Looking Ahead and Some Tips


As of the last devlog, I was hoping to get to rewriting/expanding this sometime early next year, if not already getting on that now.  That's changed for a number of reasons.  Firstly, I decided to make a game for February's Yandere Jam (which may have been a mistake, but we'll just have to see how it goes), which is obviously going to take away from my time to work on other projects.  :P  Second, despite the one flash of inspiration I had regarding an early addition to the story in the expansion, I haven't really figured out any of the other question marks about how to proceed, and I'm hesitant to just jump in blindly again, for obvious reasons.  Third, I've been having a bit of an existential crisis regarding the quality of my writing (rather the lack thereof), but I'm hoping that's a passing thing caused by external forces (mostly seasonal ones) and that I'll calm down after a while and be ready to write like usual, but until such a calming happens, I don't want to make any assumptions regarding my future writing output, particularly on something like this where I'm on shaky ground to begin with (having so little experience writing VNs) and where I'm already less than confident in the quality of the product already composed.

Anyway, long story short, I doubt I'll be working on expanding this anytime soon:  next summer at the earliest, and even that is probably hopelessly over-optimistic.

That being said, I thought I should post a few tips on manipulating Ace's anger stat in order to get a particular ending.

The most important thing to consider is that the anger is not typically in response to Pat's choice, but to what someone else says or does in the dialog following the choice.  This can mean that something that seems like the "right" choice actually has the reverse effect.  (Though mostly that's not the case in this game.  That is the case in some of the choices I've written for the Yandere Jam game, though...)  

Among the more noteworthy surprises (and I admit that this is a deep flaw in the current game, because this sort of thing should not contain surprises) for the anger stat is the Friday/Saturday night special events for the game's first weekend.  Ace's anger goes up when he (or Pat) is insulted, particularly when the insult being delivered is homophobic or racist.  Thus, his anger goes up twice (or was it three times?) at the movie theater, making for one of the largest increases in the game, but his anger actually goes down after he beats up the muggers in the park, because the muggers don't insult them, and beating them up is actually a stress release.  (I tried to make that clear in the text by having Pat describe what a good mood Ace is in following the incident, but unfortunately that did not come across successfully.)

Another thing I think--from my few discussions with players--people may have missed is that there are actually two separate events at the Hangout; the fact that going there is offered again as a choice is not a mistake, nor is it a repeat of the same event.  The second event, which involves Deodoro Hipolito, is actually one of the most important of the daily events, and definitely one that I should not have made it possible to miss.  (One of the many things I'll fix whenever I rework the game....)  Encountering Deodoro at the Hangout can be a huge boost to Ace's anger stat (if you let it turn into a brawl, that is) and is thus crucial to organically avoiding the good ending, in addition to generally being a pretty important piece of the story (though I tried to add as much of the information as possible to the scene in the alley as I could for those who  missed the Hangout scene).

"Organically" avoiding the good ending, of course, reminds me that I should explain the change made for the current build, as I did not really go into it when I posted the update about the modification.  Basically, it's a way to lock yourself out of the good ending, to ensure you have access to the other two endings, regardless of what Ace's anger stat is like.  There are three choices to be made:  one right before the branching point in the alley, and two during the branching point sequence.  If you pick the "wrong" answer twice, then you're locked out of the good ending.  Avoiding these "wrong" answers will not get you into the good ending if Ace's anger stat is too high, however.  (Unfortunately, I think it's unlikely many people are going to have gotten his anger stat that high, though...)

How wrong is "wrong"?

Well...one of them is very obviously "wrong," and one of them is pretty obviously something that would tick Ace off.   The other's a bit more iffy.  But as long as you save before making the first decision on the second Saturday night, you can always restore if you lock yourself out of the good ending and wanted the good ending.  (More importantly, the medium ending is still pretty darn good, and the only way to be locked out of that is if Ace's anger stat is so high that even I can't get it that high without consulting the code to remind myself which choices are going to make him angriest.)

Is there any reason to do so?

That's up to one's own personal philosophy/approach to playing a game.  I, personally, feel like there's a lot of good material (relatively speaking) in the medium and bad endings.  (The bad ending is also the only one with a CG, though it's sort of a pitiful one that I hobbled together myself...)  If you don't feel the need to see either of them, there's nothing wrong with that.

If you see this line, you know you're not going to get the good ending.  (It's loosely inspired by one of the last things Pandaros ever said in the Iliad, where he started bragging about having "killed" Diomedes after he got him in the foot with an arrow.  Diomedes did not take kindly to that bragging, lol!)  Though there's also another variant where this line doesn't happen because Ace got tangled up in their fight.
Grant's office, the only location you don't get to see on the good ending path.  :)

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