Recently I started a new story that is designed to use stats to dictate if a character is able to go down certain paths, to make this customizable... well just look at the story map and see how many lines of posts there are just for the stats to make it so you can select each stat level before going into the game itself. https://chyoa.com/story/A-new-game.11824/map?chapter=326057 As you can see there is about 70 posts, all linked up one level after another to give this customization path. What I think would be awesome is some sort of way to enter variables like you do when customizing character names. Maybe have it so you can add some code into the chapter to add a slider or box to type numbers into that will change the variables they are connected to. I thought about using those customization area but not sure if that is as controllable for the variables section. Dont think it is so havent worked with it.
You can use variables / conditions and create loops to mimimize the amount of chapters needed. Check out: https://chyoa.com/story/Character-Creation-Showcase.9920 https://chyoa.com/story/Conditional-Branches-Showcase-(examples).9950 https://chyoa.com/story/Conditional-Branches-Showcase-(source-code).9951 Hope this helps!
will note that method down for if I make any future games with this sort of stat system... definitely will save on the amount of chapters needed so definitely helps
I am a big fan of game mode stories, and the setting seems interesting (although the introduction feels a bit forced and artificial to me; the character is accepting a very, very strange situation pretty fast). Just a few remarks: In my opinion, the most important thing about a game mode is to make sure that the reader can actually make choices (or is forced down certain paths), which is why it is even more important than in other stories to develop several choices at once. I just did a trial run and simply ran into a dead end after two chapters, because my lust stats were not low or high enough. That's frustrating. You should work simultaneously on all options, not developing one path which only people with exactly the right stats can follow. There is also always the risk involved that you get lost in too many branched off paths, so you need to make sure to loop back as often as possible otherwise you will have a gazillion of dead ends and that's frustrating both to you and the reader. This also means to choose your branches wisely and always have the broad picture in mind. Moreover, it is probably a good idea to use especially the first chapters and scenes of a game mode story to develop stats and let players choose without blocking them immediatly. Which means that at first, you don't block certain paths but rather make stats increase or decrease according to certain decisions ("you decide to sneak past" = +2 agility, "you decide to talk" = + 2 charm). You keep the game open for a while and give players a feeling of choices and consequences. Then later, at really important points, you make those choices count, and they will not be able to sneak past the "boss monster" of that chapter if they haven't worked on that stat properly. Nothing here is set in stone, of course. There might be good reasons to block a path early on depending on stats, but it will probably frustrate the reader, and he will feel rather railroaded instead of actually choosing his own path. You can check out my two stories for ideas how to develop stats and choices. In Happy Maid, I mainly use two stats to develop the character: The "arousal" stat will sometimes block paths to avoid sexual interaction, and the "antagonizing Dave" determines how your husband reacts to you. I also make use of items to be found an purchased. You can create quite a lot of variables and different paths with just two or three main stats already. I fear that your story might have too many stats already and you might get lost in those. In The invitation, the main use of stats is about the question if the character develops into a submissive or a dominant person. There is also a hidden storyline running on how his relationship with his wife develops. Different choices during the story will lead to an ending united with her or seperated from her. This story might be interesting for you because I established a concept of handling different rooms and places. At several points you can chose which places to visit, including a loop back. The big advantage is that readers can experience a lot of the story while still getting the feeling that they do have choices. It's also very easy to add small branches without branching off at all.
while not really the focus of this topic I do appreciate the feedback. I want to make it clear this story is very much experimental for me as I have never worked with stats in a story before. Second while my original mind set was to form one long path and leave it to others to create new paths I quickly realized what you have remarked on, if people dont have the right stats they wont be able to go down certain paths and will find the game ends early for them. I obviously dont want this to happen and am working on adding more paths, while I do so I have made prebuilds based off what I have used to make the story so far, I intend to make enough diverse paths that anyone can use custom stats to play this game and enjoy it... it will just take time for me to get enough posts set up for that to be a reality. I do thank you for the advise and tips, future stories I make with stat systems will likely have a learning phase in them, but for now I want to focus my time posting on adding more options to the current story ^^
it will also be easier to set a maximum number of points a player can spend on their stats. (and let them keep track of the remaining points) I kind of agree with that. Spoiler You could let the reader decide if they can bear their hunger (removing more health over time). If the maximum health is fixed to 100 I would recommend making health a progress variable (then health can't exceed 100). That way a progress bar will be shown and lower health would be more "visual". Spoiler The starting health could be lowered to 80 (or somewhat lower) to represent the bad condition of getting picked up in the night. That way you could also grant more health from a single "shot".
a fair note on the points I even find it myself difficult to keep track of it and make sure it works, may need to remake this game with the loop system before going further with the story. ----- I want to make hunger an item later on to be a stat the player needs to keep down, trying to figure out the best way to do that as coding isnt my specialty and while I know I need to make hunger increase each post what I am not sure on how to do is how to make it so that when hunger is at a certain level auto damage the character. so for now leaving hunger as more of an authors device to damage the player at certain points till I figure out how to make it more integrated. ----- I wanted health to have a cap, but I dont see a way to do so as the basis of the game is supposed to end up being quite a maze of paths you can take so how much health you restore can be quite hard to control. I havent found a way yet to make the health auto reset to 100, a sort of "if heath is greater than 100 make health equal 100" sort of line of code, not sure how to set something like that up, if someone knows how that would be great. In the mean time the health can expand as a sort of buffer for later quests ----- At this point I am learning quite a bit about stats and how to make a game with them, its pretty fun and I am making notes to help improve the game I have and any future games I work on.
That isn't possible at the moment. (the planned feature "Formula Parser" would provide ways to achieve this.) (There would be an awkward workaround and in general, I would avoid checking it every chapter.) Progress variables have a minimum of 0 and a maximum of 100. If a calculation exceeds the maximum, the result will be 100. Progress variables will be shown as (blue, not red) progress bar at the sidebar of the reader. Currently, it is only possible to use the maximum values of the variable types (0/100 for progress and -100,000/100,000).
yeah its why I am leaving hunger out for now ^^ --- which is the progress variable? I am guessing that is the % thing.... omg that will work!
changed up the health stats to use that, thanks. and got the loops set up, unfortunetly because of how I had set up the chapters cant fully delete the original route so have made it impossible to use
you could ask Friedman to move https://chyoa.com/chapter/Choose-your-gender.326162 to https://chyoa.com/chapter/Customize-your-own.326557 (though I'm not sure if it would be the first or the last answer) After that, you could delete the dead chapters.
I will contact Friedman about that later. --- And I will add some other adding options like +3 or/and +5 but will need to do that later when home
