HoHH Notebook Functionality - The Notebook (pt2)

Here is the second half of that monster post on the notebook functionality. Yesterday I went over the things I've roughly sorted out in my head. This post is for the things I'm still working on. This is mainly about the hidden information aspect of HoHH's gameplay and what and when the notebook should reveal. Feedback here would be appreciated.

One of the key features of HoHH is it's intentionally opaque. When a player dies, most of the time they're not going to know why. The Elegant Woman gives some clues (although she might mislead with some). Socialising with the harlot might reveal a few more. And then in the room there might be various cues, obvious or cryptic. Sapoonis berating the player character for being clumsy right before she melts their hands off should probably clue the player into realising that particular PC didn't have a high enough DEX stat to visit this room.

However, there are some harlots where the bad end causes are more mysterious and having a notebook system works against that. There isn't much mystery when the game straight up tells you afterwards what the cause of death is. I'd like the game to be more mysterious than that without being maddeningly opaque.

I'm still not sure exactly how to handle it. It's implemented in a fairly simplistic manner in the demo. The player is told everything if they survive or they have separate runs as a contrast (eg getting either a regular good end or a horror end will unlock some of the notebook. Getting both will give the final version of those sections which also notes down exactly what value of DEX is the trigger).

Ideally I think the notebook should:
- First just explain what happened (the PC entered the room and this happened. No explanation why).
- Then hint what particular thing was relevant (stat, disposition, gift, charm, ailment).
- Then, for stats, indicate what the breakpoint values are.

Wherever possible, I want the notebook to line up with what the player notices. If the player doesn't have a clue why they died, the notebook shouldn't tell them either. However, if they have a run where Sapoonis likes the breast massage they give her and another where she scolds them for being a clumsy oaf and kills them, they will probably assume some sort of DEX check happened and that was the tested stat.

This is where not having the notebook functionality in place from the start is slightly awkward. I would vary the harlot scenario text depending on how obvious I wanted to make the cause of Bad End. If it's fairly obvious (i.e. the harlot makes a reference to a specific stat or disposition) that will be recorded in the notebook just from visiting the harlot. If it's not quite as obvious, the player might need to pick up clues from the Elegant Woman, socialising, or other harlots. That could also be recorded (across runs) and the notebook updated to remind the player of hints they've already uncovered.

In the case of stats, once the relevant stat has been uncovered, the player then also needs to know what values are "safe" or trigger "golden paths". I implemented this in a very simplistic way for Sapoonis. Ideally I think it should start vague (high, medium, low) and then unlock to exact values for the proper 100%.

Now, how to unlock knowing those values? The most complete way would be to force the player to find the exact boundaries. If they die with DEX = 2 and survive with DEX = 3, then they have learned what the breakpoint is. That might be a little too fiddly, although as the stats are in the range 1-5, maybe possible?

This also could be used to establish how much semen is drained, although that is a bigger range of numbers. There is a shortcut there. If the player has a certain charm, they will know exactly how much semen is drained by each harlot. Without that charm… yeah, this might get a little fiddly.

Then we come to hidden factors such as ailments and charms. Ailments are fairly straightforward. If the player doesn't know they have the ailment (because it hasn't been diagnosed or revealed by one of the charms), they won't know what killed them. If they're aware they have that ailment and they've uncovered enough hints to know that ailment is relevant, then that will solve that particular harlot.

Charms are slightly more tricky. The player is only told what they do through cryptic hints. However, there is a charm that reveals their exact function. I am considering using the notebook to also cover the charms. Information on their function can be unlocked as well as a list of harlots they protect against.

The first part of the hint is fairly straightforward. Whenever a charm activates there is a hint in the text (the player feels it heat up on the back of their shoulder). If they are saved by a charm, they will know. The trickier part is knowing which particular charm saved them. If they only have one charm, that's easy. That will also tell them what the charm does in the notebook if they don't already know. If they have multiple charms, then it's more difficult. If across multiple runs it could be calculated through a process of elimination (similar to determining the stat boundaries), but I suspect that would be horrendous to eliminate. The easier way is to check if the player knows what the relevant charm does. If they've unlocked this information, they also unlock that this charm is necessary to survive this harlot and the notebook updates with this information.

I think the major snarl-ups with these comparison checks is they're pretty fiddly and might force the player into having to visit the same harlot more times than would be fun. I wonder for that if I might be better looking at Lobotomy Corporation again.

Lobotomy Corporation is a game that also has the player visit mysterious entities over and over. The more a player sends an agent to work with the entity, the more information they can unlock on the information screen. That tells the player what kills their agents even if they've never had an agent killed during the playthrough.

I think that might be a more player-friendly system to incorporate. If the player finds all the hints and has two differing runs to establish what the breakpoint values are, they can unlock the information early. But rather than requiring them to systematically try out different stat values to work out what the exact values are, which would probably be very annoying, the game can just track how many times they've visited that particular harlot. After X visits (3? 4? 5?) or times going through a particular route, the game just unlocks the information automatically. I think that might solve that particular problem.

Whew. This was a long post. As you can see, I have some things figured out and others I'm still working on.

I'd love some feedback to help steer this in the right direction.

Also, in case people are worrying about scope creep. The post makes it sound more complex than modifying the harlot scenarios actually is. It's pretty much the same as adding the Portly Gentleman's scoring to a scenario and I think it will be similar to what I'm already having to do to port the scenarios over to 1.5 with the art.