For the sake of argument (game dev)

[Dynamic]

I am curious as to what you guys think.

In the case of a desp themed game (something simple, kind of like Car Trip), what type of girl character would you most like to see?  This is barring of course a customization capability.  Instead, if there were one or two characters available, what type of personality would you like them to have.

Of course, their personality would affect how they react to situations, accidents, etc.

I would make a poll, but I'm not really sure what to put on it.  So, tell me what you think...

[Faust]

Faust would like to see either a Tsundere, who would deny deny deny until it was too late,
A Cheery girl that would whine a bit, but still try to be happy, even if a bit peppy.

and of course, the one girl who wouldn't care, and would just go. XD


This is just Faust though. XP
Faust Figured he'd contribute.

[packrat]

I'd prefer many types:

the shy girl who's afraid to let you know.
the best friend who has no qualms letting you know, but refuses to admit it when other people are around.
the proud girl who would try to hide her desperation simply because she finds it to be a "weakness".
the hyper girl who would break into a full on pee dance if she had to.
the prankster whose bad joke came back to haunt her.
...and the list goes on from there.

[Dynamic]

Hey, thanks fellas.  Of your suggestions, I think I most like the Tsundere and the best friend.  I was thinking about it earlier, and for the sake of my thought processes I settled on the classic 'tomboy' archetype.  I suppose I could easily combing the childhood friend angle with the tsundere angle and get something similar.

I also like Faust's cheery girl suggestion.  It presents a unique challenge (from a writer's standpoint) because I would basically be writing a girl who is lying to herself, while being obviously desperate.  It's an interesting idea.

And of course there's the classic shy girl.  I wanted to avoid that at first because it's just so common.


In case you are curious as to what I am up to, I'm trying to get some coding practice in.  I'm applying for a job at a software developer.  They are looking to hire a C# (C Sharp) programmer.  I'm not terribly familiar with C# or .NET, so I've been studying it over the last week.  It's got a lot of overhead (resources wise), but it's very easy to create windows applications that are fully featured and look pretty.

Anyway, I grew weary of doing little tutorials of things I didn't care about.  I can program, I am well versed in boolean logic, and I want to do something that is both fun and good practice.  So, it dawned on me...

I really can't say how far I'll get with this project as my lull might be over soon, but I am pretty interested in seeing where it goes.  I have it set up right now very similarly to an IM window.  If I can overcome a couple of hurdles, I want to have a game that will play a little like an online RP (even though I hate RPing... with a computer it's different).  The character will say something, or the program will describe their condition.  Then, it moves over to the player's 'turn', where he/she can enter various commands into a textbox.  The commands will of course be simple, such as 'status' or 'ask' and I might even include smilies (like that game Codename: Gordon).

Now the real fun begins... figuring out how I'm gonna code the AI.  I'll keep you guys updated.

Wish me luck.

Edit:

Hey fellas.  I have been looking this over, and since I kind of want to tell this as a story (rather than just a looping event), I have decided it will probably be easiest to just make it like a choose your own adventure story.  It's a fairly straightforward thing to code, but it perhaps doesn't allow for as much variation.  I'm trying to figure out ways to make each decision affect the outcome of the story, but it's gonna be trial and error here.

I started writing out the scenario.  Originally, I was going to go with the whole 'car trip' thing, but I decided that's kind of overplayed at the moment.  That doesn't mean I won't do my own version in the future, though.

So, I just kind of started free writing, and this is what I came up with.

Maze Maze

A corn maze near Halloween.  It's a maze that is notorious for taking several hours for patrons to complete.  Some people cannot even find their way out, and need to be helped by security.  Your best friend Madison of course sees this as a challenge.  Oh, Madison, but you have such a poor sense of direction.  Of course, you'd never admit it, and you would give me a beating for pointing it out.  Madison, Madison... one of these days that stubbornness is going to get you into trouble...

So, what think you, men?  I'm not sure how interesting I can make this, but it seems like a fun start.

Edit some moar:  Oh, forgot to mention, I'm going with Faust's Tsundere suggestion here.  Deny deny deny until it's all too late :3

[Ambrose]

personally i like it most when theres a competition between an arrogant and one shy girl (with a secret huge bladder), the arrogant girl thinks shes the best, but ofc ends up loosing with great humiliation.

Ah thats the stuff....

[Dynamic]

Hmm, come to think of it, I have been going about this with the idea of a boy and a girl.

Maybe I should try to keep it ambiguous?

[Faust]

Faust is glad his suggestion was taken. ^^ He is always glad to help. ^^

Faust thinks the choose your own adventure thing would be wonderful~~ It allows you to not only end with different events, but can lead to even more options on what happens during. ^^

*ex: At the beginning, you could add in a bit that simulated turning it into either wetting, messing, or both*

And of course, affecting the outcome. ^^

Faust can't wait to try it out, Dynamic. ^^

[Dynamic]

Thanks for your support, Faust ^^

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about messing/scat, but if there is enough desire for it I will find a way to add it in.

As for the game itself, at the present state, the prototype is little more than a procedural succession of events.  While adding variations to it would be very easy, that would still only allow for a few different possibilities.  I did say it was a choose your own adventure kind of thing, but I really don't want it to be so rigid.

While I feel that my current skills allow for more than that, I was at a loss of how to add more functionality (or, you know, make if more of a game than just an interactive story that has set endings).  Right now, I am working on ways to make it more interesting.

So far, I have come up with a way to programmatically simulate a simple maze, and allow the player (or AI) to stumble through it.  Since this is currently all text-based, making the maze too complex would make it far too difficult to navigate, so I'm keeping it very, very simple.  It's based upon a 20x20 grid, and the program (as planned) will present the player with options given where they are.  If anyone wants to know how this works (or how I am planning it will work) in code, it will basically reference two arrays of values.  Each will have 20 elements, which will represent a coordinate on the grid.

From there it will use a process very similar to a sorting algorithm to check the squares ahead of the player's party on the path (by referencing a variable that controls the 'direction' the player is 'facing').  Each turn, the player will attempt to move three squares (too keep it from being terribly long), and in game a certain amount of time will pass.  If the program encounters a barrier (by looking ahead in the list of coordinates) it will present the player with the choice (left or right).  However, depending on how assertive the AI character is (and her current emotional state) she may make the decision on which way to go on her own.  Since the character I am currently working on (see my previous posts) is fairly stubborn, but has a poor sense of direction, it will likely result in the player getting increasingly more lost.  However, as she becomes more and more desperate, she will be more receptive to the player's input.  You can then choose to help her get out on time, or steer her terrible wrong.

The AI itself will be based upon a few simple attributes (such as how full her bladder is, emotional state, etc) that will control her replies.  I'm not sure how I'm going to implement her dialogue just yet, but it may be as simple as a ton of simple pre-scripted statements.

I'm hoping that by this method you can truly have a lot of different possibilities.  As some parts of the maze will have different affects on the girl (some areas are darker, or colder), the girl's level of desperation will be dynamically affected by the path you have taken.  It will also be affected by how many dead-ends you run into.  So, for instance, if you run into a lot of dead ends one after another, she might get frustrated, or even upset.  This could affect her ability to hold out.

So, any suggestions?  This is all just a prototype, and most of it is just pseudocode at the moment.  Right now all the program can do is just list what's going on and accept input from the player in the form of commands.  This is the time to add suggestions if you have 'em.

Also, hey, now that this seems to be a real project (compounded by the announcement of the indefinite delay of the other game we were all waiting for), you think I should change the topic title?

[Dynamic]

I can double post in my own thread, right?

So, I've been working on this most of the night.  I really should be keeping a log.

Good news everyone, I figured out the maze system.  I ended up having to use a multidimensional array to store values from 0,0 to 20, 20 (I had to make it 20 instead of 19 because it went out of bounds somehow... not sure how but making it 20 fixed it).  I thought "hey, this is a clever way to story my grid in code and make it workable," and, frankly, it is... however....

I then realized I would need to populate a 400 element array... manually!  Well, I figured out that I would only need to populate the tiles that would be part of the path, which drastically reduced my workload (whew) but it was still around 130 coordinates I had to enter.  Well, it didn't take that long.

I then designed a simple algorithm that looks around and determines what are dead ends, and what are passable path tiles.  It then proceeds to move down them.  Well, it worked, but it just kept going back and forth.  I had to add some magic that made it not go back on what it's already been on.  After that, and a few bugs caused by coordinates I forgot to enter, I got a program that is able to get from start to finish all by itself!

So, what does this mean for you guys?  Well, it means this project is moving along nicely.  I got the maze figured out, which means I can implement the functionality I was talking about earlier.

[Faust]

^^

Faust is glad. He can't wait for the finished product, and will be willing to playest it for Dynamic. ^^

Just keep it up.
*thinks it's okay if Dynamic double-posts in his thread*

[kyo]

I think a kind of person where she isn't shy about normal things, but is really shy when it revolves around asking to use the bathroom.

[Dynamic]

I think a kind of person where she isn't shy about normal things, but is really shy when it revolves around asking to use the bathroom.

I think the tsundere archetype fits that rather nicely, actually.

Progress report:  Not much to report.  I have this habit of going on ridiculous coding binges, and then not touching it for a day or so, and then start the process over again.

I had wanted to get this done by Halloween, given the theme, but to be honest that most likely isn't going to happen.  I will be leaving out of town for a few days tomorrow, and will most likely be without web access.  I will, however, have my laptop and plenty of resources so I can continue the development.

[Lisk]

I have this habit of going on ridiculous coding binges, and then not touching it for a day or so, and then start the process over again.

It's called "inspiration". It gives much better results than forcing yourself to follow some schedule. Anyway, good luck with your project. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you.

[Dynamic]

Thank you, Lisk.  I hadn't actually thought about it like that.

Well, I'm back from my trip, where I didn't find time to code at all.  But, I finally managed to find both time and inspiration, and worked on the project a little tonight.

Halloween is way over, but I'm still in the spirit.  Heh.

Tonight I worked on AI.  You guys know what a state machine is?  Well, it's a very basic type of AI.  I decided to use a sort of state machine for this project because it's something I can understand.

So, basically, I'm using states.  It's a little more complex than just 1 or 2 possible states.  Current plans include three sets of possible states.  My current plan has 6 emotional states, 6 physical states, and 3 modifiers.  By taking a combination of these states (for example emotional state 2, physical state 3, and modifier 2) the program will look through the list of possible responses and find the one that corresponds.  It's a very, very simple method with one drawback that is also a plus depending on how you look at it.  On the one hand, it makes for a lot of permutations that I have to write.  On the other, it means there is going to be a lot more variety.  It just means I have to write a couple hundred different responses.  That's actually not all that daunting (but it will take time).

This gets exponentially more complicated the more possible states I add.  If I decide to do messing, then it will add a whole new dimension, so I think I'll stick with just wetting for the first release.  That way there IS a release.

Since this is all text based it's not that big of a deal though.  It's not like I'm recording dialog and making animations (though I wouldn't be opposed to that sort of project in the future.. but that's more than one man can tackle).

Right now I'll just be happy if I can get all these different things together under one GUI.


Now then, I need some advice.  Like I said before I have a pretty firm grasp of how boolean logic works, and am a somewhat experienced programmer.  However, I have almost no knowledge of visual rendering.  I have a book on OpenGL, but it's a bit advanced for my current knowledge of Windows API programming (In C++) so I can't use it quite yet.  This is why everything is currently text based... I can do text.  Especially using .NET... making a GUI is easy.  Still though, this game requires some direction from the player.  It's a maze, after all.

So, I'm considering ways to make this work.  I have basically limited the maze to a simple grid system that uses x and y coordinates.  I was thinking, since .NET makes it so easy to do things like display images in the program, I could include a map.  That way, the game can tell you that you are at coordinates (x,y) and you can look at the map and see where you are.  The game can also tell you which direction you are facing (N, E, S or W) so you can get your bearings.  Then, you can make decisions based on that.  I think it would work, but I want a second and third opinion.

I think I'll add to the premise that the player has a cheat sheet, but the girl won't listen to him anyway.  Not until she starts getting desperate, at which time you can choose to mislead her or attempt to rescue her.

Also, I have heard mixed feelings about this in the past in other threads, so I gotta ask: do you want to know her current state?  I know some people like it to be conveyed indirectly through the context of the dialog, while others like it spelled out for them.  I was kind of thinking about implementing two commands, 'ask' and 'status' that the player can use.  Ask would basically ask the girl how she is, and she can reply based on her state (aw man, more writing).  Status is the player's own observations of the girl.  So, it will return what you 'see.'  Which is even more writing, but it sounds fun to me.

The alternative approach is a simple readout that shows the player the girls exact stats.  How full she is, her emotional and physical state, etc.  That would be much easier to implement, but would it really be as fun?  You tell me.

So, until next time fellas.

[Dynamic]

Hey fellas.  I just wanted to post an update saying I'm still here.

I haven't been working on the project a whole lot as I have been pretty busy.  I'm even busier now, but the two goals actually coincided.  I'm practicing my C# and OOP skills for a job interview on Thursday (wish me luck!).  What better way to practice programming than to find a way to relate it to female desperation?

Nothing terribly fancy today.  I just wrote a program that initializes a 'Girl' object.  You can enter any name you choose, and the program will build a girl with random stats.  They are just numbers right now, but I intend to use said numbers to define traits.  For instance, I have one value for personality type.  It generates a number between 1 and 4, which correspond to the 4 different personality types I am playing with.  My next objective is to take the values and program a method that dynamically builds a description for the girl.  It will be in paragraph format, kind of like describing a character in a story.  It will probably be mostly the same syntax-wise for each girl generated, but it will have different information.  I am confident I can build something that simple at least.

I'll keep you guys posted.

PS, I'm still waiting for some suggestions from that prior wall of text I posted.  I know it's tl;dr, but I could really use the insight.