Chosen, an adult text game with roguelike elements
- Thread starter Void Director
- Start date
I really like it so far. There are a couple of things, though:
Abilities are not useful enough. I beat the game on normal difficulty quite easily never using any other ability than Succubus Form, except in a "what does this button do?" way. They also don't feel distinctive: The only difference between Firebolt and Bash, for example, is the attributes used to calculate the damage output (I assume). I would suggest altering the message to reflect the difference in the compared attributes. For example:
Some other points:
Abilities are not useful enough. I beat the game on normal difficulty quite easily never using any other ability than Succubus Form, except in a "what does this button do?" way. They also don't feel distinctive: The only difference between Firebolt and Bash, for example, is the attributes used to calculate the damage output (I assume). I would suggest altering the message to reflect the difference in the compared attributes. For example:
- Player uses Firebolt, has an Intelligence of 12. Target has a Spirit of 15: "<name> launches a bolt of fire at <target>, but it fizzles out on impact, doing little damage."
- Player has an Intelligence of 14, target has a Spirit of 9: "<name> engulfs <target> in a gout of flame, overwhelming <his/her> mental defenses and scorching <his/her> skin(/scales/hide/whatever)!"
Some other points:
- Number formatting doesn't always work well. If I'm going to receive 6.325 gold, the 6 is really all I care about. Same for a hold strength of 14.125364 or something
- Speaking of hold strength, there doesn't seem to be a very good way of struggling, unless I missed it. One of my characters was caught by the drider in what eventually became a web with a strength of like 70/80, and struggling up to 3 points a turn. If it's supposed to be impossible to escape, why not just make an 'incapacitated' status effect to reflect that?
- Gender and preference detection seems a little iffy. Both male and female enemies will appear regardless of the preference setting, so I assume it's only the scenes that are affected? I don't care about it myself, but some people would probably get annoyed about this. Also, in the combat sex descriptions, male characters would occasionally be referred to as female and vice versa. And do you really need to use gender-neutral pronouns here, but nowhere else? It's a minor point, but it is a little jarring, if you ask me.
- The sex descriptions themselves need work, but you already said you'd be doing that.
- It would be great for allies to be able to intervene if a character gets tied up/held down/fucked or gets into some other situation.
- I spotted some typos here and there, and also some wrong words. I didn't keep a list, but one that I recall is 'vial liquid' instead of 'vile liquid' in the fountain-thing part of the final area.
Thanks for your feedback. A few specific responses.
More thematic descriptions of abilities and their efficacy would be neat but also a lot of work. I will definitely consider it strongly, but can't promise anything.
- Number formatting doesn't always work well. If I'm going to receive 6.325 gold, the 6 is really all I care about. Same for a hold strength of 14.125364 or something
I will fix those two cases.
- Speaking of hold strength, there doen't seem to be a very good way of struggling, unless I missed it. One of my characters was caught by the drider in what eventually became a web with a strength of like 70/80, and struggling up to 3 points a turn. If it's supposed to be impossible to escape, why not just make an 'incapacitated' status effect to reflect that?
Struggling is automatic and based on strength. I think I will nerf the web effect a bit though so it doesn't have such a high magnitude.
- Gender and preference detection seems a little iffy. Both male and female enemies will appear regardless of the preference setting, so I assume it's only the scenes that are affected? I don't care about it myself, but some people would probably get annoyed about this. Also, in the combat sex descriptions, male characters would occasionally be referred to as female and vice versa. And do you really need to use gender-neutral pronouns here, but nowhere else? It's a minor point, but it is a little jarring if you ask me.
Yes, before sex in combat was very generic so it wasn't a big deal. I will try to do a better job of filtering out non-selected pairings. But sometimes its a bit complex, especially with a lot of legacy code in the game that was written before all the present preference settings existed.
- The sex descriptions themselves need work, but you already said you'd be doing that.
Indeed
- It would be great for allies to be able to intervene if a character gets tied up/held down/fucked or gets into some other situation.
That would be interesting but maybe complex to implement.
- I spotted some typos here and there, and also some wrong words. I didn't keep a list, but one that I recall is 'vial liquid' instead of 'vile liquid' in the fountain-thing part of the final area.
I will fix that typo now. If you ever see a typo please click the "report issue" (which opens a new tab) so you don't forget where it is. I use Grammarly to check the text but it can't get mistakes like that where the typo is also a combination of valid words.
Version 0.15.0 is now out
It adds a drider bad end scene for f/f characters. It also fixes some problems with his/her/hers pronouns.
You can view the full details on my blog at https://www.adultrealms.com/version-0-15-0
It adds a drider bad end scene for f/f characters. It also fixes some problems with his/her/hers pronouns.
You can view the full details on my blog at https://www.adultrealms.com/version-0-15-0
Version 0.15.1 is now out
Fixes several bugs including the level-up mentioned by @Hardmix898 and others. It also makes images work better across different browsers and makes the gender of enemies in combat more likely to be the player's desired gender.
You can view the full details on my blog at https://www.adultrealms.com/version-0-15-1
I have also created a discord channel for the game at https://discord.gg/qsAUC7U
Fixes several bugs including the level-up mentioned by @Hardmix898 and others. It also makes images work better across different browsers and makes the gender of enemies in combat more likely to be the player's desired gender.
You can view the full details on my blog at https://www.adultrealms.com/version-0-15-1
I have also created a discord channel for the game at https://discord.gg/qsAUC7U
Version 0.16.0 is now out
Now has images for every enemy in the game except one. I removed duplicate art and replaced some of the old art with more appropriate images.
The credits page has also been expanded to include links where you can find all the artists.
You can view the full details on my blog at https://www.adultrealms.com/version-0-16-0
I am curious about how many people are interested in seeing this game finished and what improvements would be necessary for it to feel "done".
Now has images for every enemy in the game except one. I removed duplicate art and replaced some of the old art with more appropriate images.
The credits page has also been expanded to include links where you can find all the artists.
You can view the full details on my blog at https://www.adultrealms.com/version-0-16-0
I am curious about how many people are interested in seeing this game finished and what improvements would be necessary for it to feel "done".
Is this something you are still working on? Or was it more of a courtesy thing for quarantine? Asking out of curiosity of the 8 month ish gap. Game seems pretty neat so far from what I have scene. Although the scenes can feel a bit short. Understandable if there are quite a few.
Work goes on when I have time and feel like working on the game. Quarantine was mostly just an excuse to work on it.I have made some additional changes that aren't in the last patch so there will be at least one more release soon.
The core issue with Chosen is I am not a very prolific writer. I write scenes very slowly and easily lose motivation while doing. I find coding more enjoyable.
I recommend teaming up with a writer if you can find one. Even if they just lay the groundwork and you polish up the scenes it makes it a lot easier than writing everything from scratch.
Ninja edit: having someone else poking at you to work on it will also make you more consistent with working on it!
That's funny. I consider myself to be the opposite. I wanted to mod another game, had the ideas, lacked the desire to try and code it.
As stated above though, maybe think about having a secondary person do some writing for you?
I have worked with writers in the past and a few of the scenes in the game were not written by me (the author of a scene is listed on the top right corner). But all of the writers lost interest eventually.
But I might try another round of recruiting to see if I can get the game into a more finished state.
But I might try another round of recruiting to see if I can get the game into a more finished state.