The Road to the Trilogy - Social Combat

 Hello. C J here. I’m actively working on adding social combat to Absolute. Absolute needs the ability to interact with the NPCs in real time and have the NPCs have actual conversations. With social combat being added to the game line I need some reward mechanisms there. Recruiting a new party member or summon monster is easy enough to do in the software. But first you might want to go on a date with them. That’s easy to do with short cutscenes in the style I’m already doing, dialogue over an image of food. So you can go into the wilderness, meet a nice monster, social combat them into submission and then befriend them. That got wholesome in a way I did not see coming.

So real question here, do I need every house in every city to be enterable? Like does every NPC need a house? I’m trying to avoid having to do that much micromanagement of the NPCs and their lives. Can they just go back to your lodgings? That sounds easier. There isn’t money in the game at all but you can unlock perks in a city by doing quests and one of the middle tier ones is a house. So you need that to go on a date if you want to recruit them after. I guess romance needs to be in the game to make that perk meaningful.

Anyway, I’ve got some more script samples here from the prologue. To clarify, the initial mission the characters are on is to rescue Mel Blue Kin who is lost somewhere in Ascala. He’s in the rest of the game starting with these scenes here even when they leave Ascala. He and the main character Zan Silver Kin are married by the laws of their own people. Their culture doesn’t have a word for monogamy because they can’t reproduce sexually and use magic to reproduce that is only found in their homeland Drakeholme. So they don’t actually get what monogamy is in a way that might actually be really funny to some of the human characters. Again, why is this getting so wholesome on me? They’re married but the term in their culture is brothers.

At the apartment.

Kel: Oh good, you’re up.

Zan: How’s Mel doing?

Kel: Bel healed him up last night. He’s resting off the magic. He should be up and ready tomorrow. No lasting injuries.

Zan: Thank the All. I’m so glad to hear that.

Kel: Do you know where Bel is now though?

Zan: Probably still asleep. I can’t imagine that much magic is easy for a person.

Kel: Good point.

Zan: I did make him some coffee though. I hope he likes it strong, I bought the best stuff I could find.

Kel: Oh, good. Coffee, that would be a good idea.

Zan: You seem distracted.

Kel: I’m contemplating what we do next. We are still on contract for the original job. So long as Mel has a lead we’re fine. If he turned up nothing in his investigation, then we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us to make up for it.

Zan: What was it that was stolen?

Kel: Some power source for a new generation of power armour.

Zan: Power armour? That is not something we want in the wrong hands. But it’s just the power unit?

Kel: Yes. Just that.

Bel: I’m up. Sort of. Dear All, coffee. Thank goodness. (Pause.) So what now?

Kel: We wait for Mel to wake up and see what he knows. Hopefully whatever he knows will lead us to the thief.

Zan: Do we know where the undead came from?

Bel: I don’t think so. They just showed up.

Zan: That’s conspicuous.

Kel: You have a point.

Zan: Well, we’re waiting for now. I say its time for breakfast.

Bel: Oh good, I’m starving.

Kel: Same.

Zan: Good. This city sells Ascalan made powdered baking mixes. Do we want to try out the donut mix I bought?

Bel: That sounds divine, actually.

Kel: Agreed.

Zan: Good. Do you think we can bake them in the oven? It shouldn’t take more than four hours per doughnut.

Kel: I think that sounds like a great idea.

Bel: This box says they only take fifteen minutes. What in life that is worth having ever takes just fifteen minutes?

Zan: Good point. I’m going to set the timer for four hours. Who wants to stir the mix?

And here’s the next scene right after.

Fire alarms sound.

Zan: Is it still on fire?

Kel: I think it’s out.

Zan: Could you have Bel check?

Bel: I can start fires, I can’t put them out.

Kel: That would have been a good thing to put on your resume before we hired you!

Zen: Okay, the oven’s stopped smoking. I think it’s out.

Bel: Thank the All.

Mel: What in Creation are you all doing? Please tell me you didn’t light the house on fire.

Zan: Mel! You’re up.

Mel: Yes, and I’m starving. Do we have any food that’s not been turned into charcoal?

Zan: Um, well, not really.

Bel: No, we burnt an entire batch of donuts.

Mel: What happened?

Bel: Well, the package said to cook them for fifteen minutes, but we thought four hours would make for a better end product.

Mel: Well that sounds reasonable.

Kel: Okay, the fire’s out. Should we just get another breakfast at the sandwich place?

Mel: Yes, please. Sandwiches.

Zan: Agreed. The donuts clearly didn’t work.

Bel: It’s so strange. Who would have thought them so combustible?

Live gameplay.

Print String: Head to South Cafe.

C J Mcpherson