How do you intend for it to be ingame?
I imagine the text is supposed to later be accompanied by images?
One thing I also do is see things as scenes:
Bus drive
In front of School
Great Hall (Introduction)
Great Hall (Sorting)
Great Hall (House table)
And in every scene, I isolate a core element in my mind - a piece of information, an atmosphere, a revelation - that's critical to the story and at the heart of the scene.
The later scenes are better, but especially the beginning seems very unsure of what it wants to do. One moment you're in a bus, before you can get into the mood, bang, you're in front of the school. And then you're inside already. There's no moment where the atmosphere can sink in.
That's kind of important for the start of the story, because you have to get the player immersed in the story & allow the player to identify with the protagonist.
I'd also suggest you work with placeholder images for concept prototypes that you steal from the internet to give you an idea of what you want to visually portray in scenes where you want to go for a certain atmosphere.
There shouldn't be any text in the game, without images
I initially wanted some of the scenes to be VN-like, such as inside and outside of the bus, and others to be J-RPG like where you move your character around.
But I decided to try not to focus too much on that while i write the story, and then see what fits the story, when the story is more fleshed out.
The later scenes are better, but especially the beginning seems very unsure of what it wants to do. One moment you're in a bus, before you can get into the mood, bang, you're in front of the school. And then you're inside already. There's no moment where the atmosphere can sink in.
I agree, I am considering moving parts of the Don Introduction to the bus (which would mirror HP1 more) and expand upon it a little bit. I am very cautious about adding to much text before the player has had a chance to interact with the game itself though.
Before I decided to not think about it, I wanted to have a frogs view perspective of the school entrance as you leave the bus, but the front courtyard may be a good spot to walk around and speak with students.
I'd also suggest you work with placeholder images for concept prototypes that you steal from the internet to give you an idea of what you want to visually portray in scenes where you want to go for a certain atmosphere.
There shouldn't be any text in the game, without images
I initially wanted some of the scenes to be VN-like, such as inside and outside of the bus, and others to be J-RPG like where you move your character around.
But I decided to try not to focus too much on that while i write the story, and then see what fits the story, when the story is more fleshed out.
I agree, I am considering moving parts of the Don Introduction to the bus (which would mirror HP1 more) and expand upon it a little bit. I am very cautious about adding to much text before the player has had a chance to interact with the game itself though.
Before I decided to not think about it, I wanted to have a frogs view perspective of the school entrance as you leave the bus, but the front courtyard may be a good spot to walk around and speak with students.
I thought about it, and initially decided against it, but I'll add pictures in the next update.
I'm not sure the format you've chose in your example will help you with that. (Yes, it does give an idea of what you're going for, but it actually forces you to at times give great & specific detail, while at other times just skipping past stuff.)
I've attached a pdf file with an example of two tools that might be helpful for you.
The first is a way to design stories via a "Story Overview" which, instead of having you occupied by small details and stuff such as the right words, etc. it instead gives you a concise and short way of designing scenes around what matters most to them. Their essence.
The second is a "Story Script" that I would use if I were to write VN games.
It's a way to fully design a scene & get an idea for the images you want or need that orients itself very closely on how the final product is going to look like.
Both of these tools make it not just very easy for you to build yourself an idea of what you're going for, but they're also very useful if you later work with others and want to communicate ideas to them.
Lastly, if you go with gameplay mechanics like in RPG Maker games, or with VN style multiple-choice routes, it's a good idea to take the "Story Overview" you designed, break it down into just short lines indicating what happens, and use something like...
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or
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These are whiteboards that have very easily useable flow-chart diagrams. The Diagram Editor has more functions for diagrams, but miro allows easy online sharing and their flow charts are impossibly easy to design.
This is incredibly useful to keep track of all the ways your story splits off, or for designing gameplay loops for the daily routines in your game.
In addition, this is not a bad guide in how to focus on what's important on writing a scene:
Thank you so much for all the amazing feedback! I am going to take a look at the links, I have been using Miro to organize stuff, but not really to create flow diagrams. The reason I wanted to use twine was to be able to easily share it on Itch, but if there are better options, I am all for it
I have fleshed out the first part a lot, but before I write any more I am going to go through each scene doing, what you have suggested, and look at the Jerry Jenkins article as well.
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, there is now a bunch of pictures, stuff about the Fetish Lord, Witchery, and Don's family's relationship with Drake's family. I've decided that Don and the PC tries to keep her lack of magick knowledge a secret, to avoid her getting hazed beyond recognition - so the whole dialogue about that stuff happens during the bus ride instead.
don't worry about giving feedback on this version, since I haven't even applied your latest feedback yet
Thank you so much for all the amazing feedback! I am going to take a look at the links, I have been using Miro to organize stuff, but not really to create flow diagrams. The reason I wanted to use twine was to be able to easily share it on Itch, but if there are better options, I am all for it
I have fleshed out the first part a lot, but before I write any more I am going to go through each scene doing, what you have suggested, and look at the Jerry Jenkins article as well.
You must be registered to see the links
, there is now a bunch of pictures, stuff about the Fetish Lord, Witchery, and Don's family's relationship with Drake's family. I've decided that Don and the PC tries to keep her lack of magick knowledge a secret, to avoid her getting hazed beyond recognition - so the whole dialogue about that stuff happens during the bus ride instead.
don't worry about giving feedback on this version, since I haven't even applied your latest feedback yet
Even though the pictures are RL pictures, I feel like they help a lot to convey a clearer idea.
I like where it's going, and I like how you're building up towards the situation the protagonist finds herself in. It's gonna be interesting to see how things look once you've got images that fit the world & are in pixel.
Btw. there are probably ways to take real life pictures and transform them into something that you can use as background via photoshop, so you don't have to manually draw every picture. Probably worth googling for what you can do in that regard.
Every blue dot is a story beat, while every green box is a choice. These two would run simultaneously while the left one represents early game lewdness and the right one represents late game lewdness. Next I'll try to divide all of this into scenes, using the method you showed me. And then finally I'll start writing the actual branches.
But I am very happy with the flow chart tools in miro thank you for pointing them out, I had to fiddle a bit around with it, but once I got a hang of it, it was really easy
So I am getting to the point were Day 0 Is fully written, I still need one branch and to finish the last few bits on another.
TBH: I tried to write what the use for every scene was in advance, but I got stuck really quickly as I was unable to get the story moving. Instead I think I am gonna do it retroactively as a part of my editing process.
One piece of feedback I has been given, is that they found it distracting, that the story, lore, characters etc. is leaning so close to the Harry Potter series, and yet being so different. I'd like to gather some thoughts on that point, as I am still early enough in development, that I can go in a slightly different direction.
One piece of feedback I has been given, is that they found it distracting, that the story, lore, characters etc. is leaning so close to the Harry Potter series, and yet being so different. I'd like to gather some thoughts on that point, as I am still early enough in development, that I can go in a slightly different direction.
The problem that I can see with that feedback is that you don't do a lot to establish the character.
You have characters that resemble the original Characters
Don = Ron
Drake Mayburn = Draco Malfoy
but since the world is quite a bit different, so are the characters.
But instead of giving us some idea of who they are, they pop up and then serve as vehicle to tell us exposition.
Scene 1: A huge man gives you a letter.
Who is he? Was does he do? What's noteworthy about him? Is he important? Or just a vehicle to give you the letter?
Scene 2: The discussion with Don.
What's this dialogue about? Is it about Don, who he is, and what he's about? Or is it about the things you don't know and your lack of knowledge?
How much do you learn of Don?
Scene 3: Drake Mayburn.
This one is actually working, though a bit short. You get an idea of who Drake is (a douchebag) and he's not serving as vehicle for some other insights.
Scene 5: Meeting Don's sisters
How much do we learn about them as characters? How much is the scene giving us information about the school?
I think you need to rely a little less on the name similarity for people to assume who the characters are from the Harry Potter World, and instead let them show clearily who they are in your world.
I think the way you've split up scenes & dialogues is very helpful in getting the buildup of the scene across, though. And some of the characterization is a lot easier when you have character portraits with emotions to work with, so you can get the quirkyness of each character across.
The problem that I can see with that feedback is that you don't do a lot to establish the character.
You have characters that resemble the original Characters
Don = Ron
Drake Mayburn = Draco Malfoy
but since the world is quite a bit different, so are the characters.
That is a super helpful observation, thank you for that! I think I will cut back on the amount of characters you are presented to on the first night to: Don, Drake and Dale (the student assistant guy)... I was planning on introducing a Finn and a Tom (Don's roomies) if you let Don pull you into a chair through a passage into his dorm room, and Finn would try to get you in bed, by getting you into a card game, but I may be better off just cutting that content for now. It's too many characters in too short a time span.
I am cutting Arn, the halfogre witch. He is important for the story in the long run, but not for the demo, Harriet could have gotten to Autumnhearth in all sorts of ways, it doesn't really matter.. It's a plothole, but figuring that stuff out may be beyond the scope of the demo.
The Twins will be a big part of cheerleading tryouts, so I'll only mention them in passing. And present them during tryouts, or maybe breakfast on Day 1.
Drake so far is Neat'o I kinda want to use him a bit more, But I think it'll be fine with the planned content.
That will give me plenty of time to explore Don more, I have a lot of thoughts about who he is, and what he wants. He and his family are all Vulpidors, Vulpidors are very individualistically inclined (yet they are a big family). Harriet ends there because she has been alone most of her life - she actually wants to find friends and not be alone anymore. Don on the other hand is there because he wants something, and he is going to go to great lengths to get it, but I need to emphasize this more. He is also showing great interest in Harriet because her situation fits into his agenda very well.
I think the way you've split up scenes & dialogues is very helpful in getting the buildup of the scene across, though. And some of the characterization is a lot easier when you have character portraits with emotions to work with, so you can get the quirkyness of each character across.
Thank you! It helped so much to have a box to display dialogue with a portrait, makes it much easier and engaging to read.
Now I just need to finish the outside part of the long way to the old gym, since I am cutting Finn and Tom. Then I can cut it down and edit it, so it is clearer and builds characterization of Don, rather than just info-dumping all over the place.
Once again thank you, your feedback is deeply valued!
I think some of this is because I have a card for every thing that can happen, and not just for each location. Not sure if that is at all possible, but it would make it so much clearer if I only had each location in the "mind map".
at the same time I am trying to make a system in unity that works more along the lines of what I would like, with each location in a mind map structure, and then have all the things that can happen tied to those. I might transition to unity with this, as I feel like I am loosing track of the game at the moment in Twine.
I think some of this is because I have a card for every thing that can happen, and not just for each location. Not sure if that is at all possible, but it would make it so much clearer if I only had each location in the "mind map".
at the same time I am trying to make a system in unity that works more along the lines of what I would like, with each location in a mind map structure, and then have all the things that can happen tied to those. I might transition to unity with this, as I feel like I am loosing track of the game at the moment in Twine.
I don't know much about twine, but it seems to me you should probably make multiple target-oriented mind maps?
Trying to cover all information in one big map is bound to become a horribly convoluted thing.
Off the cuff, I'd probably make:
1. A location map. How are areas connected? What is the purpose of the area? What can be done there?
This would give you a visual location map, that tells you, for example, that the "gym bathroom" is there for shower-sport related fetish content. It also tells you that you can take a shower after sports and at certain times a day, and if X is unlocked, people start doing stuff in the shower at night or something. These are not character linked things, but location linked things.
2. A relationship map. This tracks characters, there relationship to each other, and how the relationship can change based on decisions.
3. For every main character an interaction map (where the character is at X and what can be done with them). This map is based on the location map but removes the unneccessary location stuff to "purify" it so you can track all character interactions.
4. A fetish map that tracks how fetish content develops, who it interacts with and where it takes place.
If you use color coding or similar stuff, you can also keep track of: what content is available based on what prerequisites (and how far advanced you have to be in the story).
Each of these maps is purpose-specific. A glance at the location map, for example, will show you underdeveloped areas where you don't have much content. The relationship map can show you where character relationships lack a dynamic, or helps you keep track of what you've decided.
Main character maps help you see how well-developed the content for a character is, and where it takes place, giving you an idea of where content should be added.
And a fetish map helps you get a visual idea of where stuff can lead & what fetish content you're developing.
If you're looking for powerful software that allows you to do all that easily & quickly and keep track of stuff, I'd suggest checking out miro. It's an online whiteboard thing where you can have 1 project and up to 3 whiteboards on a free account. (You only need 1 project and 1 whiteboard.)
I'm about to head off to bed, but if you're interested, I can show you tomorrow per pm or discord some of the stuff I've done on miro and help you get an idea for what's possible. It makes it very easy to keep and overview over stuff.
Yeah, I already use Miro for planning out stuff, but actually implementing and making corrections is getting harder and harder as the map grows in Twine.
My current plan is to create a system in unity that has locations as the primary "map". Then I can add actors that can move between locations (or not). Based on a time table. Actors can either be people or things you can interact with, or who will force an event to occur.
That way I can keep my map very clean, and have all the dialogue and stuff kept with Actors.
I did write a prologue, but I feel like it doesn't really help with the story, it's just an instant gratification prologue more or less will post the map demo once I have it working
I think I'll add a fetish and a relationship system later on, but for now I need to make the basics work again.
Yeah, I already use Miro for planning out stuff, but actually implementing and making corrections is getting harder and harder as the map grows in Twine.
My current plan is to create a system in unity that has locations as the primary "map". Then I can add actors that can move between locations (or not). Based on a time table. Actors can either be people or things you can interact with, or who will force an event to occur.
That way I can keep my map very clean, and have all the dialogue and stuff kept with Actors.
I did write a prologue, but I feel like it doesn't really help with the story, it's just an instant gratification prologue more or less will post the map demo once I have it working
I think I'll add a fetish and a relationship system later on, but for now I need to make the basics work again.
Sounds good.
It's probably a good idea to make two small prototype maps, with interactable objects in each & characters that move between them or something similar. Having an actual playable example of the system you're working on helps a lot when designing it, so you work target-oriented towards the stuff that actually helps you, and so you don't get sidetracked by including mechanics you may or may not need in the future.
I'm definitely curious to see what your demo map is gonna be like.
So I have been toying around with an idea I had, to treat navigation in the game a little like a point and click adventure game with drawn scenes (but a static
character).
I thought I'd share some backgrounds to illustrate the idea, I'd love your thoughts! The backgrounds are still a work in progress, but hopefully they illustrate the idea:
Hi, this game is currently a bit up in the air, I went down a few different development paths in various engines, and I am still unsure which is the correct one for me to go with.. None of them really allows me to do what I want without having to make a lot of weird workarounds.. So I apologize but the screens I shared earlier are no longer part of the vision I currently have for the game, I have also withdrawed a bit so I won't keep "promising" things and then abandoning them.
Hi, this game is currently a bit up in the air, I went down a few different development paths in various engines, and I am still unsure which is the correct one for me to go with.. None of them really allows me to do what I want without having to make a lot of weird workarounds.. So I apologize but the screens I shared earlier are no longer part of the vision I currently have for the game, I have also withdrawed a bit so I won't keep "promising" things and then abandoning them.
its ok dude, as someone that is studying programming in general and game dev in specific, with a decade on and off in illustration let me give you a little unasked advice, there are not works finished, there are only works that you stop working, sometimes is better to deliver than just keep running towards the "perfect" work, or you could work on a few low stakes proyects so you can learn how to use one engine until you can make your real dream proyect...
