Adventure High (Mind control and Transformation game)

[Changer]

Hello everybody. I am Changer, and I've been working on this game for a few years so far. I am trying to make this game as good as it can be, so any feedback or suggestions are welcomed. xD It can be really easy to miss things after working on the same project for a long time.

Links
Play now: https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/733818
Walkthrough: http://changermcgame.blogspot.com/p/int ... y-non.html
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Changer


Plot Summary

This is your first year at Adventure High, a school that teaches would-be adventurers how to harness their magical gifts to survive the monster infested lands outside town and bring back artifacts from the lost civilizations of the world. You have the gift of Control, which gives you access to spells that can be used to help support those around you, or bend them to your will.

Whether you use this gift to become a great hero, dominate the school and everyone in it, or something in between is up to you.

Gameplay

The game is a mix between an RPG and Visual Novel. The dungeon plays like an RPG where you explore each floor and fight monsters in turn based combat. Killing monsters gives EXP which makes your party stronger, while casting specific spells builds Proficiency and allows you to learn new spells within the same spell school.

Outside of the dungeon, you will be able to talk to other students and teachers to advance the plot. Your choices will have an impact not only on how characters feel about you, but can also impact the story at large. In addition, you can also cast spells during most conversations; to help, manipulate, flirt with, or even outright enslave other characters.

Art/Screenshots

Here are some examples of the art present in the game.

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

Major features

- 17 Enslavable characters (18 total so far, more to come)
- Ability to change the personalities of characters under your control
- Multiple main storylines affected by your actions
- Monster Taming (Will lead to playing with Monster Girls soon)
- Special bad-ends for losing to most monster girls
- Dozens of spells, with more to come

Final thoughts

My main goal with the game is to make a game where the player's choices actually matter. I was pretty disappointed with Fable's promises and most games with "morality systems" pull the same stunt over and over; almost always, it's a morality bar that affects the ending and maybe some cosmetic details. I'm working on trying to make it so your actions lead directly to logical consequences rather than just tracking an arbitrary morality value, with not just different endings, but entirely different stories based on your actions.

Any feedback would be great to have; the game is pretty complex already so it can be easy for me to miss things. I try to fix bugs and anachronisms as quickly as I can; usually in the same day. Thanks!

[musical74]

Wait, you're the guy that made this?? I found out about this game some time ago and love it, although it's been awhile since I played this. Biggest problem I had was locating one of the *secret class notes* (or something like that) in the maze, but it's a lot of fun, especially when you mind-control someone and have them do naughty things and they are like *right away*. I'll need to check this again, because I'm sure you've updated since the last time I played it...

[Changer]

Thanks, and yeah if it's been a while there probably is a fair bit of content since last time you played. I've been averaging around 12-16 lines in the features list each update so it adds up. xD

I am trying to work on a better way to do the dungeon so the notes are easier to find and exploration would be more engaging but so far I have not been able to do it. Heavier math than I am used to is involved with most of what I've come up with. ^__^;

[Mashugana]

I was wondering if you were going to put this up here, I've been following your work since .21 I believe, it's a damn good game man!

By the by, what's Conquest all about?

[Pr3dator95]

This game is amazing, keep being creative

[vitorsly]

Dude, Ive been playing your game since about 0.18 or something and in terms of the theme, it is one of the best H-games I have played. There is a lot more to do, and the graphics are kinda weak (still better than the old ones though) but I see a LOT of promise here!

[AcetheSuperVillain]

I played this a while ago on NewGrounds, nice to meet you here as well.

Sounds like your main goal is something along the lines of a Choose Your Own Adventure Novel. It might be helpful for you to research some of those, I've thought about writing them once or twice and it's actually pretty difficult.

It's definitely impressive how much you've accomplished, but I think every aspect has room for improvement. I'm a designer myself, so I can't help but look at this game and think about how I would do it.

- The new artwork is better, but has a lifeless look to it. Your own artwork is actually not a bad start. I could give you some lessons if you want.

- The dialog tends to ramble too much for my liking. I prefer short and to the point. Final Fantasy dialog is usually very good at this if you want an example.

- The combat system is frustrating. For turn based combat, I would prefer that it's either a challenge or non-existent. Fewer encounters with harder battles would be ideal. Towards the later levels, past level 7, they get difficult enough to be worth it.

[Changer]

@Mashugana: Thanks. Conquest is going to be more of a resource management and empire building type of game, with possession and psychic control being the main themes. I've been slowly chipping away at making improvements to it but haven't added enough content for a new version yet. Most of my focus has been on Adventure High.

@Pr3dator95 & Vitorsly: Thanks, I am planning to keep doing my best on it.

@AcetheSuperVillain: I've read a few CYOAs, I'm hoping to introduce a bit more proactive elements to the game though, rather than having the player only be reactionary.

For the most part, I think RokuMoku struggles with the eyes. Which are the most expressive part of the face. I've tried to get her to cut back on the giant irises as they make every face look the same but either I am not good at explaining it, or she is not able to do it. I would really appreciate lessons though to improve my own artwork. I have not been improving as much as I would like lately. ^___^;

I probably could cut down on some of the dialogue. There is so much to explain early on, unfortunately, that I have a lot of exposition dumps... Especially with the teachers.

The combat balance is mostly waiting for me to finish coding all the spells in the game. Once I have all the spells designed I'm going to rebalance the game to have a better difficulty curve.

[AcetheSuperVillain]

I would really appreciate lessons though to improve my own artwork. I have not been improving as much as I would like lately. ^___^;

Here you go: viewtopic.php?f=29&t=7632 ... viewtopic.php?f=29&t=6847

I probably could cut down on some of the dialogue. There is so much to explain early on, unfortunately, that I have a lot of exposition dumps... Especially with the teachers.

The trick to good exposition is to make your audience want exposition before giving it to them. Show them something weird about the world you're in, then explain why that is. Get into a few fights first, then teach them how to fight (this is totally do-able with the auto-battle system you already have). In a game like this, and in a school setting especially, you can leave a lot of exposition as optional talk-to-NPC or party-banter kinda stuff.

[Yorozuya]

Tried it out, pretty solid game so far. There are a bunch of flaws, but it's 0.31 so can't be helped. I would like to remark on a few small things though, particularly regarding control over your teammates in battle.

1) If you try your spell on Val at the beginning of the game instead of a monster, you become able to control her actions in combat, even if you revert her to normal or stopped when she asked you to.This doesn't count as having her status as enslaved though, and doesn't make any conflicts with the rest of the plot (heroic vs control scenarios) so I was wondering if this is maybe a bug, or intentional, or something else.

2) If you stay as a good guy and not control anyone, Jane will mention in one of your training classes about the effects of charm and something about how you don't command your friends because you're not an authority figure. In that case, I was just wondering if the consequences of keeping your powers in check is that you can't tell your party to do as you wish in battle, or if maybe there are ways to train your leadership later on. Or you know, maybe I'm just missing a hidden feature with the Charm spell? I tried casting it on my allies and it honestly didn't do anything.

[Changer]

Thanks, I gave those threads a read, will probably need to read them again to ensure I retain it. xD

It does seem like combat would be simple enough to go without explaining but I have found that there are a lot of players who do not understand a lot of mechanics unless they are spelled out in plain text. Exposition has necessarily grown as a result of having a lot of players asking the same questions repeatedly.

[AcetheSuperVillain]

Sure, that makes sense, and you should definitely have the explanation in the game somewhere, just that you can make it more optional or ease into it. Like a lot of RPGs have a moment where some character asks "Do you need me to explain how RPGs work?" In a setting like this, you could easily have a choice like "1. Go to Combat Class ... 2. Sleep in". Personally, I appreciate having those moments after I've had some time to explore the game, since it gives me an idea of how much exposition I need to pay attention to. You could have the first battle completely on auto and later say something like "That was so intense! I just acted without thinking." or have your partner fight on auto while the character you control has some sort of uncurable status change, like he's tied up or stuck in goo or hypnotized or whatever. Or do a combat sequence like in Pokemon where you watch Prof Oak battle before doing it yourself. In a lot of Final Fantasy games, they have some sort of room full of people who will explain combat mechanics and let you practice combat without danger. You could also work it into the characters, like if Val is good at physical magic and Sarah is good at destructive magic, they could explain more about their type of magic conversationally.

[Changer]

I could probably do a 'do you want to skip' prompt for instruction dumps. I'll have to remember to do that when I start the next round of updates (I tend to wait a week or so after finishing an update to see if any bugs show up)

[Dead2112man]

Hey, just got a question, played about 25 minutes or so, got to the point of val curse thing, finished that, but now she is not in my party in battles, is there something I did wrong, will she just pop back in after an event, or is this a bug?

[Changer]

Tried it out, pretty solid game so far. There are a bunch of flaws, but it's 0.31 so can't be helped. I would like to remark on a few small things though, particularly regarding control over your teammates in battle.

1) If you try your spell on Val at the beginning of the game instead of a monster, you become able to control her actions in combat, even if you revert her to normal or stopped when she asked you to.This doesn't count as having her status as enslaved though, and doesn't make any conflicts with the rest of the plot (heroic vs control scenarios) so I was wondering if this is maybe a bug, or intentional, or something else.

2) If you stay as a good guy and not control anyone, Jane will mention in one of your training classes about the effects of charm and something about how you don't command your friends because you're not an authority figure. In that case, I was just wondering if the consequences of keeping your powers in check is that you can't tell your party to do as you wish in battle, or if maybe there are ways to train your leadership later on. Or you know, maybe I'm just missing a hidden feature with the Charm spell? I tried casting it on my allies and it honestly didn't do anything.

1: Sorry I didn't reply right away to you. There must have been an odd timing thing between the time I had loaded the thread and when I actually posted my reply that caused me to miss it. It is intended that casting the spell on Val can cause her to obey your orders; she has high trust with you, and manipulating her causes her obedience to go up as well. If a combination of obedience and trust is high enough, you can command party members in battle even if they are not slaves.

2: I am planning on making that scene check for if you can order anyone in battle, but for now it only checks if you have any slaves because I may add more characters to the party later on and don't want to have to remember to go back and change that scene's code for every party member I add. Anyways, you stray from the heroic path when you use magic to enslave a character against their will. There will be some characters who you can make into willing slaves without deviating from the heroic path though.


@dead2112man: You can add her back to your party as soon as Dr. Tiff releases her. You can manage your party by pressing Enter to open your menu. Click on the character you want to put in your party, then click on the slot on the bottom right that you want to put them in.

[Yorozuya]

That's quite alright. It seems my messages always got held up at being reviewed for moderation, so it always gets delayed posting.

So, you have 2 different variables then, obedience and trust? Is this related to those trust potions sold in the shop? And also I'm guessing in future updates there will be some triggers that would allow you to raise your party members' obedience without resorting to enslavement? Seems that would be proper for the harem route (if you have that planned).

On another note, I think Molly has a problem attacking in battle, or at least the default AI anyways. My game seems to always freeze whenever there's an enemy and it's Molly's turn to act, and then I thought about how Val / Sarah / Cassandra / Ashley only ever uses offensive action despite everything else they can do (healing, debilitating, etc), so I thought maybe Molly doesn't have any destruction spells at all. I hope you'll look into this later along the way.

And also, the game seems to be bugged if you turn Molly into a succubus AFTER enslaving Jane and her? Like, after the succubus scene, Molly would run to the lake but when you click at her picture, no dialogue comes up. Incidentally, since you've technically enslaved Molly along with Jane, she is shown as present in your room, so... maybe she's in two places at the same time when she's not supposed to be?

[Changer]

That's quite alright. It seems my messages always got held up at being reviewed for moderation, so it always gets delayed posting.

So, you have 2 different variables then, obedience and trust? Is this related to those trust potions sold in the shop? And also I'm guessing in future updates there will be some triggers that would allow you to raise your party members' obedience without resorting to enslavement? Seems that would be proper for the harem route (if you have that planned).

On another note, I think Molly has a problem attacking in battle, or at least the default AI anyways. My game seems to always freeze whenever there's an enemy and it's Molly's turn to act, and then I thought about how Val / Sarah / Cassandra / Ashley only ever uses offensive action despite everything else they can do (healing, debilitating, etc), so I thought maybe Molly doesn't have any destruction spells at all. I hope you'll look into this later along the way.

And also, the game seems to be bugged if you turn Molly into a succubus AFTER enslaving Jane and her? Like, after the succubus scene, Molly would run to the lake but when you click at her picture, no dialogue comes up. Incidentally, since you've technically enslaved Molly along with Jane, she is shown as present in your room, so... maybe she's in two places at the same time when she's not supposed to be?

Ah, yeah that would explain it. Your posts will stop being reviewed after your tenth post. I believe it's an anti-spambot thing.

You can build trust slowly as you build a relationship with characters, and I am planning to make it so success in the dungeon adds a bit of trust over time as well. Obedience increases when you either manipulate someone with your magic, regardless of if you enslave them, or as a result of certain subplots.

Molly's combat AI is more complicated than the others, as she tries to cast appropriate healing spells on the party. I will take a look and see what might be causing it not to work right.

I'm working on fixing the anachronisms caused by Molly's enslavement mixing with the succubus plot. I missed a few things apparently.

[musical74]

UGH I need to go all mind control or all *nice guy*, being back and forth creates problems! Actually, there's another issue: I needed to collar a naga and a slime girl. I got the slime girl but after that, every time the naga saw me it was auto-flee so I couldn't get it, which meant Erin was off limits. By the way, how do you get confusion, flirt and charm?

After the secret note on level 10, is that the last *hidden note*? Levels go on but DANG they are hard...

[Changer]

UGH I need to go all mind control or all *nice guy*, being back and forth creates problems! Actually, there's another issue: I needed to collar a naga and a slime girl. I got the slime girl but after that, every time the naga saw me it was auto-flee so I couldn't get it, which meant Erin was off limits. By the way, how do you get confusion, flirt and charm?

After the secret note on level 10, is that the last *hidden note*? Levels go on but DANG they are hard...

It's not really all or nothing; there are middle-grounds paths that will be fleshed out more as the game goes on. I am intending to specifically avoid making players feel like they have to go to one extreme or another; the middle paths will have satisfying endings as well.

You can turn Monster fleeing off in the menu when hunting monsters. Press Enter to open the menu, then click on options to get to it.

You learn spells by casting other spells in the same spell school. You can learn confusion by casting suppression in battle, charm by casting suppression or confusion, and flirt by learning support magic and casting conversion:speed and Stone Skin.

There is one more secret note, one floor 12, which gives you another lesson with Dr. Tiff. I am going to re-balance the difficulty of combat later on; I am working on trying to program new spells which will make combat easier once you have access to them.

[Yorozuya]

Truth be told, I'm not a fan of the current spell unlocking system. Suppose you practice fire magic all your life, how did you suddenly learn how to conjure a deluge or a storm or an earthquake? If anything it would make more sense if your fire magic becomes more and more effective the more you use it, and then at some point you can learn no more and you go to your mentor to learn a new one. He/she would probably say "hey, I see you've known everything about how to conjure heat. Now how about you reverse that and remove heat from your target?"

i.e. Once you've reach certain mastery levels with your spell, you go to your respective type's teacher and they can tell you about the next step (which may or may not incorporate having you do some favours for them). That being said, it's still too early to judge and compare, so I'll let you work on it a bit more and wait until the learning system takes a solid shape. Besides, if you are planning to change that, you'd surely have to change Jane's secret lessons as well, and that may just create more problems.