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

Absolutely fantastic, shar. I really enjoy the dark-cartoon, sketchy theme, like I've told you yesterday.

On more news, I've been doing quite a lot of writing recently. The new Twine adventure offers a lot more options, more freedom, secondary tasks/events, some level of environment examination, etc., so that takes quite a lot of work to create. Still, on a more positive note, I believe all of that makes the game richer and more RPG-like. I'm really having fun with our fourth interactive story, and Twine will offer all our readers much smoother navigation, as well as an interactive story with more depth than previous ones.

 

Just wanted to let you guys know that it might really be a while before the next one is out. I'm currently busy, as I've started an intership; I literally haven't dedicated any time to YAS these last weeks. Nonetheless, we already have the system set, I just need to keep on writing the story now.

And we need more Shard's art too.

 

This is in the wrong section of the forum right?

 

Other:More hylotl(yes I expect you to make up the lore because the lore in the last 2(only played 2 so far) is AMAZING)

 

Hehe, I honestly haven't touched the Hylotl much yet because we barely know anything about them. I don't want to take a completely different road than the one Chucklefish has planned.

Having said that, you play as a human character in the fourth story. Their "lore", if you can call it that, is simply the generic futuristic human theme you can find in games and movies (only set in the Starbound universe). I think it works, though if Chucklefish has something else planned, I'll try to incorporate it too.

 

Right-o, I'm bringing up a major news update --> As I was lying in bed yesterday not falling asleep ( ), something came to my mind: I gave it some thought and I feel that this fourth Human YAS story I was creating was becoming too much unlike Starbound. Honestly, it was starting to remind me of a Quentin Tarantino film in some ways (set in a futuristic universe), with an odd story, and very much unlike Starbound overall. To sum it up, if the race names were replaced, it could have been anything else very easily.

Another thing was that the system might have gotten riddled with too much information. There were six classes, three skills (which you could be of low, medium, or high level, depending on your class), and a health system. While coding via Twine could take care of the annoyance of keeping track of things, I still felt it was almost a bit too serious for what it was, so I feel that I should tone things down a bit to a more feasible level; where things are still fun, but less intimidating (therefore, more appealing).

I believe our three first adventures are more loyal to Starbound, and I'd like to keep that vibe. The point of these story games are to be set in the Starbound universe, and of course have some similarities to it, including world interaction. I'm already having some ideas on what to write about next, quite possibly an adventure where the player is a Glitch, and I'll definitely be more careful in order to keep a proper Starbound vibe, and avoid getting off-track like last time.

Thanks for reading. Suggestions, comments, are more than welcome.

PS: I'll try to incorporate more freedom/mobility, like the poll results have shown. It'll be easier with Twine.

 

Once Starbound releases and we have access to the full history of the races, I kinda want to see a Mass Effect-esque story, with the main character gathering up a squad of all the other races to stop some big unknown threat. Would be neat.

 

So it's an anthology of choose-your-own-adventure novellas. Hm.

 

In the Starbound universe, yes.

The first two story-games are more in the classic genre of the player by himself having to survive a specific scenario, while the third one employs a class-system and a bit more of tactical choices.

The goal of the fourth now is to have some more freedom of choice (though the previous adventures had some), and still have a class system alongside it. Not to mention Twine makes it much more easier to navigate.

 

Just a thought about the class system:

I'm not a huge fan of choose-your-own-adventure novels, but when I was younger I once read one in which the reader had to keep a tally in different columns to keep track of things they've achieved, and depending on these tallies they might not have certain options available. It could easily be adapted to match the class system you described.

For example, attempting to be sneaking when it is easy might still be successful even for an inexperienced thief, and even if you fail it would add to your experience as a skillful sneak. If you've made enough of these attempts prior to a more difficult challenge and your tally is above a certain amount for the task, then you'll have that option open to you and/or actually be able to succeed at it.

It's just a way to allow players to be more rounded out, and possibly requires them to cautiously assess the difficulty of each option and how skilled they are at it instead of just knowing that sneaking will be successful if they are a thief and not successful if they are a warrior.

You could also use this system to allow for wounds, like if your thief snags his arm on an exposed nail or something while fleeing or your warrior takes a hit during a fight. The thief might be able to win a fight but takes more wounds than a warrior, and a warrior might be more fatigued while trying to escape. After taking many wounds, you become less likely to succeed at tasks, and some situations cause you to lose or even die from having too many wounds.

To be clear, this would take the form like this:
Section 2d: You are attacked by a guard in situation X and just took a wound (add 1 tally to wounds).
>If you wish to escape and have more than Y tallies for thief, skip to section 3f. (success, you skillfully escape regardless of your condition)
>If you wish to escape and have less than Y tallies for thief, and also have less than Z tallies for wounds, skip to section 3g. (success, but you take another wound during your clumsy escape)
>If you wish to escape and have less than Y tallies for thief, and also more than Z tallies for wounds, skip to section 3h. (failure, you take two additional wounds and die if your wounds are above ten, and if you survive you are sent back to this same situation (section 2d) because you failed to escape.
>If you wish to stay and fight (similar format compared to the above options for fleeing).

It's a lot more complex and makes it harder to tell a story, but is better for action sequences.

 

This is a very interesting method, so thanks for sharing. I'll give it some serious thought to consider how it could be employed, though Twine will make it much more accessible than regular writing already, especially in keeping track of the tallies you've mentioned. With Twine, the program can automatically register your progress (depending on the coding), so if this method is used, the options can be simply "Escape" or "Fight", with Twine figuring out your tallies on the different sections and taking you to the proper place. I just need to make sure everything is still welcoming to the player, so that users don't feel pushed away by too much/odd information. I felt that I made that mistake during the production of the human story-game, which was never finished, and I'm being careful not to do so again. That shouldn't be a huge the issue in this case, though. Well, I'll definitely be thinking about this. Thanks again.

In regards to the class system, it will likely not be a thief and a warrior this time around. At least that's not what's planned for now.

 

Thank you for your suggestion, DeadlyLuvdic. I've used it as inspiration to develop a new gameplay system.

As it is right now, the player may select one of two classes. To determine how strong your character is, you have your level of Power. Basically, the value of your Power represents how good you are at your specialization. That value may be increased through training, experiences, better items, etc. It may also be decreased in specific occasions.

To quote from my current introduction:
"When you encounter class-dependent situations, you are more likely to succeed the greater your Power is. Therefore, not only is it important to select options that correspond to your specialization, but also to have as high level of Power as possible. For example, while a warrior with 12 points of Power may defeat two enemies without breaking a sweat, a warrior with lower Power may be wounded in the combat, or even killed."

In regards to the health system, I'll quote part of the introduction once again:
"Your Status represents your physical integrity. You will start this adventure with a Status of 100. If you are wounded, your Status will be decreased, and you will automatically lose if it ever reaches zero. Your Status may also be increased through different ways, such as by obtaining new equipment."

I like this new method, as it is still somewhat simple, yet a bit more advanced than the third story-game without being too ambitious.

 

I understand this is a triple post, but it was called for.

Welcome to the You Are Starbound team, Nababoo!!!

I'm glad we're working together. I've also updated the team in the OP with your profile, in case you haven't seen it yet. Let's get crackin'. ^^

 

Greetings, everyone. I'm very happy to announce that the fourth YAS has been finished. You may access the topic right here or in this thread's OP. Note that this was not the fourth the team was working on: This was something solo I just felt like putting out there.

While I did use Twine, I decided to keep the gameplay simple, so health points, skills, and the class system are not present in this one. Nonetheless, I think it delivers: Enjoy, and, as always, feedback is welcome! \m/_

 

It seems we've been featured in this month's SB chronicle! Thank you very much for the recognition.

 

On the topic of 'When Death Looms":

Although the use of twine has smoothed the presentation of the adventure altogether immensely, I feel that 'When Death Looms' really lost something by not including Shardival's artwork.
Other than that, the adventure is an even better read than the last, almost making up for the lost artwork with great imagery.

The paths seemed rather random, at times, such as the choice between the bridge and the cargo hold. There was no real way to tell which one would end up killing you, and one might even assume that there would be more apex on the bridge and teleporter in order to maintain control of the ship, than in the cargo hold, which is full of parts that (I assume) are incompatible with a ship designed by another race. One just had to pick randomly and hope they didn't pick wrong.

The science was also a little wonky. Not sure how the brains were recovered, revived, and re-purposed when they were killed with a bullet wound to the head. (Assuming they were all killed as efficiently as the High-Officer)

The ending was slightly nonsensical, at worst, as he is *still* trapped on a planet with many, many, hostile apex, with no way to escape, and no food, water, shelter, or supplies (Other than a Severed Hand and a Matter Manipulator).
As always, though, the ending connected the whole adventure to the beginning of Starbound, and I hope every race will eventually get their own 'You are Starbound' narrative.

Keep writing, because they keep getting better and better.

-Phoenix

 

Thanks for the nice review!

SPOILERS BELOW


I too did miss Shardival's artwork. The reason there is none in this adventure is because the team has been having some time off, but while on that break I felt the need to create something myself, so I just went for it. Still, I've actually spoken with Shardival a couple of days before releasing the game suggesting that he could make some artwork for it. However, according to his words, he's not been much in the mood for drawing. That's fair enough, we all get our ups and downs, creativity-wise. Nonetheless, there were indeed certain scenes in the game I think would go along nicely with pictures. Shar's a very talented fellow, and I hope we get to use his skills again soon.

Yes, I agree that some path choices were random. Sometimes the player was relying on luck. You also bring up a good observation regarding the Apex in the cargo hold, though we can assume we simply don't know why they'd be there, yet they are. But I'm with ya; some other forum user suggested it as well, I'll try to have future adventures rely less on luck and a bit more on paying attention and being thorough, therefore rewarding people who do exactly that.

It's not mentioned in the story, but the only person killed in such manner (bullet through the head) was the High-Officer, which was why her body stayed behind a while longer until the Apex decided to take it anyways. Everyone else has been killed simply by being shot through the chest, thus leaving the brains free of direct damage. (But yeah, this is all rolling on technobabble ) It may bring up the question, though, as why was the High-Officer executed like that? It could be related to the plan that the crew was hatching together with the Apex, regarding selling the passengers for their safety: As the trap sprang around them, maybe things got heated and, in a fit of emotion, she was murdered in that fashion. I don't want to shield myself too much on the argument that "The main character doesn't know everything that takes place", but that's how it is and there are indeed some things left to wonder.

Regarding the ending, you're correct. My idea was merely to have that starting-Starbound-feel to it, with the Matter Manipulator getting back online and the player with a whole world beside him/her. ^^


Once again, thanks a bunch for your feedback. I'm definitely taking everything I'm being told into consideration for future projects!