Another weekly update!

PROGRESS

I’ve been working away again on content, which for all the time it takes for me to work on it, it gives me very little to share with you. But more progress has been made, vampires drawn and words written. Some teaser bits below:

LET’S TALK TRAITS

Minor spoilers for how choices happen in this section, so feel free to skip if you’d like to go into the game blind.

If you played the demo you would have seen this little bar below your Reputation meter:

They weren’t used in the demo, but they represent ‘trait’ points that can affect your Player-character’s personality: you’ll gain them from making certain choices, and they can open up new choices and affect how other characters react to you in the story.

Think of Delusion as being inwards, and Savagery being outwards. They’re separate from each other, so you could end up with a high score in both, or one, or neither.  The lack of these traits is also a very valid playstyle, just one that isn’t tied to a number. It’s not like skill points, where the goal is to ‘make numbers go up’: these are just a consequence of your choices, and it can result in ‘good’ or ‘bad’ situations. Something I’m keeping in mind while I write out all these choices is that the Player should be able to form their own opinion (and express it), and that they can play a consistent way throughout.

It’s tied to the idea of ‘Player Prototypes’, where I want types of character-choices to work consistently throughout the game (so if you dedicate yourself to the Court and be as violent as possible, the story should support that choice the entire way through as a valid option). It also helps define what playstyles are supported. I’m gonna link a GDC talk that explains it better than I could ever hope if you're someone interested in narrative design: https://youtu.be/LR4OxNfzTvU?t=804 (I’m a gamedev with a love for narrative, of course it’s a talk about Fallout: New Vegas)

Obviously mine won’t be so in-depth since it’s a shorter game (still thinking it’ll be around the 1hr mark for a single playthrough), but I wanna try and stick to the general principle.

WHAT ABOUT TREACHERY?

Some designer behind-the-scenes: you may have noticed in the demo that there was a third trait called ‘Treachery’. Pretty self-explanatory, but it would track anytime you threw another person under the bus -- usually other vampires for you yourself to get a leg up in the Court. And it was a cool idea! Fits a lot with the themes and the style of choices, but I ultimately removed it because:

1. Options for Treachery only came up at 2 key moments, with only 1 meaningful outcome from it
2. There wasn’t enough opportunities in the story for it to shine, especially compared to the other two traits
3. I didn’t want to confuse the player and make it seem like it’s worthwhile keeping an eye on that trait. E.g. a Player that racks up a bunch of Delusion is going to notice it a whole lot more than a Player with high Treachery.

Those story choices will still be in the game, they’ll just be tracked differently (invisibly, but the story can still bring it up).

---

That’s all for this week! Cheers, all.