Comments - TabKey

Hey Pabo, thank you for the comment. I've been meaning to make a developer blog explaining *exactly* how the procedurally generated story works. I think it will answer a lot of questions for a lot of people. Stay tuned; I'll get it out soon. :)

Thank you!

Hey ENP, thank you for your comment!

While I definitely feel the procedural story is a huge risk, I think it's a venture that needs to be made. A risk with high success/high reward, or huge failure/no reward.

We're hesitant to completely reveal the story-telling engine just yet, but rest assured the plot is solid. We're generating guided stories with a lot of reasoning behind them, not completely randomly insane ones that don't make sense. The procedural aspect of the story is unfortunately hard to explain, but we hope our demo will do all the talking for us.

Thank you for your continued interest. The community's support is what motivates us to keep going strong!

Thank you! We hope you'll like what we have in store!

Thanks, Muffin! I definitely agree; that's why we set out to make this game! I love horror when it's fresh!

Very cool concept; looks like a lot of fun. Went ahead and voted. :)

This looks really cool; I love the art! I hope you guys make it! :)

This is looking really good. Best of luck as you continue development. :)

Congratulations on doing so well on your Kickstarter! This game looks great! :)

I agree, Muffin. I'm a pretty big fan of the Final Fantasy series, but my enjoyment of the games started to decreases rapidly with XII (I hated the story, loved the combat, which was enough to keep me going I guess). But XIII doesn't have the best story or the best combat; I played through five hours of shiny graphics and an AI which knew to pick better moves than me, so really my only role in the game was just running from fight to fight.

I also agree that Kingdom Hearts 1.5 is going to be worth picking up.

Congrats, thedaemon! Getting to the working alpha state is a big step on any game project. Best of luck!

Thanks Pabo! :) We brainstormed bunches of ways to make the system work before finding a decent solution! It requires a lot of writing and careful game design, but the payoff will be great (or so we hope). I'm glad you mentioned dynamic systems, because really, that's what our conversation nodes are all about. Thank you again for your comment! I hope part 2 is worth checking back for!

Thank you for your comment! The idea behind procedurally generated writing is not an easy one, that's for sure, but we're working day and night to make it a reality. If it works (And we're confident it will), it will be pretty cool, we think!

Yes! I sent my notes in a private message! Thanks again for making this available to play! It's a great concept and was a lot of fun! :)

The prototype looks good!

Parts of the story are generated when started, like the general plot line, character roles and goals, initial clue locations, and the like. Some things stay static, like the overarching plot and the roles each character play, but things like NPC goals and the locations of certain clues change based on how you play. The goal of the writing engine is to make the game feel as "real-life" as possible.

As an example, say there is a cultist (but you don't know he's a cultist), who is very sure his plan is going to work out. Therefore, his demeanor toward his guests will be lax, and you won't see him doing anything shifty. Now say you collect a couple of clues and create the knowledge that a cult is afoot (gasp!). If you (the player), say...ask the cultist about some of the clues you found, thus letting him in on the fact that you know about his cult, he may vaguely answer your question, but then disappear after. At this point, clues may start to go missing, and the countdown clock for you getting anything useful starts to dwindle, merely because you were naive enough to tell a cultist your notions (clearly you didn't collect the clues that implicated him).

So, A LOT of things change during play based on your actions. It's all about what you do, and I won't lie, we're making it hard--believable--but hard. Detective work isn't easy! Thanks again for your thoughtful questions, and for your interest in our game!

Hi jimothyjim! Thanks so much for your question! We're very excited about the procedural generation of not just the maps, but the writing as well! The most concise way I can answer is to bring up the idea of linear, or even "branching" story telling. Take a game like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, or Deus Ex: HR for example. The player is given choices that when selected, open up a new branch of other choices, like a tree. The idea behind our writing system is to obliterate such (very well executed) simplicity.

Rather than branches of a tree, we like to think of dialogue and stories as singular nodes that when strung together with limited yet precise care, can create innumerable possibilities. I know this is somewhat vague (and for that I apologize), but your question has inspired me to use this blog to provide a better answer over time. Because of the complexity of the system it is very hard to explain it all at once, but I will post updates one hefty chunk at a time (also, drawings will really, really help here and I can't seem to provide them in the comments).

Sorry for the not-so-informative response, but hopefully I can get a new blog post up in the next few days!