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Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

4 years ago

It has been almost a year since the rumored death of Count Dracula at the hands of strange foreigners. Since then, the dark and foreboding Castle Dracula has remained abandoned and empty.

Some say that the castle is still haunted by the Count’s malevolent will. Others, that untold riches are there to be found within.

So far, none dare to actually go up to Borgo Pass and test the many rumors. Will you be the first?

---

Featuring:
  • Original Illustrations by MadHattersDaughter
  • Experience the story as a Vampire, Werewolf, Ghoul, or Slayer!
  • Engaging Tactical Fight Interface
  • Play it Straight or full on Deviant

---

A little ambiance…

Muzak~MP3

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

4 years ago
So, I figured I'd try one of these Progress threads for my latest project, Legacy of Dracula's Castle. I'm not really sure what to do with this, other than post what I've got done (or plan to do with things) from week-to-week.

With that in mind, I'm shooting for something like Dungeon Stompage (complete with map exploration and round-by-round combat), but with a significantly more robust story.

As of today, I've got about 10,000 words in; and have completed an outline for the six major paths - which each present a different take on the overall story and offer a unique set of antagonists.

Each path is activated, based on the flavor of the main character (chosen at the outset) and certain decisions you make as you go through. You play as a 16 year old Romanian boy or girl and can select one of four vices: Envy, Pride, Sapphistry, or Deviance.

These lead to you becoming a Werewolf, a Vampire Slayer, or one of three types of vampires (think World of Darkness: Bruja, Malkavian, or Nosferatu clans). You can also end up as a lowly Ghoul, but that path is probably going to be the hardest to activate.

Dracula also has a small cameo in the game, but he can still fark you over - or kill you outright - if you don't watch yourself around him.

lastly, I've already acquired all the artwork and maps; and am really excited to show off MHD's work in the story!


Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

4 years ago
I've been curious about this ever since you mentioned it. Didn't realize MHD was collaborating too. Dungeon Stompage but with a deeper plot and cool art? I'm excited now.

Is 'lesbian' an actual character class? because it looks like lesbian is a character class.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

4 years ago
Aside from the fact that the PC has no class (snicker), yes.

To keep things manageable though, there are two girl and two boy archetypes to choose from. One is proud, one is envious, one is a lesbian, and one is a filthy degenerate.

(My goal is to write something worthy of EndMaster with that last one.)

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

4 years ago

Seems pretty cool with all the ideas you have in place along with MHDs artwork, should definitely be a popular one.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

4 years ago
Been working long days this week, which eats into my writing time, but I got the groundwork done on the combat scripting.

With thirty one encounters, forty eight types of attack, and thirty four powers, it's a bit complicated - but nowhere near as bad as the combat scripting in Delve.

Can't wait for the weekend, when I'll have time to get back to writing out the paths some more.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

4 years ago
Only you would call that just a bit complicated.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

4 years ago
Today was a good day for writing!

Got another 2,000 words in; and at 80 pages, we finally get to see Dracula's Castle for the first time. I really hope I can carry this creative spark into next week!

Also found the perfect 'End Credits' music for the story (I realize I'm getting way ahead of things on this, but I think it fits pretty good) ^v^

Muzak~MP3

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

4 years ago
I paused my phone playing Metallica to listen to this and for a second, I got really confused.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

4 years ago
That's a pretty funny coincidence haha!

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

4 years ago
Thanks to a day off work and the Corona Virus prompt, I'm now over 16,000 words and 100+ pages in.

Almost ready to start writing out the areas and encounters in Dracula's castle - just need to wrap up one final hazard you meet on the way.

Now if you will excuse me, my daughter and I will be dropping paper airplanes (from a drone) on my unsuspecting town now.

MWUHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

4 years ago
Just stumbled across this thread. For a solid minute I genuinely thought I was reading the blurb for season 3 of Castlevania. :p

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

4 years ago
I already binge watched that haha!

But this story is more Bela Lugosi Dracula, mixed with World of Darkness/Vampire the Masquerade, than anime.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

4 years ago
Sounds awesome! ^_^

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

4 years ago
Pages: 145
Word Count: 19,370

Still plugging away and look forward to some good writing this weekend. Spent a lot of time, prior to this update, formatting a Character Status Sheet and more back-end stuff that allows things to work together like an inventory without actually using items.

Anyway, slow progress, but progress all the same.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

4 years ago

Glad to hear you're making progress. It'll get done eventually!

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

4 years ago
Still working on this, but mostly offline in MS Word lately (I'll get around to plugging it into the story game sooner or later LOL).

Hoping to have a playable sample of the fight mechanics here by next week. The main fight page itself has over 10,000 words of On-Page scripting haha!

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Took a while longer than I thought to work all the bugs out, but here's a sample of the fight interface. Let me know what ya think ^v^

Fight Sample (Test Platform)

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago

Is the pic of the protagonist Drakillian?

Anyway, it seems like it's working, I didn't get any errors going through it a few times.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Wow, I see the resemblance now that you mention it haha! Totally not by design though lol.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
I took a look at it and I really like the design; having multiple choices of attack and nice flavor text makes an otherwise repeated clicking of a button fun™!

I loved the mix between striking and grappling and enjoyed how the fight progressed into heavier and heavier punches being thrown. It felt natural, while still being randomly generated. I also liked the swiggly ~ line slowly going red as the damage added up.

Thematically, I don’t really get the difference between an ‘all-out attack’ and going ‘toe to toe’ as both would leave you standing your ground and banging it out. In the same line of thought, when opening the fight will an all-out attacking, the flavor details me throwing a simple jab, hardly throwing a flurry of punches and abandoning all defense.

Going toe to toe, while still giving the same text feels more natural with the jabs progressing into heavy haymakers and (very cool!) suplexes.

Also I noticed submissions like chokeholds and armcranks being used. I don’t know if it’s too hard (no experience with the scripting magic), but I would like them being used after he went for a takedown/suplex as then the fight’s on the ground, instead of it being randomly generated.

Maybe you could have a takedown/suplex result into a non-action for the opponent, leaving you a special extra choice the next round to go for the submission for a lot of damage.

Another suggestion would be to incorporate more defensive fluff to the attacks that didn’t do any damage. Instead of repeatedly hitting a shoulder or forehead, you could detail the punch being slipped, blocked or parried.

More balance related: I felt the counterattack option was the strongest, followed by the all-out attack option, while seemingly never winning with the toe to toe option. With testing of consequently smashing the one button, I got the following results:

AoA: 4/5 wins
TtT: 1/5 wins
Cou: 3/5 wins

Which shows the TtT is weaker than the other options. Am I correct in that there are no ‘hints’ that detail if the next round one option is better than the others? Some tells like, the opponents lowers his point of gravity, ready for attack, or the opponent leans back as to counter, or the opponent looks game, probably throwing everything back at you would further improve the whole thing.

All right that was my jumbled though process. I hope it helped. Also I didn't encounter any bugs in the process, if that's more what you're looking for.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Thanks for the feedback! I like some of your idea enough to consider how I might be able to work them in.

Later today I'll post the math breakdown between the 3 attack modes.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Sorry, I changed the math a bit and not ready to post yet.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Decided to add a very small ground and pound option off takedowns.

While I'd love to offer a full ground fighting option, it is just exponentially more difficult to include.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
A small extra something is all it takes for immersion. And truth be told I don't get the minutiae of ground fighting in real life either, let alone how to implement that in a fun way within a textgame.

Keep on trucking, because so far it looks really good!

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
46,000 Words and growing.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Of course, 14,000 of these words are a single 38 page-long On Page Script. ^v^

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
I am so tempted to snoop on this, but I really want to avoid spoilers....

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
You could look in the Fight Sample in the Test Platform above, if you want to get the gist of how the ON Page stuff is working (without game/plot spoilers).

It starts on Page 30.

Of course, I've made huge updates to the fight pages in the actual game itself, but the foundations are the same.

Fight Sample (Test Platform)

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
I'm writing the story in past tense, but realized that I did the fight mechanics in present tense.

Firk ding blast!

Anyway, it's fixed now in the story.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Do you REALLY think anyone else would have noticed?

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Prof Gower would have ;)

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
As of today: almost 111,000 words.

Currently I have one page that's so heavy with OnPage Script, that it noticeably lags. I can actually work around it by breaking it into two pages, which would reduce the load by one-third, but I sure ain't motivated to do that this weekend haha!

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Who am I kidding? I can't leave that hanging like that!

(Changed it, and yes, it's now faster).

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
That's some nice progress from 20 days ago, dang. Glad the other vampire thing didn't distract you too much from this one, I'd have felt bad.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago

Maybe he drew inspiration from it. :p

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Stupid "free" games derailing my time!

Other than that, wrote up a lovely little battle with a wearwolf that involves arms, legs, and other important bits being torn off.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Yay! Got the old creative surge back! Working on this again like crazy!

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Yep, still working on this and it has been a really productive weekend (in spite of not liking the way some stuff was written and nuking 32,000 words). Oh well, I'll get them back next weekend haha!

So as of right now, we're are at 133,000 words and just cracked 200 pages ^v^

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
What it's like to be a vampire?

Muzak~MP3

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Not working. :(

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Do the top ones (above) also not work? May be your browser...

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Yep... And that's why nobody likes Chrome. :p

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Current Word Count: 147,800

Been another good weekend for writing ^v^

And the best thing about having one of these WIP threads, isn't when I get to post: "Look at how much I've done!!!" -- but rather how motivating it is to have it sink to the bottom of the forum, to the point you can't stand sucking so much anymore, and actually get off your ass and write something to finally adsress it lol!

Some more Vampy-type Music BTW...

Muzak~MP3

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Time to get back into this.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Phew! One of the reasons I took a break was due to a huge bug I was having trouble figuring out.

Well, after running that debacle of a card game in the forums, coming back and fixing the bug was a piece of cake lol!

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
I was just gonna say, bet writing feels a whole lot better now after dealing with all that.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago

I really need to finish that "Child Friendly Sci-Fi" game I was working on, but I just can't bare the thought of diving in there and fixing all the bugs. >.<

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Current Word Count: 171,000

Making good progress once again! ^v^

Also though this would also be an appropriate theme song for the game.

Muzak~MP3

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Nice. What song is that?

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
That one is See You In Hell by Ad Infinitum.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Current Word Count: 186,000

Still slowly plugging away!

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Current Word Count: 187,000

Not much added to the word count, but fark have I done a lot of work! I accidentally overwrote about sixty scripts with the wrong ones and had to rebuild them, based on stuff I had done months ago and wasn't even sure where it all tied together anymore.

It's mostly fixed now, except for one script-heavy combat encounter that I'm still trying to unravel.

Also noticed (after eight months of working on all of this) that I had misspelled Health as 'Heath' this whole time. Farking Farkity Fark Fark!

So, in keeping the tradition, here's a theme song for the Nosferatu in the game. Supposedly it's being "sung" in English - if you can believe that. Fits my current mood pretty good though...

Muzak~MP3

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Holy crap that sounds nightmarish to deal with. I guess you can't exactly give up on a game 180k in, but I'd be tempted to at least throw my computer against the wall a few times.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago

Music never works for me. :'(

Edit: Oh wait, I forgot, it' my fault for using a retarded browser.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Just right click on it to copy the URL and plug it right into whatever crappy media player you have on your PC ^v^

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
I wish I didn't know someone who unironically listens to that kind of music just because he likes it.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
PHEW!

Fixed all the stuff I accidentally stepped on, like a tap dancer on a fire ant hill.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
You poured boiling water over your computer?

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago

I'm infinitely excited for this! It's going to be surreal for me seeing this all finished!! :~)

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Me too! I think it will be an excellent showcase of your amazing work!

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
It's been too long since we had a proper epic in the horror section. And also it's really difficult not to go snooping in advance...

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Current Word Count: 188,000

Only 1000 actual words added, but got a crap-ton of scripting ironed out. By next week, I'll be going into the Exploring Dracula's Castle part of the story - all this, up to now, has just been getting there.

For a change of pace, here's some nice "intermission" music! Go ahead, grab a sandwich! I'll wait! ^v^

Muzak~MP3

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
That's so nice and chill after the last one.

How big are you expecting this to be? Not even getting to the castle yet at 200k is pretty wild.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Well, as I noted somewhere above, the bulk of the word-count is scripting.

I know it will have at least two or three times as much story content as Dungeon Stompage has though. So the play though should be good for a few hours.

Another thing this one has that Dungeon Stompage doesn't have is completely separate content, based on the major paths. So there will be some replay benefit, if you want to try out various paths.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Okay well doubly looking forward to this now that I've noticed Sages have dropped to third place. That's just one away from being a... *spits* ...Warden.

It's just you and Steve's corpse carrying us these days. Man, what happened.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
"Your browser does not support the audio element (or your name is Briar_Rose)." lol

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Current Word Count: 192,000

Wow, actually got 4000 words of story progress (not scripting) this weekend! Hell yeah! ^v^

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Congrats!

I can't remember the last time I had that much progress on anything of mine. :(

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Current Word Count: 197,000

Woot! 5000 words of actual story ^v^

So I’m trying to find something for the Werwewolf path theme song. Thinking that this might be a good fit, but open to other suggestions haha!

Muzak~MP3

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Interesting, but I can't say I'm a fan of vampires.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Current Word Count: 199,000

Got some decent progress in again – though I spent half a day trying to figure how to make a scale-able set of overlaid pics that didn’t cover page text or go out of whack when re-sized.

For anyone interested, you can center a scale-able pic set to position: absolute by using this for all the overlays:

<img src="http://www.Website.com/Pictures.jpg" style="width: 92%; position: absolute; top: 50; left: 50%; transform: translateX(-50%);" />

Of course it also requires a blank pic of the same size be set under everything in position: relative, in order to bump the text down to the appropriate place (interestingly, this one can actually be centered like text):

<img src="http:// www.Website.com/BlankPicture.jpg" style="width: 100%; position: relative; text-align: center;" />

Anyway, here’s some interesting Mongolian Metallica cover by The Hu.

Muzak~MP3

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
I have to catch up to that word count before I worry about any fancy image tricks. :(

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Current Word Count: 203,000

Finally cracked 200K! ^v^

Been a decent holiday weekend for writing. At this point, I finally have the protagonist at the castle exploring the place. The toughest part now, is just keeping the map logic tight. It knows whether you have been to any room yet, are returning, or still have something left to find in there or not. At the same time, the bad guys are moving about, and if you spend too much time searching, they will find you.

You have to be very careful/clever/lucky to find the slayer path and not get vamped haha!

Muzak~MP3

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
I love this kind of map, it's the kind of thing parser IF systems do by default and I enjoy it any time anyone pulls it off here. I know it's all just a matter of tracking variables, but having the enemies actually moving around too....that sounds like a coding headache I would not want.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Current Word Count: 246,000

Got some castle exploration going and back to scripting a few fight scenes...

Muzak~MP3

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
....did you write 40,000 words in under two weeks?

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
...how?

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
I had two weeks off work :)

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Current Word Count: 247,000

Only got 1000 more words in this week, but did untangle some twisted logic issues lol!.

Here's a piece from the Hobbit movies, that sounds somewhat vampire-like, when covered by a metal band.

Muzak~MP3

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Zheesh! It's getting to the point now, that nearly every link has to have a script to make sure it goes to the right page under the right set of circumstances.

For example:

IF %DAY > 0 THEN
BEGIN
$DEST := @P119
IF %SEENGHOUL > 0 THEN $DEST := @P329
IF %BEEN8 > 0 THEN $DEST := @P251
END

IF %DAY < 1 THEN
BEGIN
$DEST := @P308
IF %GHOULWOKE > 0 THEN $DEST := @P326
IF %BEEN8 > 0 THEN $DEST := @P330
IF %GHOULDEAD > 0 THEN $DEST := @P320
END

^Got a lot going on in this one. Is it day or night? Have you been there yet or is this your first visit? Is the ghoul still alive or did you already kill it? If he is still alive, is he hiding or patiently waiting to serve you a nice hot cup of tea?

Yep. Totally worth it though ^v^

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
A woke ghoul sounds like something I'd definitely want to kill.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
It's probably for the best.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Current Word Count: 250,000

Welp, quarter of the way there to another million!

Muzak~MP3

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
I had to add another Official Ending; where you get all the way to the end of the Slayer Path, but then somehow fark it up so spectacularly on litterally the last page, that it requires a whole separate ending entirely.

Really, I can't see many (if any) actually pull off this ending, but it has to be there just in case that one special player decides to go balls-in at the last moment.

Apropriately named "Dracula's Bride" or "Dracula's Bitch", depending on whether you're playing as a boy or a girl. ^v^

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago

Well nobody can say you weren't being inclusive. Lol

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Current Word Count: 253,000

Sort of a slow week, but steadily chugging along. Right now, keeping track of the way all the links interact with each other has become one of the most complicated logic puzzles I've ever attempted.

I think it's even more challenging that the Delve scripting was, which is funny, because the LODC combat scripting is way simpler - just that the I have all these page-to-page logic checks with each link now (which wasn't something I had to do in Delve).

Anyway, here's a little something for you @mizal ^v^

Muzak~MP3

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Now that I think of it, sombreros ARE designed to block a suspicious amount of sunlight....

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Current Word Count: 257,000

At 373 pages and about halfway through the castle exploration.

After that comes the vampire arc, which I’m really looking forward to writing out.

^v^

Muzak~MP3

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
I've thought it over and I believe this would be improved by a fishing minigame.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Are you trying to make my brain explode or something?

What even is a mini fishing game via CYOA?

I have half a mind left to hide one in there and not tell anyone...

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago

the mini game is you press a button and the game presents you with a randomly selected piece of Fishing Wisdom http://www.profisherman.com/fishsayings.html

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Ha, some of those are actually funny lol~

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Well you're the game author, that's really for you to figure out!

But if you want my advice, I think once the player finds an appropriate body of water they should be able to choose their bait (various monster bits or some kind of grave worms (dug for in a separate mini game with different tiers of shovels (the shovels are all crafted in a mini game))), cast their line, and then click a 'Wait' link.

Each click of the link represents a minute passing, so dependent on your fishing skill level and the challenge rating of the vampire eel, you'd click anywhere between 5 and 180 times.

Once the vampire eel is hooked, that's where the real excitement begins! With every click of the Reel it in! link, the eel is either brought six inches closer to you, OR if it passes a strength check it manages to reverse some of the distance. Eventually it might escape entirely, or your line might snap dependant on a variety of factors, and you'll have to backtrack to the starting village to buy a new pole if you didn't think to bring a spare.

There might actually be three special vampire eels in randomly assigned fishing spots that change for each game. Each time you're in the right place there could be like a 1 in 100 chance they'll be the one hooked, and if you successfully bring it in you can find a special gem in their stomach. All three of these are combined to craft the item needed to defeat the final boss, but as an added puzzle the player is left entirely too their own devices in figuring this all out. I think that will increase replayability and add to immersion.

Anyway, just a random idea but I think it would be fun.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
I will take all this under advisement...

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago

here's the realness. when someone plays the mini game i dress up as a fish and break into their house... 

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Hmm... sounds fishy.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Current Word Count: 265,000

Been writing out some paths that are, by all logic, never going to be seen by anyone but me; but I find myself compelled to account for as many possible outcomes of any particular decision as I can.

Up till now, only one of the male characters could become a Nosferatu Vampire (and that was through a very specific set of circumstances), but this exceedingly rare path line can lead both that character an one of the female characters into the Nosferatu Clan.

I like how taking so long (over a year) to write a major story like this one (or Dead Man Walking for example), allows me to have an overall story with everything outlined -- and then, as I am writing it out, realize so many more new and exciting options and details for each part of it!

Not only that, but my writing in general is continually improving. And dialog, which has been something I was never comfortable with, has come along leaps and bounds from when I wrote DMW.

Muzak~MP3

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
I love having tons to explore and hidden things to find, I think it's a worthy endeavor adding them even if not many are expected to find it, it's something really cool and special for the ones who do. I just wish there was a practical way to keep track of how many players did go poking around off the beaten path, and where.

I know some like to list the number of possible epilogues and that might encourage multiple playthroughs, but I've wondered before if having an actual achievement system would make a difference. (Even if out of necessity totally confined in game.) Or...idk, bring back profile banners?

Anyway, great to hear you're having fun with this and still getting new ideas. We're all looking forward to this one so you're not allowed to get burned out.

This is all making me think I should play DMW again, I know I must've only seen a fraction of it.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
I think I'll include scoring levels that will show which ending you found (at least for those that leave a comment).

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Imo you should make a discussion thread and put the link in the description, with indefinite permission to necro. Everyone should do that for major games I think, it'd liven up the parlor room and it would be an easy way to ask questions and whatnot even if someone isn't up to writing a review.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago

I've always found that even if you create a path that most won't see, as long as you enjoyed writing it and you know it's there, then it's worth it.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Very true and it's a pleasant surprise when someone else actually stumbles upon one.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
Been hit with a bit of the writer's block of late, due to the logistics/stress of preparing to move the family from North Carolina to Tennessee.

Until we are settled in our new place/jobs, I'll be hitting this sporadically at best.

Don't worry though, I'm not going to abandon it, after putting a year of work into it lol!

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago

No problem. Real life stuff with your family is always more important.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

3 years ago
That's rough, moving sucks enough when it's not across states.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

2 years ago
I know BZ has been very busy with various life things, but just wondering how progress on this has been going, or if it's otherwise set to resume on schedule.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

2 years ago
Well, I'm not currently working on anything but RL work, but this is still the very first thing I plan on getting back to when I can.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

2 years ago
First post on new internet connection. I can finally get back to this so there's that :)

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

2 years ago
You've been all this time without internet?

Wow, you've suffered so much and we didn't even know...

Anyway, hope you're able to get back in the zone on this again! I've had vampires on the brain just a bit for other reasons recently, but this is one I'll still be looking forward to even when I've been cleansed and resumed correct mental function.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

2 years ago
This all looks really impressive!

But sometimes you really have to wonder what a vampire DOES just lurking around a castle all day every day for centuries when they don't have uninvited guests trying to kill them, perhaps this story can help to answer that too.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

2 years ago
Gearing back up to work on this some more and having some second thoughts about the way I have click-through combat.

Recent forum talk has got me thinking about how this sort of thing can get boring and repetitive. In the past, I was chewing on the idea to have a cinimatic combat option along with the standard Dungeon Stompage style, where you could choose either/or.

Now I am more leaning toward scrapping the click-through style for a semi-random cinimatic style, where each combat will favor a particular character and you will have a percent chance to win unscathed, take some damage, get mauled, or get killed.

Still not sure what I am going to do, but I think that may be the most entertaining way to go for the majority.

Thoughts?

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

2 years ago

As far as click-through combat goes, Dungeon Stompage probably handled it best of any game on this site.  You always had at least four options with various different weapons, and the player could put genuine strategy into each attack and choice of weapon depending on what opponent they were facing, which kept me thinking and planning each round despite the constant interface.

I'm intrigued by what you mean by a cinematic style.  Do you mean that combat would be described in a more narrative way and the player would be given more narrative-based choices?  Or do you mean that combat would be decided mostly just based on which character the player had selected with the entire fight scene being written out in a single scene?

I do think having one combat system as opposed to two different options would be better.  Having two different options, beyond just being a lot more work for you, could easily make the player feel like it's really a tactical choice, or that they'll be missing out on something if they choose one way.  Others may feel differently, though.  

Based on my understanding of this site's user base, they would probably prefer more cinematic/narrative combat styles than less.

(When I'm making combat in games, I like giving a couple different options like "attack straight on" "duck" or "feign left then go right", with the options changing each time and each option having different chances depending on the context and opponent.  This relies pretty heavily on a specific stat-based system I use, though.)

Anyways, this game sounds really cool and intriguing!

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

2 years ago
Yeah, narrative is what I meant by cinimatic :)

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

2 years ago
Hey, glad you're back to working on this!

I do like the idea of the cinematic style, the way your described it, but like Gryphon said, the way you handle combat is about the best way it can be done with this editor.

Personally I like RPG combat most in a game where it's the main focus, in something more plot heavy it may be less fun having the grind get in the way of unlocking more story. (Related, if I can ever again muster the energy to do a thing, I've always intended to strip that combat section out of my unicorn game and write in a properly epic fight.)

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

8 months ago
So is this project dead? I hope not, but we don't see BZ around too much anymore. :(

It'd be good to have some kind of official word on it one way or another though.

Legacy of Dracula's Castle (Progress)

8 months ago

I would love to see the onpage scripting magic that BZ did for this.  I would really benefit from seeing some examples more robust than the small samples in the help articles