Devlog #13 - Dialogue Survey Breakdown

or at least a breakdown of the responses we got in the first week. you're still free to respond to it if you haven't already! we will continue checking it regularly.

i wanted to do a write up of the current results, partially to leo and i's benefit to clearly see what's being asked for, and partly because i'm sure you guys would find it interesting. as far as i can tell we don't really have a community so much as a bunch of individual players, so outside of the results of votes and surveys like this, you don't really know what your fellow clowns are thinking about the game.

the good news is, most of you are thinking the same thing.

you want these girls hornier.

the most common requests were for reactions to stripping, the crowd's appearance, and other players being grabbed by the crowd. you want to see them be more embarrassed about losing their clothes around other people, and you want them to be flirting with each other. we couldn't agree more. we have not been especially horny with the dialogue at the fuck casino, despite everyone at the fuck casino knowing they are at a fuck casino. they should be hornier.

fortunately, the conversation system makes it extremely easy to write them responding to each other and the crowd, and the new dialogue studio makes it possible for lines to be triggered based on the clothing worn (or not worn). you've probably noticed some specific lines for Meredith relating to whether she's keeping her frock on until the last minute, like how every character has a chance of saying "Finally" when it's the last thing she takes off. this is the new system in action! this also makes it possible for joker to taunt them differently based on how many items of clothing they're wearing. lots of fun options to play with, and we've barely scratched the surface.

beyond horniness, we also saw some requests for characters to react to where they're at in the game, or to how others are doing. characters getting nervous as the game goes on, or feeling confident because the game's barely started. or maybe somebody else lost, and they won, and they want to rub it in. or maybe they want to just take a shot at somebody, but it's only worth doing if they're actually at the table. things that don't hugely impact the game, but would contribute to making them feel more aware.

we've added tags for those too!

prill can now react to it being exactly round 8, or earlier than round 8, or later than round 8. you know, in case we think of a reason to use that.

speaking of prill...

looks like you guys think she needs more lines the most. other than joker, who so completely obviously needs more variations of the same five lines he says that leo is rewriting his handler code to make that possible. he was (until the next update) basically baked into the game, this would give him a dialogue sheet like the rest.

this question was more out of curiosity, since we're probably going to end up being even-handed with everybody when we start writing. our interpretation of the data is less 'prill doesn't have enough lines' and more 'everybody loves prill's jokes and they want more of them'. it makes sense for noriko and meredith to be the lowest since they've been played with the least, though i'm pretty sure noriko actually needs the most help.

lastly, we asked you what you want to see the girls talk about. the big three responses we got were:

• hobbies/their lives outside the casino

• why they're at the casino

• worldbuilding

all very reasonable things to be interested in! we're more likely to explore these in the bar update, where we can have longer conversations with the characters without grinding the gameplay to a halt. given the nature of the table is to play again and again, anything that involves continuity or the progression of a plot will likely be tied to bar scenes where it's easier to guarantee what's seen in what order. but we'll still see where we can fit in comments about rosalie's flowershop, or noriko's job, or what's going on with this weird casino.

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we've come really far with the dialogue system since we first launched! at the very beginning, there was a generic sheet that every character could pull dialogue from, meaning the characters would often talk the same way when doing their actions or being taunted. they didn't have dialogue specific to what they were betting or what they were losing. they couldn't acknowledge other characters at the table. very limited!

even when we added reactions, we had to write around a very rigid format. reactions could only be one line and couldn't prompt a response from the first character. sure, noriko could notice she and rosalie trim their bush the same way, but they couldn't actually talk about it.

the conversation system as it currently exists is way more robust, allowing for really specific triggers and circumstances that will make the characters feel way more aware and alive. we're currently still polishing the dialogue studio tool; your feedback and all these new triggers has meant we need a slight reorganization of the insert-code-here buttons. leo will be making a devblog about it sometime next week, after which we should be able to get properly started.

in the meantime, keep sending us feedback if you haven't already! and vote in the $7 direction survey! i'm currently dual wielding boy development and bar design because we still don't know which is gonna win!

--TT