TL;DRI had an abrupt epiphany of a game idea (one that’s been done before but still). I expect my inexperience and the inadequacy of Twine as a simulation engine to eventually kill my attempt at the project, so I’m gonna stick my design doc here. I’ve seen LoK necro lots of dead projects over the years, and spawn successor projects that surpassed their source. Looking for advice, inspiration, and maybe some help. GET ON THE GAME TRAIN
TOOT TOOTIntroductionSo I was reading about
Elrk by
Dr. BUG (all of their stuff is available on Pixiv for free, but most of it isn’t translated). The Elrk (elf/ork, apparently) are a distillation of the Breeding Season/Sex-and-Combat core concept that keeps pulling me back into this legacy of H-games.
The premise is straightforward. Start with a clan of Elrk, send them on raids to get slaves or get fucked (win/win for them, assuming they survive), come back to the village and raise more Elrk. Assuming people are reading this without checking the source material (which I HIGHLY recommend) I’ll highlight a few key points.
*Elrk are hermaphroditic, capable of impregnating and being impregnated.
*Their children inherit traits of their parents, but are still heavily Elrk.
*As generations pass the non-Elrk traits breed out, incentivizing a constant flow of powerful mates to improve the Elrk clan’s children.
*Getting better Elrk hybrids lets them take on stronger/different opponents, creating a natural power growth and challenge curve throughout the game.
Design DocHere’s the outline of what I intend to program. Looking for advice, criticism, and affirmation.
IMPORTANT FRAMING NOTES
*I’m not an artist and art assets would be resource intensive. The first iteration of the game will be pure text/what I have handy. It’s easier to code for someone who is relearning (me) and faster to produce.
*I will be leaning on Object Oriented design and modular components. Once the key mechanics are in place it will be much easier to simply add more races, which I could see going crazy (SO many monster races people like).
*I technically have a “proto build” at this point. I’m using Twine Sugarcube because it has radiobutton macros and I was able to download it in 30 seconds. I’ll post it once I have the core gameplay loop set up enough to actually function as a game. Right now it’s like 20% lifted sample code and 20% miscoded garbage I don’t want to prune in case I can learn something.
OUTLINE0) Core gameplay loop description
1) Village menu
2) Month cycle
3) Breeding details
4) Raid details
5) Region details
6) Endgame?
CORE GAMEPLAY LOOP DESCRIPTIONSpoiler (click to show/hide):
Each turn, or “Month”, will be planned out from the Village menu. Every Elrk in the clan can be assigned an Action, or assigned none.
The Actions currently planned are:
-Mate
--Fuck another clan member: attempt to impregnate the other Elrk
--Fuck a slave: attempt to impregnate the slave
--Be studded by a slave: attempt to be impregnated by the slave
-Work Not fleshed out yet, but improve/maintain the village. Having no workers risks slaves escaping etc.
-Administer Rule the village, also largely undefined. Administrators will be the ones who deal with special events at the Village.
-Raid be assigned to a group raiding a specific target. Get slaves from combat, as tribute/bribe, etc. Combat minigame.
-Submit this Elrk becomes a slave. Not sure if this will stay, depends on if it has a use in game.
-Exile this Elrk leaves the clan and is gone. Mostly to get rid of trash Elrk so you aren’t crowded.
-Spirit Journey Elrk with non-zero magic level can become shamans. This Elrk attempts to become a Shaman/increase their level, with higher magic level increasing the odds. Shaman’s will get some special actions based on level in combat, and some special choices in events.
The player clicks “Next Month” and all the actions are resolved. Probably combat first. Then events in the village occur, and are resolved using the skills of the Administrators. Then resolve all the Work/Spirit Journey/Submit/Exile/disappearing the dead Elrk stuff. Breeding is resolved last to allow random events lots of chances to screw it up. Resolve all the intentional breeding first. Then there is an end of month orgy where everything in the village that wasn’t assigned to mate tries to mate with a random non-pregnant slave (Elrk’s want to propagate). If they run out of viable child-bearers they still breed with a random slave for lore reasons but I’m not sure that’ll have any mechanical affect.
Repeat ad-infinitum
I’m not sure at this point if having ZERO living Elrk in a clan should be a game over, or just cause an event where the player gets a couple random Elrk. Thoughts?
VILLAGE MENUSpoiler (click to show/hide):
It’ll contain the following, and their sub menus.
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Events Log Access to a log of last month’s events.
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Clan Member Status List of all the members of the clan, and all their stats.
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Slave Status List of all the slaves owned by the clan. May choose to exempt them from the end of month orgy, like if the player wants to use them for a specific breeding. Maybe have a morale system that slaves can be convinced/demoralized to the point where they can be made members of the clan?
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Assign Mating Assign one Elrk to fuck another.
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Assign Breeding Assign an Elrk to fuck or be studded by a specific slave. A separate menu mostly for thematic reasons, also for coding reasons
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Assign Work-
Assign Administration-
Assign to Raid assign an Elrk to a raid group.
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Organize Raid Create a raid group and choose its destination. Not sure about structure of raids, but I like building teams and sending them rather than having to manually assign them each the same target.
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Submit-
Exile Everything resolves end of month, submit/exile is only finalized then.
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Assign Spirit Quest MONTH CYCLESpoiler (click to show/hide):
-Combat minigame, units are added back to village at start of next month of slaves caught don’t effect anything the month they are caught.
-Village event minigame(s). This ties into region stuff, different regions can send attacks/events to the village based on relationship/power they have.
-Resolve breedings and the end of month orgy.
-Increment the pregnancy timer/birth children. Important to have this occur after the orgy to dodge day-of-birth-pregnancy. Possibly include a childhood thing? It was important in the lore, but I think it will be easy to add later as an intermediate after birth. What do you think?
-Cleanup sweep, remove all dead/exiled Elrk. Improve Shamans. Submitting Elrk become slaves.
BREEDING DETAILSSpoiler (click to show/hide):
This system falls somewhere between 4x style unit recruitment and item crafting. Pregnant units (Clan Members and Slaves) will track what sired their child. Children will have stats based on the race of their parents. Crossbreeds will have hybrid/special race identities to track their stats. Going to move a bit away from the source material, I plan to include full on multi-generation special sequences to get special super-Elrk. Possibly hinted at in in-game events/finds/loot?
Ways to get units pregnant
-1) Elrks can’t impregnate themselves. Is this a thing players would want?
1) Breeding Elrks on purpose. Straightforward.
2) Keeping slaves to breed for good Elrk. Straightforward.
3) Elrk in combat getting caught up in the moment, impregnating enemy mid-battle, bringing them back as slaves.
4) Elrk getting fucked mid combat, becoming pregnant, surviving to have child. Charisma score plays a role in whether defeated Elrk get killed, ignored, or fucked. (Source material pregnant Elrk waited to give birth before returning to raid, Ima skip that for play/fun reasons)
5) Bullshit random events in village. Could be some very obnoxious stuff.
How pregnancy works.
-Intercourse happens, mating has sire and mother. Make a check based on the race of sire and mother, currently no other factors used.
-If pregnant, duration of pregnancy determined by sire and mother race.
-Count down. Pregnancy has no effect on what an Elrk can or cannot do. Do people want an effect?
The Children Plan
-Currently no plan on childrearing, mostly to streamline game.
-Possibly add a maturation time based on race?
-Possibly have Working Elrk effect Child stats? Maybe Admin gives a bonus?
RAID DETAILSSpoiler (click to show/hide):
Each raid is resolved in a separate minigame.
Basic combat setup
-Elrk have Strength attack. Strength increases damage dealt/decreases damage taken.
-Elrk have Magic attack options that differ based on the encounter. Shamans get more stuff. High magic makes them better. Magic protects from enemy magic.
-Have multiple combat ranks, must defeat foremost rank to reach further back ranks.
-Race based attack options. Add equipment to Elrk? Do people like inventory management subgames?
-Player assigns all actions at once, then resolves a turn. Enemy reacts then the player has another turn.
-Attacks can be made To Kill, deal more damage, or To Subdue, deal less damage but reduce chance to kill the defeated enemy
-Elrk can spend their combat action fucking a defeated enemy. Possibly also defeated allies? Tactical disadvantage (wasting a turn) but lets them get free fucks in.
-Combat ends in one of three ways.
--Elrk withdraw, taking their defeated enemies and allies back with them.
--Elrk defeated, defeated allies are captured, survivors retreat with nothing.
--Elrk victory, rarely happens. Enemy reinforcements usually come before a fight ends. Take all the loot, possibly with a bonus? What do you think?
REGION DETAILSSpoiler (click to show/hide):
-Regions grow more powerful over time.
-Raiding a region lowers their power, increases fear and hate.
-High fear means they avoid attacking Elrk directly, but support others who attack them.
-High hate means they attack the Elrk directly.
-Fear decreases faster than hate.
-More powerful regions have stronger defenders, and send stronger attackers/events.
-Combat in each region has special rules/abilities, mostly in the form of extra magic options for the Elrk and strange unit abilities.
END GAME?How should the game end? Go on forever high-score style? Have a final boss that is super sweet/hard to beat? What do you think?
