For P2, I’m planning on building a dating sim/visual novel surrounding a papal conclave, in which the player takes on the role of a cardinal vying for the position of Pope of the Catholic Church. The empathetic goal is to learn about the other cardinals’ spiritualities to convince them that you are the best person for the papacy.
My first playtest was a kind of in-person RPG, similar to what we did in class, in which we read my explanation of the premise, choices, etc. and went through some practice scenarios and actions for playtesters to explore. Below are some observations they made of the ideas they experienced:
- not everyone understands the system of the conclave, not general knowledge
- setup for some mystery around the pope’s passing
- premise should be a little longer, more involved
- be clearer about how spiritual and regional background influences interactions and gives advantages/disadvantages
- hard to standardize game around different backgrounds
- make mechanics/methods of interacting with the world clearer
- make it feel more like a VN, less like a point and click/choose your own adventure
- talk action
- how would that work with the antagonist? unclear
- hard to investigate the antagonist if he is unwilling to open up to you
- since relationships start low, make sure players can’t get stuck/softlocked
- how often can you interact with people? twice a day? three times a day? unclear what the loop is and how often/who they interact with
- how would that work with the antagonist? unclear
- solicit action
- need to make sure there’s not an approval meter
- don’t make it an option until later in the game, could screw over new and unfamiliar players
- high risk, high reward!
- if they say yes you’re set
- if they say no, they don’t talk to you as much again
- cardinals are mean but speak kind!!
- sound effect that signals that they are upset with you
- will you have buffs? do items exist? will they exist forever or for a certain amount of time?
- make sure the art is good
- dating sim or visual novel? more similar to a VN, not a dating sim
- anti-example suggestion: yandere simulator
- what NOT to do to engage with different characters
- bad ending should be the rapture LOL (evangelicals are right)
- include two big events in the game to see who stands where!
- liking the evil cardinal
- keep scope more narrow
- thematically messy, feels more mystery than spiritual at the moment
- think WAY more about character creation
- lean into VN stronger than dating sim
- play phoenix wright
- sounds more like social simulator time management
- more similar to persona series?
- fit all the social things before the dungeon deadline
- fit social things before the voting session? before bedtime?
- if you date too many cardinals they get mad at you lol
- suggestion: pivot into monster prom route
- in each “period” you get certain places to go to, certain people to talk to
- more structured way to move through the day
- who can be found where? what boosts do you have where?
- give cardinals list of virtues or something that give you stat boosts?
- what is the purpose of the evil cardinal?
- story needs a hateable character
- make an asshole cardinal that talks mess about the previous pope
- the mystery takes away from the empathic goal of the game
- settle on a time slice
- five nights?
