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

[Datawungui]

Definitely a funbut. It's fun, but...it needs a bit more time in the oven. Obvious, of course, because it's pre-Alpha. So I'm gonna wait for another handful or two of updates before playing again.

 

[BlackDahliaStudios]

Definitely a funbut. It's fun, but...it needs a bit more time in the oven. Obvious, of course, because it's pre-Alpha. So I'm gonna wait for another handful or two of updates before playing again.

I need to fire up the oven.

 

[BlackDahliaStudios]

Weekly Update:

I did a few things this week.

1) Started working on the Logbook and Inventory features. I also began revising the Interface (Menu) prose.
2) Enhanced exploration/navigation. Specifically removing area descriptions after initial area entry and updating passage links to reflect the new information. (This 'hygiene' is a big pet peeve of mine as a player.)
3) Writing. More area descriptions and three new NPCs (Cass, Mel, and ???), all in the Monastery. No more smut revision work yet. (Emphasis on yet.)

Accessible Word Count: 51,135 (+4,766)
Written Word Count: 69,309 (+4,925)

Words/day: 382 (70% of 550)

My writing pace is slower than I want it to be. It dipped down to 290 at one point during September (rough month), so I'm moving in the right direction this week. Recently, I've been spending more of my time coding/revising instead of writing and it's starting to wear on me. It may be time to take a step back and just write for a while without doing any more coding or revisions.

I was hoping to hit 100k words by the end of the year, but I'm now planning to make my first attempt at National Novel Writing Month in November. So, I'll be taking a break from this project for that month and then come back in December. So, I guess now I'm shooting for 100k by the end of January.

Feedback:

I have some ideas for areas of the game to work on next. You, the players, can tell me if you want it in the game and which order I should work on them in. Here are my ideas:

1) Free exploration in the Home area.
2) More smut options in the Home area.
3) Free exploration in the Apprentice School area.
4) Economy sim in the Monastery. (Resource gathering, crafting, etc.) [This also has future plot significance.]
5) Opening the other six doors in Achlys' cave. (Hint: Each door is a different smutty bad end.) [Bonus points if you vote for Mania smut.]

Cheers,
Black Dahlia

 

[BlackDahliaStudios]

Damn... My first smutty Belle scene just came out of the oven spicy.

 

[BlackDahliaStudios]

Based on my Patreon poll and player feedback, I've got the Apprentice area in the works. Layout is about done. I need to integrate it with the narrative and populate it with NPCs, giving them behavior and making them interactive. Looks like I'll be writing some more scenes in the process.

 

[BlackDahliaStudios]

Weekly Update:

I was sick two separate times this week! I actually had more writing time since I called out of work (funny thing), allowing me to inch closer to my writing target. The logbook feature is working. It will eventually include indicators for 'end of current content' to mitigate player frustration. I started some slightly serious coding this week, namely the NPC spawning function, which required in-game time as a frame of reference. I've got the structure of the code figured out (a reworked version of the function from the demo), but haven't finished implementing it for each NPC yet (I need to determine pathing based on their circumstances). I need this function working before the next release so that the NPCs can move around the Apprentice School area during exploration, or else it will feel empty. And I can't publish until that area is working because it will prevent progression, so this update will likely require more work than any previous update. I may finish by the end of this month considering my current pace. I also want to revise the goddesses... (I had a good idea.)

v0.0.8 Changelog
-AI Title Screen Art
-New Characters (Mel, Cass, Euchary)
-Apprentice School Exploration (+ Goddess Rewrite) [Incomplete]
-Monastery Exploration (Incomplete)
-Smut (Belle)
-Features: Logbook, Items (Incomplete), Time (Incomplete), NPC Spawning (Incomplete)
-Character Stats (Incomplete)
-General code clean-up
-Bugs/Typos

Accessible Word Count: 55,082 (+8,713)
Written Word Count: 74,094 (+9,710)
Daily Word Count: 424/550 (77%)

 

[Virulenz]

I have not played it yet. Just a logical tip for your writing order: Its always better to finish already started sidecontent then starting more. Many devs of html games stop in the middle of events/scenes because they want to add more choices later or let us run into dead ends because they make the way but not the destination. Personally i prefer to finish something before i do something else. It sucks to have X unfinished events and need to replay all of them in the next update just to see if there is any progress and replay them again an update later if not and again if its still unfinished and again if new choices get added that leads to new unfinshed dead ends, ...it ruins quests and events if you need to repeat the same stuff over and over, thats worse then grinding since there are not even benefits and we dont have a skip button in html games.

For your content filter discussion, just align the non human filter with the gender filters. Those who dont want males dont want dicks, those who dont want females dont want pussys. Those who dont want futas dont want futas, no matter if they are human, scaled or furry. The non-human filter should only enable/disable if you want non-humans at all, but their gender restrictions should follow the male/female/futa settings, at least when they have a gender. Depending on how many tentacle creatures you want to add it may be useful to add a seperate tentacle setting.

Since its only a html file i guess there is not much to see. Most people here will want something to look at, especially for characters, even if its just some avatar to support the fantasy.

So, time to play it ^^

 

[BlackDahliaStudios]

I have not played it yet. Just a logical tip for your writing order: Its always better to finish already started sidecontent then starting more. Many devs of html games stop in the middle of events/scenes because they want to add more choices later or let us run into dead ends because they make the way but not the destination. Personally i prefer to finish something before i do something else. It sucks to have X unfinished events and need to replay all of them in the next update just to see if there is any progress and replay them again an update later if not and again if its still unfinished and again if new choices get added that leads to new unfinshed dead ends, ...it ruins quests and events if you need to repeat the same stuff over and over, thats worse then grinding since there are not even benefits and we dont have a skip button in html games.

For your content filter discussion, just align the non human filter with the gender filters. Those who dont want males dont want dicks, those who dont want females dont want pussys. Those who dont want futas dont want futas, no matter if they are human, scaled or furry. The non-human filter should only enable/disable if you want non-humans at all, but their gender restrictions should follow the male/female/futa settings, at least when they have a gender. Depending on how many tentacle creatures you want to add it may be useful to add a seperate tentacle setting.

Since its only a html file i guess there is not much to see. Most people here will want something to look at, especially for characters, even if its just some avatar to support the fantasy.

So, time to play it ^^

Yeah, you're definitely right about finishing what I've started before starting something new. In my earlier updates, I didn't have much structure to my development process, but now I have a specific task list and I'm steadily working through it, and making good progress in v0.0.8! I'm not adding new tasks unless they're necessary. As more updates release, you will see the number of dead ends shrinking. I tend to leave them there when I have an idea, so I know to come back and work on it later, but maybe I should get in the habit of making it a comment and then removing the comment once the path is complete. On that topic, I do have a pseudo-skip button in the form of passage navigation, but I'm planning a skip function in the future that just prompts you with all the story choices prior to the page you're skipping to.

The filter suggestion makes sense. However, I could imagine a potential player that is not interested in male humans, but is interested in male non-humans. (Hint: it's me.) In any event, the futa filter is absolute, so it won't be affected. In all honesty, I'll probably make the monster filter more granular eventually, allowing filtering based on species.

Yeah, I'm of two minds on the graphics question. I see both sides of it. I've pondered making graphics a toggle setting as well. I figured I would do a Patreon poll on that topic in the future once the game is in a more complete stage from a design perspective.

Personally, I would recommend waiting for the next update before playing if you haven't started yet. It will be the proof of concept for the exploration mechanics I'm planning for the future. It's taking shape at this point. I have the harder coding finished and I basically just need to write more scenes to tie it in a bow.

 

[BlackDahliaStudios]

One reason it's been text-only design so far is because I'm almost completely color-blind.

 

[Orphanus]

One reason I've doing text-only design so far is because I'm almost completely color-blind.

Honestly in my humble opinion text only works perfectly well, but I won't deny having some visuals can improve the experience even more. Personally I'd say that it isn't really a pressing matter & focusing on the stuff you are sure you wanna include and that concerns currently available story/sandbox content might be a better use of your time for now.

Also I feel pretty positive about the recent changelogs + what you've said you're working on behind the scenes!

The stuff about the content filters I agree with, just to give another example of why some fine-tuning might be good I wanna say that for example I'm not very interested in tentacle monsters, but I would be fairly sad to miss out on a potential Eldritch-girlfriend (ofc just an example) by toggling stuff off, just because I really don't want to run into unavoidable scenes with male monsters or humanoids of any kind & more often than not monsters the player can run into in this sorta game are all male or at the very least treated as "male" by the game. At the same time I do like Futa, so that leads to me being worried I toggle off potential Futa content by disabling other stuff unrelated to it because I don't know how the game handles the different toggles for that.

 

[BlackDahliaStudios]

Honestly in my humble opinion text only works perfectly well, but I won't deny having some visuals can improve the experience even more. Personally I'd say that it isn't really a pressing matter & focusing on the stuff you are sure you wanna include and that concerns currently available story/sandbox content might be a better use of your time for now.

Also I feel pretty positive about the recent changelogs + what you've said you're working on behind the scenes!

The stuff about the content filters I agree with, just to give another example of why some fine-tuning might be good I wanna say that for example I'm not very interested in tentacle monsters, but I would be fairly sad to miss out on a potential Eldritch-girlfriend (ofc just an example) by toggling stuff off, just because I really don't want to run into unavoidable scenes with male monsters or humanoids of any kind & more often than not monsters the player can run into in this sorta game are all male or at the very least treated as "male" by the game. At the same time I do like Futa, so that leads to me being worried I toggle off potential Futa content by disabling other stuff unrelated to it because I don't know how the game handles the different toggles for that.

I feel positive about it too. Thanks for sticking with me! The project is finally moving in the direction of being an incomplete "game", rather than just an incomplete novel.

The graphics question can at least wait until Alpha version. Maybe Beta. I have a lot more writing and coding to do first. I've also been toying with the idea of working on original music composition whenever I need a break from the rest of it.

From a player standpoint, the more granular the filtering, the better. From a developer standpoint, I don't want it to be so granular that it slows down development. I'll have to find that right balance once I actually cross that bridge.

Note: I spent a great deal of time researching narrative writing, but neglected to research writing smut until this week. Hopefully I can deliver better results with those elements in the future (and enhance what I've already written). I'm in this weird place right now where I want to keep working on the smut, but I know that I really need to build the foundation for the game with the narrative elements and coding game mechanics first. I'm hoping it's a hump that will get easier once I'm on the other side of it as I can then recycle code and also live within the fictional world instead of actively building it. I'll also say that the story has two main narrative paths planned: good and evil. The good route is going to have less smut, but with my current outline, it is required to be progressed along before defecting to the evil route. Maybe I could reconsider that and make the evil route accessible from the beginning.

 

[BlackDahliaStudios]

The stuff about the content filters I agree with, just to give another example of why some fine-tuning might be good I wanna say that for example I'm not very interested in tentacle monsters, but I would be fairly sad to miss out on a potential Eldritch-girlfriend (ofc just an example) by toggling stuff off, just because I really don't want to run into unavoidable scenes with male monsters or humanoids of any kind & more often than not monsters the player can run into in this sorta game are all male or at the very least treated as "male" by the game. At the same time I do like Futa, so that leads to me being worried I toggle off potential Futa content by disabling other stuff unrelated to it because I don't know how the game handles the different toggles for that.

I hadn't thought of it, but liking futa and disliking males also wouldn't be captured by the filtering of all dicks if the "Prefer Male" option is disabled. Although, I never would have done that since I personally love futa (is it obvious yet?) and am uninterested in males (happy accident). I'll be stretching my abilities writing the M-M scenes.

Ultimately, the more filters the better, but I need them to be workable and useful.

 

[Virulenz]

Yeah, you're definitely right about finishing what I've started before starting something new. In my earlier updates, I didn't have much structure to my development process, but now I have a specific task list and I'm steadily working through it, and making good progress in v0.0.8! I'm not adding new tasks unless they're necessary. As more updates release, you will see the number of dead ends shrinking. I tend to leave them there when I have an idea, so I know to come back and work on it later, but maybe I should get in the habit of making it a comment and then removing the comment once the path is complete. On that topic, I do have a pseudo-skip button in the form of passage navigation, but I'm planning a skip function in the future that just prompts you with all the story choices prior to the page you're skipping to.

The biggest bad end collection i found is the temple, library, waterfall area, lots of links leading to black screens there.
And i hope the missing subroute for mom and later sis is a "love" route...still mind control, but not breaking them into submissive slaves, more tuning them into happy loyal lovers.

The filter suggestion makes sense. However, I could imagine a potential player that is not interested in male humans, but is interested in male non-humans. (Hint: it's me.) In any event, the futa filter is absolute, so it won't be affected. In all honesty, I'll probably make the monster filter more granular eventually, allowing filtering based on species.

Okay, my bias. As lesbian i'm not interested in anything with a dick, that includes the dog as well.

Yeah, I'm of two minds on the graphics question. I see both sides of it. I've pondered making graphics a toggle setting as well. I figured I would do a Patreon poll on that topic in the future once the game is in a more complete stage from a design perspective.

Better not, you need to hire an artist if you ask the paying folks. But you may need to add characer cards/profiles later and i would recommend adding a picture there. Its easy to forget a description you only read once, a picture stays in memory...and it helps those who play onehanded

Personally, I would recommend waiting for the next update before playing if you haven't started yet. It will be the proof of concept for the exploration mechanics I'm planning for the future. It's taking shape at this point. I have the harder coding finished and I basically just need to write more scenes to tie it in a bow.

Too late, i already played all 3,5 mainroutes...and i have questions.
1. It makes sense for the dark goddess to support your wish to corrupt your family, but why would the light one allow it? She just complains once "its a sin" but still lends you her power to continue.
2. Why do i need to choose one goddess over the other when they already share my body after the ritualfire? This should be the perfect route to keep them both and stay neutral, not pure enough to stop sinning but not corrupted enough to enslave people. Their goals are in harmony, or a least dont exclude each other. The light wants to be reborn and murder every corrupted being, the dark wants to die and murder every corrupted being. You can help both and murder every corrupted being on the way.
3. Why is he scythe girl killing me? If she guards the place she should feel my intentions and the goddess in me. It would be more fitting for her to kneel and lick my feet...or more ^^
4. If i choose a goddess right away and kill my teacher, will i ever get a chance to come back for my girl?
5. If i join the school, can i go back to my family later? I just cant neglect a sister...

 

[BlackDahliaStudios]

The biggest bad end collection i found is the temple, library, waterfall area, lots of links leading to black screens there.
And i hope the missing subroute for mom and later sis is a "love" route...still mind control, but not breaking them into submissive slaves, more tuning them into happy loyal lovers.
Okay, my bias. As lesbian i'm not interested in anything with a dick, that includes the dog as well.
Better not, you need to hire an artist if you ask the paying folks. But you may need to add characer cards/profiles later and i would recommend adding a picture there. Its easy to forget a description you only read once, a picture stays in memory...and it helps those who play onehanded
Too late, i already played all 3,5 mainroutes...and i have questions.
1. It makes sense for the dark goddess to support your wish to corrupt your family, but why would the light one allow it? She just complains once "its a sin" but still lends you her power to continue.
2. Why do i need to choose one goddess over the other when they already share my body after the ritualfire? This should be the perfect route to keep them both and stay neutral, not pure enough to stop sinning but not corrupted enough to enslave people. Their goals are in harmony, or a least dont exclude each other. The light wants to be reborn and murder every corrupted being, the dark wants to die and murder every corrupted being. You can help both and murder every corrupted being on the way.
3. Why is he scythe girl killing me? If she guards the place she should feel my intentions and the goddess in me. It would be more fitting for her to kneel and lick my feet...or more ^^
4. If i choose a goddess right away and kill my teacher, will i ever get a chance to come back for my girl?
5. If i join the school, can i go back to my family later? I just cant neglect a sister...

Wow, that's a lot of questions! Thanks for playing.

1) Honestly, that line of dialogue was a placeholder until I could figure out something better. But the real answer is that even though the goddesses have power, they're ultimately subject to the will of their host. They can try to influence the host, but can't completely take over the decisions. Note: I'm planning to rewrite the goddesses soon. Hopefully in the next update.
2) They don't like each other and refuse to co-exist.
3) She's following orders. And she's also insane.
4) Maybe... Which girl?
5) Yes. I haven't gotten there yet. My plan at this point is to allow that at the Sorcerer rank, but I might change the plan later.

 

[Virulenz]

1. Well, if we have the enslavement route for the dark one i would make sense to use a love route for he light one
2. But they already did after the ritualfire, black and white arm. Why would one of them give up her only chance to reach her goal? Its not like they need to talk with each other, but there are not enough heros/saviors around to be picky + we deserve a reward for reaching his point without picking one of them before the ritualfire ^^
3. And who orders to keep her own goddess out? Insane isnt always bad
4. There is only one who talks with woman, the arrogant bitch only drools after the guys....
5. Good...i had the fear you meet your family only if you dont join the school.

 

[BlackDahliaStudios]

1. Well, if we have the enslavement route for the dark one i would make sense to use a love route for he light one
2. But they already did after the ritualfire, black and white arm. Why would one of them give up her only chance to reach her goal? Its not like they need to talk with each other, but there are not enough heros/saviors around to be picky + we deserve a reward for reaching his point without picking one of them before the ritualfire ^^
3. And who orders to keep her own goddess out? Insane isnt always bad
4. There is only one who talks with woman, the arrogant bitch only drools after the guys....
5. Good...i had the fear you meet your family only if you dont join the school.

1) When I say route, I'm referring to the plot, not just the player's choices. The choices do affect the route, but not every choice creates a branch in the plot. That route, in particular, I've been calling the "Rogue route".
2) Hopefully I can fix this for you with the rewrite.
3)

Spoiler

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True
4) Haha, it's funny because as I'm writing the NPCs, I'm not always thinking about how MC's preferences will affect their perception of the situation. Like that conflict makes complete sense, but I also created it on accident.
5) Once I finish coding the exploration mechanics, the game will be more open-world. So you'll have more freedom to move about.

 

[BlackDahliaStudios]

Weekly Update:

I was sick two separate times this week! I actually had more writing time since I called out of work (funny thing), allowing me to inch closer to my writing target. The logbook feature is working. It will eventually include indicators for 'end of current content' to mitigate player frustration. I started some slightly serious coding this week, namely the NPC spawning function, which required in-game time as a frame of reference. I've got the structure of the code figured out (a reworked version of the function from the demo), but haven't finished implementing it for each NPC yet (I need to determine pathing based on their circumstances). I need this function working before the next release so that the NPCs can move around the Apprentice School area during exploration, or else it will feel empty. And I can't publish until that area is working because it will prevent progression, so this update will likely require more work than any previous update. I may finish by the end of this month considering my current pace. I also want to revise the goddesses... (I had a good idea.)

v0.0.8 Changelog
-AI Title Screen Art
-New Characters (Mel, Cass, Euchary)
-Apprentice School Exploration (+ Goddess Rewrite) [Incomplete]
-Monastery Exploration (Incomplete)
-Smut (Belle)
-Features: Logbook, Items (Incomplete), Time (Incomplete), NPC Spawning (Incomplete)
-Character Stats (Incomplete)
-General code clean-up
-Bugs/Typos

Accessible Word Count: 55,082 (+8,713)
Written Word Count: 74,094 (+9,710)
Daily Word Count: 424/550 (77%)

Weekly Update:

The Apprentice Cabin is still under construction, though it's nearing completion. I'm closing in on my word count target. Overall, it's looking likely that I'll get an update finished this month. Unfortunately (fortunately?), I have more inspiration than I'm able to translate into software at this point in development.

v0.0.8 Changelog: The Exploration Update
-AI Title Screen Art
-Apprentice School Exploration (+ Goddess Rewrite)*
-Features: NPC Spawns, Time, Logbook, Theft Detection, Truancy Detection, Items*, Virginity*, Defilement Detection*
-New Characters (Mel, Cass, Euchary)
-Dialogue Update* (Segregate Dialogue by NPC)
-Monastery Exploration*
-Smut (Belle, Dahlia)
-Character Stats
-New Settings: Preferences, Stat Display
-General Code Clean-up
-Bugs/Typos

Accessible Word Count: 61,219 (+14,850)
Written Word Count: 81,357 (+16,973)
Daily Word Count: 498/550 (91%)
Note: Asterisks (*) indicate tasks still in progress.

 

[BlackDahliaStudios]

Weekly Update:

The Apprentice Cabin is still under construction, though it's nearing completion. I'm closing in on my word count target. Overall, it's looking likely that I'll get an update finished this month. Unfortunately (fortunately?), I have more inspiration than I'm able to translate into software at this point in development.

v0.0.8 Changelog: The Exploration Update
-AI Title Screen Art
-Apprentice School Exploration (+ Goddess Rewrite)*
-Features: NPC Spawns, Time, Logbook, Theft Detection, Truancy Detection, Items*, Virginity*, Defilement Detection*
-New Characters (Mel, Cass, Euchary)
-Dialogue Update* (Segregate Dialogue by NPC)
-Monastery Exploration*
-Smut (Belle, Dahlia)
-Character Stats
-New Settings: Preferences, Stat Display
-General Code Clean-up
-Bugs/Typos

Accessible Word Count: 61,219 (+14,850)
Written Word Count: 81,357 (+16,973)
Daily Word Count: 498/550 (91%)
Note: Asterisks (*) indicate tasks still in progress.

Weekly Update:

Apprentice School exploration is complete! All that remains is completing work on the casting mechanic, goddesses rework, and training scenes to bridge the gap between 'Apprentice' and 'Charmer' ranks. I'm hoping to have these tasks finished before the next update, but I'm going to release whatever I have on Halloween either way, so the players aren't left hanging while I take a break next month. I'm travelling this upcoming week, so I'll have more time to work than normal and hopefully finish!

Note: At this point, I've actually tackled most of the core coding problems that I anticipate facing with this project, so sailing should be smoother from here on out with my solid foundation nearly complete. If I finish the remaining core tasks, then this project will finally be in an Alpha state (just before the two-year mark). Fingers crossed! I'm really hoping to make it before November.

v0.1.0 Changelog: The Exploration Update
-Title Screen AI Art
-Apprentice School Exploration
-Smut (Belle, Dahlia, Margerie)
-New Characters (Mel, Cass, Euchary)
-Monastery Exploration*
-Killable: Margerie
-Mechanics: NPC Spawns, Time, Crime Detection, Character Stats, Virginity*, Casting*, Goddess Rework*
-Features: Logbook, Items*, Skip, Menu Update, Dialogue
-New Settings: Preferences, Stat Toggle
-Code Cleaning
-Bugs/Typos

Accessible Word Count: 65,118 (+18,749)
Written Word Count: 85,994 (+21,610)
Daily Word Count: 515/550 (94%)

 

[jsmitth529]

Flipping through the pages, I will say that zombie content and necro content, though both may fall under the 'necrophilia' tag, are two very different fetishes and should be labeled thus. If someone comes in expecting necro content and it turns out to be zombie stuff, they'd be disappointed. Vice versa as well. Which one it is should be made clear beforehand.

 

[BlackDahliaStudios]

Flipping through the pages, I will say that zombie content and necro content, though both may fall under the 'necrophilia' tag, are two very different fetishes and should be labeled thus. If someone comes in expecting necro content and it turns out to be zombie stuff, they'd be disappointed. Vice versa as well. Which one it is should be made clear beforehand.

How does one clarify this?