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[Deleted member 5707363]

.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Does that make sense? Is it doable?

Yes and yes, no needs to thanks me...



Before answering the implicit "how to do it", I want to advice you to starts with a way more basic game, to learn the basis of a development process and of the engine you'll use.

I advice this because your question is relatively basic and you answered it in your own post:

Success on Day 13=Date on Day 17. You meet her initially and if it works out, you get a second date on Day 17. You get a text, or text her, and hook up for coffee or something. But if it's unsuccessful on Day 13, either Day 17 becomes an uneventful day or just gets skipped altogether . Uneventful Day 17=something like "You've finally got a day to yourself.

This is exactly what you have to do. But if you knew that, you wouldn't have asked if it's doable, because would have already know the answer.



You "just" need to starts the code for each locations with a hub that will branch the player to the right part of the game depending on the game state. Something that would looks like:

store hub:
    IF day = 13 GO TO encounter with X
    ELSE IF day = 17 and X-pursued = True GO TO second encounter with X
    ELSE IF [whatever condition] GO TO [whatever part of the story]
    ELSE # No special content is expected GO TO regular visit to the store
 
park hub:
    IF day = 19 and X-advancement = 1 GO TO first date with X
    ELSE IF [whatever condition] GO TO [whatever part of the story]
    ELSE # No special content is expected GO TO regular visit to the park

encounter with X:
    X-pursued <- True
    the code for the encounter

second encounter with X:
    X-advancement + 1
    the code for the encounter

first date with X:
    X-advancement + 1
    the code for the date

How you'll handle the game state and how you'll effectively code the hub will totally depend on the game engine you'll use to make the game, and partly depend on your coding capabilities.


Also note that having a hub for the locations will not be enough. At some point you'll have to tweak a scene of your story to make the girl intervene in it if the player continued her story so far.
This is done more or less in the same way:

whatever scene:
   blablabla
   IF x-advancement >= y GO TO whatever with X
   ELSE GO TO whatever without X

 

[hiya02]

Simple stats wont turn a plain vanilla Vn into a sandbox. Have you taken a look at how some of the Sbx-games found e.g. here, were made?

 

[Deleted member 5707363]

Bootyologist and hiya02

Simple stats wont turn a plain vanilla Vn into a sandbox. Have you taken a look at how some of the Sbx-games found e.g. here, were made?

I didn't say sandbox. I said quasi-sandbox. And a stats bar wasn't the point of my question.

If you're talking about the coding, no. Game design? Yes.

I've played my share of adult sandbox games. They seem to use Unity more often. They also tend to break more often from what I've seen. I imagine that this is because the coding is more advanced.

I'm a complete novice at everything in the process. I've gotten to where I know my way around Daz pretty decent. Now I'm starting at a super basic level with Renpy, working on a prologue that is straight forward render and dialogue/narration. I don't see myself being able to code a true sandbox game that wouldn't break right and left.

Anyway, for me the allure of sandbox is the opportunity for side quests that you can do and be a completionist, but have no effect on the main quest aside from maybe amassing stats. You can skip them if you want, or you can carry them through if you want. Also, the player is not temporally bound as much. You can go do the side quest with Sara or Jane whenever you want.

I want to have meaningful story path choices, but incorporate an element of inconsequential choice for the sake of adding different side characters with different fetishes. So kind of a hybrid and one that's simpler to code. The difference between this idea and a true sandbox is that you are temporally bound.

The hypothetical analogy for the concept is a road trip: you are on a trip from Boobsville to Buttsville. On the way, you can stop in Pissburg or drive through if you don't want to see the sights. If you stop, the lady at the gas station recommends that you do a day trip at Hucow Lake. Inconsequential, and you only go through Pissburg once on the way. You're still on the way to Buttsville. You see the exit to Hucow lake a couple days later. You can either drive by or go there. You can do the whole day trip or decide it's lame and bounce. But if you bounce or drive by, you won't run into some dude who recommends hiking at Dickgirl Rock. And so on. Still going to Buttsville regardless. Once you get to Buttsville, you can continue west to Blowjobia or north to Anal City. That's the meaningful story choice if that makes sense. The stops on the way are just curiosities that can truly happen or not happen and it doesn't matter. Just something to add interest and maybe more optional edgy fetishes, for the gallery, and to get 100% completion.

I mean if that's a classic VN I'm fine with that. Whatever anyone wants to call it is fine.

 

[Deleted member 5707363]

Yes and yes, no needs to thanks me...



Before answering the implicit "how to do it", I want to advice you to starts with a way more basic game, to learn the basis of a development process and of the engine you'll use.

I advice this because your question is relatively basic and you answered it in your own post:


This is exactly what you have to do. But if you knew that, you wouldn't have asked if it's doable, because would have already know the answer.



You "just" need to starts the code for each locations with a hub that will branch the player to the right part of the game depending on the game state. Something that would looks like:

store hub:
    IF day = 13 GO TO encounter with X
    ELSE IF day = 17 and X-pursued = True GO TO second encounter with X
    ELSE IF [whatever condition] GO TO [whatever part of the story]
    ELSE # No special content is expected GO TO regular visit to the store

park hub:
    IF day = 19 and X-advancement = 1 GO TO first date with X
    ELSE IF [whatever condition] GO TO [whatever part of the story]
    ELSE # No special content is expected GO TO regular visit to the park

encounter with X:
    X-pursued <- True
    the code for the encounter

second encounter with X:
    X-advancement + 1
    the code for the encounter

first date with X:
    X-advancement + 1
    the code for the date

How you'll handle the game state and how you'll effectively code the hub will totally depend on the game engine you'll use to make the game, and partly depend on your coding capabilities.


Also note that having a hub for the locations will not be enough. At some point you'll have to tweak a scene of your story to make the girl intervene in it if the player continued her story so far.
This is done more or less in the same way:

whatever scene:
   blablabla
   IF x-advancement >= y GO TO whatever with X
   ELSE GO TO whatever without X

Thank you for the constructive advice, and the idea as far as the logic. This coding thing seems like a 101 philosophy class where you learn basic logic. This if and only if that. If this, then that. Modus Ponens. One question would be: Do I have to do some renders as filler for Day 17 if the player opts out/fails on Day 13? Or can I skip ahead to Day 18 like Day 17 never happened without filler renders? Does skipping renders for Day 17 after opt-out/fail Day 13 and moving ahead to Day 18 make things more likely to be buggy? Or do I need the filler? I wanna go through it without bugs if possible, obviously.