Red/Aro

My most frequent roleplaying persona's original human form...mostly.  His name was Aro, and he was blinded by the god's about 20 years before he died.  Subsequently, he became a demon and managed to get himself free when one of his summoners got careless.  He recently adopted his original form again involuntarily due to someone 'fixing' him...and accidentally reverting him to being just a plain old Artificer and mortal once again.  This is how the demonic 'Red' looks when he slips into a form inspired by his original self.

P.S. This image, as well as Rosa, were both done by SpiralingStaircase from Deviant Art.  A link to his blog can be found beneath the image of Doctor Bimbeau.

Collaboration?

Yes indeed, Scipio and I have decided to work on a little Inform7 project together in our free time, bouncing ideas back and forth along with snippets of code.  I've already sent him the first draft of what I have come up wit so far.  I have a second draft already on stand by which if better filled out, but I'm waiting to hear back from him before I send it, in case it needs further modification.

Spells and stats

So, I've pretty much decided to cannabalize the spell system I was talking about for use in my game.  The way it works isn't important to you guys really, as far as the code goes, but here is what it actually will do and/or allow:

Firstly, you can know a spell, or not know it.  You have no way of knowing what spells exist or anything about them until you actually know the spell itself.  I can make things or actions give you spells, or you can learn them from scrolls by casting the memorise spell on them.  Everyone starts off knowing that spell.

Casting a spell requires a certain number of strength points (like mana points).  Could be 0 for free spells, or 3-5 for a midlevel spell, or up to 10 or more for the most powerful spells.  Some spells require you to have certain objects or materials on hand in order to cast them.  Metal or wood is an example.  Things can be made of these materials, like a pencil or a pair of scissors.  These would work as the materials for the spell.

Spells could cost more or less strength points to cast depending on if you have certain things in your possession, if you are in certain areas, what your stats are like at the moment, or any number of other conditions I can think of.

Spells can be targetted or untargetted.  Untargetted spells you just cast, and they have whatever effect, typically on yourself, your surroundings, or possibly all creatures in your area.  Targetted spells you cast at a single target, like the creepy bald guy or the flower pot.  Only one target at a time, and it can't be yourself.

Now, before I can even begin to properly code this, i have to work out how I'm going to be handling stats and descriptions.  This is really the trickiest part of any TF game.  I could do each stage of every possible combination of TFs for every person in the game individually...but that would be time consuming, ineffectient, and would drive me nuts.  I could reuse the old system for it, which certainly works, but doesn't allow me to customize the NPC's appearance much.  It's always a trade-off, and I'm still racking my brains for the answer.

On top of this all...I need to work on map design.  I'm strongly considering basing my maps at least in part on a few places in Second Life that I have visited.  We shall see.

Ponderings

So, I've messed around a little with a few example games, getting ideas from their mechanics, and I have to say I like them.

A good example is a magic system.  It requires you to actually learn the spells individually, though you can start with a few you know off the bat.  You have to use a spell to memorize additional spells from scrolls you find.  Casting spells requires a certain number of strength points, which work pretty much like mana, and may require you to have a focus item on hand to cast them.  The more powerful spells consume the focus when cast, too.

This would be very handy, as not all the spells I'm thinking of should cost the same, much less be able to cast with ease.  For example, a simple bust enhancement is a pretty simple matter, but changing a man further toward femininity is a much more complicated process, so it should be more difficult, and less often usable without a lot of effort.  Then of course there are the curses that cause on-going changes, counter effects, ect.  I am still trying to think up defenses against the spells.

Another thing is actual combat.  Should I include weapons and critters to kill?  I don't think I will, as it would just distract from the main theme of the game.  But what to do if you can't cast a spell?  Your options shouldn't be limited just to running away in that case.  I'm thinking of allowing you to try and seduce them, plea with them for mercy, or some such, or maybe just trying to physically subdue them with your hands.  I don't know yet.

The biggest hang up's so far are not being sure how I want to handle stats and their effects in the descriptions of people, a clothing system, and maps.  The mall isn't going away, and in fact I plan to improve on it, but I also want to expand things a bit.  Which means more places to go and things to see.  A slightly less hectic and chaotic pace that will let the player actually have time to wander and explore without feeling like they are wasting time, and little things like that.

Rosa

Another of my OC's, Rosa.  originally designed by Seraph, and illustrate by the same gent responsible for Dr. Bimbeau.

Doctor Bimbeau

My OC, Dr. Bimbeau from the TFGS chat.  Done on Commission by http://spiralingstaircase.deviantart.com/

Her description as originally written:  Doctor Bimbeau looks like a woman of Japanese decent, standing about 5'2" and amazingly curvy for such a petite Asian.  Her long, silky smooth blonde hair is tied back into twin pigtails with bright pink scrunchies, bouncing a bit with every step, framing her pretty face.  Her fingernails are long, permanently covered in bright pink polish, and around her neck hangs a thin gold chain with a pink heart shaped charm hanging from it.  She is wearing a pink pleated mini-skirt showing off a pair of feminine legs that just seem to go on and on.  Just barely covering her impressive DD-cup breasts is a bright pink tank top, with 'SCIENCE!' spelled out in stick-on sequins, the garment so tiny that it fails to cover the tops or the bottoms of her heavy bosom...though large as they are, her most prominent feature is still likely her wide hips and obscenely round rump.  Finally, bright pink sneakers cover her feet.  Her voice is high pitched, bubbly, and overall nearly impossible to take seriously.  Over it all is a white lab coat, unbuttoned, the numerous pockets filled and heavy with gizmos, gadgets, bottles of root beer, and who knows what else?

List of things to do if I start work on Arena again

1. Re-write the original code to be more effecient, uniform, structured, ordered, and the same throughout.
2. A more story and dialog to the orginal, so as to flesh it out more and explain what the fick is going on, why, how, where, and to whom for what reasons.
3. Give the NPCs stories, appearances, attitudes, motivations and goals of their own, possibly reflected in the actions they take during the game-play itself.
4. Design and develope new maps and 'levels' for the player to play in, after adding interactivity to the original.
5. Design and develope new TFs for the player and NPCs, prefereably themed to match or compliment the map in some way.  ie. Bimbos in the mall, centaurs in the plains, minotaur(or cow girls) in the mountains or on the farm, Mermaids on the tropic island, ect.
6. Devise a method for the TFs to be induced via traps or other inanimate objects, a few of which should spawn in random locations and may or may not be visible to the player.
7. Develope 'safe zones' where the player can rest without fear of being TFed, and interact freely with some of the NPCs for plot exposition, character developement, and interactions depending on the current TF state of those involved.  Possibly the most difficult and tiem consuming part to code for.
8. Seperate different facets of the game into optional extensions, and allow for new levels to be designed as such, with templates for custome-made user content, to include maps, NCPs, TFs, TF-related items, traps, and clothing.
9. Revamp the way the game handles clothing, outfits, clothing changes, and the various states of clothing from being wet, improperly sized, inappropriate, and unremovable for one reason or another.  Also difficult to code.
10. Code any and everything to alter in description and possibly even functionality dependant on the mental state and some TF states (ie. being shrunken or reduced in IQ) of the player.

Much, much more, I'm sure.  This list will be updated as things occure to me.

Discussing Arena

So, yeah.  For those who don't know, Arena was a game I worked on off and on for about a year and some change.  The theme is transformation.  Specifically the Trangender, male to female variety.  The goal is to turn the NPCs into bimbos before they do the same to you.  It's 100% text, no images or fancy user interface.  It was also, I feel, a big success.  It started as random thoughts between myself and a few folks over at the TFGamesSite chat, where I spend waaaaay too much of my time, and evolved slowly but surely into what it is today, thanks in no small part to the comments and contributions of many fine folks.

The game lacks pretty much anything resembling a plot, with some thin reference to you being sent to hell by mistake (you didn't even die yet!), where two demons through you in with a few other guys doomed to be punished for their abusive attitudes toward women.  And for the amusement of the perverted demons, naturally.  So after a brief indoctrination, you are cut adrift in an arena level currently set up to look like a mall designed by airheaded bimbos.  TFs are handled by collecting gems that spawn and drop randomly around the map, and casting the spells associated with each type on either yourself to reverse previous changes, or on the other characters to change them.  Having the right type of gem on hand that matches a spellcast on you will consume both gems, but block any changes, automatically counterspelling them.  This works for NPCs you are targeting too.

I learned a ton of things while making this game, most of it from scratch.  The trouble is, I didn't really plan out things from the beginning.  Whenever something struck my fancy, I just messed with stuff until I could fit it in...which made it damn hard to maintain any kind of smoothness, regularity, or regimentation.  The source code is all over the place with little rhyme or reason.  I didn't get around to adding more levels, more TFs, more story, and more interesting features, environmental interaction, dialog, or much of anything else that I had intended...but the game itself is still a reasonably fun little time waster.  Now, though...I'm strongly considering continuing it.

First Post, 8MAR2011

So, this is the first post for this new blog, where I'll be yacking about all manner of things from my fiddling around with Inform7 to create TG/TF style games, to my roleplaying happenings, and just about anything else I can think of that pretains to my online persona.  Just in case somebody out there might be interested, and to give me a way to help keep my thoughts organized.

Still pisses me off that redneckdemon was already taken, thus the longer url.  *grrrrl*