HTML The Archmage [v0.1.2 Alpha] [Black Dahlia Studios]

[OrangePeel]

Is the character creation options a new feature? There's often inconsistent pronouns (he/him where the created character is female). As an extension of this, are most events for a male MC? Are events written to be gender agnostic? Maybe some kind of disclaimer on the first page in developer notes about how character creation will impact content.

 

[BlackDahliaStudios]

Is the character creation options a new feature? There's often inconsistent pronouns (he/him where the created character is female). As an extension of this, are most events for a male MC?

The pronoun inconsistencies are errors. Sorry! I actually just did a full edit for v0.0.7 and fixed as many as I could find (there were a lot). Neither the text editor nor the IDE catch those because they're neither a syntax nor a grammatical error. So it requires attention on my part and there are a lot of pronouns! They're easy to overlook.

Character creation isn't exactly a new feature, but I initially wrote the smut as hetero (it's easier for me to write), so I'll be going back and adding conditionals to those scenes at some point to incorporate other preferences. Eventually, it will also affect romance options based on character preferences, but I haven't written any romantic scenes yet. (If I ever figure out how to write romance at all, LOL.)

I'm committed to character customization, since it seems like niche players/markets get neglected. Also, female protagonists seem generally uncommon in porn games, so I'm particularly committed to that audience.

Unfortunately, I'm still in the early stages of the project, so I'm working through some growing pains. I hope you stick around and give the project a chance. Progress is speeding up.

 

[BlackDahliaStudios]

Weekly Update:

Smut Rewrite: 3,250/24,500 (13%) (+250, +1%)
Total Word Count: 57,000 (+2,000)
Daily Word Count: 498/550 (90%)
Total Progress: 5.7% (+0.2%)

Prose Composition Targets:
Narrative: 23,909/57,103 (42%/40%, +2%)
Smut: 24,488/57,103 (43%/30%, +13%)
Adventure: 2,221/57,103 (4%/20%, -16%)
Branching: 6,485/57,103 (11%/10%, +1%)

Note: Had a funeral this week. Lost a weekend.
Note: Daily word count will keep track since I started writing again at the 50k mark (8/19/23).

Weekly Update:

Smut Rewrite: 7,258/24,306 (30%) (+4,008, +17%)
Total Word Count: 60,602 (+3,602)
Daily Word Count: 541/550 (98%)
Total Progress: 6.06% (+0.36%)

Word Count Distribution Targets:
Narrative: 31,003/60,602(53%/50%, +3%)
Smut: 24,306/60,602 (40%/30%, +10%)
Adventure: 2,577/60,602 (4%/15%, -11%)
Interface: 1,652/60,602 (3%/5%, -2%)

Note: Started working on mind control this week.

 

[BlackDahliaStudios]

Is the character creation options a new feature? There's often inconsistent pronouns (he/him where the created character is female). As an extension of this, are most events for a male MC? Are events written to be gender agnostic? Maybe some kind of disclaimer on the first page in developer notes about how character creation will impact content.

Interesting suggestion. I always took for granted that character creation would affect content, but maybe that's not intuitive.

The plot is character agnostic. Character relationships will eventually be affected. The smut is definitely affected.

 

[BlackDahliaStudios]

Maintaining third-person is a bold choice. I do agree it can be done, my caution would be to take care that it doesn't start to feel like the game is speaking at the player, they need to maintain their input on the character's thoughts and actions.

I've made second/third-person POV a toggleable setting for the player character. This solution was less work than rewriting and gives the player more options.

 

[BlackDahliaStudios]

Weekly Update:

Smut Rewrite: 7,258/24,306 (30%) (+4,008, +17%)
Total Word Count: 60,602 (+3,602)
Daily Word Count: 541/550 (98%)
Total Progress: 6.06% (+0.36%)

Word Count Distribution Targets:
Narrative: 31,003/60,602(53%/50%, +3%)
Smut: 24,306/60,602 (40%/30%, +10%)
Adventure: 2,577/60,602 (4%/15%, -11%)
Interface: 1,652/60,602 (3%/5%, -2%)

Note: Started working on mind control this week.

Weekly Update:

Smut Rewrite: 7,258/24,353 (30%)
Total Word Count: 62,813 (+2,211)
Daily Word Count: 344/550 (63%)
Total Progress: 6.28% (+0.22%)

Note: Lost another weekend to a wedding. Spent a whole other week coding instead of writing.
Teaser Changelog:

Spoiler

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[BlackDahliaStudios]

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v0.0.7 - The Smut Update

v0.0.7 Changelog:

-Smut Rewrite (40% Complete)
-Wandering Rogue Route
-Prelude is now Prologue
-Enhanced Character Customization
-Fetish Toggle Filters
-Prose POV Toggle
-Changelog Button
-Monastery Layout (Incomplete)
-Virtue Mechanic (Incomplete)
-Bugfixes and Edits (Lots of pronoun fixes)

Dev Commentary: There's now some polished smut accessible! Also, I managed to get updates out in back-to-back months for the first time. (That's a good sign.) September was honestly a rough month for development: so many real-life distractions and diversions (funerals, weddings, court, etc.). Despite those challenges, this update feels more polished to me than any of the previous ones. I'm slowly but surely approaching Alpha version. (Fingers crossed!) Some of the core game features are coming to fruition. This update had a decent amount of coding work involved, so it may not be immediately obvious to the player how much work went into it on the back end (especially the POV toggle). The current state of the Pre-Alpha version may still be mere breadcrumbs, but hopefully this update is a better representation of my future vision for the project. I'm on the path to incorporating the remaining smut and then writing some new smutty passages! I'm also on the path to translating the Monastery area and realizing the remaining planned game features (primarily the Inventory and Encyclopedia features). I'm excited to continue working!

Milestone: The executable file size is officially over 1MB. Huzzah!

Cheers,
Black Dahlia

 

[grahegri]

TheArchmage-0.0.7PreAlpha

Spoiler: TORRENT 1MB (Windows)

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[Orphanus]

I can't help but admire the dedication and effort shown from going over the different changelogs and your (Dev's) posts in this thread. Really not sure if this is going to be up my personal alley (yet) but I think I'll give it a try & I'll keep in mind that this is only beginning to shape into the kinda CYOA game I enjoy, so I won't come here and complain if there's not much content I personally love.

 

[BlackDahliaStudios]

I can't help but admire the dedication and effort shown from going over the different changelogs and your (Dev's) posts in this thread. Really not sure if this is going to be up my personal alley (yet) but I think I'll give it a try & I'll keep in mind that this is only beginning to shape into the kinda CYOA game I enjoy, so I won't come here and complain if there's not much content I personally love.

What's up your alley?

 

[Orphanus]

What's up your alley?

Oh, f/f romance stuff and also games based around the decisions made as a player, be it in a more story driven setting or a life simulator/sandbox kinda game. Generally speaking I'm definitely fond of this sort of text based roleplaying game, so depending on how much lesbian (which could include futa) stuff you already managed to write this also might as well be quite up my alley. I just got the impression that it's not your favorite thing to write & that you were and are busy dealing with other aspects before diving into content you don't fancy too much yourself. It's quite nice of you to even bother at all, might I say.

 

[BlackDahliaStudios]

Oh, f/f romance stuff and also games based around the decisions made as a player, be it in a more story driven setting or a life simulator/sandbox kinda game. Generally speaking I'm definitely fond of this sort of text based roleplaying game, so depending on how much lesbian (which could include futa) stuff you already managed to write this also might as well be quite up my alley. I just got the impression that it's not your favorite thing to write & that you were and are busy dealing with other aspects before diving into content you don't fancy too much yourself. It's quite nice of you to even bother at all, might I say.

Currently, there is f/f and f/futa. But it's definitely not romantic.

 

[Orphanus]

Currently, there is f/f and f/futa. But it's definitely not romantic.

Well romance is preferred but not required and I do have a weakness for kinda messed up stuff, depends on how the game actually plays of course, e.g. if there aren't any special NPCs to build relationships with romance obviously isn't a thing. What are your plans though, will there be stuff like that at some point? Sorry if the questions is stupid, I haven't started playing yet so as of now I'm just envisioning a fantasy setting game along the lines of CoC, Flexible Survival and similar works, which do have a handful of named NPCs for story bits around them & their relationship with the player character.

 

[BlackDahliaStudios]

Well romance is preferred but not required and I do have a weakness for kinda messed up stuff, depends on how the game actually plays of course, e.g. if there aren't any special NPCs to build relationships with romance obviously isn't a thing. What are your plans though, will there be stuff like that at some point? Sorry if the questions is stupid, I haven't started playing yet so as of now I'm just envisioning a fantasy setting game along the lines of CoC, Flexible Survival and similar works, which do have a handful of named NPCs for story bits around them & their relationship with the player character.

Yes, my plan is to characterize all of the NPCs and eventually have a basic type of dating sim relationship mechanic.

 

[Orphanus]

Yes, my plan is to characterize all of the NPCs and eventually have a basic type of dating sim relationship mechanic.

Awesome That's quite all I could ask for. ^-^ Aside from stuff being potentially avoidable by playing correctly, but well, I understood things as that already being how the game works. If I'm mistaken there that's not a major issue since it was just my assumption & I'll put aside my strong dislike for it when it comes to how I comment on what I see in game.

 

[BlackDahliaStudios]

Awesome That's quite all I could ask for. ^-^ Aside from stuff being potentially avoidable by playing correctly, but well, I understood things as that already being how the game works. If I'm mistaken there that's not a major issue since it was just my assumption & I'll put aside my strong dislike for it when it comes to how I comment on what I see in game.

What's your assumption?

There are filters in the settings.

 

[Orphanus]

What's your assumption?

There are filters in the settings.

I was relatively sure there were said settings & also that the stuff happening in the game is impacted by player decisions and doing or avoiding stupid things.

 

[BlackDahliaStudios]

Dang. Being honest with myself, those negative reviews hurt me a little bit. It's like they expect a Beta product instead of Pre-Alpha...

I guess I just need to keep working and finish.

And somebody will always be negative...

 

[Orphanus]

Dang. Being honest with myself, those negative reviews hurt me a little bit. It's like they expect a Beta product instead of Pre-Alpha...

I guess I just need to keep working and finish.

And somebody will always be negative...

I think it's best to not let it get to you. I can easily imagine reading such negative comments about a work of passion is super shitty but there is no point in dwelling on it. Try to either filter whatever usable feedback you can extract from it or just ignore it. It's not as if you're making a living from this so you don't really risk anything by just glancing over negative feedback instead of taking it to your heart. Given the nature of porn games I feel like it is easy to get reactions that are on either ends of the spectrum, if people like stuff they like it a lot, if they don't like it they often really don't like it.

Also I got to play your game for a bit, just stopped at some point when I realized it was much more reading than I anticipated & more complex to navigate as well, which means I have to give it another go when I'm not as tired and more in the mood for this sorta story. Didn't get a bad first impression by any means, there are some things I'd have done differently but that doesn't say much. The way things go at the start of the "academy" seems a tad bit quick to me and I'm not sure how much I liked how it went, but admittedly I didn't try different choices, so if these make a big difference I'm oblivious to it. Also, even for the path I saw, I wouldn't really be able to come up with anything that should have been changed & the pace being a bit off is not something too important as long as it doesn't feel rushed all across the board.

1 aspect perhaps worthy thinking about whenever you have the time is that asking players to kinda make calls on characters (more specifically if they wanna trust those characters) they have barely interacted with at that point in time leads to blind guessing, which can be a bit frustrating, depending on how much stuff gets decided by that 1 choice. Please keep in mind I'm just going by the bits I saw so far, might have a wrong perception of the moment(s) in question, just saying I did feel as if there was no way for me to base my choice on anything there, except if I could potentially see myself interested in getting lewd scenes with the characters in the future.

Also the settings you provide are neat, but kinda unclear, like for example how does the game handle the non-human encounters, e.g. beasts could be either male or female, same goes, technically, for entities of whatever sort that have tentacles. Is the game coded that way and therefore sensitive to having on non-human stuff but no males? Or, of course, what does even count as non-human? I'm fairly sure a lot of people would agree that it makes a difference for them if they encounter a sex scene with an actual dog or a dog-girl/boy.

 

[BlackDahliaStudios]

I think it's best to not let it get to you. I can easily imagine reading such negative comments about a work of passion is super shitty but there is no point in dwelling on it. Try to either filter whatever usable feedback you can extract from it or just ignore it. It's not as if you're making a living from this so you don't really risk anything by just glancing over negative feedback instead of taking it to your heart. Given the nature of porn games I feel like it is easy to get reactions that are on either ends of the spectrum, if people like stuff they like it a lot, if they don't like it they often really don't like it.

Also I got to play your game for a bit, just stopped at some point when I realized it was much more reading than I anticipated & more complex to navigate as well, which means I have to give it another go when I'm not as tired and more in the mood for this sorta story. Didn't get a bad first impression by any means, there are some things I'd have done differently but that doesn't say much. The way things go at the start of the "academy" seems a tad bit quick to me and I'm not sure how much I liked how it went, but admittedly I didn't try different choices, so if these make a big difference I'm oblivious to it. Also, even for the path I saw, I wouldn't really be able to come up with anything that should have been changed & the pace being a bit off is not something too important as long as it doesn't feel rushed all across the board.

1 aspect perhaps worthy thinking about whenever you have the time is that asking players to kinda make calls on characters (more specifically if they wanna trust those characters) they have barely interacted with at that point in time leads to blind guessing, which can be a bit frustrating, depending on how much stuff gets decided by that 1 choice. Please keep in mind I'm just going by the bits I saw so far, might have a wrong perception of the moment(s) in question, just saying I did feel as if there was no way for me to base my choice on anything there, except if I could potentially see myself interested in getting lewd scenes with the characters in the future.

Also the settings you provide are neat, but kinda unclear, like for example how does the game handle the non-human encounters, e.g. beasts could be either male or female, same goes, technically, for entities of whatever sort that have tentacles. Is the game coded that way and therefore sensitive to having on non-human stuff but no males? Or, of course, what does even count as non-human? I'm fairly sure a lot of people would agree that it makes a difference for them if they encounter a sex scene with an actual dog or a dog-girl/boy.

Lots of good points. Thanks for the feedback!