HTML Unholy Arts [v0.4.6] [Deep Interactivity]

[DeepInteractivity]

The only beef I have with drives right now is that since they are a "semi-hidden" mechanic, seeing as you can only check their values by successfully using a specific conversation topic, and they are probably the most "long-term" difficult thing to change about other characters, having checks that are heavily dependent on their values feels a bit difficult to manage. I personally would like if they could be a visible stat at the end of the day (if not current then at least a snapshot of the last time the player had access to that information), but maybe a scroll explaining them a bit would already help.

You can currently see the drives of any character you have a special relationship with (atm servitude, tutorship or companionship) on their character info passage at the end of the day menu.

 

[Orphanus]

I will be honest, I kinda skimmed over most of the discussion, but personally I mostly like how drives are implemented in a mechanical sense and how they are used to reflect the starting personality of the characters.

I don't know if there is some misunderstanding regarding the meaning of certain drives, it feels like Catch Phrase is saying that because Claw has high "ambition" it means the game is enforcing her into being a more compelling and important character than the others? I feel this is only true to the extent that Claw is a character that will usually be on the race to win the competition, so as long as the player cares about the result of the competition then Claw is not a character they can really "ignore" in the same way they could perhaps do to a low ambition character who's personal story they aren't interested in.

But either way, I feel all "ambition" really means in the context of this game is how much the high-priestess competition is important to that character, I never read it into meaning that the "low ambition" characters are less compelling, just that their agendas lie elsewhere. Also I don't think high ambition is decisive enough to ensure Claw is always a threat, I have seen enough playthroughs where she got clapped pretty hard early on and she kinda struggles to recover from that.

The only beef I have with drives right now is that since they are a "semi-hidden" mechanic, seeing as you can only check their values by successfully using a specific conversation topic, and they are probably the most "long-term" difficult thing to change about other characters, having checks that are heavily dependent on their values feels a bit difficult to manage. I personally would like if they could be a visible stat at the end of the day (if not current then at least a snapshot of the last time the player had access to that information), but maybe a scroll explaining them a bit would already help.

Couldn't agree more with this, Claw getting completely stomped by the rest of the crew is actually 1 of the more common outcomes whenever I play, sure, not more common than her being pretty dominant but still on the "happens kinda often" side of things. I feel as if the more social and considerate I behave the more the other candidates tend to team up on Claw. The only time that wasn't a thing at all was when I tried to "outplay" Claw at her own game and became a target at least as big as her.
Claws biggest weakness, from what I saw, is how much she struggles with building positive relationships. She isn't very likely to get any form of back-up from anyone else (not even Valtan, necessarily) and also it's very easy to influence the other candidates to dislike her even more (which btw imho still isn't even needed, she's her own worst enemy anyway)

Also it should be mentioned, in my opinion, that you can always NOT demand anything for winning a challenge & therefore get around gaining infamy alongside merit. Sure, you gain merit more slowly (especially when you don't initiate challenges yourself), but you won't be hindered by the priests and also not become someone the other candidates feel threatened by. In fact it's even a way to lower Claws ambition a little and it doesn't influence her opinion on the player in any negative way).

 

[CATCH PHRASE]

You only receive punishments by Drishtya if you go over the infamy limit, which means you have plenty of room to demand things of one given character.

Does the "Going over the limit" part get mentioned anywhere? I was under the assumption that you'd get reprimanded if enough points racked up in general-- seeing how even less ambitious characters still wound up being equipped with at least one punishment item.

Keep in mind that the victory demands of retiring bondage and ending servitude relationships do not give you infamy (in fact, iirc the latter removes a bit of infamy), imposing bondage gives you relatively little infamy (depending on the piece), you can absolutely enforce servitude on Claw without getting punished, and you can often keep Claw on servitude for a long time because she snaps soon if you force her to follow you around, and winning liberation challenges extends the duration of the servitude. Each time Claw loses, she is losing ambition and domination drives.

Fair point-- but I do think that it should be mentioned somewhere that being aggressive towards her wouldn't necessarily stack against you as much, and give it a bit more clarity that being aggressive to aggressive types doesn't naturally punish that hard as someone who's aggressive to everyone. Sure, you can definitely pick your battles, but it slightly implies here and there that being aggressive in general is more punishable than just being a total bottom.

On a different line, I'm not sure if this is clear, but the domination drive is responsible for far more "conflicting" behavior (seeking fights through assaults rather than challenges, enforcing servitudes, etc.) than ambition. A character with very high ambition but very low domination and pleasure should have a preference for gaining merit through issuing challenges, rather than stomping down on everyone through infamy:merit cost-ineffective actions.



I think there should be more mechanics to deal with this, like I mentioned earlier.

I appreciate the clarity-- domination/submission is given a lot of flavor text but not much of an actual description.

Do keep this in mind though: you aren't the only "player" in the game. There are other 5 protagonists who have different, potentially mutable goals, and unless you're a master webweaber doing a mad minmax in order to make sure everyone is going to behave like your little pawns to fulfill your goals, you are sometimes going to find them on the other side of the fence. This is a lesson that has to be taught soon rather than later, and if you learn it early by being unable to pass a relatively minor check that you can end up overcoming later anyway, you're going to learn something valuable about what you should be expecting in the game.

I agree, but you could counter that by saying that the player going on any run might get sideswiped by minor progress checks they don't feel is entirely feasible on their runs, just because it wasn't thought of due to development options. If you do what the game leads you to do, but get hit with "FAILURE" screens here and there, it might not feel as fun as just saying "Why can't my build find their own way to solve XYZ?" / "Why can't I use this specific relationship I have with them to my advantage here?"
I'm not saying every build should counter every problem-- but I do feel it's strange how limited options the player gets on things that the player could come up with on their own terms. I think that's the biggest problem with more open games-- it either strains the developer to think outside the box against thousands of players, or puts players in a moment of "I would have just used what I'm good at here"-- which then leans the story to make each build too far into passing everything.
Mind you, I think more aggressive options that could twist the story to their will would definitely be fun. IE someone who's much more dominant/combat ready could throw a few "nice words" out and pass something that someone who was less intimidating could do-- or someone with the Hypnotic boon could use their willpower to straight up Jedi Mind trick a few things here and there. Sure, there's some with GC, but overall it would be more fun to do that in general.

My thoughts about a way out of that--
1) Having a description for what each level of drives means would help a ton-- there doesn't seem to be a way to know what the difference between a level 2 drive and a level 4 drive in something is, so seeing how the character thinks due to each drive would be super useful, especially when it comes to more mechanically unclear checks.
2) Characters should have their own ways of passing checks outside of drives-- like social relationships, combat abilities, etc. I doubt a character who's smart would want to piss off someone who has their weakness in hand. Likewise, characters favoring other characters who fill in their gaps would be more careful about harming eachother, since it's the only real protection they're guaranteed.
3) More options for specialized builds-- I think it's dull to rely on the player's actions as the lead if other characters are also supposed to represent their own drives. "Why can't X character solve my problem for me?" would be a great way to get other characters involved in the story, especially if the player is relying on their partner's specific stats/drives to fill in the gaps of their current, build-- which is why I appreciate it being mildly represented in the debate battle, albeit I have my own personal reasons why I'm not a personal fan of that battle.

 

[DeepInteractivity]

Does the "Going over the limit" part get mentioned anywhere? I was under the assumption that you'd get reprimanded if enough points racked up in general-- seeing how even less ambitious characters still wound up being equipped with at least one punishment item.

 

[docjane112]

I will say it is unclear whether that limit was "you start getting punished" or "you lose the game from too much infamy"

 

[tehlemon]

Storytelling is a tool that should opt for it's own merit, not test the merit of it's mechanical value.
IE if a character isn't fully explained, readers/players won't really show much interest since it's still a developing character. If the reader crosses a point that isn't explained due to the mechanical side (IE the game progress), it detaches the value of it as "foreshadowing", which in this case just shows that Claw for some miraculous reason has an agenda that justifies not only being a prick, but also being able to completely stump the current gameplay loop of merit/infamy etc. If her story is that potent, the other characters will feel a bit less... Interesting?
I mean, if you put someone on a TV show game and some beefcake guy completely wrecks the show, no one really tunes in to the show at all for the other challengers-- and in the game's sense, it makes the other characters feel much less compelling to enjoy.
Mind you, I don't think you made the wrong move, I just think it's going to bite down on the value of other characters in the long run.

I'm late to the discussion, but I wanted to go back to this point for a sec. While I don't agree with everything you're saying, I do agree with this. And if we go back a few months, this was actually the first bit of criticism I had about claw specifically, as well.

Claw is a bit of an issue for me. Prior to the event that unlocks her as a character in the game, there's not really any events or interactions that really sets her up as a character worth caring about. She's just kind of presented as the token selfish jerk or loner, and that's it. There's nothing that makes her relatable or sympathetic to me, the player, so there's no reason for me, the player, to care about her or what she wants.

It would help if the player was given more insight into what she's all about and why. Even if it were another eves dropping type of scene. Give us, the players, a reason to consider her point of view. Something to give some context to why she is how she is, rather than her just being a jerk everyone hates.

IDK.

I imagine this might be coming later, given the introduction of some other characters. But if its done too late, the snowball could already be rolling against her in the first portion of the game. Which could be fine. Maybe she has a turn of heart or some character moment that sort of soft-resets her later. That could be all good too. But it's not there yet, as far as I know.

As for ambition and drives, the system makes sense to me. I do wonder if there could be a way to take a characters current values and create a short written out summary of their current state. If it was phrase in an in-character perspective it could be cool. But I haven't put any thought into what this would look like, or how hard it would be to actually account for all the values. This is just the game designer in me spitballing possible solutions to make it more approachable in an in-universe kind of way.

 

[ShadeDragon]

So I am rather enjoying this game, though I think I'm a the end of the current content. In my opinion the core mechanics and game loop are all pretty fun. I do have a couple of questions and thoughts though:

1st question: Is there a good strategy to beat the hypnotist monsters? I went hunting with Mir several times and while we easily trampled several of the chain things and the drain plants the eye guys had us both down really quickly, I could barely KO one of them before one of us was down and the other was at half. With how hard they are to beat it makes taking hypnotic gaze at the start of the game a no brainer.

2nd question: When I finished the caves I had found the trapped shapeshifter and saved them only for the game to go straight back to the temple with all of the guests, I'm guess I didn't see any of the resolution because it's unfinished? I gotta say the guests are all kind of obnoxious. I guess I was spoiled because I had everyone at least liking me, but with the guests all starting at neutral the just started chain challenging or constantly asking me to follow me which is really annoying. There's just not enough time or stat bars to engage with that many characters. Is there any way to get back to the temple with body painting and the monster skills without the guests? Or anyway to remove them?

As for thoughts, I am looking forward to more content, but something I'd be interested to see would be more exciting things to do with your chosen skill. Maybe something where you can force vulnerability on an opponent and then go further than normal like making permanent personality changes with hypnotism or stealing experience with drain. For the chains I though maybe being able to plant chains that you could trigger in later encounters and flip a submissive event into a dominant or something or make a fight easier, or substitute for the buy-able restraints.

 

[Orphanus]

I'm late to the discussion, but I wanted to go back to this point for a sec. While I don't agree with everything you're saying, I do agree with this. And if we go back a few months, this was actually the first bit of criticism I had about claw specifically, as well.

Claw is a bit of an issue for me. Prior to the event that unlocks her as a character in the game, there's not really any events or interactions that really sets her up as a character worth caring about. She's just kind of presented as the token selfish jerk or loner, and that's it. There's nothing that makes her relatable or sympathetic to me, the player, so there's no reason for me, the player, to care about her or what she wants.

It would help if the player was given more insight into what she's all about and why. Even if it were another eves dropping type of scene. Give us, the players, a reason to consider her point of view. Something to give some context to why she is how she is, rather than her just being a jerk everyone hates.

IDK.

I imagine this might be coming later, given the introduction of some other characters. But if its done too late, the snowball could already be rolling against her in the first portion of the game. Which could be fine. Maybe she has a turn of heart or some character moment that sort of soft-resets her later. That could be all good too. But it's not there yet, as far as I know.

As for ambition and drives, the system makes sense to me. I do wonder if there could be a way to take a characters current values and create a short written out summary of their current state. If it was phrase in an in-character perspective it could be cool. But I haven't put any thought into what this would look like, or how hard it would be to actually account for all the values. This is just the game designer in me spitballing possible solutions to make it more approachable in an in-universe kind of way.

This is just a spontaneous idea of mine and I am not saying it would fit Claw, just that personally I could see it being a thing: What if there was an option to not spend time with any candidate at the start, which triggers Claw knocking at the player character's door? She obviously would be rude and pretty forceful about things, something along the lines of the player making easy prey of themselves, but she can't actually force herself on the player there so she maybe would at least get a little bit personal, giving some hints at her motivations & showing that she isn't just an ass (which I feel like later interactions already do show a bit, but maybe that's just me) but that there is something behind her so adamantly believing that domination is the way to go.

I know it's just the way the system works but still technically it is said that Claw lusts after the player's body so I feel it wouldn't be too far fetched, especially since I feel like it might make sense for her to see the player's actions as a sign that they actually do accept/see their role as being submissive towards someone stronger and more domineering. Going along with her would give additional submission towards Claw & further cement her stance, but it would also give a bit of a boost towards friendship & romance (or just either, I am split on that and don't even know which one would fit most in my opinion).

Maybe that could unlock 1 additional event with her before the point that unlocks interacting with her just normally, and 1 more before the 1st adventure, going a bit more down the road that she kinda wouldn't mind claiming the player character as hers, or (for those who do not want to go that route) give options to gain a bit of friendship and/or (depending on the choices) rivalry with Claw. The 1st event could happen cause (best before the challenges unlock) she isn't yet allowed in any way to just have her way with the player so she'd have to apply a different hunting tactic. Of course, again, no uncharacteristic sweettalk or anything, but a show of having a strong personality and maybe why it might not be the worst choice to go along with her antics, boosting romance when accepting her advances outright or slightly boosting romance but also friendship a little when trying to establish some ground rules instead (but still getting into the fun at the end).

The 2nd event could yet again serve as a bit of a display of being more than a slightly rape-happy brute, maybe a follow up to her training event, giving choices to slightly boost the relationship (including rivalry, if the player so chooses).

 

[CATCH PHRASE]

View attachment 2047433

Yes, my question again-- where does it say that going over that limit is what causes the equipment to be put on, not having infamy at all?

 

[tehlemon]

Yes, my question again-- where does it say that going over that limit is what causes the equipment to be put on, not having infamy at all?

There's a mention during the opening sequence where they're explaining the game that says if you pull to far ahead they'll do something to balance the competition, more or less

 

[CATCH PHRASE]

There's a mention during the opening sequence where they're explaining the game that says if you pull to far ahead they'll do something to balance the competition, more or less

Yes, my question being-- it doesn't mention the limit as the threshhold for the punishment, moreso it could be misinterpreted as "You'll get punished for each point you have infamy for within a range, with 25 being the max you can earn in general."

 

[CATCH PHRASE]

Also wanted to clarify-- I don't think the game is bad at all-- you have a talent for writing, and your ideas are great-- it might just be a big hill to get over for one person to do on their own, especially a game with multiple classes/endings, that's a workload right there. I'm only saying what I say to help keep it from going down the patreon shillfest that makes a game go from taking one year to do into 8 years of "Progress."
Also, quick question-- are there more passive ways to lower ambition? I usually wind up on good terms with Claw even when they're submissive, meaning despite her being a bit more of a passive person, I can't necessarily change ambition without being a dick to her.

 

[cheddy413]

New version up on patreon

 

[Orphanus]

Also wanted to clarify-- I don't think the game is bad at all-- you have a talent for writing, and your ideas are great-- it might just be a big hill to get over for one person to do on their own, especially a game with multiple classes/endings, that's a workload right there. I'm only saying what I say to help keep it from going down the patreon shillfest that makes a game go from taking one year to do into 8 years of "Progress."
Also, quick question-- are there more passive ways to lower ambition? I usually wind up on good terms with Claw even when they're submissive, meaning despite her being a bit more of a passive person, I can't necessarily change ambition without being a dick to her.

While I mostly don't share your experiences with the game & how it unfolds I do definitely think you aren't trying to be a douche but you seem clearly enthralled by the game as well. So while I hope the Dev doesn't fundamentally change things in the direction you suggest I do hope that, in the future, maybe things will be a bit clearer & also maybe that, by either difficulty or some other setting, player's who would like more controllable impact on the other candidates, get an option for it, while those who love the randomness can still have that by just playing "standard" game mode, or whatever.

 

[Orphanus]

New version up on patreon

Ouh, that means we might get a public version here sooner rather than later, awesome.

 

[DeepInteractivity]

New version up on patreon

You have a new free version on itch.io too, but I'm waiting until the weekend to update the thread.

You must be registered to see the links

 

[sbarabaus]

i understand it's all temporary content, but i'm getting lost as to what i'm supposed to do once we go to the shapeshifters
should i select one activity that is in line with my skills (hunting, talking with nersmias, the festival...) or try to balance and do them all?

 

[DeepInteractivity]

1st question: Is there a good strategy to beat the hypnotist monsters? I went hunting with Mir several times and while we easily trampled several of the chain things and the drain plants the eye guys had us both down really quickly, I could barely KO one of them before one of us was down and the other was at half. With how hard they are to beat it makes taking hypnotic gaze at the start of the game a no brainer.

Might be hard to do if you can't go back before the adventure, but putting a blindfold on yourself will prevent them from using their most powerful attack on you. Varyonte's boon at the start of the Gleaming Caverns (+5 will, comes at a cost later) and the buffs from the baths also help. Other than that, when you're in a battle with more than 3 characters it's usually a good idea to focus most of your efforts to make sure the enemies are out of control and your allies up.

2nd question: When I finished the caves I had found the trapped shapeshifter and saved them only for the game to go straight back to the temple with all of the guests, I'm guess I didn't see any of the resolution because it's unfinished?

Correct. On v0.3.13 onwards, after the 2nd day of the 2nd month you will enter the Twisted Festival story event now, rather than skipping to the Passion Temple.

I gotta say the guests are all kind of obnoxious. I guess I was spoiled because I had everyone at least liking me, but with the guests all starting at neutral the just started chain challenging or constantly asking me to follow me which is really annoying. There's just not enough time or stat bars to engage with that many characters. Is there any way to get back to the temple with body painting and the monster skills without the guests? Or anyway to remove them?

Proper mechanics to handle the guests will be properly implemented in the following versions. The current plan is getting options to allow which guests are allowed or not into the Temple (or at least, the main loop), and out of the ones who are allowed to visit, they will only appear from time to time.

Also, quick question-- are there more passive ways to lower ambition? I usually wind up on good terms with Claw even when they're submissive, meaning despite her being a bit more of a passive person, I can't necessarily change ambition without being a dick to her.

The majority of mechanics that deal with drives, in practice, treat them like they're fractions. For example, if you want a character to stop assaulting others and instead make them seek consensual sex, it'll be more efficient to raise their love than lowering their domination, because the options that raise drives are more efficient than those that lower them, so you should instead just seduce them to bed.

Still, this won't be that useful if your goal is passing that check with Claw. Since her relationship with Valtan is also a very important factor, it's just more productive to take them both to conversation at the same time, raise their good moods, and have them have sex (easier if you invite Valtan while Claw is following you), since both the conversation and the scene will raise their relationship. You might come across with difficulties to achieve this early, since any of them (and most especially Claw) could sometimes get into hostile behavior that ruins everyone's mood in the conversation. Despite it all, I still recommend not to obsess over passing that check, you don't need it to get a good ending in the adventure.

 

[DeepInteractivity]

i understand it's all temporary content, but i'm getting lost as to what i'm supposed to do once we go to the shapeshifters
should i select one activity that is in line with my skills (hunting, talking with nersmias, the festival...) or try to balance and do them all?

The Gleaming Caverns' map content was already finished in v0.3.12, although some numbers might be subject to balance. Most activities lead to side or main content (you might have seen how there are checks after training skills in the workshop or the assembly), which you may enjoy or get something useful in return, immediately or at the end of the adventure. Unless you're playing with a guide in hand and minmaxing your time, the calendar might be pretty tight to see all the content in one run without reloading (alternate endings of sub-events and the story aside).

 

[sbarabaus]

The Gleaming Caverns' map content was already finished in v0.3.12, although some numbers might be subject to balance. Most activities lead to side or main content (you might have seen how there are checks after training skills in the workshop or the assembly), which you may enjoy or get something useful in return, immediately or at the end of the adventure. Unless you're playing with a guide in hand and minmaxing your time, the calendar might be pretty tight to see all the content in one run without reloading (alternate endings of sub-events and the story aside).

i asked other candidates to go fight some monsters, but i only received some training in return. should i go there alone? or repeat defeating multiple monsters?