Im soooo curious on your coding. How would one code dive for your game? or alternatively are you willing/able to do a code/variables post? My favorite thing is seeing how/what causes the text to shift and change for character development of the MC.
=Sincerely on my 15th read throught
Hi anon!
I’m not wild about code diving because there are some spoilers in there, lol. I’m honestly not sure how you’d go about it, but I know others have done it because I’ve seen it mentioned.
I do have this post about some of the different variables, if it helps. It hasn’t been updated since chapter 3, though. I’ll try to update it soon.
At some point I want to completely redo the way my personality variables are tracked. I’d like to do something similar to what the author of “A Tale of Crowns” has. Realistically though, I probably won’t do that until after Cantata is completely published. I don’t want to lose momentum on the story itself.
sorry for the code diving question, but, the ROs have attraction stats in MCs customization and race selection. Will their preferences come up later in the story or will it just be a hidden stat thing?
Hi Anon, I want to open with a general reminder that I don’t usually answer code diving questions. There are some spoilers in the code that I really want to keep hidden, but I know a lot of readers really like the convenience of it, so I’ve decided to leave it on for now.
This question isn’t very spoilery, and I’m pretty sure a lot of people will be curious about how it works once it starts coming into play in the next chapter, and I haven’t really seen any other IF’s utilize an attraction mechanic. I’m still going to leave it under the cut for those who would rather experience everything blind
Before I answer Anon’s specific question, I want to give an overview of how the attraction system is going to work. So each RO has an attraction stat that is completely separate from the romance stat and the MC’s general attractiveness stats, that will track how physically attractive the RO finds MC at first glance. These points are acquired during the customization sequences. Not every detail of MC’s appearance will influence these points, and some will accumulate points easier than others. All of the attraction points will be based on the type of woman the RO’s are typically attracted to.
So, what do they actually affect? Their exact usage will depend on the specific RO, but in general they affect the initial flirt interactions where the RO will react differently if he has a high attraction stat vs a low one. OR if you have a high attraction with an RO you aren’t intending to romance, you may get a unique reaction than if you have low attraction and don’t romance them. Once you lock in a romance route, currently outlined for the opening of chapter eight, the attraction stat will be used much less, and on some routes potentially not at all.
If you successfully romance an RO, they will always find the MC attractive. I just want that to be clear before people start panicking. That’s part of why it’s a hidden stat, I want people to make the MC how they want her to look, but I also thought it would be interesting to take the RO’s existing preferences into account.
Will their preferences come up later in the story or will it just be a hidden stat thing?
I’m going to leave the exact preference a hidden stat thing, at least for now, if people are really desperate to know, I might make a post about it, but I’d rather people build the MC they want instead of the MC the RO’s will find most attractive. That said, I can’t say with certainty if any of the guys will mention their preferences in the story. I don’t really plan the specifics of the RO moments except for what character arc information needs to come out when, so we’ll see what makes it into those conversations once all of the RO’s are introduced. Plus, sometimes the characters like to change my plans in the moment. (Nax especially likes to disregard my opinions and do whatever he wants.)
That is the main ideas of how it works, but I’ll get into more specifics below.
Luk and Tzesar, tend to use their attraction stats less because they’ve known MC for so long. For Luk it will mostly come into play right after he returns for the war since he’ll be gone for most of MC’s teenage years, and for Tzesar it probably won’t be referenced much at all except in how he reacts to seeing MC all dressed up. What it does do for both of them is affect how fast they catch onto their feelings for MC if you romance them on the oblivious route. (Which I don’t think I’ve talked about on Tumblr yet.)
Sentinel, if I remember correctly, is the hardest RO to gain attraction points for, and his are mostly only used if your MC is more forward in flirting. If he has low attraction (which most people will get) then he’ll be more resistant at first, but if he has high attraction, he’ll be more like ‘I’m not sure how to feel about this, but I’m listening’.
Nax with high attraction will be more flirty with MC even before you’ve acquired any romance points, basically, him starting with a high attraction will make him more likely to make the first move whereas the others need MC to express interest first. Once you start acquiring romance points he’ll be more forward regardless, it's more for before the romance points.
Albien is one of the most reserved ROs, and like Sentinel, he’ll be less reserved with an MC that has a high attraction stat.
Gaderous, probably the one who relies most on the attraction stat. He starts off wanting a more physical relationship with MC, so having a low attraction stat will actually make him realize he has feelings for MC faster than if he has a high attraction stat.
Anon confession : I’m worried about this WIP IF I’m following. The author said that there are going to be huge changes in the game so at the dead of night I opened the demo and copied the entire game code to my cside before the author update the demo. Is that wrong? I trust the author in what they’re doing but the change was so sudden that I panicked and did THIS. I’m not going to post it online and it’s just going to be personal use only. (I like doing it bcs as a newbie @ coding seeing the code of a functional game helps me see what I’m doing wrong).
Hi Anon,
I can't speak for the author of that particular WIP, but it would be fair to assume they would probably not like this. There must be reasons for why they are changing the story in major ways, and I don't think they would be happy to find that a copy of a version they have disavowed is out there, without their blessing.
I personally wouldn't like that at all (and I've made my old source code available). I'd find it incredible rude to have someone do this because I mentioned changing an important thing to my story. I'd see it as disrespectful, honestly. It might even make me wonder if I should even continue with the project at all if people don't trust my judgement...
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If you want to see how things are made, instead of intrusively going into the author's code:
ask the author permission to do so
ask the author how they did a certain thing (you might not get the exact code, but you'll probably be pointed in the right direction)
ask people who are open to coding questions for example (or drop into a coding server)
check the IFArchive for source code or playable files you can look into
Not every author wants to have people code dive (usually for spoiler reasons), and find the practice very intrusive. Even if it is easy to do so with most HTML games out there, doesn't mean it's the right thing to do (especially when there are so many venue to get help).
TLDR: don't code dive / copy code from a game unless you have EXPLICIT consent from the creator. Don't be sneaky.
what's code diving? i've seen it mentioned a few times but i don't really understand. sorry if you're the wrong people to ask for this
Hi Anon!
Code diving is where a third party (you, the reader) gets access to the game's coding and dives into it--hence, code diving.
There are a medley of ways to accomplish this depending on the site the game is hosted on, however, it is also a very sensitive topic.
Some authors are fine with readers code diving into their work, many others feel like it is a violation of privacy and reduces the meaning of their creative work to mere numbers in code.
It is also a dangerous territory to go into because an author's code can have major story spoilers not meant to be revealed to the audience, and authors can feel like they have to start hiding their own story inside their own code to prevent spoiling readers, therefore making the coding process already harder than it is.
You can see how this is a contentious topic, and our advice is to ask the author themselves whether or not they are fine with you code diving into their game or not.
In general Anon, if a variable is hidden (as in not shown on the stats screen) it's either because it has spoilers, or I don't want you know how to raise/lower it. In this case there are intentionally very few opprotunities to raise that variable because it's not in use yet. There will be several more opprotunities to raise it later in the story.
Just a friendly reminder that I don't really answer code diving questions, so if you find something in the code please report it via the error form in the pinned post or via DM. I don't mind if people code diver for ease of seeing variations or just for fun, but there's stuff in the code that I don't want to be public, so I prefer not to answer asks about it. (as stated in the FAQ)
I recieved two asks back to back about this same segment of code, and while there was a small oversight, it was mostly correct.
