manyeyedhydra
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Prototype game loop of "House of Hellish Harlots"
🕑 Added 2019-10-03 19:39:20 +0000 UTC"Enthusiasm time" has been... quite productive.
I liked the idea I had for "House of Hellish Harlots", but wasn't sure if I could sling it together in Twine. It isn't just a typical branching story with the odd stats check, so I knew I needed to dig into objects, arrays, and various bits of 'proper' coding. None of this is overly complex, but for someone like me who is more used to languages like C# and Java, Twine definitely has some quirks with how it handles objects and functions.
The nasty one is that it's not always clear whether you're working with an object or a copy of that object. That distinction isn't so important when displaying values, but when you want to change the value of a property (such as whether a harlot has been visited or not), you definitely need to be altering the original, not a copy. Otherwise you end up with bugs that are a bastard to track down.
I did debate whether or not to include the current progress version with this post. It's very much a skeleton prototype, so it will look very slight. The current list of harlots I'm using are placeholders with barely a sentence describing them. Most of the code is currently under the surface. I have the harlot template in place. I also have a "scoring" system (hidden) and a few other things such as player stats and gifts (these were originally just strings, but I wanted to vary the selection, so they've become an object type in their own right).
I suspect the most complicated part of the game is the code picking out the 3 harlots for the player to choose from. While there is a random element, I didn't want it to just be select 3 harlots at random every round. There is a progression system (hidden and secret), and for the player to have a chance of uncovering it, I needed to seed the selection process so that some of the choices would be "correct". I also wanted some representation of difficulty - easier harlots more likely to appear in the earlier rounds, with harder harlots requiring more prerequisites to survive showing up later.
So I came up with an algorithm, and then wrote a whole bunch of test code to make sure it was working the way I wanted it to. Which it appears to be. This I'm happy about as it's probably the first major hurdle to get over.
Don't get too excited about "playing" this. As I said earlier, it's just a skeleton - pretty much a proof of concept to give an idea of how the main game loop will function.
My plan once I had the skeleton in place was to start writing proper scenarios (with all the lovely sex stuff) and adding them. I think that might be the next step - start replacing some of the placeholders with a couple of proper scenarios with prerequisites, choices and proper sexy Bad Ends. That will also give a better idea of where the sex content is going to be.
So. Don't get too excited! Still early days, and I need to create an awful lot of monster girls and succubi. (As well as some interesting NPCs.)
Here's a look at the first prototype if you're curious.
-manyeyedhydra
Comments
Many-Eyed Hydra
Pretty much. The player will have to survive a certain number of rounds, but it will be a little more complex than that. The harlots will get more difficult and require more prerequisites to survive in later rounds. I have an idea for a progression system, so there will be more going on that just surviving X random encounters. The Madam isn't about to let anyone leave easily. ;)
ParagonRocky
I like the premise and mechanics. I suppose the goal is to survive until dawn?
Many-Eyed Hydra
Metroidvania would work pretty well. Only monster girl/succubus I know is "Paradise Castle of Repure Aria" (or something like that). I'm pretty bad at platforming in 2D games, so I like the turn-based ones. I wouldn't have the first idea how to make a decent metroidvania. :D
lee@duva
You know Hydra i had a similar idea, to the game your making. It was going to be a Metrovania,that takes place inside a bordello.
