opinions sought, is this game possible?

[Henrik]

by "possible", i mean "with a reasonably-learned engine like RAGS or tlaero's adventure creation thingy" here's the pitch--

Player (male? female? doesn't matter?) with female partner on a show very much like The Amazing Race. Best outcome win is Player/Partner win race AND end up as lovers.

Relationship between player and partner at start of race is "friends only, maybe using the race to see if there's more there." Impression of observers is that player is MUCH more interested in partner romantically than vice versa. basically, think of Player at start of game as having been friend zoned.

Partner is very desirable, but also can be a total grouch. She's moody. She changes her mind. she's got her own agenda and ideas, in other words. If the player can woo her, she becomes totally dedicated to him and their relationship. If he lets her mood get too far down by losing or ignoring her needs or wants, and if he makes her feel neglected or angry, her flirtations with other men (women?) in the Race may get more and more serious until there's no chance for Player/Partner together ending.

Player must balance doing things and grinding statistics that help win legs of the race (which can cause stress between him and Partner) as well as paying attention to her without creeping her out or coming on too strong, etc during downtime and other occasions.

Player will have chance to flirt and possibly end up with women from other teams, leading to secondary endings that some persons may find more enjoyable than Player/Partner linked and winning ending.

Fail states:

1. Player ends up with no female companionship and loses the race. This should be easy/default to accomplish if the player makes bad decisions or plays indifferently. BAD ENDING. (Can have multiple, many paths, including simply dropping out of the race if things go so badly that partner drops out, team finishes last on elimination leg, etc.)

2. Player ends up with no female companionship, but he and his Partner (who are arguing, likely because she's romantically linked with a guy on another team) win the race. (kind of a bad ending, no sexyfuntime for Player!)

3. Player ends up in a relationship with a woman from another team, but not his Partner. He and his Partner lose the race. (Perhaps the woman he ends up with wins?) (kind of a good ending, sexyfuntime for Player.)

Gameplay:

Chapters divided into legs of the race. Each leg of the race includes ways for Player to build stats. "smarts" and "physique" are visible stats (along with money and perhaps time?). Each task involved with the Race has a "gameplay" rating, a formula determined by comparing the some player's smarts and physique skills; certain tasks will have a number that will be compared to the average of the Players smarts/physique. Other skills may be formulae like 2(physique)+smarts/3, etc.

At various stages of each leg/chapter in race, Player and Partner will encounter other teams, and may have limited interactions. Scripted interactions/player decisions may take place that affect relationship with Partner or other team members.

At the end of each leg, assuming Player/Partner are still running race, Player has some "sandbox" time to interact with partner and/or players on other teams.

Player stats go up for success in race tasks as well as possibly during these sandbox times or scripted interactions/player decisions.

(was inspired by this when my own girlfriend and i watched an older season of the actual show "The Amazing Race"...maybe the third season? there was a team on that season that consisted of a guy who was kind of into his female teammate, but she totally friend-zoned him, but kind of led him on making him think there was a chance they'd get together. she became more and more griefy as the show went on, eventually just tearing her teammate to shreds and emasculating the guy. the guy ended up having the patience of a saint, ignored his teammate's constant flirtations and implied hookups with a guy on another team and managed to basically will his team to win the million bucks. )

look, i know that's a long read. would like some feedback, though. is this do-able in RAGS? that would be my preferred engine, as i have slowly (because i'm rather stupid about programming stuff) been learning to use it. i wouldn't mind using another engine/authoring system, but that would also likely require me to switch to having to learn to use DAZ or some other 3d modeling/artist software. if there's one thing i do worse than program, it's draw.

[Graen]

As long as you can keep track of all the variables, I don't see why it couldn't be done. Try building a test game first with just one race, and use that as a learning experience for the larger game.

[tlaero]

Definitely doable. It's basically an interesting version of the classic 100 day dating rpg where "advance the race" is one of the stats you increase.

Tlaero

[jfrancois323]

But it will take a long time to make if you want to do something nice. I rather suggest to make it in several game like : First date ; Get to know better ; second date etc. Like that if you mix up something, it will be easier to find where. Because the way i understand the making of a game is like writing a book, if you try to write "War & peace" (by the way, a great book to read !! ) in one time, the space taken will be huge !

But all this is possible only if it's possible to enter a password on the base program, like Ending 1 pw best ; ending 2 pw worst etc.

But with the base story you wrote, it should give a great game. The more ending, the more fun to find them !!

[ExLibris]

Just as a piece of general advice, it's best to start with something small. Even if you never release it, it'll teach you a lot about whatever authoring system you decide to use. More to the point, you'll learn what does and doesn't work in terms of design, which will help you with future projects.

If you jump straight into a big project it can be really easy to lose your motivation when you run into problems (and you will run into problems because it's your first game) because the finishing line is so far in the distance. In fact, because it's your first game you probably won't know how long it's going to take to finish, which is demoralising in itself.

[Henrik]

thanks for the opinions and advice. i didn't make it clear, but there's no way i'm jumping into the deep end of the pool right away here. i just wanted to make sure before i started making little test games to learn an engine that the engine i'd chosen could handle what i want it to do. hate to spend a year or so learning and then finding out it can't!

[tlaero]

If you learn to code, anything is possible...

One of the advantages to doing HTML + JavaScript is that the skills you learn are transferrable elsewhere. That's less so with Rags or TADS or Adrift.

Tlaero

[jfrancois323]

By the way, Tlaero, this question is for you. As the creator of your platform, you got the knowledge to answer it ; Is it possible to install a password system like the one in Rivalries ?? If it is possible, it could add a far better possibilities of games play ??

[Squeeky]

WhOh!

Shark's Passwords? While there instances where Shark has employed passwords to enable one to bypass prior gameplay I do believe that the discussion incorrectly focuses upon Shark's help words, the words up until now are of 5 letters, and which when typed give the player a prompt.

This needs to be addressed properly.


(I did post the exact same text about this somewhere else).

[jfrancois323]

WhOh!

Shark's Passwords? While there instances where Shark has employed passwords to enable one to bypass prior gameplay I do believe that the discussion incorrectly focuses upon Shark's help words, the words up until now are of 5 letters, and which when typed give the player a prompt.

This needs to be addressed properly.


(I did post the exact same text about this somewhere else).

No, it was not the subject. The subject was to know if in the Adventure Creator, it was possible to introduce password to give the chance to make game with different starting point, depending of what you did in the previous game. Shark games password example was only to help me explain my point !!

[Squeeky]

I did not confuse the subject which you were addressing but bringing to your attention that what too many refer to as Shark's "passwords" are in fact "Help" words and not intended to navigate through a game other than that instance to which it is applied.

[tlaero]

With sufficient skill, just about anything is possible. I haven't put anything in AC to make password saves easy, but it's certainly possible to add such a thing. I'm personally not a fan of them, though. You have a few design choices and I don't like what they do to your game. For instance, say you want the passwords to be English words. That means you have to create a save for each password. And that means one of the three is true:
1) You have to do a ton of passwords to cover all the different possibilities.
or
2) You have to have fewer possibilities
or
3) You have to have passwords that don't necessarily reflect what the player did.

I don't like 3 or 2, and time spent doing 1 is time I could have spent doing another scene. Which is more important, another sex scene or the ability to type in a password? Etc.

Tlaero

[Morgwen]

1) You have to do a ton of passwords to cover all the different possibilities.

Only if you want to add a password after every step... a password for every section woudldn´t cost much time ( 3- 4 per game). Its annoying when you have to walk through the whole game only because you made one false step at the end.

[jfrancois323]

I did not confuse the subject which you were addressing but bringing to your attention that what too many refer to as Shark's "passwords" are in fact "Help" words and not intended to navigate through a game other than that instance to which it is applied.

Well, maybe it was my mistake, but they help you "pass" a hard part of a game !!

[jfrancois323]

With sufficient skill, just about anything is possible. I haven't put anything in AC to make password saves easy, but it's certainly possible to add such a thing. I'm personally not a fan of them, though. You have a few design choices and I don't like what they do to your game. For instance, say you want the passwords to be English words. That means you have to create a save for each password. And that means one of the three is true:
1) You have to do a ton of passwords to cover all the different possibilities.
or
2) You have to have fewer possibilities
or
3) You have to have passwords that don't necessarily reflect what the player did.

I don't like 3 or 2, and time spent doing 1 is time I could have spent doing another scene. Which is more important, another sex scene or the ability to type in a password? Etc.

Tlaero

But the password could refer to the variable use in the game, for example ; if a variable refer to like/dislike about you. One password will bring her happy, while another one bring her angry to see you.