I'll have to look into why it affects other rooms.

The assistants are actually exactly the same at the moment, other than Bella costing 200/week rather than 100.  Once the skills actually do something other than help in teaching that skill, I'll put more focus on making them unique.  As of now, the assistant choice event is really just a demonstration of the event system.

Good call about seeing the actual value of a skill - I fully intend to implement that.

Each skill and room will eventually have a tooltip that has a description of that skill/room.  I think I will list room prices in the menu rather than the tooltip, but just haven't gotten around to that yet.

I want to try to avoid having a traditional "tutorial", so I'm going to try to work "what you're supposed to be doing" into the assistant selection event.  The controls themselves are simple and fairly obvious, so I feel like a conversation with the assistant should help the player figure out what exactly they should be doing.  I'll need to test that though.

You will eventually be able to click on the pre-existing rooms and set activities in those rooms, I just haven't added activities for them yet, so there was no reason to do so.

Good point - you cannot destroy a room once it's built. I'll need to add a button for that.

Thanks again for the feedback!

 

[daprgast]

Ok, I've fixed many of the bugs/issues you two brought up, except I'm not sure I understand these ones:
 

Tomashu:

5. Main menu (esc) is behind other windows. -- Does this mean the pause menu (Resume, Save, Load, etc) is behind some other menu in the main gameplay screen, like the character menu for example?  If so, I can't reproduce that.

6. Can't set anything for units (can only select activity - any).  -- I think this means you tried to schedule an activity for a character before you scheduled an activity for a room, and there weren't any activities available.  If that is the case, this isn't really a bug, just a lack of content at the moment.

err0rred

• Schedule Scenes appear underneath the Scene Text when both are on screen.  -- I think this means you had the scheduling screen open, and an event occurred (probably the "Teamsters" event), which covered the scheduling screen.  If so, that is expected behavior.  Events take precedence over everything else, essentially.

Once I confirm what's up with these remaining ones, I'll post another build.

 

[les]

Ok, I've fixed many of the bugs/issues you two brought up, except I'm not sure I understand these ones:
 

Tomashu:

5. Main menu (esc) is behind other windows. -- Does this mean the pause menu (Resume, Save, Load, etc) is behind some other menu in the main gameplay screen, like the character menu for example?  If so, I can't reproduce that.

err0rred

• Schedule Scenes appear underneath the Scene Text when both are on screen.  -- I think this means you had the scheduling screen open, and an event occurred (probably the "Teamsters" event), which covered the scheduling screen.  If so, that is expected behavior.  Events take precedence over everything else, essentially.

Once I confirm what's up with these remaining ones, I'll post another build.

When you start a game a windows pops up:

This is an event ... but it is out of the screen on the left and below site, even in 1080p resolution.

when you get this one you have to restart the game because you cannot do anything. the window is in front of everything else, even the pause menu (Resume, Save, Load, etc) .

The error with can not set anything i had the first 2 tries, till i figured out how to do it. should be mentioned somewhere that only basic math and writer lessons are available currently

 

[err0rred]

err0rred

• Schedule Scenes appear underneath the Scene Text when both are on screen.  -- I think this means you had the scheduling screen open, and an event occurred (probably the "Teamsters" event), which covered the scheduling screen.  If so, that is expected behavior.  Events take precedence over everything else, essentially.

That is pretty much what happened, yeah. I think what i meant to say was that the buttons for the Schedules appeared over the event screen, or there was some other sort of Z-Order issue between the two.

When you start a game a windows pops up:

This is an event ... but it is out of the screen on the left and below site, even in 1080p resolution.

when you get this one you have to restart the game because you cannot do anything. the window is in front of everything else, even the pause menu (Resume, Save, Load, etc) .

The error with can not set anything i had the first 2 tries, till i figured out how to do it. should be mentioned somewhere that only basic math and writer lessons are available currently

I think les has it right, the 'This Is An Event' window possibly has it's button outside the window so you can't close it.

Ah! Also! Great feedback form!

 

[daprgast]

That is pretty much what happened, yeah. I think what i meant to say was that the buttons for the Schedules appeared over the event screen, or there was some other sort of Z-Order issue between the two.

I think les has it right, the 'This Is An Event' window possibly has it's button outside the window so you can't close it.

Ahh, that makes perfect sense - yes, I should have caught that one.

Ah! Also! Great feedback form!

Thanks! I wouldn't have thought to do that.

 

[daprgast]

Ok, I've uploaded a new version (0.1.2) which should fix the bugs previously mentioned, and also adds the foyer receptionist position as a schedulable position.  I also added some text to the assistant selection event to hopefully give the player a better idea of what they should be doing.

The next thing on my list will be a "hiring" process, where the player can gain new teachers and students.

 

[err0rred]

First thing I found in the new build is that the Schedule bug still exists. All timeslots for both people and all rooms turned themselves off. All I can figure out is that it's from clicking the drop-down menus too much.

Then, after fumbling around trying to schedule the receptionist, I discovered that the schedule only updates itself after closing and opening it again. This is not the case for Room Schedules. It does give me the option of assigning staff to teach during appropiate lesson timeslots, but the Add Schedule button was disabled

A few other bugs I just noticed in this version:

• I can still mash through the Character Set-Up screen without choosing name/gender/skills. Name/Skills aren't much of a concern really, just that I can get through without selecting a gender--it is an uncheckable check box. And fixing this will avoid complications down the line. The others can be fixed by generic name and sticking 1 point in every skill.
• When Time is set to be Paused by the || > >> >> menu:When a room is building, the construction sounds continue on loop.Same when Escape is pressed to bring up the Pause Menu

[*]Middle-mouse click no longer rotates the game.
[*]I think each room that's building adds another Construction Sound to the worldspace, I got four sets of hammers and saws going. Perhaps they should just sound when the room is clicked on and turn off when it's not.
[*]When on the Schedule Screen, hitting escape brings up the Pause Screen under the Schedule.

• This should close the Schedule Screen

[*]During an Event and when the Game is in the Pause Screen, if I had clicked on a room the Build Menu is still there. I can start building when either screen is up. Though for the Pause Menu it disallows me from clickign on other rooms
[*]If it's during an event, I can keep clicking rooms and build things.
[*]If the both the Pause Screen, Event Screen is up, and Build Screen I can use both Build Screen And click Next on the Event Screen.

• If I build rooms during this time, when the Event is Finished, the Time resumes with the Pause Screen still up.
• I also got a completely empty Event Screen with a 'Done' button after a room was completed building in this way.

[*]Pausing the game with || > >> >>> menu->Escape->Exit to Menu->New Game = Time forever paused and cannot be resumed.This game also bugged out in that:

• As time did not move, the Assistant Event did not trigger.
• But rooms were built in accordance to the supposed speed set in the || > >> >>> window, but time itself was stuck at 7:00
• When assigning a a schedule to myself, Room and Activity only had Any, even after setting up some classes in other classrooms.
• But under Roll, 3 Basic Engineering items were listed. I did have Math classes set up in the lab. Which, if this is intentional, I really really like this idea. Math in a lecture hall vs Math in a Lab yeilds Basic Math vs Basic Engineering/Physics/whatever. It certainly diversifies the classrooms and makes each have their own purpose. But it's still way bugged out.
• Time was bugged in every game after it.My character was in the location it was when time was originally stopped in the first game. I.E, pause at desk and restart game-> Frozen at desk. Pause at patio, frozen on patio.
• Had to close/restart game to fix.
• Basic Engineering showed up in Room and Role. It only shown in this bugged gamestat

No idea what's up with Basic Engineering but in terms of the Schedule bug, perhaps a way of fixing it is overhauling the Schedule menu. For later, of course, but the drop-down menus are clunky in the long run. Perhaps a drag-n-drop with a grouped palette above/to the side. Players could click buttons to switch between Writing/Math/Whaterver (or have drop down box to directly pick), then click and drag a class onto a timeslot. Functionally, it would act like what you have now, it's just presented differently. Click once, set variable to whatever class ID, click a second time, assign the ID to a timeslot and not do the drag to start out with. Then whenever the player closes the window/saves the schedule, pass on that data to what needs it.

Hope this helps!

 

[daprgast]

Thanks a ton for the feedback.  It's really helpful and you are super thorough.

As a side note, I've created a dev blog for Gaast.  It's in the OP, but here it is anyway: http://gaast-game.blogspot.com/

 

[RuBoo]

...For some reason, it stops downloading at 4.0 MB for me.

 

[daprgast]

Very odd.  I'm uploading to Mega, I'll post a link in a bit.

 

[daprgast]

Here's a Mega link: https://mega.nz/#!9EdUwQTI!x8si5dl24h9Mudgbr5NpFiD-bbcdnBXQJ4VGuKFzy8c

 

[daprgast]

• I can still mash through the Character Set-Up screen without choosing name/gender/skills. Name/Skills aren't much of a concern really, just that I can get through without selecting a gender--it is an uncheckable check box. And fixing this will avoid complications down the line. The others can be fixed by generic name and sticking 1 point in every skill.

Yeah, this is intentional for now - it's an easy way for me to plow through the intro sequence to test without adding... you know... real debug features.

• When Time is set to be Paused by the || > >> >> menu:When a room is building, the construction sounds continue on loop.Same when Escape is pressed to bring up the Pause Menu

[*]Middle-mouse click no longer rotates the game.
[*]I think each room that's building adds another Construction Sound to the worldspace, I got four sets of hammers and saws going. Perhaps they should just sound when the room is clicked on and turn off when it's not.

I've fixed most of the bugs concerning pausing the game (not the rotating the camera one yet).  I will also be limiting the construction noises to rooms you have selected as you suggested - thanks.

• When on the Schedule Screen, hitting escape brings up the Pause Screen under the Schedule.This should close the Schedule Screen

I've moved the pause menu to the top of the draw order.  I'll probably also close other active screens when ESC is pressed, but I haven't done that yet.

• During an Event and when the Game is in the Pause Screen, if I had clicked on a room the Build Menu is still there. I can start building when either screen is up. Though for the Pause Menu it disallows me from clickign on other rooms
• If it's during an event, I can keep clicking rooms and build things.
• If the both the Pause Screen, Event Screen is up, and Build Screen I can use both Build Screen And click Next on the Event Screen.If I build rooms during this time, when the Event is Finished, the Time resumes with the Pause Screen still up.
• I also got a completely empty Event Screen with a 'Done' button after a room was completed building in this way.

[*]Pausing the game with || > >> >>> menu->Escape->Exit to Menu->New Game = Time forever paused and cannot be resumed.This game also bugged out in that:

• As time did not move, the Assistant Event did not trigger.
• But rooms were built in accordance to the supposed speed set in the || > >> >>> window, but time itself was stuck at 7:00
• When assigning a a schedule to myself, Room and Activity only had Any, even after setting up some classes in other classrooms.
• But under Roll, 3 Basic Engineering items were listed. I did have Math classes set up in the lab. Which, if this is intentional, I really really like this idea. Math in a lecture hall vs Math in a Lab yeilds Basic Math vs Basic Engineering/Physics/whatever. It certainly diversifies the classrooms and makes each have their own purpose. But it's still way bugged out.
• Time was bugged in every game after it.My character was in the location it was when time was originally stopped in the first game. I.E, pause at desk and restart game-> Frozen at desk. Pause at patio, frozen on patio.
• Had to close/restart game to fix.
• Basic Engineering showed up in Room and Role. It only shown in this bugged gamestat

Again, I've fixed most of the paused time related bugs.  I'll have to put some work into disabling clicks depending on which menu is up.  As for the engineering class, it's only available in the lab (I believe, I'm not currently looking at the code).  Different types of classes are more efficient (or sometimes only available) in specific rooms.  For example, writing and math classes are most effective in classroom settings, where engineering and physics are most effective in a lab.  The lecture hall is generally for more advanced classes, or speeches.

In other news, I should have a new release out this week (hopefully will coincide with when the colored art for the Teamsters event is complete, supposedly Thursday).  In case you aren't checking out my blog (laff), I posted a picture of Bella and Adena there earlier today.  Go check it out and tell me what you think!

 

[daprgast]

Just released a new version on itch.io, patch notes are on the blog: http://gaast-game.blogspot.com/