HTML Blue Swallow [v0.7.3,1] [Blue Swallow]

[RebirthBoi]

Gold star route?

 

[eatfortwo]

how to get pregnant?

Well, when a spy and her mark love each other very much....

 

[bill101]

I think ffive has a point, this kind of reminds me of this game I played called Ixion, it was a good game in terms of feel but in the end if you wanted to win there was only really one way to play, in effect it was a bad puzzle posing as a city builder, I mean in order to really get past the first stage you need to know where everything is and what you will need to access it which means you cant win on a first run, you also needed to know ahead of time how much of everything you would need to win, so even the city has to be built just right, not too much of this, or too little of that- which basicly again needs you to have already played and know that.

Now I dont think this game is that bad at all, I think its got amazing potental and I also take onboard that the issue im having is just a bug that will be squashed in due coarse.

In the end I think that the "Cracking" system is fine but should be recoverable, by the minor contradiction that ffive pointed out i'm assuming that what you mean is that when you "Crack" thats permanent but the issues that lead to a "Crack" are recoverable? So as an example your saying that if I have 5 confidence and I take a hit I go to 4 but i can do something to go back to 5 again, but if I hit zero thats a "Crack" which is permanent?

 

[Versthappening]

Blue Swallow v0.5.3F download:

You must be registered to see the links

Changes:

• Bad End / Cracking in Act I should be easier to avoid and there is a warning now as you enter Act I with a little 'help' button if desired. To wit, there shouldn't be any Bad Ends yet.
• Virginity was resetting every load. Shouldn't do that now.
• Gap Year has added Kink and Sex Skill levelling if Claire sleeps with enough people during that timeframe (very unlikely, but possible).
• Some erroneous text has been fixed.
• Edits to 'realHeight' more in line with reality for women.

 

[CassieBare]

In the end I think that the "Cracking" system is fine but should be recoverable, by the minor contradiction that ffive pointed out i'm assuming that what you mean is that when you "Crack" thats permanent but the issues that lead to a "Crack" are recoverable? So as an example your saying that if I have 5 confidence and I take a hit I go to 4 but i can do something to go back to 5 again, but if I hit zero thats a "Crack" which is permanent?

Currently think about it like this:

Do too many things that push Claire's limits (Corruptions > Stability) = +1 crack (and reset Corruption count)

A crack affects her stats, lowering stability (the downward spiral) but also increasing her Easiness, Suggestibility, etc.

If Cracks >= Confidence = Bad End.

So, after a 'crack' you can either do things that re-stabilize her (lower stats are easier to increase); increase her Confidence (to avoid hitting the breaking point); or just keep it in mind and be careful.

And if you've got a super-stable Claire? One or two shouldn't really matter, just a typical Corruption Cycle.

---
Now, also consider that the version that you're playing only has a few arcs / gameplay options. As things are written (0.7, 0.9, etc), there will be more opportunities to do things that aren't straight corruption paths.

The intention is to have a game where some people are going to want to ride the line and see how close they can get to a Bad End without going over, but also a game where some people are going to want to try and keep Claire pure and still try and win, and other people will want to break her over and over again.

So, yeah, that's a lot to manage and we're just starting, but beyond some bad coding on our first pass, I don't really think it's as dire as it's being made out to be.

 

[Ragnar]

Not a fan of that system. Players don't know how many points they have in confidence or whatever, so from a player point of view the system encourages you to avoid losing confidence points. Not a great thing to roleplay different builds when the result can be a bad end and back to the start.

 

[BlandChili]

So, yeah, that's a lot to manage and we're just starting, but beyond some bad coding on our first pass, I don't really think it's as dire as it's being made out to be.

I don't think anyone is making it out to be dire at all, but it's a good thing for you to keep in mind, right? First and foremost you want your game to be fun to play for your users and it won't be if it contains a game over system that the player can't perceive and understand easily.

Maybe you don't think that's important compared to making the game a certain way, that's fine, but I assume you'd want users to enjoy their time with the game and return for more.

 

[ffive]

Is there a way to manipulate the stats in this game?

Yes, you can access the stats using developer console in web browser. It's typically accessed with Shift+Ctrl+I

Once it's opened, you can manipulate object SugarCube.State.active.variables.Stats which holds MC's skills, traits etc. Note, the changes you make will only "take" after advancing to the next page. Also, for a stat to change you'll need to adjust both base and value fields, since the attributes aren't just simple numbers.

 

[ffive]

So, yeah, that's a lot to manage and we're just starting, but beyond some bad coding on our first pass, I don't really think it's as dire as it's being made out to be.

I'm not sure if you realize that with the character creator as it is currently, it is very easy for a player to get Claire who is nowhere near "super-stable" and/or "super-confident", but has these numbers in some -2+2 range, if that. This means the mechanics as you've described them can "crack" such character immediately as soon as you gain any corruption and similarly cause almost instant game over due to not having enough confidence to last longer.

Your experience can be different as a developer, since you'd be subconsciously aiming to make your character resilient, something the player is unable to, not even knowing how their decisions affect their character's stats (and what their stats even *are*) since it is all hidden from them.

And well, all this still doesn't address the core issue of low confidence/stability character being perfectly viable outcome of the character creator, but borderline (if not completely) unplayable in the actual game. It's basically like the old D&D where you could indeed roll/design yourself a character who would be complete failure only destined to die early due to lacking useful stats. Surprise, surprise, this wasn't fun for anyone involved. There's no need to repeat such mistakes.

On a sidenote, this intention:

a game where some people are going to want to ride the line and see how close they can get to a Bad End without going over,

is currently not really possible due to aforementioned inability to see character's stats. The players simply can't see how close they get to the Bad End (other than getting that bad end) so they'll never know they're actually riding the line, and consequently any potential enjoyment from this is witheld from them.

 

[ffive]

it says *ncest in tags but how?

At the end of high school character creation arc you can choose who was Claire's first sexual partner, as well as other people she's had sex with. The list of potential candidates includes a range of her family members (depending on what family setup you've selected for her)

 

[ffive]

CassieBare seems there's some nasty bug with save/load system, either in general or on the Eurotrip path in particular. To reproduce:

* load provided save, note the Stats values
* pick "using this as my homebase" and then "broaden my horizons" followed by "platonic buddies"
* proceed to the next scene ("Rome. One of the grandest cities...") and save/export your game. Take note of the Stats values.
* now reload the save you've just made. Check the stats again: you will notice they're no longer what they were, but instead reverted to what they were at the previous scene, the one from first save.

 

[Fictionary]

CassieBare seems there's some nasty bug with save/load system, either in general or on the Eurotrip path in particular. To reproduce:

Thanks for details, looking into this.

 

[CassieBare]

And well, all this still doesn't address the core issue of low confidence/stability character being perfectly viable outcome of the character creator, but borderline (if not completely) unplayable in the actual game. It's basically like the old D&D where you could indeed roll/design yourself a character who would be complete failure only destined to die early due to lacking useful stats. Surprise, surprise, this wasn't fun for anyone involved. There's no need to repeat such mistakes.

On a sidenote, this intention:

is currently not really possible due to aforementioned inability to see character's stats. The players simply can't see how close they get to the Bad End (other than getting that bad end) so they'll never know they're actually riding the line, and consequently any potential enjoyment from this is witheld from them.

The difference between D&D rolling and Blue Swallow is: there is no random chance to your stats. And while some nudges in one direction or another may not be entirely transparent, I'd argue that most make a lot of sense: nerds have higher learning, jocks have higher athletics, etc etc.

As for #2, I'm certain people will (and already have) figured out ways to see their stats. Hell, it's in Twine, people can just abjectly change their stats whenever they want if they go into the Console.

As I've mentioned before: I grew up on the white paperback CYOA. And while getting a bad end that came outta nowhere kinda sucked, I could just flip back a few pages and keep going, or start over. And I definitely kept reading and playing those little white books. Think of Blue Swallow as one of those.

I'm glad you're enjoying and glad for the support and comments. We do take all of them into consideration, as you should plainly see over a year of our development.

 

[Ragnar]

As for #2, I'm certain people will (and already have) figured out ways to see their stats. Hell, it's in Twine, people can just abjectly change their stats whenever they want if they go into the Console.

Not everyone will take the time to learn or to do that. You play a female MC game and you get a bad ending because reasons unknown to you. So may as well say fuck it, it's a waste of time.

 

[ffive]

The difference between D&D rolling and Blue Swallow is: there is no random chance to your stats. And while some nudges in one direction or another may not be entirely transparent, I'd argue that most make a lot of sense: nerds have higher learning, jocks have higher athletics, etc etc.

The lack of randomness doesn't matter. The associated stat changes might be sensible, but when this sensible change means actively sabotaging your chances to get through the game, to the point where it becomes impossible (something the player isn't even aware of, as they never get any warning about it) then what's exactly the benefit of having such option? As you note yourself, getting this sort of outcome "kinda sucked" in your own experience. Now imagine this is your player's first (and second, and third if they have any patience left) experience with your game, just as they're done with prolonged character creator, and it's only made worse by being unable to tell what they did 'wrong'. Why would you ever want to subject them to such frustrating experience?

Especially when this is not a COYA booklet and people can't simply "flip back a few pages" and pick up another option, the way you did, when their character is inherently broken beyond repair.

"Well but they can build a character who won't fail" not only requires the player to potentially put up with failures to even (hopefully) figure out why they're failing at character creation where all they did was pick from provided backstory options, but also just brings us back to the core point -- which is, there's no real benefit to having "ability" to build a character who will fail. These are simply "choices" which the player will (eventually learn to) avoid, because they aren't even pointless but actively harmful.

With this new mechanic you have introduced (one which elevates stability and confidence into much more than just "one of the stats") a number of situations in the character creator becomes really questionable in terms of provided options and, again, basically are only traps for the uninformed player. I'm speaking specifically of "choices" where the player effectively gets to decide between "do this thing" and potentially gain some stats or "don't do this thing" and gets "rewarded" only by loss of either confidence or stability and nothing else. As long as there is no benefit from these stats being low, this is a choice between "get 100 dollars" and "lose 100 dollars". That is to say, in practice it's no choice at all.

The different scenarios which you have described as how you imagine people would play your game to enjoy it all require the player to be intimately familiar with the game's mechanics and the benefits of individual choices, to the point where they can knowingly build a character whose traits will match their intended playstyle and what the story throws at them. But this is not the kind of knowledge your fresh players will have. And a lot won't sit through multiple hours of going through the same character creator over and over to acquire it. (and even for these who will, i question just how much fun it really be when they're forced to operate very much in the dark)

As for #2, I'm certain people will (and already have) figured out ways to see their stats. Hell, it's in Twine, people can just abjectly change their stats whenever they want if they go into the Console.

Now, come on, you can't be serious: as it stands, the game intentionally hides all stats and their changes from the player. That is the baseline experience, and that a few more inquisitive people might be determined enough to look under the hood does not change this in the slightest, nor will make the experience any better for the bulk of your playerbase who won't bother with such things.

 

[Versthappening]

As for #2, I'm certain people will (and already have) figured out ways to see their stats. Hell, it's in Twine, people can just abjectly change their stats whenever they want if they go into the Console.

r u srs?

 

[Truth5eekker]

I have say that I don't remember last time i was angry after playing a game. Dissapointed maybe but angry. And what brought this anger up was playing this game enjoying it because writing was really solid, liked the whole prologue build up. Then after college the game starts and what I got? a game over??! What is the point of making "and open ended play as you like game" if its not possible to finish if you don't play as certain type. So please dev if you want your players to play like they want, make it so you can finish the game. Especially because there isn't stat tracking and we don't know what stats you actually need to so you can make it through. That is other aspect, make it visible what choices decrease or increase what and put it to notebook so you can see what kinda character you are playing. Choices and stats are meaningless if player can't finish the game and you don't make it clear if some stats are needed to progress through. Its not players fault, its devs responsibility to make sure all main quest are possible to finish for all builds. I really liked the game but its frustrating to waste time literally hours of reading through and building your character just to game to say you actually played wrong when game tells you play as you like when in truth it wasn't like that.

 

[quiboune]

Many people are angry with the last updates, huh lol

 

[Truth5eekker]

The difference between D&D rolling and Blue Swallow is: there is no random chance to your stats. And while some nudges in one direction or another may not be entirely transparent, I'd argue that most make a lot of sense: nerds have higher learning, jocks have higher athletics, etc etc.

As for #2, I'm certain people will (and already have) figured out ways to see their stats. Hell, it's in Twine, people can just abjectly change their stats whenever they want if they go into the Console.

As I've mentioned before: I grew up on the white paperback CYOA. And while getting a bad end that came outta nowhere kinda sucked, I could just flip back a few pages and keep going, or start over. And I definitely kept reading and playing those little white books. Think of Blue Swallow as one of those.

I'm glad you're enjoying and glad for the support and comments. We do take all of them into consideration, as you should plainly see over a year of our development.

And to make this game as such that player is forced to do this to progress the game makes it bad design. You have no control over what raises or lowers what, there isn't ant indication of that, you can only guess. Game doesn't tell you what you need to successes, and its not really even a CYOA if you can't make it through. Its contradicting to make a game where you can build and play as you like just to make it that actually you need to play it like this if you want finish the game. It makes whole character building and prologue meaningless if the caters only certain type of play style when you don't have clue what that is. You can't blame the player for playing certain type of character if you give them a chance to do it. Its devs responssibility to make sure its possible to finish the game at all times. You don't have make it so that everything is doable or that you get the same outcome, but you need to make sure player gets to play their character through to end. Otherwise whole character builder and choices of gameplay where pointless and inherently game design for that bad. All this is in good spirits and because I reallt liked the game just to see that hours of my gameplay and building my character was thrown to ashes because i didn't have some stats that was needed to and in no point was i told i needed to those stats and I didn't even have any info of my stats. You can't shrug it of as " well you can you console commands" on twine. For what reason then i even played and builded and read through this story and gameplay if in the end i just need to open console and tweak the stats. If you build you game like this it takes a way whole reason to play the game. Just make a fixed character, and right choice wrong choice bad end type of game if its only playable through with certain stats. Its pointless to give freedom of character build if game is possible to complete with only certain stats.

 

[ffive]

Alright, so it doesn't look like i'm just complaining, maybe something more constructive -- after having a look at the current implementation of the mind break thing, i feel like maybe part of the problem is that the way it works is a bit counter-intuitive? I'm thinking, maybe this approach could work better:

introduce new mind break:
* if corruption - mindbreak > confidence - stability

why like this:

Adding existing mind breaks to the equation makes it harder to acquire more, as each new one must overcome higher value than the ones before.

Basic confidence shields the person from thinking what they're doing is 'wrong'. And the way the game builds stability, it seems basically how much a character is accustomed to their life following a routine and avoids disturbances from it. This is why, imo, experiencing something out of the comfort zone should be harder on such characters, because it's simply something they've spend most of their life sheltered from. In contrast, for a character with low stability, who not only lives but maybe even looks forward to chaos, such kind of development is just Tuesday (or Xmas come early)

This change also has a (positive, imo) side-effect: the way character who experiences mind-break takes hit to their stability means they become more accustomed to unordinary effects in their life, meaning that it'll be harder for them to undergo another mindbreak, not easier. So it's not a downward spiral but the opposite, something the character grows more resilient to naturally.

And then (or even as a stand-alone change, if everything else is left intact as it is) i'd simply do away with the bad end part (game over if too many mindbreaks) or at the very least made it optional and opt-in rather than default. Maybe also make it a check against an arbitrary value rather than tied with any specific stat, and make the count something which you can reduce, or improve how many times you can 'survive' (with help from a psychologist or whatever. A potential common source of sexy content, too) An equivalent of "lives" in more generic games, if you will.

While none of this would do anything to address the core issue (some builds being better at handling the situations than others) maybe it'd at least alleviate the results a little..?