"*You Are Starbound* - Story Game Series" --- When Death Looms (4th story released)

The class system worked flawlessly. It was really well thought out. I loved it!

 

I agree! It That gave players more freedom and allow them to play in their style

 

Thank you. ^^ I'm quite proud of the class system myself. Not only is it easy to use, but it adds a whole new "essence" to the adventure, I believe.

Might I ask which class has interested you the most? I've already got a few ideas for other classes for future adventures.

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I'm also messing around with Twine and watching videos to learn how to use it. So far, so good, besides a few setbacks which were gladly surpassed. I just hope we can keep the elements we already have going for us. Should Twine prove to be too limited in regards to them (like the class system), then I might reconsider it. But it is honestly a fantastic program for people with this interest.

Edit: Awesome. I've found out how to use pictures in Twine.

 

So...next YAS might be more " technically advanced"

Wonderful news!

 

I enjoyed the warbringer class, because I knew I could almost always go into a fit of rage and kill everything.

 

Initially, my idea for the classes in this adventure was to have an offensive warrior (Warbringer, which we do have) and a defensive warrior (relying on defense, carefully planned tactics, etc.). However, I realised a defensive type of class might have been a bit odd for Florans, so decided to go with Duskstalker instead.

I'm still unaware of what classes to have in the fourth adventure. I don't even know what it'll be about.


I'm still learning to use Twine. I've got the basics pretty much covered and learn new things every day, though I doubt I'll be able to do as much things as I'd like, such as inventories, since the amount of code there is simply beyond my abilities. We'll see how that plays out.

 

I can say now: it looks great! If everything would go as planned - next story will be made 100% in Twine! It gonna be awesome!

 

Good news! I've figured out how to have the story recognise your own name (after you type it in at the start) and then address you by it. ^^ It's becoming more and more "organic".

 

Apologies for the double post, but I bear new tidings!

After several days learning to use Twine, I believe I've acquired a decent amount of knowledge in order to create a good adventure. We'll be able to have an inventory and character profile that will be available in every passage for the player to check out. The story itself will recognise what you've done and what items you've collected, so you don't need to memorise everything, but it's always good to have that personal list to see your own things whenever you feel like.

Also, I'm considering having a monetary system in the game, which should work fairly easy, though it won't be as easy to implement. Still, it should be a nice addition to make things a bit more engaging.

Moreover, regarding my previous post (the one right above this one), I will not be having that box pop up at the start that allows the reader to insert his/her own name. The reason I'm removing it is that that javascript box always pops up whenever the page is refreshed or if the player clicks the <<back>> button. This means that if you want to check your inventory and click <<back>> afterwards to return to where you were at, the initial box will be prompted again and ask you to reinsert the name. Therefore, I think it'll be best to remove this option for the time being.

It might be possible to have skills, like strength, agility, etc., but I do not think I will be adding those. I like the way things flow at the moment, though I won't say I'll never implement that. We have three classes at the time being, by the way, that sort of work like the player's background as well. I am considering, however, a health system, which could be checked anytime by seeing your profile. Whenever that value reaches zero, you would lose, though I'm not sure if I'll go forth with it.


I'd like to keep things both fairly engaging and accessible, with a certain level of simplicity, so personal skills and health will likely not make an appearance. That's how I feel at the moment. I can't really tell how I'll feel on the morrow.

I'm always open to feedback. If you guys have anything to share, shoot.

 

I have an idea to solve the obviousness of classes.
You could allow the player to choose between the races (Floran, Avian, etc.). The player would have to know what skills their race has.

Example:

The enemies surround you, guns pointed at your head.
pg. 35: Put your hands up and surrender.
pg. 36: Attempt to escape.
pg. 37: Attack them.

Pg 36 (if you picked Human)
You turn to run, but they quickly pursue you. You hear bullets firing in your direction.
Finally, one hits your leg, and you fall to the ground. Your scream is quickly silenced by another hit to the head. Game over.

Pg 36 (if you picked Avian)
You start to raise your hands, making them think you're about to surrender. But you quickly hit a button on your armour, and take to the skies.
The built-in jetpack rockets you skyward, and you take one last glance at the enemies below you, desperately firing to no avail.
Go to page 38.

 

Woah... The next YASSGS is going to be epic!

 

The way our YAS stories are conceived usually revolves around an already fixed race. I'd rather save the skills for the classes.

That's the plan. Though I can already tell it'll be a greater burden to produce. Should take longer than the previous adventures as well.

 

Aww, too bad. I'm still excited about the story though!

 

But like other people said, it's just way too obvious. If I pick the strong class, I know that I can probably win fights with people.
Maybe you could have multiple characters with different personalities, and you learn about their personalities during the game.

E.g. "You see a group of enemies, and fight the urge to run away."
This tells you the character you picked is scared of fighting, and probably isn't a good fighter.

 

I'm not a big fan of characters with pre-made personalities. I'd rather keep that part somewhat neutral so the player may fill it as he/she pleases. Nevertheless, there are three classes at the moment to choose from, which will make the path slightly more objective. In other words, you'll have to bear in mind what class you are so that you may act accordingly, though, admittedly, I'm finding it quite challenging to implement three classes, rather than two. But we'll see how that works out.

Also, your character type does not affect your personality, per say, meaning that there will often be speech choices (polite vs rude, for instance) that are independent from your class.

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As mentioned, I've been thinking about a skill system, something simple like Might, Dexterity, Wisdom (with values, like Strength: 10, Dexterity: 8, Wisdom: 5). Then you'd have to consider your skills when making choices, rather than the class itself. It wouldn't be too hard to implement, to be honest, but I'm still on the fence about that. It is a system I used before creating YAS stories and I believe it worked quite well. It'd be even more accessible via Twine. But I think people would rather select a class and stick with its style rather than a skill system. Unfortunately, I'm unable to re-make a poll to find out, so we'll see how it goes.

Edit: I could also have both. Choosing a class would define your initial skills and then those figures could be altered throughout the game. For example, choosing a warrior would grant a character with more strength than the other options. This is viable, but if people would rather a smooth read, then I believe just classes is the way to go. I'll have to figure that out.

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Good news now: The monetary system is operational and works quite well. I'm not having too much trouble with code, but rather with conceiving text and the story itself. (Besides the above paragraph, of course)

 

Just a sneaky peek at our Profile and Inventory, how it looks like at the moment. You may access it in every passage after the introductory ones. It may still be altered.

 

I would recommend making the character profile page an option on the left with the StoryMenu passage. That way you don't have to clutter up the actual story passages with it. It would have the disadvantage of being able to look at it before making your character, but that doesn't seem to be much of an issue to me.

Just a thought.

 

That was the sole reason I didn't go with it. Edit: I might still have the inventory on the left, though. This is all pretty much a semi-experimentation phase of sorts at the moment.

Thanks for the feedback.

 

Greetings, everyone.

Just bringing you a news update:

- We'll be having six classes/backgrounds instead of the announced three. The six classes have already been figured out, by the way. Anyways, every class has three skills, namely Combat, Cunning, and Tech-Knowledge. However, the expertise in those skills differs among the classes. I.e., class A may have High Combat Level, Average Cunning Level, and Low Tech-Knowledge Level, while class B may have Average Combat Level, Low Cunning Level, and High Tech-Knowledge Level. To sum it up, each class will have a high skill, an average skill, and a low skill.

Unlike our previous adventure, when there is a situation to bypass that depends on your abilities, the game will read your particular skill in that ability, rather than recognise the class itself. This means that more than one class may emerge victorious from a particular moment. For example, (Please note that these classes are only for example purposes) a Warrior and a Knight would share the same High Combat Level, and both classes could win a Combat-dependent situation.


Having a High ability would allow you to successfully complete a task that depends on that ability (Though there may be some downsides, such as some loss of health).

Having an Average ability would sometimes allow you to complete the task, though there would be downsides, like a greater loss of health. Other times, you would simply be unable to emerge victorious and, possibly, die.

Having a Low ability would cause you to fail the task, possibly resulting in death, depending on the event.

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- I have considered using randomisation for our Fourth Adventure (such as, when you walk down the street, it would be randomised whether you'd find John or Paul), but results have proved to be unreliable and sometimes buggy. I had a gambling system set up, a slot machine of sorts, but the amount of cash would just end up changing weirdly when switching between passages, so that's off the table for now. Therefore, I've decided to skip the random-element, and events are set in stone. Nevertheless, there will be more than one path, and Twine allows me to create lots of variety. Having said that, randomisation would also lose its potential during a first playthrough, since players would be seeing things for a first time, and if people would like to do a second playthrough, they may just take a different path and get a different result.

 

Hi all. Got concept picture for YAS4.

Hope you like it - more tomorrow