Training Molly (Patreon)

Today I will be going over the stats you can expect to show up in OWH and how you can affect them.

Design Philosophy

I have found in trainer games, once you have too many stats each one starts meaning less and less. I have even played trainer games where certain stats don't change the story in any meaningful way. So in OWH, I didn't want to overload the design space with too many. Instead, I kept the number of stats low and made sure each one caused significant changes to the story.

I also am not a fan on dice rolls adding uncertainty to success. If there is something that I have learned from other VNs that use dice rolls (also BG3) is that players will just reload until they get the roll they want. At best this is tedious for the player, at worst this negates any importance in training, as you can just keep rerolling a low stat check without having invested in it. Instead I am going down the route of games like Disco Elysium: the base stat is checked and you either succeed or fail.

This leads to somewhat deterministic gameplay, and I don't mean that in a bad way. It allows for you to plan your runs after the first one, with the knowledge of what is coming up and how to overcome it.

Stats Overview

Behold, the statistic bar in all of its prototype glory:

We will work through these from left to right. Each color represents a different stat category, grouping together like elements.

Agent Stats

The first three stats are called Agent Stats. These represent how good Molly is at being an agent and are the main stats that Molly will be using to complete missions. The higher the Stat's number, the better Molly is at it. Agent Stats are primarily increased by practising them with Molly in the training room.

The first of the three Agent Stats is Power. Power represents Molly's physical prowess, how capable she is in combat, and how much Molly can endure. It is checked when Molly needs to fight her way out of a situation or generally use her strength to overcome an obstacle.

The second Agent Stat is Cunning. Cunning represents Molly's mental abilities and stealthiness. It is checked when Molly needs to think herself out of a situation, when she needs to slip past guards, and when she needs to steal things.

The third Agent Stat is Allure. Allure represents Molly's charm, speaking ability, and overall desirability. It is mainly checked when Molly needs to convince or seduce others.

There is also one secret Agent Stat (well not all that secret now) that isn’t shown above: Confidence. Confidence represents how sure Molly is in her own abilities. At the beginning of the game, Molly is unsure of herself and feels overwhelmed with the situation she has been placed into, this can change as Molly's Confidence increases. Molly Confidence is the total of the other three Agent Stats combined so as Molly is trains her other Agent Stats, she grows in Confidence.

Relationship Stats

The next group of stats are the Relationship Stats. They represent Molly's current state of mind.

The first Relationship Stat is Love. It represents how far Molly's interest in Handler EX (the MC) has progressed. The second Relationship Stat is Corruption. It represents how sexually open Molly is. Both of these stats make an impact on how Molly acts.

OWH also secretly tracks Molly's sexual activity and desire for other characters besides EX but you'll have to find ways to unlock that information.

Calendar Stats

Time is limited in OWH, how much time you have left is tracked by Calendar Stats. Action Points (AP) let you know how many actions Molly has left to use that day. Time lets you know what the current time is (24hr time), and Day lets you know how many days have passed since the beginning of the game.

Money

The last thing tracked next to the Stats is Money. Clandestine operations are not cheap and you are cut off from your usual source of funding so Molly will have to ration the money she has or work potentially unsavoury jobs to gain more.

Money can be used to buy/fabricate special items that can boost Molly's Stats and can use on missions.

Update Schedule

That's all I have to talk about today in regards to stats, if you have any questions feel free to ask them down below.

I am looking to keep updates like these coming out weekly for a few weeks then switching to monthly as I implement the new artwork into the game. As a treat, here is one of the outfits Molly will have to wear if she wants to make a good amount of money (sketch).

Next week we will be shifting focus and looking at some of the characters that will be helping Molly complete her mission. Until then!

Question of the Week: NG+

Oh, before I forget, here is the question for this week:

I am still undecided if I will have a NG+ (New Game Plus) mode. As it stands now, NG+ would allow you to purchase certain bonuses at the start of the game depending on how much of the game you have completed in previous runs. These bonuses include higher starting stats, more initial money, etc. However, I am worried it might trivialise multiple playthroughs of OWH.

What do you think? Would you like a NG+ in OWH? What would you want to see it a NG+? I would love to hear your thoughts.