HTML Abandoned Female Agent [v1.20.1p] [Crushstation]

[Power Broker]

I see this problem too; and yet, game studios & TV shows have some way of making writing work as a team effort.

Your game is more akin to a novel than to a TV show or a video game: the visual elements are only extras, the game consists primarily of text. Therefore, asking an author / writer / novelist might be a better idea.

In TV shows and games, many things are not written, but shown, whereas you have to write it. And I'm not only talking about visual elements, but also about things like actions and behaviour: an actor can play the same character believable and consistently even when he got instructions from two different authors, but a reader who reads stories from two different authors will (usually) get different impressions of that character.

You can explain away why in a video game character A is much more interesting than B, talks differently or has another mindset, but if this difference applies not only to the characters, but also to the description of the world, the presentation of actions and behaviours, the pace of events and so on, your game has a problem.

Also, there is a difference between having paid writers who have the job to write a certain story in a certain timeframe and having a bunch of volunteers with varying motivations trying to achieve the same.

Just as an example: you have looked into intelligence agencies, maybe read some books from (ex-)spies, you have a certain vision and idea in your head about the female spy. Now, how many people do you think are out there that have the same level of expertise (which is required to keep up the quality standard you set concerning realism and believability), that share your vision at least somewhat and that have an equal level of skill in writing? And who are willing to contribute to your story?
Maybe some, but probably not enough to justify building a framework in the hope of more and better content from various authors in the long run. I doubt this will happen.

I have some experience with collaborative writing and let me tell you, it's hard to find even one person who is compatible enough to write a good story together; and even then the story I want to write is written primarily by me and my partner is the inspiration, chaotic element and trickster who weaves his story into mine (or mine into his), but never ever has somebody else written the story I had in my mind.

 

[Crushstation]

Yeah you may be right Power Broker...I certainly haven't figured out how to do it yet. I'll let you know what World Famous Game Designer thinks when he gets back to me.

 

[Crushstation]

asdfasdf12341234ACSACA Good point, thanks for bringing this up.

My original vision was basically to make Bangkok a whore simulator. Dissonant Soundtrack argued fiercely against this, taking a similar line to yours: the story has to be about a spy undercover as a whore, not a whore who used to be a spy.

We went back and forth between two visions: one where the agent works her way through DEVILFISH's organisation, closing in on the target (which I felt was gamey) and one where the agent just keeps her head down, working shifts at the brothel until the target appears (which he felt was boring).

Finally, we hit on an idea that we both felt good about;

Spoiler: Future plot ideas

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We liked this because it gives the heroine lots of "spy stuff" to do, without making DEVILFISH's organisation seem easy to strike at, which would undermine the whole premise of sending an officer on a long shot mission like this.

 

[fitgirlbestgirl]

No more clicking through generic descriptions of body parts meeting body parts – instead imagine a series of sexy scenarios, individualised for your unique character. That's what I want Bangkok to be, and we can do it – but we need to finish laying the foundations first.

FWIW I don't believe making your sex engine better is going to solve anything. Procedurally generated content will always be worse than something handcrafted. The reason people click through the sex scenes to get to the next story bit isn't just that the sex scenes aren't that sexy, they would still be boring if they had better descriptions or were more individualized.

I'd personally prefer 1 written scenario to 100 sex engine ones. Also there are ways to individualize the story bits more, which is maybe a direction you should look into alternatively. Look at the stuff games like Trials in Tainted Space do. It's all handwritten content, but it's highly individualized with the sex scenes reacting to your body, certain skills etc.

Anyway, I like your game, but I play it for the writing, not the randomized sex generator.

 

[Crushstation]

I don't mean this to be harsh, but commentary that is more critical than the fawning that goes on in the Patreon page shouldn't be bad for your morale. If legitimate questions about the lack of new content (for months) genuinely hurt your morale, you may need to reconsider more than just whether you get on this comment thread.

Maybe I should be thicker skinned, but honestly I think only a robot could log onto a page full of personalised criticism about their best efforts, and not feel at least a bit demoralised.

Like I said, it's useful insight and I do genuinely appreciate the fact that people I've never met give enough of a fuck about my little story to even have an opinion on it, so I didn't mean to come across as feeling victimised or bitter – I don't, I actually love you guys. Several people have asked me why I bother to post on "toxic F95", but I don't think it's toxic at all, I just think it's raw and zero-bullshit.

So I value it, but sometimes when I'm feeling stressed/frightened about the project, yeah coming here can be dispiriting. But I don't want it to change. I guess I was trying to explain why sometimes I have to psych myself up to show my face around here.

 

[Crushstation]

Yeah i hope even there will be plenty of Sex in the Game, it will be still also something so that the Sex and fun side and the Agent things will be tied well together. So maybeif i wanna play my female Agent more like some kind of Jane Bond, she still can be very seductive and clever and a femme fatale, but still need not to whore herself out and mostly can do missions, socialize with ppl besides of Sex and build up her personal network to gain intel and support. Reminds me of a couple of Shadowrun PC i created and played over the last 20 years.

Hey JackJoe, thanks for this! Feedback from players about the characters they want to play is incredibly fucking useful so I appreciate this insight – thanks. (Also, anybody else reading this should post here or DM me with notes on the agent they want to play – I'll do my best.)

I want to tell you straight that my current plan doesn't include a path where your agent can avoid whoring herself out. But if you tell me more about the kind of play you'd like to see (either here or in a DM), I'll take it on board if I can.

 

[Crushstation]

FWIW I don't believe making your sex engine better is going to solve anything. Procedurally generated content will always be worse than something handcrafted. The reason people click through the sex scenes to get to the next story bit isn't just that the sex scenes aren't that sexy, they would still be boring if they had better descriptions or were more individualized.

I'd personally prefer 1 written scenario to 100 sex engine ones. Also there are ways to individualize the story bits more, which is maybe a direction you should look into alternatively. Look at the stuff games like Trials in Tainted Space do. It's all handwritten content, but it's highly individualized with the sex scenes reacting to your body, certain skills etc.

Anyway, I like your game, but I play it for the writing, not the randomized sex generator.

Thanks fitgirlbestgirl. This is actually kind of what I'm trying to push towards – individualised sex scenes, rather than one universal Sex Engine in which we play out the same scenes, only with slight variations in the language. He rams/inserts/thrusts his cock/dick/penis into your pussy/vagina...

 

[Sixty]

Hey JackJoe, thanks for this! Feedback from players about the characters they want to play is incredibly fucking useful so I appreciate this insight – thanks. (Also, anybody else reading this should post here or DM me with notes on the agent they want to play – I'll do my best.)

I want to tell you straight that my current plan doesn't include a path where your agent can avoid whoring herself out. But if you tell me more about the kind of play you'd like to see (either here or in a DM), I'll take it on board if I can.

Mate, I admire you taking all this time to respond. It's admirable. But I just want to say that for your mental health you should always keep in mind that you could make a game of the scope and quality of fucking Skyrim and there would still be a mob of voices here complaining about it.

Your game is terrific. Great idea, great execution. Hold your vision in your mind, even when you make changes. It's good. Really. Give yourself the freedom to make it.

 

[Crushstation]

Mate, I admire you taking all this time to respond. It's admirable. But I just want to say that for your mental health you should always keep in mind that you could make a game of the scope and quality of fucking Skyrim and there would still be a mob of voices here complaining about it.

Your game is terrific. Great idea, great execution. Hold your vision in your mind, even when you make changes. It's good. Really. Give yourself the freedom to make it.

I was just working on my next reply when I saw this. Thanks, Sixty, you've made me realise that I should probably order some ingredients to cook food with this week instead of trying to make everybody here love me back. I'm gonna do that now, but I'll get back on here soon, I can't stay away. :-D

 

[JackJoe]

Hi seems like i can not sending DM right now because lack of Posts. The most important thing is to get the person stick to the story and the NPC and the character. I had been for years in touch with authors in p&p fe Shadowrun and also managed some Communities and Role Play stuff and discuss with storydesign with the folks of GirlLife, about Story and creating a deep story without much things but some basic ideas and events, look how Paradox did it with Crusader Kings II, it was once just a stategy game with some role play events based on characters and ppl and how you interact somehow matters. In nearly 7 years the game based on this took a real new term. Even it had been never started as an RPG game by the first concept, so CK 3 now will take a new direction then Ck 1+2.

Interesting is based by traits and others and the impact on the immersion. Depending on my character and the language it is a huge issue to communicate in a foreign location. I created some character for my Shadowrun campaign years ago with backstory and interactions who matters, really based on a concept of your story. Important is then when you create also the characters for the backstory in the creation that they need to matter. The Stuff with family, (ex)-Lovers and so on. The past has to matter in a story concept too. So based on the detailed Character creation and flags then how to add and bring them with flags and triggers into the story. Stuff can be prescrepted somehow, based on different traits charactersitics and other aspects.

It is already in the creation but stuff then has also to get tied in to the NPC so while ex bf/gf and family they need some flags and also something then that the story of the childhood and other aspects could get by different flags and triggers matter somehow. The story and NPC matter and you really should take a look into Ck2 in ways of how to generate a story and erotic because somehow it is barebones but behind it is very deep. And it is now for free on steam. Most kink and fantasy we as players need to get seduced in our brain. This is what matters so in ways of writing and how to tie stuff in. Often at first the basic but important NPC need some Background and motives. A good way is to look into how DM give ideas to each other how to create a good Pen and Paper for example D&D story to keep their players motivated. I hope it could help you a little bit and feel free to contact me.

I once created for a similar premise such a character and the most tough question where how were her motives how she ended like that and how all this could work out. I posted all the things in a shadowrun Fan

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. Sadly it is in german but maybe it still can help you.

 

[Master of Puppets]

I want to tell you straight that my current plan doesn't include a path where your agent can avoid whoring herself out. But if you tell me more about the kind of play you'd like to see (either here or in a DM), I'll take it on board if I can.

Given the nature of the mission, avoiding whoring her out at all is probably not going to work, if she's supposed to get the target alone with her she needs at least some history of taking men to a private room or it will be very suspicious. It could be rare for her to do so though, with most of her time spent stripping, or doing girl/girl or ladyboy shows on stage. Maybe some camwhoring, that's something I'd like to see more of in games. If her actually fucking men is rare, that might make her even more desirable to the target.

 

[Sixty]

I was just working on my next reply when I saw this. Thanks, Sixty, you've made me realise that I should probably order some ingredients to cook food with this week instead of trying to make everybody here love me back. I'm gonna do that now, but I'll get back on here soon, I can't stay away. :-D

Good idea. The food, I mean.

I publish dirty stories over on Literotica and a couple other places, have for years. If there's one piece of advice I can offer, it's this: More than maybe anything else, sex invites people's worst, most entitled impulses. Focus on the good feedback as much as you can. Bad feedback has something to offer too, of course, when it's reasoned. But so, so often the underlying point of the criticism isn't "this is bad and you can make it better," it's "this isn't my fetish so I'm angry."

You're making a game about a promiscuous girl. That starts you off with a big audience of haters before you've written a single word of story. Misogyny is real, man. There's a reason so many games that are centrally about rape do so well.

Constructive criticism is great. I think you're on to something when you say you want to improve the writing of the sex. But don't let yourself get into a feedback loop about the central concept of your game. What you have already is one of the most interesting setups I've seen. And it objectively has more thought and effort behind it than 99% of the games that aren't from big studios, and an embarrassing number of big studio games.

It's good. Let yourself write it. Don't hold all this crap in your head while you do it. If you don't enjoy it, it'll suck. Write the game you intended.

 

[ScarletCrow]

I'm a developer myself, so I understand the feeling of wanting to get the foundation right, but the thing is, more often than not, this process will never end, you'll always have that feeling of insecurity that something's not right, something needs to be tweaked, reworked, revamped. At some point though, you just need to ignore those kind of shit, and push through with production, because based on my experience, this kind of thing can grind progress to a halt. I was personally involved with a project like that where eventually it needed to be killed. It's not a good feeling to have to end the project that you've poured so much effort into.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate how Crushstation seems to put so much thought and effort into the quality of this game. Because honestly, it's kinda boring to see the same kind of sex games that are being produced nowadays. Only a few really have originality and quality to make it stand out.

But we also need to be realistic, months without any significant release will slowly degrade the confidence of his audience overtime. Some patrons might drop out because they don't feel like they get what they pay for, which well, you can argue that it's not the point of being a Patron. But basic economics, you pay for something you feel have value, either now or in the future. If you don't think the game will ever be playable in any foreseeable future, then they will drop out.

Some patrons might come back when the game has more content, but some might not. But considering that Crushstation left his RL job to focus in this venture. He cannot say that money is not important for him, if the income drops really low, I don't think any sane person will keep working on this without having any RL job. There is a chance that this game could vaporize without a trace, which is a shame.

A bit ranting, but that's how I think is the risk of making the game public and quitting your RL job when it's still not in the "somewhat ready" state. In the end you have to keep the confidence up, by showing progress, "visible" progress, which I know might not the best way to create something, but necessary when you make the game public and the survival of the project depends on it.

Even the new management gimmicks they came to adopt, is just a mean to an end. They still have to push through the actual development hell, and produce something. They can always reiterate later if needed, they can even have separate build channel to do the experimental stuff, which I see they are actually doing now. But this experimental build is just that, experimental, the main production channel still has to stick to the actual plan. You cannot just stop the plan to introduce new things, which I don't think they are guilty of this yet. Their plan was always to get the foundation "right" before Bangkok.

 

[Power Broker]

one where the agent works her way through DEVILFISH's organisation, closing in on the target (which I felt was gamey) and one where the agent just keeps her head down, working shifts at the brothel until the target appears (which he felt was boring).

I suggest to take a look at "The Americans", a show about a Russian spy couple on a long term infiltration mission in the US during the cold war. Even though they stayed a normal couple on the outside, keeping their heads down, just living a normal life and waiting wasn't what they were doing. There are many things that can spice up the story

Spoiler

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I haven't read your spoiler (because I don't want to spoil my fun), but my expectations for this game derive from the very good first part that is playable and I hope the game will continue in this quality and with this story line. For me, this game is about a spy who has to become a whore in order to fulfill her missions- it's not about being a whore, but about spy stuff in a spy story and spy missions that involve sex and her using her body to achieve her goals. I hope for a realistic, interesting storyline that could happen in real life to a sexy, hot spy.

 

[BleepRose]

Thanks fitgirlbestgirl. This is actually kind of what I'm trying to push towards – individualised sex scenes, rather than one universal Sex Engine in which we play out the same scenes, only with slight variations in the language. He rams/inserts/thrusts his cock/dick/penis into your pussy/vagina...

Crush I still love your project and I still appreciate all the communication you've done during this process. But you've got to move forward with Bangkok just a bit in the next six months. I'm Abbi on patreon and helped out on the backstage scene, and I'm telling you man, if you just move forward a bit so people can really see what you have planned a lot of tension will fade.

Your writing is what hooked everyone so just show a little more of that.

 

[ScarletCrow]

Well, this is the reality of a project made public before it's ready. That's why "mainstream" game companies, or hell, ANY software company put so much thought into the date of their public announcement. The mass opinion can be brutal, sometimes it can be damaging enough to never recover from.

Maybe the issue here is Crushstation is selling the game as a spy/whore simulator in BANGKOK. Many people then feel that this lifepath part of the game is just the character creation, nothing to spend so much time and effort into. If, for example, Crush was selling the lifepath as a part of the actual game, like say, the Chapter 1 of the game, then maybe people won't get so antsy. There is no actual need to mention Bangkok at all, he could simply sell the game as a game where we follow the life of a female spy that find herself in lewd missions. People are antsy because Crush made a promise too early, I think.

If we treat this part of the game as the actual Chapter 1, then any progress to the Chapter 1 will be treated as the progress of the game. But currently, each progress to this part of the game actually made people feel that they're further and further away from Bangkok, the actual "meat" of the game. They feel that the dev just "tweaked" the engine "to death".

 

[aifgamer]

Maybe the issue here is Crushstation is selling the game as a spy/whore simulator in BANGKOK. Many people then feel that this lifepath part of the game is just the character creation, nothing to spend so much time and effort into.

Maybe to some, but this is not at all my issue. I think the lifepath stuff is cool; the problem is there's very little of it. There's no depth at all. It takes maybe 10 minutes to see basically all the content.

I would be way more optimistic about the game if the lifepath WAS something you could spend time on. Expand on a couple of the vignettes. Put a couple more training scenarios in. Some story to reward supporters and remind people why they signed on in the first place. That's what's missing.

 

[LEET]

asdfasdf12341234ACSACA Good point, thanks for bringing this up.

My original vision was basically to make Bangkok a whore simulator. Dissonant Soundtrack argued fiercely against this, taking a similar line to yours: the story has to be about a spy undercover as a whore, not a whore who used to be a spy.

We went back and forth between two visions: one where the agent works her way through DEVILFISH's organisation, closing in on the target (which I felt was gamey) and one where the agent just keeps her head down, working shifts at the brothel until the target appears (which he felt was boring).

Finally, we hit on an idea that we both felt good about;

Spoiler: Future plot ideas

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We liked this because it gives the heroine lots of "spy stuff" to do, without making DEVILFISH's organisation seem easy to strike at, which would undermine the whole premise of sending an officer on a long shot mission like this.

Why not a whore who becomes a spy? You get this prim and proper girl who dives headfirst into depravity which introduces you to the tutorial in one of the cities. Then you are approached by the spy organization of your home country asking if you would be willing to strut your stuff with the worst of them.
The whore then goes thru a set of training which acts as a tutorial to the other half of the mechanics of the game. The character's goal is to catfish her way into the organization. Steal info from execs, spur rivalry between factions, leak potential opportunities to other rival organizations in order to spark a war. That sort of stuff.

 

[Barabbas Gethsemane]

You're making a game about a promiscuous girl. That starts you off with a big audience of haters before you've written a single word of story. Misogyny is real, man.

Are you saying games like this one with a promiscuous female lead are widely hated? Because, boy, is that not true. Now, games with a promiscuous female lead who is married or has a boyfriend are very strongly hated, particularly if the protagonist is the girl's husband or boyfriend.

There's a reason so many games that are centrally about rape do so well.

Ah well, now that is a very different issue. I suspect they are popular for the same reason games with themes like this one are. I think you'll find that games where the protagonist is raped are much more popular than games where the protagonist is a rapist (though games where the protagonist uses unethical methods of seduction are very popular). I have no doubt all of that is meaningful, but I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

 

[asdfasdf12341234ACSACA]

Well, this is the reality of a project made public before it's ready. That's why "mainstream" game companies, or hell, ANY software company put so much thought into the date of their public announcement. The mass opinion can be brutal, sometimes it can be damaging enough to never recover from.

Maybe the issue here is Crushstation is selling the game as a spy/whore simulator in BANGKOK. Many people then feel that this lifepath part of the game is just the character creation, nothing to spend so much time and effort into. If, for example, Crush was selling the lifepath as a part of the actual game, like say, the Chapter 1 of the game, then maybe people won't get so antsy. There is no actual need to mention Bangkok at all, he could simply sell the game as a game where we follow the life of a female spy that find herself in lewd missions. People are antsy because Crush made a promise too early, I think.

If we treat this part of the game as the actual Chapter 1, then any progress to the Chapter 1 will be treated as the progress of the game. But currently, each progress to this part of the game actually made people feel that they're further and further away from Bangkok, the actual "meat" of the game. They feel that the dev just "tweaked" the engine "to death".

The internet is filled with lewd games that don't make it past the introduction. That's the real fear here, at least, from anyone that has been around this "scene".

Yes, selling it as "Experience a recollection of the life events of a normal girl" from the beginning could've been a better marketing move (but, I mean, it's still one of the most succesful lewd game Patreons lately...) but that wouldn't change the fact.