Chosen, an adult text game with roguelike elements

[tyr4n02r]

any chance in hell for save points? Kinda goes against a "rogue-like" I'm sure. I love the gameplay and the RGM as well. one edit though: When a fellow party member dies, take them off of the world map party list as well. (OR is there a way to revive them, and I'm not smart enough, good enough to do/find it?) I wasted EX on them when they were no longer usable.

 

[Void Director]

any chance in hell for save points? Kinda goes against a "rogue-like" I'm sure. I love the gameplay and the RGM as well. one edit though: When a fellow party member dies, take them off of the world map party list as well. (OR is there a way to revive them, and I'm not smart enough, good enough to do/find it?) I wasted EX on them when they were no longer usable.

There won't be saving and reloading in a traditional sense that allows save scumming. Its intended to be the kind of game that encourages many playthroughs rather than many reloads. I do intend to have autosaving in case you need to quit your browser midway through a run and come back to it latter. However, that is not yet a priority as the playthroughs are still fairly short.

There is no way to revive a defeated companion yet but there will be eventually. My original plan was to have a resource called soulstones for the purpose of revival. I think I might just make it cost either essence from the map or gold from a shop.

 

[levant]

It's not letting me do fights against enemies that I've made. When you press the button that should initiate the fight, nothing happens. You're not even taken to an error screen or anything, you're just left with the same options and can even change your choice.  Comparing the few I've created to the pre-loaded enemies, there doesn't seem to be anything different or missing... until you toggle the mode and view the code. Below is a fanatic, the enemy you fight in the temple of Uvohr

Spoiler

{
"classes": [
[
"Bloodletter",
"fighter"
],
[
"Adept",
"wizard"
]
],
"price": 25,
"statBase": 7,
"title": "Fanatic",
"stamina": 7,
"str": 7,
"agi": 7,
"int": 7,
"prw": 7,
"con": 7,
"ref": 7,
"spr": 7,
"will": 7,
"name": "Fanatic Adept",
"varients": [
{
"prefix": "Devoted",
"price": 25,
"statBonus": 5,
"type": "varient"
}
],
"abilities": [],
"nameTemplate": "%firstName%",
"titleTemplate": "%name%, %variant% Fanatic %class%"
}

And here's one I made. Essentially a fanatic devoted to another god (Gaudium, god of joy)

Spoiler

{
"title": "Acolyte of Gaudium",
"price": 1,
"statBase": 5,
"classes": [
[
"Paladin",
"fighter"
],
[
"Priest",
"wizard"
],
[
"Bard",
"archer"
]
],
"varients": [
{
"prefix": "Initiate",
"price": 1,
"statBonus": 5
},
{
"prefix": "Sigil-Bearer",
"price": 1,
"statBonus": 10
}
],
"abilities": [
{
"ability": "bulkUp",
"price": 1
},
{
"ability": "pheromones",
"price": 1
}
],
"lastEdited": "2015-09-07T01:23:30.991Z",
"nameTemplate": "%firstName%",
"titleTemplate": "%name%, %variant% %class% of Gaudium"
}

The layout is pretty different. In the default, classes are listed first in the code, and then price, etc, but when you create a new one, title is the first thing, and classes are a few lines down. In addition, the fanatic has its base stats individually listed on top of having the "statBase" line, though nowhere in the editor are you able to put in values for individual stats.

My best guess is that when you try loading in an npc made from scratch with the editor, it's expecting everything in a different order and format and gets confused, ending up doing nothing

 

[Void Director]

The order of an object's properties does not matter in JSON so that should not be an issue. 

I think this is an issue with the fight editor (I assume your using that to make a test battle? Or are you actually making a scene containing a fight?). Anyway I was able to copy paste your characters data into the editor and have it to work without modification. There was a bug when running on the public version that caused the game to put both teams on the same side (because the game did not yet have a recognized player character). However, it when I used the browser's back button then started the fight again it worked. You could also get around this by starting a new game first before switching to the editor.

My steps (done in an incognito chrome tab so no local data)

1. Go to http://chosen.adultrealms.com/#/edit/raw/npcTemplates/acoltye click edit and copy paste your data then click update (I titled your char acoltye).
2. Go to http://chosen.adultrealms.com/#/edit/fights/acoltyeTest and add an acolyte to both sides of the fight.
3. Click Save
4. Click start fight
5. Click the browsers back button. (due to bug)
6. Click start fight again. (now it works)

I am not sure if that is the same bug you ran into. If not please describe it further. Try opening your console (f12 on most browsers) and see if any errors pop up when you try to test the fight. Otherwise I will try to get this bug fixed soon.

P.S. Working on the ability editor now. It is going... slowly.

 

[levant]

I was starting it from a scene since I haven't figured out what all the stuff in the fight tab is yet. The method works fine with the fanatic, but not with the acolyte or any of the other NPCs I've made.

Going to the fight editor and clicking 1v1, I run into the same problem. When an acolyte is put on either team, the "start fight" button stops functioning. By putting bandits or whatever other pre-loaded NPC on both sides it works fine again. Browser back button, swap out a bandit for an acolyte, button does nothing. Opening up the console, an error is in fact occuring:

Spoiler

[Object] 100
app.full.min.js:28 Object {nameTemplate: "%firstName%", titleTemplate: "%name%, %variant% Bandit %class%", className: "Warrior"}
app.full.min.js:28 Object {nameTemplate: "%firstName%", titleTemplate: "%name%, %variant% Bandit %class%", className: "Marksman"}
app.full.min.js:29 f {name: "%firstName%", gender: "male", level: 1, defeated: false, id: 32…}
app.full.min.js:29 f {name: "%firstName%", gender: "male", level: 2, defeated: false, id: 33…}
app.full.min.js:29 [Object] undefined
app.full.min.js:8 TypeError: Cannot read property 'price' of undefined
    at Object.g.buildWithPoints (app.full.min.js:29)
    at Object.d.fight (app.full.min.js:28)
    at k.a.startFight (app.full.min.js:29)
    at app.full.min.js:9
    at e (app.full.min.js:10)
    at k.$eval (app.full.min.js:8)
    at k.$apply (app.full.min.js:8)
    at HTMLButtonElement.<anonymous> (app.full.min.js:10)
    at HTMLButtonElement.fa.event.dispatch (app.full.min.js:2)
    at HTMLButtonElement.r.handle (app.full.min.js:2)(anonymous function) @ app.full.min.js:8(anonymous function) @ app.full.min.js:7k.$apply @ app.full.min.js:8(anonymous function) @ app.full.min.js:10fa.event.dispatch @ app.full.min.js:2r.handle @ app.full.min.js:2

Oh yeah, and CUSTOM ABILITY HYYYYYYPE! 

 

[Void Director]

Strange, when I copy paste your data as posted directly into the editor it works fine for me (including on the public version). It looks like for some reason when you try there is an error when building the npc template. Unfortunately the errors in the public version are pretty much incomprehensible as all the code gets mashed from thousands of lines into like 20 lines. 

Maybe try exporting your game-data.json and sending it to me? You can export it from the data-overview menu and send it to me via email (pandorashypercube@gmail.com) or by uploading it someplace I can download it. 

I don't suppose you're using internet explorer or some other weird browser? Those can always cause issues.

 

[levant]

I'm using chrome... Could it be that I'm using windows 10? I honestly have no idea. Sent, regardless

 

[Void Director]

Ok, I found the issue. There is a bug in the current version that causes it to fail to build templates whose id's contain capital letters. The official templates all use lowercase ids which is why they all work and I did not notice the issue. I will fix it in the next version. In the meantime you can use the raw editor to copy paste your npc templates then create new ids that don't use capitals. Which reminds me I should also add a function to change an piece of data's id (although that would break all the references to it).

 

[levant]

Alright. Don't forget that that applies to classes as well as npcs, but seemingly not scenes or shops. I haven't tested spell groups but they seem to be safe as well

 

[Void Director]

Alright. Don't forget that that applies to classes as well as npcs, but seemingly not scenes or shops. I haven't tested spell groups but they seem to be safe as well

Ok, I looked through the code and found the places where ids are case dependent. Hopefully all data types should work fine with upper case ids in the next version.

 

[BenLawrence]

This is a really neat idea.  I'll definitely keep an eye on it as it develops

 

[Void Director]

This is a really neat idea.  I'll definitely keep an eye on it as it develops

Thanks

 

[Void Director]

Added a new version 0.0.5

You can read the full post at the blog http://www.adultrealms.com/new-ability-editor-in-version-0-0-5/.

Try out the new ability editor. Note, you may need to save, then reload the editor to get changes made to an ability to work in combat.

 

[Void Director]

Version 0.0.6 is now online.

As usual you can read the full details on my blog at http://www.adultrealms.com/status-effect-editor-in-version-0-0-6/.

This update adds a status effect editor, some new abilities, some bug fixes, and some ui changes.

 

[mrttao]

I got stuck in the second region, the area i was in was exactly parallel to the exit, so I couldn't move forward since you can only move forward. This is a clear case of a "greater than and equal to" bug where you set that you can only move to a location that is greater than your current location, but the ending cannot be less than any other spot (meaning it can be equal to it which means its impassable)

Also, in the start when the being of light tells me to do mission, it asks "do you understand" and I say no (I wanted to get more explanation), then it asks "are you confused or do you need convincing" instead of actually explaining more and my only options are yes or no (neither of which fits since it said "are you A or B). yes leads to sex, no leads to it saying "well, you will do it anyways"

 

[Void Director]

I got stuck in the second region, the area i was in was exactly parallel to the exit, so I couldn't move forward since you can only move forward. This is a clear case of a "greater than and equal to" bug where you set that you can only move to a location that is greater than your current location, but the ending cannot be less than any other spot (meaning it can be equal to it which means its impassable)

Your right the comparison is a > rather than a >=. This is intentional because otherwise you would be able to constantly move back and forth between the same two locations (gaining more and more resources). Locations should never be spawned at exactly the same y coordinates. I will try to fix this soon.

Also, in the start when the being of light tells me to do mission, it asks "do you understand" and I say no (I wanted to get more explanation), then it asks "are you confused or do you need convincing" instead of actually explaining more and my only options are yes or no (neither of which fits since it said "are you A or B). yes leads to sex, no leads to it saying "well, you will do it anyways"

That scene needs quite a bit of work. It may be partially or totally rewritten at some point in the not too distant future.

 

[treos]

um, that first link at the top of the OP post just redirects to this thread.

 

[Void Director]

um, that first link at the top of the OP post just redirects to this thread.

Indeed, it does seem to be broken. Unfortunate the form has suddenly decided not to throw up an infinte captcha loop if I try to edit it. I have encounted this problem on fen's fourms before and it usually goes away eventually. Once its gone I will fix the post.

 

[Void Director]

The latest update V0.1.0 is now out.

As usual you can read the full details on my blog at http://www.adultrealms.com/announcing-monthly-content-updates-here-is-the-first-one-v0-1-0/

Unlike the other version I have released so far this is a content update and adds a new scene some abilities and items to the game. I will be aiming to release a new content update at the first day of each month. This one is a bit small but I intend for future ones to be larger as the game moves away from engine building towards content building.

 

[levant]

My maps are generating blank, even when starting a new game. I don't believe I changed anything to the preset areas, and it should force you to start in the grasslands, shouldn't it? It's not getting confused because I created new areas, is it? Or maybe you changed the way something worked so the default isn't working anymore? Checking the settings on the grasslands area everything seems normal; Min and max areas are both set to 1, the three default location of ruins, roadsides, and glades are there with no additions, each weighted to 1, and the single boss is at the old roads with a weight of 1. But when I start a new game, it has me go through the intro, and then I get this

 

[Void Director]

My maps are generating blank, even when starting a new game. I don't believe I changed anything to the preset areas, and it should force you to start in the grasslands, shouldn't it? It's not getting confused because I created new areas, is it? Or maybe you changed the way something worked so the default isn't working anymore? Checking the settings on the grasslands area everything seems normal; Min and max areas are both set to 1, the three default location of ruins, roadsides, and glades are there with no additions, each weighted to 1, and the single boss is at the old roads with a weight of 1. But when I start a new game, it has me go through the intro, and then I get this

View attachment 2082

Do you see any errors in your JavaScript console besides "Error: Invalid value for <svg> attribute preserveAspectRatio="meet" (that one always appears and is not an issue).

Its possible that none of the areas in those locations are tagged as supporting whichever gender/orientation pair you are playing with. Try looking at the Caravan, ElvenClan ect events and making sure all four gender checkboxes are selected.

Otherwise I am not sure. Perhaps send me the game-data.json file.

 

[TheDarkMaster]

Just a few quick thoughts.  First, combat seems decent so far.  It is likely to lack depth if you don't add something to let the player take more than one action per turn or gain additional party members.  The navigation is almost identical to FTL and I think that system works fairly well.  I'm just not sure exactly how much information you should give to your players when they decide what path to take, unless you plan on having like a dozen different ruin events or similar.  The only real gameplay issue I'd like to bring up is a lack of information about your character on the map.  It doesn't tell me what my current stats are (not max stats, current stats) or what status effects I have on me and their effects.

Writing wise, it's fairly good.  You have typos and grammatical mistakes here and there.  The main issue I think is that some of the text is excessively flowery or poetic, to the point of it being almost cringe worthy.

Bug: I think I was able to skip over a node at the top of the map at one point.  I didn't choose to, however.

EDIT:

Bug: Flame armor has the same description as extinguish flame.

Bug: Enemy ended up with NAN as their health, preventing the fight from ending in a victory for me.

EDIT2:

It is rather obvious that there needs to be some better balance between the classes.  A wizard that uses veil will take almost no damage and can then pelt an enemy with essentially endless magical attacks (since energy seems to be fully recovered after each encounter).  On the other hand a shapeshifter is likely to just use a single power once, and then just attack constantly hoping to win.

 

[Void Director]

Just a few quick thoughts.  First, combat seems decent so far.  It is likely to lack depth if you don't add something to let the player take more than one action per turn or gain additional party members.  The navigation is almost identical to FTL and I think that system works fairly well.  I'm just not sure exactly how much information you should give to your players when they decide what path to take, unless you plan on having like a dozen different ruin events or similar.  The only real gameplay issue I'd like to bring up is a lack of information about your character on the map.  It doesn't tell me what my current stats are (not max stats, current stats) or what status effects I have on me and their effects.

Writing wise, it's fairly good.  You have typos and grammatical mistakes here and there.  The main issue I think is that some of the text is excessively flowery or poetic, to the point of it being almost cringe worthy.

Bug: I think I was able to skip over a node at the top of the map at one point.  I didn't choose to, however.

EDIT:

Bug: Flame armor has the same description as extinguish flame.

Bug: Enemy ended up with NAN as their health, preventing the fight from ending in a victory for me.

EDIT2:

It is rather obvious that there needs to be some better balance between the classes.  A wizard that uses veil will take almost no damage and can then pelt an enemy with essentially endless magical attacks (since energy seems to be fully recovered after each encounter).  On the other hand a shapeshifter is likely to just use a single power once, and then just attack constantly hoping to win.

Thanks for the feedback. I will try to get some more information into the map view. Also I might note that you can get additional party members (from the temple event or from the shop in the elven glade event).

The classes are not finished yet so I have barely even started trying to balance them. My basic thought was there was not much point trying to balance them when some of them only had like 1/4th of their abilities complete (fighter). I will try to get that done soon and start working on balance. Wizards are clearly OP at this point so I will probably nerf them soon.

Thanks for the bug reports, I will look into fixing them. I have heard the NAN one before and the flame armor decription oversight should be easy to fix.

 

[SentiOnikawa]

Just to let peeps know:

The mantrap has a scene and some combat! And by some, I mean one encounter... Yay..! When will it be finished? NEVER 

In all seriousness though, I went back and read what was written and cried to myself in shame. I made some huge edits including the auto-loss (I know so little about what I'm writing for that I'm letting VD handle the technical details) for character with low resistance stats while those with decent/good resistance stats have combat. I hope people will enjoy what's there and will be excited for what's coming later on!

 

[TheDarkMaster]

The classes are not finished yet so I have barely even started trying to balance them. My basic thought was there was not much point trying to balance them when some of them only had like 1/4th of their abilities complete (fighter). I will try to get that done soon and start working on balance. Wizards are clearly OP at this point so I will probably nerf them soon.

I think you might be best served in terms of game balance by changing the classes to be just starting conditions and letting players spend their essence however they want to improve their characters.  Since there is a finite amount of game that can be played in a given run, you don't need to worry about players buying everything.  They have to make a choice one what they buy and what they don't buy.  You also don't have to worry about one character ramping out of control or having to build a massive new tree of abilities with each new class you add to the game.  The game ends up being a lot more like FTL's starting ships.

Then you can have a class like a merchant, who starts with basically no innate powers, but does have a strong bodyguard and some starting cash.  Maybe a seer that has a power similar to the stealth ship's long range sensors.

BTW, I think the bug with the multiple top nodes was because there were two links going out from the node I was in, but since they were both to nodes on the top of the map they overlapped with each other.

 

[Jash]

Has potential, but at the moment there's barely enough content to constitute a demo- I reached map 4 without seeing more than 4 different encounters (abandoned temple, alraune, elven camp and scene of attack) each of which had only 2 variants (loot gold or fight cultists, fuck alraune or fight her, barter with elves or fight amazon, scavenge gold or fight bandits) and then the map came up blank so I assume I'd reached the end. Also, the fact that you fully recover all HP, Energy and Lust after every encounter completely undermines the entire roguelike aspect. Like I said, it has potential, but there's just not enough there at the moment.

 

[Varicose]

What language do you code in? What program do you use?

 

[Void Director]

I think you might be best served in terms of game balance by changing the classes to be just starting conditions and letting players spend their essence however they want to improve their characters.  Since there is a finite amount of game that can be played in a given run, you don't need to worry about players buying everything.  They have to make a choice one what they buy and what they don't buy.  You also don't have to worry about one character ramping out of control or having to build a massive new tree of abilities with each new class you add to the game.  The game ends up being a lot more like FTL's starting ships.

Then you can have a class like a merchant, who starts with basically no innate powers, but does have a strong bodyguard and some starting cash.  Maybe a seer that has a power similar to the stealth ship's long range sensors.

BTW, I think the bug with the multiple top nodes was because there were two links going out from the node I was in, but since they were both to nodes on the top of the map they overlapped with each other.

That is certainly an interesting idea to consider. However, it would require making major changes to the game's code and how I conceptualize it. That also sounds like a plausible explanation for the glich. Currently there is a weird sizing bug where the game can place nodes outside of the map area. It has a sort of hacky fix where it then moves them back into the map area but this can result in two nodes being at the very top, bottom or sides. Its also possible they just were close together due to chance. The map algorithm just places nodes in a distorted gird then uses delaunay triangulation to connect them.

Has potential, but at the moment there's barely enough content to constitute a demo- I reached map 4 without seeing more than 4 different encounters (abandoned temple, alraune, elven camp and scene of attack) each of which had only 2 variants (loot gold or fight cultists, fuck alraune or fight her, barter with elves or fight amazon, scavenge gold or fight bandits) and then the map came up blank so I assume I'd reached the end. Also, the fact that you fully recover all HP, Energy and Lust after every encounter completely undermines the entire roguelike aspect. Like I said, it has potential, but there's just not enough there at the moment.

There is definitely a need for more content. I also agree that the game needs a better implementation of the finiteness of resources that makes roguelikes great. Currently full restoration after combat means you don't really have to preserve resources inside a fight. I am not entirely sure how to address this yet but am considering several ideas. One would be partial restoration (eg 20% hp and energy). Another would be to force the player to pay money to heal outside of combat. My original idea was to have health and energy restore but death require the player expend soulstones (an unimplemented resource) to revive dead characters. I don't think that's a good compromise though. It pushes you to do everything to avoid character death while not caring about expending mana or energy.

What language do you code in? What program do you use?

The game is coded in JavaScript (along with CSS and HTML for the UI). I use AngularJS as the core framework although it is a webapp framework not a game framework (Chosen does not really have any graphics or animations so it mostly works well). I also use snap.svg for the map and a number of other libraries for convenience throughout the code. One of the big advantages of JavaScript is there is a huge open source community and its easy to find libraries to help you get things done fast.

 

[TheDarkMaster]

I also agree that the game needs a better implementation of the finiteness of resources that makes roguelikes great. Currently full restoration after combat means you don't really have to preserve resources inside a fight. I am not entirely sure how to address this yet but am considering several ideas. One would be partial restoration (eg 20% hp and energy). Another would be to force the player to pay money to heal outside of combat. My original idea was to have health and energy restore but death require the player expend soulstones (an unimplemented resource) to revive dead characters. I don't think that's a good compromise though. It pushes you to do everything to avoid character death while not caring about expending mana or energy.

I thought of this myself, but didn't actually post anything about it.  Some sort of finite resource that you have to spend or preserve in combat is definitely the way to go.  FTL had hull, fuel, missiles, and drone parts.  Using stuff like this could also be a way to help balance the different classes and powers by assigning different costs to them.  Persistent health should probably be a thing at some point.  You can balance this by either giving the player something like three or four times as much base health as most enemies or by adding easy ways to heal outside of combat at the cost of some resource.  However, I think it would be better for the game if the player can't do everything on their own, they need to find/buy some things to succeed.

 

[Void Director]

I thought of this myself, but didn't actually post anything about it.  Some sort of finite resource that you have to spend or preserve in combat is definitely the way to go.  FTL had hull, fuel, missiles, and drone parts.  Using stuff like this could also be a way to help balance the different classes and powers by assigning different costs to them.  Persistent health should probably be a thing at some point.  You can balance this by either giving the player something like three or four times as much base health as most enemies or by adding easy ways to heal outside of combat at the cost of some resource.  However, I think it would be better for the game if the player can't do everything on their own, they need to find/buy some things to succeed.

Certainly some sort of system of finiteness is necessary. Making life not restore after combat is clearly the simplest way as far as programing is concerned. Making stores more necessary is also something I am heavily considering. However, currently stores are integrated into events unlike FTL where they are basically just separate things (and are marked on the map). I think if I made stores as vital as in FTL I would have to make locations that were basically just store only (which is entirely possible). Otherwise people could find themselves unable to get to stores do to pure chance and thus deprived of much needed healing and equipments. 

The fact that their is no central ship in Chosen also makes things harder. Companions are basically just as powerful as your main character (they have somewhat lower stats). As such this creates trouble for balancing finiteness as you gain allies. If HP is the finite resource you basically double it when you get your first companion. If the PC has much more hp than their companions then companions are worthless as tanks. Ofc if there are more companions than it costs more to restore them all to full hp.

Anyway, good thoughts. There are clearly quite a few things to work out as far as the core gameplay goes. Unfortunately with school right now I don't have all that much time to work on the game and test out ideas in code.