Is there anyway to hide certain qualities. So they are set and changed, but the player really isn’t aware of them.
For instance I have items ‘hidden’ throughout storylets and by clicking a given option a player will get a shovel or whatever. That works great, but the way branches are designed as soon as they leave that branch … the option they just picked is still there. Which again is great to have a cohesive world, but when they click on it the shovel is still even though by logic standards they have it so it can’t be there.
The only way around this I’ve come up with is basically make two different versions of the same branch. One pre object and one post object. This is fine in theory, but then you have to apply some sort of negative state for the pre object branch to appear. Again, this if fine, but the problem is it puts a little card next to the "go" button which states they don’t have that given object. This sort of gives away that they should look here and what they’ll find.
A way around this might be to have a generic quality on every single branch. Call it "Potential" or something. Unfortunately you would need a Potential quality for every single object quality you would have your player find. This would clutter up the sidebar with all these potential qualities.
This brings me back to my original question about having hidden qualities.
This has come up with many writers. I like to use circumstance qualities because they do not show numbers. I believe if you give them a level description (not a change description) at 0 such as ???, then that is what should show next to go button. It’s been a while since I tried it, but let me know if that works.
Thanks so much for that. I do see how you can apply the ??? to the level description. Though my question is do you use these circumstance qualities as ‘objects’ or do you use them as dummy objects to represent the absents of an object. And once you gain an object it shows up at a ‘thing’.
Well…qualities can be anything you want. Don’t think of them as objects, so much as well…qualities the world can have. I use "circumstance" mostly like variables. I have one in my game that is "indoors/outdoors" so I can have cards that only occur when not inside a building. I have to make sure that on any branch where the player exits the castle that it sets the "Indoor" circumstance to 0 and sets the 'Outdoor" circumstance to 1. (If I’d have been smarter, I’d have made this one quality!) If the player equips a weapon, it also increments the "armed" circumstance quality so I can tell if they are armed and disallow them from entering a place where holding any weapon is forbidden.
I use circumstances mainly as run-of-the mill things about the character’s position or location. If I want the player to be "poisoned" which is more important, I make it a Menace so it shows up in the sidebar prominently instead of in inventory.
My specific game is also very weird, so I have things such as "arachnophobia" as an inventory item because I want the player to be able to "use" this quality and display the card that shows any options they have to interact or dispel that particular "thing" quality. It’s not a physical item, but the player "has" it, and there are too many of them in the game to litter the lateral sidebar with them.
If you want an actual object, you should categorize it as a "thing". That will make it show up in the inventory tab, and allow you to have it equippable or usable.
All qualities vanish from player view (but still show on cards as requirements as you’ve noticed) at 0 whether they actually do anything or not (you can require a quality to be at 0 to fire a card or display a branch, and the player won’t see the quality.) For things, in most cases it’s best to assume the player doesn’t possess it at 0, at 1 he does. If it’s multiples, you set the quality to the amount, like if you want to give the player 50 gold, you increase the gold quality by 50. So all you need is a "shovel" quality as an object. All qualities start at 0, so this means at 0 the player is not carrying a shovel and won’t see it in their inventory. You can write a branch that shows up at shovel = 0 and untick the "visible when quality fails" box (can’t remember the exact wording, but it’s on every quality check line) saying "Look! There’s a shovel you can take!" and if the player follows the branch it increments shovel to 1, and makes it appear in inventory. Since the "shovel" quality is at 1, the branch saying "look here’s a shovel" that is set to not display when the quality doesn’t equal 0 will disappear from the storylet.
Circumstances don’t show the number to the player, so it’s good for stuff like "Visited the Forbidden Temple". If you want, you can add more levels of it so level 1 just means the character went there. You could have level 2 be "Visited the Forbidden Temple: Retrieved the Fabulous Idol!" if the player got further and accomplished this.[li] edited by HanonO on 8/26/2013
Does anyone know if you can set a quality "thing" to Circumstance? I seem to have gotten one of my things set to circumstance and it works great, but when I go into another thing I don’t see it as an option.
Is it just a glitch that my first thing was able to be a circumstance?
You should be able to just edit the quality and change the type. You may need to change "nature" from status to thing - circumstance is under status, not thing.[li] edited by HanonO on 8/27/2013