Incubus Island Monthly Goal #3

It's June already! Lets go over the goals I set for May and see how I did:

1) Create the buy/sell interface

Crafting interface. Currently all the

craftables are shoved into a single

screen, so forgeries and other data

items are alongside chems and drugs,

tech-based creations etc. Will split

these up, eventually.

I have created such an interface. The buying prices are calculated based on the player's barter skill, as are the selling prices (obviously, the barter skill is irrelevant in cases where you're buying from vending machines). Moreover, for all items there will be a bulk purchase option, enabling further savings. In the item database, every item has a base 'cost' which represents what they are worth in KRED (the post-national currency used in II), from which their sale price and bartered purchase price are derived.

More interestingly, the 'shop interface' can also function as a crafting interface. The player will be able to create items based on items they posses and their level in the relevant skill. I kinda just did this on a whim, but it works almost perfectly. For crafting an item, there are three variables: Ingredients, Requirements, and Skills. Ingredients are self-explanatory; Requirements are the equipment and recipes needed to create the item (ie: possessions that are needed, like Ingredients, but are not depleted during crafting); Skills are the skill levels necessary to craft the item. For example, to produce a poison dart for your dart gun you might need to use some Utaran wasp venom, a dart, have a Chemistry skill of 6, and posses the Poison Dart Recipe.

2) Start implementing one of the main characters

I didn't do this at all. All the scenario/event based stuff I did was to test everything else here, and aside from building her location and creating her NPC data, I didn't really create anything to do with her story. I gotta own this, I failed to reach my goal here.

Objective: Failed

3) Health, Stamina, 'Mana', and other formulas (XP, skill level, etc)

Done. Here are a few of the formulas (LV is the player's Level, E is Endurance, S is Strength, A is Agility, I is Intelligence, P is Perception) (points for whoever guesses what RPG franchise I'm inspired by here):

Max HP (Health Points) formula is   E*2+S + LV*(E/2+2)

Max SP (Stamina Points) formula is   E+A + LV*(A/2)

Max MP (Mana Mental Points) formula is   I*2 + LV*(P/2)

For XP/Level and Skill/Skill Level, the formulas are a little more complicated, and I'll probably tweak them a lot as I go. The main point is that unlike in IC where you'd gain 1 skill level for every 5 points of whatever skill XP (sex/brutality/incubus/hypno), in II each successive level requires more skill XP. This is closer to how most RPGs function. 

Every level increase increases your maximum this-and-that as the formulas indicate above. I also have it so every nth level you get a perk point, though there's no way to spend them yet. The player levels up when they sleep - this is a thing from older RPGs I've played, and I rather like it. Makes the chracter's growth feel realer somehow, like it's a function of literal experience rather than numbers going up.

4) More consistent aesthetic

Done. It's actually a little too consistent right now, but that's an easy problem to solve if it annoys me.

5) Equip-able items (clothing for now).

Clothes are now equippable. I've made it so you can change clothing at home and other fixed locations (in a changeroom for example). It's incredibly easy - in fact requires no additional programming at all - to add extra clothing types (right now I have 'outfit' for general clothing, 'accessory' for things like sunglasses, and 'alternate' as a slot for the item you'll keep handy to change into when required, ie swim suit, scuba gear, things like that), the game will automatically know based on a clothing item's subcategory. Like if an item's subcategory is 'hat' then a hat slot will be created on the character's data as soon as he tries on the item.

Other Things I Did

Scheduler - I had an event delayer already made, but now everything can be created according to a schedule. It's also able to do all kinds of other things. In IC, if you got a follow-up text message, or if there was an article or whatever about what you did, you'd potentially get it immediately. The only thing delaying it is if there were too many other such items in the queue, or by random variance. I want to have this work properly this time around.

Some of the triggers will be automatic. For example, if you murder someone, there will be a news item automatically generated about their death that will come in a couple of days. 

<<schedule news "Tonight on the news, bla bla bla.|But first, local man claims bla bla bla.|Then some other thing." 5 >>

This creates a TV news segment will, after 5 days, appear the next time the player watches TV. The pipe character ('|') separates the two anchors's dialogue. I use this type of string a lot to create 'quick conversations' the game will reinterpret and format properly when it uses it. 

<<schedule socialmedia "Did you see about that thing that happened?|The thing with the guy and the girl?|Yeah, that!|Yeah! So fucked up!" 2 >>

This creates a conversation witnessed on social media, which the player can come across if he goes online in 2 or more days. 

<<schedule email "There is no subject line here.|I'm writing to tell you that not much thought was put into this example email. Also, I think I'm pregnant.|Jane" 21 >>

This creates an email the player will receive in 3 weeks. 

<<schedule delivery suntanlotion 4 >>

You can order items and have them delivered to you. This is how I would tell the game to deliver some suntan lotion to the player's appartment, to arrive in 4 days. 

<<schedule event horsepunch_weeklater 7 >>

This cues up an event called 'horsepunch_weeklater', which happens 7 days hence. I assume this randomly named event would deal with the aftermath of that time the player punched a horse. 

<<schedule hookup teacher >>

Here's a hookup being scheduled with the 'teacher' character. Which leads to...

Hookup system - I made a 'booty call' system in IC, and this is this game's equivalent, except it's better in every way because it's affected by skills and decisions. If she's a character you want to keep in your contact list (and improve your relationship with, for whatever reason (ie. so she'll be your gf, so she'll work for you, etc)), you can choose to prioritize her pleasure; if she's a pump-and-dump you can treat her poorly and possibly make her angry. You can slip off the condom without her noticing if you're stealthy enough, or coerce her into letting you not use one - again, options that risk worsening or terminating your relationship with her.

Storage - I created a storage interface for depositing and retrieving items. Simple enough. Player can store goods at home, possibly other locations. Might be a maximum capacity if at any point there seems to be a point. 

I also made a bunch of items

June's Goals

1) Implement one of the major characters - I failed this one this month, would like to get it done.

2) Finish off the content I've put in so far - To test ideas I've put in some scenes, but a few have yet to be finished. It's a thing that builds and is at the back of my mind, all these loose ends that need to be tied, tasks that need to be checked off my list. Time to do them. 

3) Create places and contexts and start putting content into them - I have content mostly completed for a variety of circumstances that don't exist yet. I will create those circumstances. For example, there's going to be a way to meet girls online on various dating platforms (it'll be nothing like the version of this in IC, I promise!). I have some of the content made for these girls (it's not madlibbed like in IC), so I want to create the dating interface so that I can put the content into the game. 

4) Create 2 scenarios. - I keep getting ideas and shelving them for later. I'll unshelve two and write/code them.

Previous Poll - Favorite Wedding

Enough votes to look at this. I'm a tad surprised to see Shinoa's ending in there, but I'm even more surprised by O'Shay's ranking. I didn't think her marriage ending was that interesting, though someone suggested that it was a fondness of Molly Jane that put her high in both this and the ending rankings. The mother/daughter being in the top 5 suggests I should stay the course on that kind of content for II.

I prefer O'Shay's Dirty Cop ending to her Marriage ending, so that's the one that's gonna be canon.

Next Poll - ???

I was trying to find a poll system that would let me do more interesting polls that would gather various numerical ratings (i.e. "On a scale of evilness between 1 and 100, where 1 is being rude to someone and 100 is cold blooded murder, how do you rate the following actions:") but to do that I'd have to sign up for some massive survey thing and learn how to use it. 

This leaves me without an idea for a poll at the moment, I'll post one if/when I think of one.