franzinyte bring ddwcaph back and my life is YOURS
Hello! The update still isn't close to being finished, but I figured I owe you guys an update before the new year, so I have both good news and bad news. The bad news is that the demo is delayed again, but the good news is that I'm working on something that should DOUBLE the current replayability of the demo.
Yup, New Game+ is coming with the next update! New Diary+ (or New Demo+ since it's just a demo) will be available once you finish the demo. That means there's another reason to replay the demo beyond just choosing different choices!
I've always had the idea of adding a New Game+ feature to the game for a long time now, but until now I didn't have a clear idea of what that would entail.
What's so special about New Diary+ anyway?
A LOT. Besides new exclusive choices, branches, quests, traits, locket upgrades and all that kind of stuff, there will be an ENTIRELY NEW SUBPLOT running in parallel with the main story. (And no, it's not IAC)
Think of it as a personalized extended epilogue, where you get to see and interact with the future consequences of your actions, while also getting the chance to reflect on those choices and choose something differently.
If you don't mind some minor spoilers/sneak peeks, this will be the first choice you encounter when you replay the demo in New Diary+:
Yup, New Diary+ is MC retelling the whole story to their five-year-old sibling/child/godchild/grandchild! To keep it short, I'll be referring to them as "Bunso" (Tagalog for the youngest child in the family). Bunso will be customizable to an extent and have their own traits (although not as much as MC).
Bunso will interrupt the story every so often during important story beats (like new character introductions) to react and ask questions. MC can reflect back on their previous choices and relationships, as well as discuss storytelling tropes with Bunso (such as MC's opinion on infodumps and spoilers), and influence what kind of storyteller they will be in the future.
You'll be able to narrate the story along with your twin, F6E, and the other characters, but it will start with just the two of you. And before you ask, you can choose if you get married later with the crush options and choose how many kids you have together (if you choose the adult/senior options). That will all be happening while a new subplot is brewing in the background—this isn't just a rehash of the story.
There's also the fact that with an increased Max NP, MC will now be able to pick some of the NP options they can't choose before, plus some exclusive new locket upgrades (such as unlocking twin telepathy as early as Volume 1, or being able to see all the hidden stats that the regular locket notification doesn't show you).
How spoilery is New Diary+?
I know this is a spoiler minefield, so there'll be a new setting you can choose at the start:
Minimal Spoilers: Most spoilers will be ████████ or hidden entirely
IAC Spoilers: Unhides most explicit and implied spoilers mentioned in IAC, but spoilers beyond that point are still hidden
There will still be plenty of minor spoilers and teasers about what happens to the characters post-plot, such as MC having a younger sibling (otherwise the whole concept of retelling the story doesn't make sense), but I won't be revealing most of the details so hopefully it makes you more excited and ask more questions instead!
In fact, Bunso will be quite annoyed at MC at how many spoilers they can't talk about yet. I love how they have so much personality already. 😄
Why work on this now and delay the update again?
Simply because it's fun to write and think about. It's a much needed break for me to avoid getting burnt out, and writing a story is more fun if you don't have everything figured out. There's also the fact that it's better for me to lay out the groundwork for this now, so that I don't have to make too many changes later.
It also gives me a chance to mention the other four crush options that are yet to be introduced. You don't actually learn much (if at all) about them, but I'm just happy that they actually "exist" in the game now and not just hidden in my notes and the code.
I figured adding an extra couple or so weeks to the wait time is worth it for the amount of sneak peeks and replayability that it adds. After this, I won't be devoting any more significant development/writing time to ND+, so this is just a one-off, and later updates will not be affected.
That said, I do have to mention that ND+ as it stands is more of a "proof of concept" and is not in any way representative of its final version or quality. Most of the choices/dialogue is structured in a way to avoid spoilers, so those will be structured differently when the game is actually finished (some choices will just become flavor text, for example). There also isn't much in the flavor text department, since I'm not spending time on something that will most likely be changed later.
Dear Diary, Hi! I was thinking about DDWCAPH again and in particular the whole trait system this game uses for developing the MC! I think it's really neat and not something I've seen in other IFs before. I was curious if this mechanic was inspired by anything in particular or if it's just something you came up with? Hope everything is going well for you!!
Hello there! I'm doing alright, thank you! I've taken a break for some self-care and to avoid burnout, but I'm mostly back to writing again!
History of the Traits System
Yes! It was indeed inspired by an old demo in Dashingdon (RIP) called Set in Stone. I liked how the adjectives in the customization choices in that game were bolded. It's just a simple formatting change that improves clarity, but to me that bold text feels like it was highlighting some important aspect of your character. I remember some planned stuff in the stats screen listing traits like if your MC was creative or attractive based on your choices, but it never got updated past the prologue.
The trait system wasn't in the first version of the game (back when it was still titled TILAEYO), but that's how the idea of traits started in the first rewrite. It was mostly physical characteristics at first, then some twin dynamics like the Leader/Follower Twin. It's mostly for adding flavor text, but somewhere along the way, I decided to put some personality stat bonuses to the traits. The idea is that if your MC is the Leader Twin, your Outgoing Personality will stay relatively high to reflect that, even if you pick reserved choices, and so you don't feel "forced" to keep picking outgoing choices.
From there on, I kinda got addicted to adding bonuses to all the other traits. It always annoyed and bothered me when IFs add all these customization choices which then get forgotten and never acknowledged later. The Traits system is my way of showing the player that YES, I keep track of the customization choices. That's why I also added the emoji markers, to show which traits specifically made certain choices (un)available.
That eventually led to more trait ideas (basically anything that could add potential flavor text later), until I fully embraced the RPG aspect of the game and added the Ancestry/Heritage Traits. It was mostly boring stat bonuses at first, but the introduction of the NP system allowed me to do more creative and flavorful stuff with them.
And then that culminated with the Locket Upgrade system that I'm adding in the next update, which allowed me to be more liberal with adding EXP bonuses. Think of the upgrades as unlocking "traits" for your locket. 😄
Other Mechanics
Since we're on the topic, the secrets mechanic in the game was also inspired by Evertree Inn, one of my favorite mystery CoG/Hosted Games. It has a clue system that keeps track of your discoveries, and the text in the stat screen would update whenever you uncover a new detail. Not all of them were particularly important, which is partly why some of the secrets you can discover in my game aren't always plot relevant. It also fits the diary theming, so there's that. Not everything in your diary is super important, although some of them could be foreshadowing later, hehe.
The Trinkets mechanic was partly inspired by the game 'The Binding of Isaac', which had trinkets you can collect for a minor passive bonus, although you can only keep one or two at a time. So that's why the random collectibles also give you minor bonuses. It didn't make sense for MC to only keep one trinket, but the idea sort of stayed now that I've added the Souvenirs.
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Anyway, thanks for sending in this question! I'm still very much alive, I just keep adding new stuff so that's why it's taking a while. 😅
As I mentioned earlier, I'll be sharing more information about the new EXP/NP mechanic! Hopefully this should tide you all over while you wait for the next update. 😊
What's the new mechanic about?
Before I begin, let me preface this by saying that I plan to keep DDWCaPH! character-focused and NOT a stats-focused game. In fact, I've designed the new mechanics to be as simple and as unobtrusive to the story as possible, with the side effect of making some of the current traits/souvenirs with overloaded effects simpler.
The old EXP System
Alright, so the EXP system has always been kind of an afterthought (since leveling up from 12 to 13 takes very long). It feels like gaining EXP has no point at all, especially when you get more bonuses from acquiring traits and discovering trinkets.
With the introduction of NP, I tried to solve this by increasing your Max NP whenever you earn a certain amount of EXP. I still wasn't satisfied, but now that there's an NP mechanic, I was finally able to think of a solution to that, along with another problem I had: How do I introduce the special interactions from Ancestry/Heritage Traits without being too jarring? It would be weird if Dragon MC can suddenly just fly, and it would also be weird if they always knew they could.
I didn't go with a traditional leveling up system at first, since I wanted to keep the age = level thing, until I realized that it doesn't have to be MC leveling up, it could be the locket instead!
Introducing: Locket Upgrades!
Starting the next update, earning EXP will now level up your locket! Leveling up increases your Max NP, and gives you 1 Locket Upgrade point to spend.
Since I don't want it to be distracting, you can only spend the upgrade points at the end of every chapter. I'm also including a chapter summary in the next update (instead of just the end-of-playthrough summary), so that felt like a natural, non-disruptive place to put the Locket Upgrade menu. I might change it so that you can upgrade whenever in the VN version, but that's how it'll be for now.
What kind of upgrades can I get?
The Locket Upgrades are divided into 4 categories:
Stat Upgrades
Narrativium Upgrades
Relationship Upgrades
Special Upgrades
Here's a preview of what the upgrade menu looks like:
Most upgrades can be upgraded up to ten times. So if something says +2%, the maximum would be +20%. However, to encourage spreading out your points and not just dump all of them into Knowledge, the upgrades will have level restrictions.
The 2nd upgrade is unlocked at Level 5, the 3rd upgrade at Level 10, while the 10th upgrade is unlocked at Level 100. This will most likely change, but you'll be able to reach Level 20 at around 90,000 EXP, while Level 100 can be reached around 1,300,000 EXP (the original EXP required to level up from 12 to 13).
The first four stat upgrades (the Rubescent ones) will have a different name according to your locket's gem, and your locket shape will determine whether you get Heartful Innocence or Starful Sophistication (I'm only showing both for demo purposes).
I didn't want it to be overwhelming, so some of the upgrades are locked until you finish certain chapters, when they become relevant.
I tried to add a variety of upgrades for each playstyle, so even if you don't spend any NP, you can still benefit from the upgrades.
Special Upgrades
The Special Upgrades category is way too long to show here, so here's a list of all the upgrades instead. All of the genre-exclusive upgrades are only unlocked once you finish Volume 1 (you get upgrades for both your favorite genres), but most of them are one-time upgrades (that cost 5 upgrade points to unlock).
Here's where you unlock the special interactions. I've always planned Fairytale MC to be able to talk to animals, but now I can avoid the "jarring" problem: now you need to unlock "Aesop's Wisdom" to be able to do so. This also has the bonus of making the progression feel more "earned", rather than MC being able to automatically talk to animals just because you picked Fairytales as your fave genre.
Some of the special upgrades are just stat bonuses, but that allows me more freedom to spread out the effects of the more complicated traits/trinkets. Most souvenirs now have less/weaker effects at the beginning (which helps avoid the problem of overwhelming the reader during the prologue), but you will be able to upgrade them later to be much more powerful. This delayed upgrade means I can add more fun effects to the souvenirs without worrying about "this is way too powerful for the first chapter".
The upgraded Ancestry traits (the "+" versions) that you get when you choose fantasy are now called Legacy Traits, and is now locked behind the "Daddy's Legacy" upgrade. Meanwhile, all sources of Enhanced Senses are now temporary. Enhanced Senses was way too polarizing (you also had no idea which traits grant it), so now everyone has the option to unlock it permanently after Volume 1.
Closing Thoughts
I've always loved coming up with game mechanics ever since I was very little, which is how the idea of MC pretending to be in an RPG came to be. I'm not spoiling what the other upgrades do for now, but I guess you can always peek at the code later. I did have a lot of fun brainstorming the upgrade effects and the upgrade names. You can tell I got some of them from TV Tropes.😄
That said, I hope this makes you more excited for the next update! Most of this has been coded already (minus the parts you can't unlock yet), so you don't need to worry about that. I really think tying the story and game mechanics this way will make the overall game experience much better.
Let me know what you guys think! I'd also love to know what kind of upgrades you'd want to focus on (or if you have any speculations about what effects the other upgrades do)!
No updates yet, but progress is going! I want to finish it before Wayne and Roselyna's birthday comes up again, but you already know how that goes. (Sorry, I forgot JM and Mary's birthdays were last week)
I've been sharing some screenshots of the new additions in the Discord, but besides the new branch, here's a quick summary of the new stuff in the next update to tide you over:
Customize your eyeglasses
Give your twins secret embarrassing nicknames!
New NP choice to customize B's nickname for MC!
Decipher an encrypted sticky note in MC's locker
Ask Lily about 'The Man from Taured'
Option to make MC write their surname first before given name
Select Singer MC's vocal range + added custom input for musical instruments
Choose MC's favorite TV channel with no NP restrictions
New Traits: [Smooth Moves], [Two Left Feet], [Sickness Magnet]
New details to existing secrets (Wayne was almost kidnapped, more info why Maggie rarely calls, another heartbreaking reason why Wayne stopped calling Roselyna 'ate', a darker reason why JM likes supernatural stuff, plus more secret changes)
Expanding the janitor chase scene
New NP choice to select Top 5/Top 10 Student if you don't meet the requirements
New NP choice to let Wayne, Roselyna, Lily (and maybe JM) to mouth off Tita Steph without any filters
Playthrough summary is now shown when you finish a chapter
Steal your twin's slippers + More twin banter!
Lots more!
Anyway, I've thought about the "new" NP system a little more, and I've decided to hold off on implementing it. Instead, I'll just polish off the existing choices, remove some of the extraneous ones that feel more like filler, and add more impactful ones going forward.
It was actually very fun brainstorming what F6E would say to Tita Steph if they didn't have any filters, so maybe I'll share a snippet or two when I'm done editing those. 😛
Today's update post has three new changes/additions:
New Character Development Variables for F6E
New Difficulty Settings
Trait and EXP Updates
Before I show the previews, I just wanna say that after this update, I'll try to focus more on the story, and less on the gameplay stuff. I've actually gotten a bunch of breakthroughs with the story recently, so look forward to the introduction posts of the other two crush options soon!
New Character Development Variables for F6E
I'm thinking of adding a second set of character development variables for F6E! While the primary purpose of the first set of variables is to determine how major story branches will play out, the second set is intended to be less impactful, and only affect flavor text and dialogue.
New Difficulty Settings
Instead of the starting twin relationship traits secretly modifying your NP cost and NP recovery stats, I decided to add new difficulty settings to the last choice in the prologue.
Here are the difficulty modifiers:
🟢 Slice-of-Life Difficulty: +10% Overall EXP, +25 Max NP, +12% NP Recovery, -20% NP Costs when retconning stat checks, Stat Penalties from 🤯 [HEADACHE!!!] are capped at 25%
🟡 Adventure Difficulty: Normal EXP, NP Cost, and NP Recovery modifiers
🔴 Superhero Difficulty: -10% Overall EXP, -25 Max NP, -12% NP Recovery, +50% NP Costs when retconning stat checks
🔥 Apocalyptic Difficulty: -33% Overall EXP, -50 Max NP, -12% NP Recovery, +100% NP Costs when retconning stat checks, Stat Penalties from 🤯 [HEADACHE!!!] are 25% Worse
It's important to note that the difficulty settings DO NOT change the stat check requirements, so this wouldn't really affect you much if you don't use NP very often. Your Max NP is now also tied to your Total EXP gained (you gain 1 Max NP for every 2,500 EXP gained instead of gaining Max NP every chapter), so that's why the settings give EXP Bonuses/Penalties. Of course, these are all subject to changes later.
Trait and EXP Updates
As I've said before, I'm reworking the "bucket list" idea to be much simpler. Some traits/passives will now give a small amount of EXP when you pick certain choices.
I'm adding these bonuses to make picking traits more impactful, make gaining EXP more meaningful, and to add a sense of progression/character development for your MC. For example, Troublemaker MCs will now gain a small amount of EXP when picking Sensible/Disciplined choices.
Here's the full list of additions:
The EXP bonuses are minor enough (most choices will only give around 10-30 EXP), so you won't really miss out on much if your Troublemaker MC wants to keep causing chaos anyway. The bonuses do stack however, so we'll see if the numbers need adjusting in the future.
The EXP Notification won't appear if you gain EXP this way, so don't worry about extra clutter! Speaking of, I actually found a bunch of bugs that made certain Traits give more/less EXP all the time while coding, so whoops! 😅 It's not really game-breaking so I'll just include the fix with the next update.
Anyway, that's all I got for now. Let me know what you think of the new changes!
I'm expanding the crush preference choice to include demiromantic options!
I'll probably make it a trait, since it only makes sense to restrict the available crush options depending on your current relationship stat (which primarily affects B and the story world crush options), plus slightly increasing the chemistry bonus you get from a higher relationship.
🌱 Green Thumb: Gain +100% EXP from gardening choices
🥀 Black Thumb: Gain +300% EXP from gardening choices
Well, the first three are already existing variables so they're not exactly "new", but I wanted to give a label to them anyway so it appears in your stats screen:
[Goldilocks Temperament] is the neutral emotional trait between [Emotionally Sensitive] and [Unflappable]
[Alone Together] is the trait you get if you don't pick any bestfriend
[Rapunzel Hair] is exclusive to MCs with [Fairytale Heritage]
And here is the new choice in Chapter 3 where you can get the Green/Black Thumb choice:
The first three choices also give some Knowledge points! To be honest, I don't see the Green/Black Thumb Traits becoming relevant very often, but that's actually why I'm fine with adding them. It's also just weird that MC's house has plenty of plants, and there aren't any choices about it.
Oh and speaking of traits, you'll finally be able to have both braces and the [Sweet Tooth] Trait next update!
I'm also changing the names of the Enneagram Traits so it reflects more of the character development aspects:
Type 1: Virtue-Seeker
Type 2: Love-Seeker
Type 3: Admiration-Seeker
Type 4: Identity-Seeker
Type 5: Knowledge-Seeker
Type 6: Security-Seeker
Type 7: Fun-Seeker
Type 8: Control-Seeker
Type 9: Peace-Seeker
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That's probably gonna be the last set of traits I'm gonna add, but no promises. 😅 If I do add more it's probably to already existing variables, but at this point I've covered everything that I can think of that might be relevant in the story.
