I'm making a Trainer game similar to Akabur's Witch Trainer. Need some suggestions.

[Milvidi]

So as the title says, since this is my first game, I want to choose something I like, but of a doable scale. A Trainer game like this is exactly that. In fact, I've already got a workable demo with placeholder arts (well, more like stickmen, so it's not in any shape to share visual wise, but all the planned functions are working for the moment).

The game will also take place in Harry Potter universe, since I'm a fan. The characters will be Harry and Hermione. All the writing will be done by me, and the arts will be original. I will not be taking anything from Akabur aside from the core gameplay and inspiration.

Now to the question.

To those that are familiar with Witch Trainer, you surely know about its grind process. You grind for money, while grinding another skill on the side so that you can make money faster, while grinding yet another skill on the other side, so that you can grind the other skill faster.

In my first playthrough, this isn't a big problem, but it did get a little annoying from the second time on. Besides, from what I've seen, people here don't seem to like grinding that much.

So I'm torn between do away with the money grinding completely, since Harry is kinda loaded. I can just have the items in the shop unlock based on certain conditions that you will fulfill during gameplay, then when you order those items, it will take a few days to arrive.

Or, I can keep the money making aspect, but making it a single button press that will skip your current "turn", or time of day. Just a simple transition and the money will be added, no additional cutscene.

Which do you prefer, or do you have any other suggestion?

While we're at that, I'm also interested in what kind of "dare" do you like to see in this kind of game (it's the equivalent of Witch Trainer's "Public Favors")? I can already think of some fun with the Invisibility Cloak, but my head alone can't be compared to the collective imagination of all the perverts in here, haha.

Since they're only suggestions, I may put them in the game, or I may not, but if it's an interesting scenario involving exhibitionism, then well, consider that you just did me a favor .

 

[EmeraldKnightmare]

Hmm, I would think an unlock system would be better but how will it affect things like gifts, etc.? Can you unlock them and order them forever, will you have things like gifts?

Otherwise money would be okay but maybe having a non-game breaking cheat system to allow you to get past the grind would be good. Like maybe if you chose to accept a fortune from a rich uncle or aunt that Harry didn't know about but want to support him? Putting the chea as part of the story helps the immersion a bit I find.

Anyway best of luck!

 

[Milvidi]

Well, gifts exist, but only as a mean of calming the girl down, just like in Witch Trainer, since using it to raise affection will lead to a whole other kind of grinding, especially when no money is involved.

And yes, maybe that kind of cheat system will work as well. I will have to test it out myself first. I just don't want people to have to go through the whole grinding process again everytime an update comes and for some reasons they have to start over.

Thank you .

 

[Egglock]

If you want to do away with money, just have conditions that players meet to unlock items, scenes, ect. For example, players engage with the various characters to gain favor/trade, those favor/items in turn gives the players access to locked areas, scenes. Just note this is a lot more work than using "money" as the drive to locked content.

I think this is possibly the least grindy feel, yet offer the players to engage in the story with out the need to spam the "End day" button just so they can meet a certain stats threshold to move onto the next condition.

On another note, money can also serve as royalty, much like a side quest to unlock things that aren't part of the main story. The amount of satisfaction from this should be equal or as good as the main quest, no one wants to spend all that time grinding to find out the outcome of those hard earn cash was a waste. Or if you want to get a bit more complex, let players roam around and find/steal items which in turn they can bribe/trade/sell to the characters for whatever reason.

As for "dare?" not sure what you mean by that. Like the hardcore stuff? Public humiliation, expose characters sexual fetishes? Peek into a room to see someone getting a train run on them? stuff like that?

 

[Milvidi]

I'm thinking along the line of scripted events, such as if you perform this action at this day of the week, you'll get an event, which will either unlock other events or some sort of item in the shop to purchase. Of course, there will be hints and foreshadowing to tell the player what to do instead of letting them repeating the action everyday, hoping to stumble upon the event.

Can you please elaborate on the royalty money? I'm not sure I get it.

I don't really mind "more work", as long as it's about writing and coding. The art, the BGs especially, are commissioned, and the money for that is out of my own limited budget, so I'm trying to limit the number of characters to the two mains, or at the very most, an additional extra, so too many interactions happening at many locations that require additional BGs is kinda out of the question for the moment.

As for "dares", I take it you haven't played Witch Trainer? It's something along the line of "Go to class without your underwear.", or "Go a whole round around the floor and come back here wearing nothing but an invisibility cloak.", that kind of thing.

Or, Witch Trainer has something else like "Flirt with a student." or "Flash a student.". That should give you an idea of what I want , though I'm kinda aiming for the "Try not to get caught" feel here.

 

[slammed!]

when the player finish the game... he/she will unlock "New Game+ where all the items in the game are already unlock by the player

 

[Egglock]

That's not a bad approach, but some things to consider, is what will the player be doing if they skip over that event? You don't have to answer this, it's just something to think about.

The whole "money as royalty" in lack of better terms, is like a side quest. Money is like a sub objective to progress/unlock stuff that isn't part of the main story, but more so like additional/special content, players can get if they spend the time grinding for it. Money doesn't influence the main scenes. This is what I meant by using money as royalty. Hopefully this made more sense.

I played a bit of it, excessive grind got the best of me. When you say dare you mean the literal term right? I got confused when you added the "" around the word, I thought you had some kind of hidden meaning behind it. If that's the case then would the bottom examples be something along the lines of what you were asking for?

Player tells character A to sneak into the male/female bed room to perform bj/cunnilingus on some random character?

tells character A to go into the shower room and do X action?

or tells character A to put on the invis cloak and jerk/finger a character?

 

[Milvidi]

That's not a bad approach, but some things to consider, is what will the player be doing if they skip over that event? You don't have to answer this, it's just something to think about.

This is already planned for. If event A happens on a Tuesday after, say, day 30, then it will be available on every Tuesday from that point on until cleared.

And yes, it makes more sense, but I'll need to give it some thoughts.

And yes again, I'm looking for something along those lines, to see if there's anything that I haven't thought of, lol. Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[Egglock]

Cool, good luck on your project.

 

[Rudzi]

Harry is truly rich thanks to his parents banking account.
No cash on turns plz.
What about a mechanic of suspicion? You can get any item you want but to do that you will need to watch out not to get cough, smuggling fuck ton of Bondage into Hogwards wouldn't be easy, get like a sidekick to help you out with that, Ron's family if you will help Ron at school/gib him hermione to fuk?
Maybe some school officials will turn a blind eye on your packages if you will train for them other girls/give them some methods/brew potions for snape? That would be more of a harem building approach. Or maybe use that bitch from toilets?

Also will there be blood and gore? Or am I just interested in a game that is too lowly for my liking? Snuff and scat my re-interest me.

 

[Dora Chueva]

Some suggestions:

Make girls very similar to Hermione and Daphne.
Make customizable male character, as well as his own choice to enter a house or not (now that's something new, thinking of how he will relate with others; I guess only lecturers, the headmaster and outsiders <read: people not in Hogwarts> do not relate to any specific house -Severus Snape being an exception, strongly related in image to Syltherin-).
Make "Light" and "Dark" paths like in Innocent Witches or any other games.
Able to choose favored girl.
Set the characters as adult or teen (maybe it is just me but I find child-porn to be weird).

 

[KiaAzad]

my suggestion is to not take your core mechanism from Akabur's game, witch trainer's gameplay is the most boring of them all. with a little imagination you can come up with a much better gameplay that is not clicking the same menus over and over again.

 

[Dora Chueva]

Not much grinding like certain other games. Boooooooooooooooooooooooring and annoooooooooooooooooooooying.

 

[NinjaNoto]

any updates on your game?