Achievements, Collectibles & Fun Stuff (Discussion) (Patreon)
Content
Hey guys,
Apologies once more for being so light on the Patreon specific content this month. Any bonus content like comics, chapters, polls, podcasts & discussions all came screeching to a halt as I focused everything on dealing with development. As you all know, I was working up to getting that Alpha released and now that we've made it through to the other side in one piece, I can take a bit of a breather and work towards getting my schedule back to where it should be before proceeding with development on the full release (technically next is a BETA for $10 patrons, but that will only be a few days before the full release as a final test).
But more on the development schedule later. I am changing some things around with my plans to better pace development and as such will release an update to the Development Roadmap in a few days time to better keep everybody informed and on the same page with regards to my current plans for upcoming releases.
Right now, I wanted to bring up something I've been thinking about for a while now, and that's the addition of extra fun things to do in the game. Right now, there's not a whole lot to do once you've caught up to the end of the story (Obvious made worse right now thanks to being stuck inside the Casino... Good one Jim!). So I've been thinking (on top of repeatable sex scenes and some mediocre daily type quests for items/cash) that I should add either some achievement system, collectibles or both! So that's what this discussion post is all about. To discuss a bit about my current early ideas, to get your feedback, and listen to ideas that you guys might have about fun little things to do in the game while playing.
Achievements:
Alright, so obviously let me just start by clarifying that these "fun things" are obviously not a primary focus right now. Nor am I necessarily interested in adding things that make the game grindy for no reason. The purpose for considering these systems now, is that when I finally break saves in an upcoming version (necessary for the sake of overhauling and adding future content) that will be the best time to add the back-end code/plugins for these types of features.
So while I'm not necessarily planning on adding a working achievements system anytime soon, I will have the perfect opportunity to add the necessary back end systems so that I can have such features in the future. So I need to start thinking about what sorts of things I want to include now, to avoid having to break everything again in the future.
As I mentioned, I'd like to make the achievements something that isn't necessarily grindy for no reason, but for actual accomplishments Things like:
- "Beat the game without Tiffany getting fucked once."
- "Beat the game without using an armor repair kit."
- "Have Tiffany get knocked up by every possible male/futa character."
^Just some examples, rather than something like:
- "Have sex 1 million times."
- "Kill 1 million zombies"
- "Acquire 1 million dollars."
Although... Those do sound like fun ones (Just with less grindy numbers to achieve obviously)
The way these achievements would work, would be that if you unlock them in one save file, they'll be carried across to all you other save files too. So you'd only have to get them once.
I plan to implement scene unlocking for the gallery mode in this way too.
So, what do you guys think about some kind of achievement system like this being added?
Yeah, I know it's not the most important right now, but as I said, I will need to start thinking about these sorts of things now to limit the amount of times I'll need to break saves going forward. And let me know what sorts of fun ideas you may have for achievements in the comments below.
Another things that is interesting to think about is some kind of reward system for these achievements. What should you get for bothering to do it? Gamerscore? Trophies? What's the point of that if it's just one RPG Maker game? The reward should be something tangible, like an extra image or small scene. It can't be anything too huge, or time consuming to produce, but I think it could be a fun way of making these achievements worth pursuing for more players.
Since and in-game scene wouldn't make much sense, it would have to be some special scene that gets unlocked in the gallery. Could be some 3D pinup image done by me, a 2D commission piece perhaps, or some small scene that's removed from the game's story line. Idk yet, but it could be a good idea to explore some scenes that don't work in the story, "what if scenarios" or totally fantasy scenarios set outside of the TD universe, but with TD characters?
There's a lot of possibilities there, but obviously (in the beginning at least) my dev time will be spent on new content for the game itself and not bonus stuff to unlock. But again, it's something to start thinking about and discussing.
BTW, I mentioned 2D commissions there, I do have some more on the way. And I know I passed my 2.5K goal a while ago (Thank you all so much) so I will be making a separate post about that in the coming weeks.
Collectibles:
Though this next topic kind of does share some similarities with those 2D commissions. It has been something I've thought about and maybe even brought up here before. What should I do with all of the 2D Art Pieces I've been having commissioned for TD? Seems like a no brainier to add them into the game's gallery mode. But should I just dump them all in there, or perhaps make them collectible items that you have to scavenge the maps for?
I've seen some other adult RPGs do similar things and it was kind of fun since you knew you'd get a picture when you found it. They'd be cleverly hidden around the map (much more subtle that the shiny sparkles I frequently use to denote items or quest points) and given you something to look out for, and a reason to go exploring other that supplies. Because let's face it, there's probably a good chunk of the player base who is making Tiffany have sex at every opportunity and therefore has no need for all of the items and cash lying around.
The only thing that does somewhat urk me, (though only in a very minor way) is that there's no good lore reason for there to be art pieces featuring our main girls just lying around in vary places in the town... But I suppose at some point I have to get a life and admit that I'm developing a video game and not every single little things about it needs to make lore sense! :P
Aside from potentially finding the comm pieces as collectibles, does anybody else have any idea for fun collectibles to find in game?
And how about other "Fun Stuff" to do in general. Things that don't necessarily add to much to the development time, but add some cool things to do on the side while also enjoying the new content updates. Let me know in the comments below.
Okay, so that's it from me right now. Thanks so much for your support this month, I will see you guys in a couple of days with new posts, polls & more. Make sure to leave a comment down below to participate in the discussion and give me your ideas & feedback. :)
~ Jim