paravostok

Fallout: Caledonia is a project I'm working on, a "Fallout" series fangame based on the Twine game engine. Twine is a text-based game engine with quite a few limitations. Text-based game dev may sound attractive, but Twine is really just a sexy skin for html, there's not really anything special about it, and here is some of the issues I have faced so far, and why I won't be working on it full time anymore; 1. Dialogue system Due to Twine really just being html, one of the bigger issues is image integration, which to my knowledge was possible in previous versions, but not the newest. There are some workarounds but they feel sort of hack-y, the easiest of which is just bundling the built html in a folder containing a media directory. Also with html's quirks, is the dynamic update system you would expect from rpg-like dialogue. I really just enjoy the prose, the code is just a means to an end, and when the prose can't be the main focus, I lose some interest. One of the larger issues here was that because this is less a "game-engine" and more a skin, is that there is no "game-engine" systems included, like dialogue or combat, and it turns out that dialogue is hard to do without making a massive chain, with exponential passages for branching dialogue, so you need to create your own system, which is fine, but initially Twine seems more beginner friendly, and not "you should understand javascript and html relatively well to create your own engine" My botching of this dialogue system has been one of the main things keeping me from continuing this project, I'll almost definitely pick it up again later, as Fallout is almost definitely my favourite game franchise, and I'm always on the look out for a New Vegas successor, so I'm quite engrossed in this. 2. The attack system I have created a relatively simple but effective combat system, think Earthbound but an explicit stylistic choice to make combat almost always the worst option, this is something media often glosses over, but if you kill someone that would have quite significant psychological consequences, and whilst that is beyond my scope and abilities, a relatively basic system with varying dialogue based on a bodycount variable is something I like the idea of, this is me largely being inspired by Undertale and Andor. Obviously both of these pieces of media are divergent and dissimilar, but they handle death and murder in a way that's rare and interesting in my opinion. By making combat not a game mechanic as rpg players would expect, but a moral condemnation, they don't get loot, just prose about how this makes the player feel (internal) and how their actions effect other people (external), an important loop. Thematically my system is intentionally setup to make the player try and kill the first enemy when it pops up, they may have put a lot of points into a combat skill, initiated the fight, or believe they're doing the right thing - however, I intentionally want to try and make it so that restraint is always the best option, if not always possible. The fights early on shouldn't feel fair, the player should crush the opponent, and then realise that the game doesn't reward it. My system is also small in scope, it's really meant to feel like a chore, the issue is doing this is hard, as you want it to feel like a stylistic choice, not a gameplay limitation. I want it so that anytime the player is in a fight (especially later on) they are reminded that they are choosing to do this, despite the monotony. Due to this, I have stopped developing this project in twine and ported most of the basic features to Godot, which is much more friendly for the scope of this subject, but has forced me to learn some C#, so dont expect anything for a while. I will link a download down here, but the game is not finished at all, and this is not hyperbole, the game likely has more paths than you think, there is maybe only 10-30 minutes of gameplay, but the branches are divergent, your stats will effect it, your stats, etc... if something is broken, it's not "broken" it's just unfinished. To run the game, unzip the file, open the folder called "FoC Beta 1.0" and then double click the file called "Fallout_ Caledonia.html" Included is also a map of what I want the scope of the map to be, I have a (mostly) complete lore file detailing (almost) every city and town here, and whilst I haven't included it in this archive, if/when I pick up the project in future, I likely will. Beta 1.0: Download Here