Personalising Interactions with the Girls

[DocClox]

Following on from a discussion here, the question is how best to improve interactions between player and his girls.

I'm going to make some fairly specific suggestions and recommendations here. None of this should be regarded as set in stone, and I'd appreciate counter-suggestion and ideas for alternative ways to approach the problem.

With that out of the way, here's a few preliminary thoughts on the subject:

• It's going to have to be script based.
• It's going to have to be done per-girl. We can have some generic ones for the random girls, perhaps
• Interactions are going to be through the talk/interact menu in the dungeon and girl detail
• We can probably implement scripted events, so that girls can take the initiative, even if it's just a popup saying "Flossy Anne want to talk to you when you have a minute. We probably want to keep these rare, or else the player gets swamped with

Some of that is going to need some support coded into the game, which I'm willing to do. Probably bring forward my plans for Lua integration. I'll might also be willing to code up a script or two, just to get people started.

What I'd need is plot and dialogue. I can write, but I'm not too good with romance, and I'm never comfortable putting words into the mouths of other people's creations. So plot and dialog:

The plot has to progess by conversations. Assume for now that you can temporarily insert menu options, or  override existing ones. You'll also need to specify a trigger for the exchange. For instance: Girl been working more than 10 weeks, 5 weeks since last discussion, girl has in her possession a The Seal Of The Great Macguffin, girls is/is no longer a slave. that sort of thing.

If someone wants to write up the dialogue and specify the triggers for a girl, I'll see about enabling it in the game. I might not be able to do everything desired, or everything in the above list - I've not looked at it yet - but I'll certainly give it a shot.

[edit]

cleaned up stray helf-edited sentence at bottom of post.

[Mehzerz]

Awesome Doc. Could you give me an example of a layout you're looking for as far as script submissions go? (Visual person here)
I don't know how much of a writer I am, but I'd like to help out anyway I can.


As far as random girls go, I'm guessing they'll have to be pretty sparse as far as interaction goes when compared to a custom girl. Which I not only expect I'd prefer. It'll add a whole new reason to have custom girls in the first place.
When a girl wants to talk to you (most likely random)

• I suppose she could visit you if she feels like your not paying enough attention to her (could be trait related)
• You've been treating her to harshly, 
• She bought something for you (which depending on what it is you'd give to another girl lol) 
• perhaps she'll come on to you. (Can be dangerous attempt at your life? Depends on girl, traits and feelings toward player. Denying a girl could lead to her being hurt emotionally though.)

I think a girl coming on to you should be done with multiple scripts so it doesn't feel so generic, whether it's a random girl or not.
Would it be mulitple scripts to do something like this? Or would it all be within one script?


Nina Williams has requested to visit you will you see her? 
Choices: Yes - Script continues  /  No - Nina Williams sighs and goes back to her room.
You don't see the harm in letting her in, so you open the door. "Can I help you?" You ask.
"Yes, well.... I've been thinking about you constantly. I can't get you off my mind. I NEED you now." She leans toward you dropping her clothes, she edges closer to you eyes locked onto yours.
(This is where it'll branch off.)
Deny her Normal attempt: You say you're busy and don't have time for personal affairs. She looks away embarrassed, quietly puts her clothes back on and leaves the room. Your guards escort her out.
Deny her Assassination: +80% chance of survival with guards/Combat skills + trait
You say you're busy and don't have the time for personal affairs. She glares at you coldly and angrily. Draws a knife taped from her back and charges at you. Player dies/You call your guards immediately and barely dodge the initial attack. The guards enter in quickly, they try restraining her without harm but she flails wildly and screams obscenities about you. They end up beating her into omission and drag her off to the dungeon unconscious.
Embrace her normal/love/assassination
Blah blah blah.

[necno]

Looking over the triggers many scripted events are already there. They just are not used.

[DocClox]

Yeah, I haven't really looked at this at all. Just trying to get some discussion going. Right now, I want to get people thinking about how to write these interactions, and maybe get some content we can use.

@Mehzerz:

I want to do a bit more work on this, but this is the sort of structure we're going to need. The syntax will most likely be different (and will need tightening up in any case) but this is the level of detail we're going to need

 

Code: [Select]

The sort of scripts we're talking about here can
be thought of as a collection of INTERACTIONS.

Interactions can be EVENTs and DIALOGs. Events are
popup messages shown on the weekly summary screen.
Dialogs are conversations, and may contain player choices

Interactions have CONDITIONs. Events will not be displayed
until their condition is true. A condition might be
employment_time > 5 (can happen any time after the 5th week
since she was bought/grabbed/whatever) or happiness < 30
(kicks in if she gets too miserable.  That sort of thing.
If you leave a condition out, it will always be true.

Each girl has a current interaction associated with her.
If it is an event, it will be checked at each start-of-week
to see if the Event's condition is true, and if it is, the
text gets displayed to the Player.

Each Interaction has a sequence number. At the end of one
Interaction, the girls current interaction moves on to the next
sequence number, unless the script says otherwise.


So:

1: Event
Condition: employment_time > 5
Text: "Nina Williams has requested to visit."

2: Dialog
Trigger: Menu->Ask->"Can I Help You?"
PC: "Can I help you?"
Girl: "Yes, well.... I've been thinking about you constantly. I can't get you off my mind. I NEED you now".
Text: She leans toward you dropping her clothes, she edges closer to you eyes locked onto yours

3: Option
A: Deny Her: "Sorry, babe, I never mix business and pleasure" Goto 4
B: Embrace Her: "I guess I can find time for a little R&R" Goto 5

# Advances denied: 30% she just sulks, 50% waits to try again, 20% violence
4: Random
%20 Goto 6
%50 Goto 7
%30 Goto 8

# Advances Accepted. End event sequence
5: Dialog
Text: "You spend a happy afternoon playing hide-the-sausage."
Goto END

# sulks
6: Dialog
Girl: "Your Loss"
Text: And she scoops up her gown and flounces out of the room
GOTO END

# try again
7: Event



[zodiac44]

I would just like a documented scripting system that is (relatively) easy to read and write.  I suck at writing dialogue, but once we get a decent scripting system (no offense Necno, but I can't make heads or tails of the current one), I'd be willing to help script events.

[letmein]

I'm pretty certain the current one doesn't work anyway, so I doubt he'll be too concerned, z.

EDIT:  and holy cripes, there's a SR. MEMBER level?  Wow...   shiny fourth star, FTW.

[Fstop]

off topic: Hands Shiny Ribbon of Congratulatory Congrats ( +10 Ohh, +5 Awws, +15 Envy)

[zodiac44]

It works - the talk, torture, deadbeat customer, and rivals losing events are all controlled by scripts - it's just a mess.

[letmein]

The SCRIPTS work, but I thought someone a while back mentioned that the EDITOR was screwy.

[delta224]

The editor is clunkly not screwy.  Note, I might work on another method of creating scripts over thanksgiving, since I have no idea how long we are going to be using these scripts.  It will be mainly planning it out and some basic code.  I have a vauge idea of how I want to do it. I will keep you all up on this once I flesh it out more.

[zodiac44]

Yeah, the editor is...special.  Like the kids who rode the short bus to school kind of special.

[delta224]

Special is the right word for it I think.

[EternalEquinox]

I'm pretty good at writing dialog and stories. If you give me a solid way to script i would prolly make interactions for most of the girls i have made and from others. Wouldn't mind doing some for the random girls either. All i need is to be told how to compile it and where to put it. It will give me something to do at work. lol

[zodiac44]

When we have a workable script system, I can do the coding for you if you write the dialogue.

[delta224]

I will try to have something by a week from friday.  It may not be good. but I hope it is better that what we have now.