Heileen

[KnockOut]

Re: Sudden Death. I've played the Lone Wolf Gamebooks and when I hit sudden death I just hit the back button. No sudden death. It would be cool to have other gamebook like features though. Like items that allow you to go on different paths. Different Lone Wolf style skills that allow you to go on different paths.

Game could be gamebook meets dating sim.

I really don't like the abscence of a planner because it reduces the grinding so prevelant of dating sims. Although, you tend to be very user friendly and anti-grind(with the exception of Magic Stones), so I have my faith.

Just combine the best features of gamebooks and dating sims and you will have a 5 star game

[Random1]

You oughta be a programmer man, you have such a good imagination for features and twists and stuff.

[jack1974]

Well I'm not sure if I'll put the "sudden death" yet - because this new game is straight aimed at the casual market (yes I sold out!). So I'm not sure if they would like it, even if there will be an undo system so you can go back a certain number of steps (also of course you can save/load).
I wrote 6 chapters so far, I aim to write 10. But in chapter 7 or 8 the story will branch out completely based on the user choices. Still, I'm really dubious about this game, since I made it mainly for female public! so far all people who tried it liked a lot.

The male testers were particularly interested in the subplot of the lesbian love between you (Heileen) and Marie

Of course, no nudity even in this game! but some very sexy characters.

Check this out:
http://www.heileen.com/characters.htm

[KnockOut]

Will you be able to play "roleplay" style? Say I want to create a character with all high charisma and luck or whatever. In most games, I would get bslapped. Would be better for people to create their characters based on who they want to roleplay rather than finding the optimal stat distribution.

I should be able to go into the game and say I want to roleplay Heileen as a swashbuckling take on all comers pirate princess and not have to start over to change to more monotonous, "optimal" stats.


Also, is their an optimal ending? An ending that rewards optimal play?

Each character doesn't neccessarily need their own ending but they do need a payoff. For example, in Summer Session none of the male characters had a big payoff. You became friends with them and nothing ever happened. They each had a relationship meter and it was impossible to get it to full! If you manage to befriend one of the cat characters, it should at least payoff somehow in the game.

[jack1974]

No for this first attempt no rpg elements sorry. It is however something I plan to do with my Princess Maker clone, which will do after this one (need to learn the new python platform).

I like that idea and I remember in Amiga times there was a series of games in which you could choose several skills and the game would display different results based on them (was an investigative game).

There is a score system inside the game. At the end you'll get a final score award. But that's just for completing quests. Then there will be the storyline with 3-4 different endings. By different I mean that the story will completely branch out, based on the final you choose (with your previous choices). But for each final you'll be able to make the same maximum score, there isn't an ideal ending.

Initially I thought that the classic "the girl find her boy" would have been the "right" one, but now I changed my mind... you can end the game and find out that your female best friend is the person you love, or other surprises...

[jack1974]

So the game is actually out: http://www.tycoongames.eu/adventures/heileen.php
Bear in mind that is my first attempt at writing (with the help of a english proofreader obviously!). I think the final result is cool, even if is more a visual novel than a dating sim. I think the story is interesting enough, but if you don't like games with lots of texts... well, can't do anything about that

[lloyd1191]

Am having some problems with the game. First, most of the time, I don't see the characters in the game. They are invisible or something. The second thing is that, I don't hear any voices. Maybe there isn't any voice in it, but if there is, then I don't hear them. Can you tell me what's the problem?

[jack1974]

No there aren't voices in the game, only in the second episode
About the graphic is a video card issue: press shift+G while the game is running and in the menu that appears select "DirectX". You might need to update your directX but then the game will work

[lloyd1191]

Thanks for the reply. I actually fixed the picture problem. Some of my drives were outdated, so I had to update them. If there's no voices, then why is there a voice volume in the preferences? Is not that I don't like the game, but it makes me curious.

[jack1974]

Ah it's just the standard preferences layout of the library I'm using, I forgot to remove that!