Quest Failed: Chapter Two - Dev Log #99
Added 2019-08-20 23:31:30 +0000 UTCHiya there, guys! Don't worry, I'm alive~ I realise I'm cutting it close with this dev log and had sort of deviated from the weekly schedule I had set out, but at the current time I feel spacing them out a little more will benefit the content and quality of each log, so that I don't feel like I have to create 'filler' logs to fit the rigorous schedule I had laid out for myself and be able to give you guys a better update of the situation around the game each time.
However--if you feel there's too long a gap between updates and maybe get anxious on being kept up to date on the status of things, feel free to let me know and I'll try to find a middleground--since honestly I get anxious myself when I don't update you guys in a timely manner, and it eats away at me day after day, haha. I know it sounds silly, but I really do fear I might be letting you guys down when I fall behind on things!
Anyways, panic and fear aside--let's get to the meat of the development log! I have a topic I want to talk to you guys about today, and that is: gold! Sweet, sweet gooooold~
I've made a few development log posts in the past discussing the currency system, how it affects gameplay within Chapter Two, and what I hope to gain from its inclusion, but I wanted to discuss it a little more in-depth today and ask you all which direction I should potentially take this system!
It initially existed as a way to give the game more of an adventurous, RPG-like feel, and to bring more weight to specific choices, giving you something of a goal to work towards in certain situations. (Be it working towards June's donation gold tiers or buy items that will aid you in your quests, all while ensuring you have enough to pay for the inn each night.) But the more I progress with this system, the more I've come to maybe realise a flaw--namely that it's too rigid in how it works right now. You get granted a large sum from the Queen, and then that quickly gets whittled away by inn upkeep and miscellaneous items you might need for quests. (Fishing rod, torches, etc.) This quickly outweighs the few chances you might have to actually gain gold yourself, via the few options available to you like rare instances where a character shares gold, or you're able to salvage and sell something you found. So in most cases the gold counter shoots down to zero before you ever know what hits you.
So, the way I viewed it, these were my options to balance the gold situation:
- Adjust the Queen's handouts, either increasing how much she gives you, or insuring she gives you extra spending money at certain story milestones to award you for your efforts. This is a feasible solution, but I'm not sure if we should rely entirely on Deidra's deep pockets! We wouldn't want Matt turning into a spoiled little brat now who gets everything handed to him, would we?
- Adjust how much things cost regarding inn upkeep, church donation tiers and so on. This is also a feasible solution, and something I'll probably be looking at down the line regardless of what I do, tweaking numbers as I gain feedback from people testing the builds and such. Since, gosh, Anna sure does bleed Matt dry! Living in the city is expensive, as he's come to learn firsthand!
- Adjust/add more events where Matt is granted gold. The issue with a game called 'Quest Failed' is that, well... Matt isn't ever going to complete a quest. Meaning even though nice, shiny gold numbers are dangled in front of him all the time, he's never going to increase his funds by taking on a quest. This is a certainty. At least officially on the books. HOWEVER, there will exist a number of events where people may give him some extra gold, be it in exchange for something or just because they're nice like that. These won't be overwhelmingly frequent, however, because it would defeat the point of a gold management system if it just rained gold all the time! Which leads me to my final idea--of which isn't implemented yet, but could become a thing depending on how it's received.
Essentially an idea I've been mulling over as a 'solution to the gold problem is to enable the option to use up a time slot in the day to work a part-time job.
These jobs would be very simple in execution: you simply click the option, watch a cute little animation of Matt working and doing his best, and then your gold count goes up! Opposed to how wordy some of the other scenarios are, this system would be fairly light on dialogue and not feel like a chore to slog through if you did want to get some spare spending money. It wouldn't be treated as something you had to do multiple times over just to survive, but rather something you can click once in a while to up your gold if you're dipping low. Meaning it's fairly painless for me to implement if people liked the idea and wouldn't be anything too expensive to get assets for.
The amount of jobs you could work at any time would be limited to the people you currently know. So as you meet new people and open new shops/places, new opportunities would open. For example some places Matt could work:
- Cleaning at Anna's inn
- Helping Claire to move stock in her shop
- Helping at the blacksmith
And potentially other stuff down the line--with payment directly relating to the character's current affection level with you. So if they like you lots, they pay you more! Simple enough.
This sort of turns into an almost sim-lite sort of VN--and would give you another way to use a time slot if none of the current girls were to your tastes, or were potentially locked behind paywalls.
These side jobs could also essentially illustrate the less glamorous side of being a failed adventurer, doing things that most self-respecting adventurers would never even have to consider, just to put bread on the table. It also ties back to Matt's past life before he started this whole journey, where he would survive by doing odd jobs for people just to keep a leaky roof over his head. As frail and docile as he looks, he isn't a stranger to rolling his sleeves up and getting to work!
Now, all of this isn't to say that gold isn't 100% essentially to completing the game. In fact, you might be surprised by several of the unique events that DO happen if you fail to pay your upkeep--so you'll want to see both sides of the coin regarding Matt's financial situation. Plus--if you so desire, you won't need to ever choose the jobs in any given playthrough. It'll just be there as yet another option!
Anyways, the part-time job system isn't set in stone! It's simple there as a potential solution to something I feared might be limiting to players when managing that shiny gold number. Let me know what you think of the proposed solution, and if you had your own ideas to how we could resolve this! I'd love to hear your thoughts~
Additionally, as a bonus, I've attached a screenshot teasing a scene from the impending alpha build. Things are tense--it seems someone has discovered the camp as Jilly and Tari huddle up behind Ruby in fear! Who could it be? Has someone from Rhan finally caught on to Matt's monster antics?! Ahhhhh! The suspense is killing me!
Also, the next dev log will be the big 1 0 0. No pressure on me or anything to make it something special, huh? Ahhhh! But I'll try my best to have something really awesome to share with you to celebrate the occasion. Maybe I'll hold a vote on what that should be, like unveiling one of the hidden characters officially, or teasing something else! The possibilities are endlesssss!
Thanks again for your continued support guys! Hopefully this was a fun read. I try to avoid too many 'technical' posts in a row since I'm unsure how fun they are for you guys to get a glimpse into my scrambled thinking process, lol--but if they interest you I'll be happy to do more down the line!
Until next time~
Comments
Oh, I'm sure "jobs" would make a perfectly functional gold-getter mechanic; and I understand not willing to complicate things. I am aware that dedicated resource- or time slot-management "VNs" do exist but to be honest I've always regarded them more like their own genre and closer to RPGs or "clickers", neither of which have I been much of a fan. I'm into VNs for the story and the choices I get to make (yeah, I don't much like kinetic novels either). Well, and all the ladies / CGs of course. Managing things for the sake of managing things tends to have not much to do with that. People in real life sometimes regret that becoming senior enough in a job one tends to transition from doing the work one enjoys to overseeing other people doing it - that's how I feel about any games that feature management of adventuring equally or even more prominently than the adventuring itself. Then again, that's just me - to each his own, and as long as some way to fix gold shortages does exist I'm sure the game will work just fine. And I do of course understand that gold and management will definitely be a minor aspect of this specific game, so not something I would have any reason to seriously object to. It's simply that after all these years of playing, certain questionable game mechanics are something of a pet peeve of mine, and I just couldn't keep quiet. I'm sure whatever you end up doing won't in the least prevent me from fully enjoying Quest Failed 2...
Porcupine
2019-08-22 08:17:26 +0000 UTCHiya! Thank you for taking the time to write out such indepth thoughts! I'll try to address your concerns as best I can and hope we can come to an understanding regarding the game's development~ While I understand where you're coming from regarding something that should be sufficiently 'earned' through the player's own skill, unfortunately that may be beyond the scope of a visual novel--or at least the scope of what I was aiming for Chapter Two to be. And that was a visual novel with very light 'sim' and adventure elements of navigating where to go and maintaining very light resources. (i.e gold and a small inventory) To add in additional mini-game mechanics would end up extending the game's development time far more than things are already taking, and may begin to detract from some player's experiences who desired more of a story to read, rather than having reflexes or skills tested. The method I proposed was something of a (hopefully) elegant solution to Matt's stilted gold flow which would allow for the possibility of more gold to pass his hands, while ensuring minimal development time on my end, this late into development. So while it might not have been as flashy, I thought that having a cute little chibi animation of him carrying out some menial task for a moment to get a little boost to his funds might take the sting out of just having to click a menu option. But ultimately, it wouldn't be required at all and could be safely ignored if it wasn't a side of the game you wished to explore. Essentially I was looking to use what lots of sim/stat raising VNs may have used, and assumed it was a similar sort of option--not necessarily flashy, but effective all the same! Though I'm willing to discuss it further if you believed it would be a true issue for the development of the game, and want to make sure people are generally happy with the direction things are taking, since nothing is set in stone yet!
Frostworks
2019-08-22 02:10:12 +0000 UTCYupyup! That was the way I envisioned it after agonising over the gold situation for so long. It seemed like such a simple solution, too, and gives the game an almost 'sim'-like aspect to the VN and adventure elements. And I'd do my best to ensure people never felt pressured into having to min/max the gold, too
Frostworks
2019-08-22 01:56:30 +0000 UTCYeah, haha. That was the one way I was looking at awarding some extra gold here and there--without it feeling too routine at the end of every quest. So most failures would result in 0 gold, but every now and again you might be blessed by the gods of pity. Coo, coo~
Frostworks
2019-08-22 01:52:46 +0000 UTCAt most it'd be selecting an option and seeing a cute little animation that plays out--and I'd try to avoid having anything that's TOO expensive to avoid you feeling like you might be wasting precious time slots on jobs when you could be wooing the ladies instead
Frostworks
2019-08-22 01:51:48 +0000 UTCHahhh, yeah--that was something I was trying to balance out while writing some sub quests. Like even if he failed on a technicality, he might get some amount of pity gold, or someone will give him something that can be exchanged for money. The golden rule would just be that he could never OFFICIALLY complete a quest, or I go against everything QF stands for, haha. So expect lots of "congratulations, HOWEVER" moments. : P
Frostworks
2019-08-22 01:50:57 +0000 UTCI quite like the idea. I’ve played many games with a mechanic such as this and it really just works out for the best. It’s not technically necessary, but it is helpful. Honestly I don’t see an issue with including it and would probably prefer it as a simple solution to a simple problem. Not enough money? Just add a mechanic where you can earn regular cash, simple, efficient, and it doesn’t force the player to use it if they don’t want to.
Dinobro007
2019-08-21 14:03:30 +0000 UTCI strongly dislike this idea. In my opinion click-just-because-you-have-to mechanics have no legitimacy whatsoever without a valid, actual (mini-)game mechanic of their own; that goes doubly for when they only exist to prop up and give meaning to another mechanic (gold). "Go kill fifty rats for five gold" is still a piss-poor mechanic but at least it involves doing what games of that genre (RPGs) are supposed to be about - fighting stuff your stats let you defeat. "Just click this from time to time or else" is much worse by being completely pointless other than being required. I'm not opposed to there being a gold management side to the game, mind you, but if it exists, I'd want to see it tied meaningfully into the game, where it is replenished by some kind of meaningful gameplay. And sure, the need to keep failing makes this somewhat more difficult than usual, especially as keeping it meaningful would nonetheless require the player to succeed at _something_ while nominally still "failing" his quest (if any is involved). I'm not saying it's easy, but I don't think it's impossible either. For instance, there could be some sort of (recurring) quest with a nominal prize that someone else would really prefer to see NOT succeed, paying Matt to accept it but fail at it again and again, thus preventing anyone else from completing it while the quest is nominally "accepted" (perhaps by tying up a unique item in the process); the catch would be of course that nobody would pay a complete idiot to fail at something he's clearly utterly incapable of doing - Matt would need to demonstrate _some level of_ competence (in whatever mini-game you see fit) to credibly pose as a contender worthy of being paid off to throw the game. If the "I'm not really trying" angle clashes with the character, one could even set thing up as Matt genuinely trying to succeed (following the initial offer to fail willingly that Matt would reject), but nonetheless the money mysteriously showing up each time he predictably fails anyway (assuming at least he tried credibly well) - possibly even to his chagrin. But since gold is gold and bills are bills, he'd keep it of course - or maybe this would even give him an even better reason to "give it away for charity" at the church, as he dislikes its origin. Or one could make it a player's choice (in attitude only) - choose to stay the knight in shining armor and keep as little of it as possible or pragmatically embrace your own nature and make a living off your failures willingly... ;)
Porcupine
2019-08-21 10:08:51 +0000 UTCAs much as Mattyboy does fail at his quests, he's also got a preternatural ability to find himself in some really good situations. Stumbling into a "technical" quest completion here and there, insofar as acquiring or otherwise lucking upon some sort of valuables, doesn't seem out of character to me, tbh.
TsunTzu
2019-08-21 05:25:22 +0000 UTC"Stop throwing gold coins at me!" Matty shouts back at the feminine figure, then realizes what he just said. :) "Coins, rocks, same to me," she retorts.
Anthony Docimo
2019-08-21 01:32:31 +0000 UTCtrue, true...but I was unclear, for which i apologize; I was under the impression that Matt's stay at the inn - and ONLY the cost of renting a room - was paid for by the Throne...everything else, from beer to clothes, and supplies and pigeons from pet stores, have to be from his own pockets.
Anthony Docimo
2019-08-21 01:31:00 +0000 UTCThe part time job thing would be a interesting way to add in some more sticky situations for Matt to get into, aslong as it doesn't get grindy would be fine!
Ataraxia69
2019-08-21 01:10:50 +0000 UTCI think changing the cost structure for necessities (such as room and board) would be a viable direction to take as well as adding the odd jobs.Another option is that even though Matt has the tendency not to complete his quests, that doesn't mean that he could not get lucky sometimes and stumble upon a treasure cache with gold and things he could sell. For example encountering a Monster Girl that just happens to have some gold she picked up somewhere, but has no interest or use for.
Michael Vaccaro
2019-08-21 00:40:16 +0000 UTCGlad you enjoyed it! And naw, haha--he's gotta pay and manage his own funds like an adult. I guess it would have been easier if the Queen did finance his stay and save him the hassle of ending up penniless, haha. But where's the fun in that~?
Frostworks
2019-08-20 23:56:50 +0000 UTCthis is a fun post; thanks for the heads-up. I thought Matt's stay at the inn was funded offscreen by the Queen, direct from her to Anna - with none of *that* gold touching Matt's hands. >Has someone from Rhan finally caught on to Matt's monster antics?! Maybe someone thinks that *Matt* is the monster, given how easily he turned back the undead masses.
Anthony Docimo
2019-08-20 23:54:25 +0000 UTC
