Squire game (looking for feedback)

[Pseudosym]

 

• Text-based, choose-your-own-adventure game
• You play the teenage (male) squire of an ill-tempered (male) knight.
• Your character receives most spankings and may witness some spankings.
• X/m disciplinary spankings, with only the occasional exception.
• Currently a proof-of-concept "sneak preview." I'm looking for feedback before I launch into full-fledged development.

Hi, everybody!

Ever since I encountered the concept of spanking video games, I've been dying to try my hand at one. I don't exactly have much experience in the way of game development... but I have plenty of experience playing games, so that probably counts for something, right?

Anyway, I had myself a little personal game jam over the weekend and got some momentum up on a project I've had in my head for a while. I wanted to share it with you in its early stages so I can get some feedback. It functions as a complete (albeit short) game.

I haven't been able to come up with a good name, so for now, I'm just calling it The Squire. It's a text-based game developed in Twine (which I am just learning).


THE GAME (plays in your browser)


The gist:
You play as a teenage boy who has been plucked from his rural life on a farm to become the squire of a knight named Sir Martin. Shortly upon arriving at his home, you come to realize the knight is a terse, demanding old man who barely seems interested in a squire in the first place. He certainly has no patience for your shenanigans.

You must navigate your new life as a squire, forming relationships with the various characters you encounter, all while staying in Sir Martin's good graces... lest he send you packing.

Oh, yeah—and pretty much everyone has the authority to bust your misbehaving behind, should they see fit.

 

I like games where I sort of know I might be spanked, but I can't predict with certainty when I will be spanked. I tried to design a relationship mechanic modeled around how people in the real world are motivated to spank (or punish in general). Here's what I've come up with:

Each character in the game is measured by two metrics: approval and conviction.

Approval is how much the character trusts you. If you generally do right by this character, they will be less likely to spank you when you do slip up.
Conviction is how responsible the character feels for your behavior, and therefore how likely they are to correct you.


Conviction tends to carry more weight than approval in whether or not you get punished.

Some examples:

• Amy, an acquaintance from class, has high approval (she thinks you're cute and always laughs at your jokes) and low conviction (she's not particularly concerned about your future).
• Your dad has medium approval (you're generally a good kid, but you don't share many interests) and high conviction (it's up to him to make sure you become a contributing member of society).
• Your best friend has high approval (you basically share a brain) and medium conviction (he won't punish you, but he'll call out your bad behavior).
• Your eighth grade teacher has low approval (you were a disruptive clown in her class) and low conviction (nothing she did seemed to get through to you, and you were only her problem for one year, so she eventually stopped trying).
• The principal has low approval (he really doesn't seem to like anyone) and high conviction (it is literally his job to punish you when you misbehave).

Each of these combinations can result in a different reaction when your character does something bad. If you skip school, Amy might just think you're even cooler, but you can bet your dad won't find it so amusing.

The way you interact with these characters will change how they feel about you. Not everyone will react the same way. If you skip school for an entire week, Amy might become worried, and learning you were just skipping may raise her conviction, as she is now personally motivated to prevent you from doing that again. This same behavior may lower your dad's approval, as he finds your behavior irresponsible and irredeemable.

I'm not far enough along in development to have a good idea of how scalable this will be. Right now, you only meet each character once. The next time you interact with them, I'd like their behavior to adjust based (at least in part) on how you behaved when you last met, and I would like this to be done (at least somewhat) dynamically, so I don't have to write out every single possible timeline from start to finish.

I would love to hear any and all feedback you may have. This is my first real attempt at a video game, so any game development tips would be appreciated. Also, if you happen to know a good way to employ version control in Twine... let me know. ^^;

---

PLANNED FEATURES
Short list:

• Gender flexibility (player character and knight)
• Some sort of time-progression mechanic
• Daily tasks and training
• More NPC's

Longer term:

• Achievement badges
• Quests with Sir Martin and unlocking new locations (beyond the manor)

This is good, still in a very early stage, but the rep sistem you have implemented looks good, ill wait for an update for now.

[marspank]

I like the idea for the system and for having people have a reason for spanking you, and having the same dialogue lead to different outcomes based on prior choices is always a great thing to have.

[Mondy]

as soon as I can I try it for sure. the fact that it's X / M is perfect for me . i am sure i will like it. hope you will expand it a lot.

[meruem2]

I feel it's a bit to early in development to judge how the rep system is going to work out but it seems like a good idea. The one thing I'm worried about is that with the current characters obedience is the only way to avoid spankings with near certainty and I can't imagine how you could change that and still make sense in the setting. So the idea about not knowing for sure when you will get spanked doesn't work out to well in my mind. Still, it seems like an interesting project. I'll keep an eye on it.

[psyger]

Very solid start. I'd have liked the option of having Sir Martin be female, but apart from that, I'm excited to see where this is going

[32167]

A good start, unfortunately for me spankee is a male
I like m/f, but almost all games here are f/f or f/m

[Pseudosym]

Originally Posted by meruem2

I feel it's a bit to early in development to judge how the rep system is going to work out but it seems like a good idea. The one thing I'm worried about is that with the current characters obedience is the only way to avoid spankings with near certainty and I can't imagine how you could change that and still make sense in the setting. So the idea about not knowing for sure when you will get spanked doesn't work out to well in my mind. Still, it seems like an interesting project. I'll keep an eye on it.

Thanks for the feedback! Agreed, it'll be hard to tell how well it plays until there are more opportunities to combine interactions. I'll work on getting the second day programmed in to better demonstrate how the mechanic can work.

I'm hoping to include scenarios that don't really give the player a choice. Like, you slip and break something, total accident. Depending on your relationship with who sees, you might be in for it.


For sure, if you want to avoid spankings, you just do your best to stay out of trouble. I know when I play spanking games, though, I try to get in as much trouble as possible. My thought was to mitigate that tendency. If you cause too much trouble, people will eventually give up trying to correct you, which is no fun for the player (Sir Martin, for example, starts out with such low scores that he won't bother to punish you until you've earned a little of his trust—he just sends you straight home). And if you do everything in your power to stay out of trouble, you probably won't be punished much, either, even if you occasionally slip up. So you have to try to control your relationships with people to influence how they react to your behavior.

Originally Posted by 32167

A good start, unfortunately for me spankee is a male
I like m/f, but almost all games here are f/f or f/m

Hah, I have the same/opposite problem... I've also seen a lack of my favorite pairing, which is M/m. M/f happens to be my least favorite, so unfortunately I'm not likely to include much of it at all—though eventually, I'd like to allow the player to pick any gender they please.

---------- Post added at 09:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:32 PM ----------

Originally Posted by psyger

Very solid start. I'd have liked the option of having Sir Martin be female, but apart from that, I'm excited to see where this is going

You know, that never even occurred to me, but you're absolutely right! I'll add it to the list.


I'm kind of intimidated by letting folks customize the gender. Because it's entirely text-based, there are pronouns all over the place. I'm gritting my teeth thinking of writing a line of text that reads, "$knight.gender looks down at you, $knight.genderPossessivePronoun eyes steely."


I can't decide if it'll be easier to leave it alone for now (so I can read and write my own story without giving myself a headache) or just program in the flexibility now (because it will definitely be a find-and-replace pain to accomplish this later on).

What about a tomboyish squire girl that gets called "Boy" a lot?
OH BOI

[Pseudosym]

A girl who's constantly assumed to be a boy definitely opens the door for some unique situations! I kind of love it.