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Re: Progress Report
Posted: Sun Nov 12, 2017 8:59 pm
by Franka
Why use a scheduler at all? If I destroy the romance by skipping a week, the scheduler just makes the game worse by inviting me to make a mistake.
Re: Progress Report
Posted: Sun Nov 12, 2017 9:10 pm
by jack1974
Yes I thought about not having it at all to be honest. I guess I could have the jobs fixed maybe and use it only to show the passage of time/worsening of the player's situation...
Re: Progress Report
Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2017 5:56 am
by Franka
I don't know what the most elegant way to choose your romance would be, but from what I read, you make it sound like a scheduler is total overkill.
Re: Progress Report
Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2017 7:25 am
by jack1974
Well we wanted to have some ending variants if player manages to reach XXX money at end of the story, plus there's the stress level variable which could unlock some small bonus scenes and gameover if it gets too high. So the scheduler could make some sense under this regard.
I could see two solution to keep the scheduler:
1) put a warning message if player starts a week and could stop a romance or a very good tutorial. In general once you choose the morning jobs you'll rarely modify them
2) require only 1 day/week for each character or maybe even better just have the morning schedule fixed, allowing player to decide only the activities in the afternoon (and the possible weekend dates).
I need to think more about this

Re: Progress Report
Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2017 8:33 am
by mastro
Callista wrote: ↑Sun Nov 12, 2017 10:22 am
Nice! I'm totally looking forward to this. Miakoda is a great writer. :D
Agreed, I really liked the PSCD story. Plus this game setting seems even more interesting !
Re: Progress Report
Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2017 11:32 am
by jack1974

OK, I changed it again, this time I think it's fine. Quick explanation:
- the jobs are fixed
- if you end the romance during the story like happens in my other games, that character's relative job will be changed to the "generic one" (cafeteria clerk)
- the thing you can change is the work rate for each job. Work harder=more energy spent, but more money. If you have low energy at end of each day the Stress value will increase
I think it's much simple, but still allows a small freedom to enable different endings based on money, and some "cool scenes" if your stress level is too high, including an achievement related ending
Thanks for the feedback, I realize now that my previous idea was a bit dumb

Re: Progress Report
Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2017 12:57 pm
by Callista
That set up is good. It's good to have feedback early on in case changes need to be made.

Re: Progress Report
Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2017 1:36 pm
by Franka
jack1974 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 13, 2017 11:32 amThanks for the feedback, I realize now that my previous idea was a bit dumb
Nah, you were just tweaking your usual scheduler to cut corners during development.

Having just played through Roommates 6 times, I was getting rather sick of micro managing weekly schedulers, and it sounded like this game didn't need to go into so much detail, so I'm glad to see the scheduler being simplified.
Re: Progress Report
Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2017 1:58 pm
by jack1974
Yes for sure, not having stat-raising, it was probably overkill. But the fun thing is that implementing this new solution still took me only half-morning (with the other half spent shoveling snow... grr!).
Anyways, it seems to work already, and Miakoda just sent me one romance ending. Maybe we'll manage to do the pre-order beta with Sabrina/Viktor routes at end of month

Re: Progress Report
Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2017 6:14 pm
by Miakoda
Sorry for the lack of information, but for the curious, here is what needs to be finished:
1. 30 romance dialogues (Nadia's paths, Tyrone/Kaitlyn path, and romance CG scenes)
2. Single player route scenes (Maybe 6-7 dialogues)
3. Flavor text and epilogues
4. Couple scenes which take place in the middle of the game (Fourth of July comes to mind).
So if I was to estimate, I would say it is about 75-80% done from a writing standpoint.