Brainstorming for Cow Girl Flash Game

[Muhznit]

Originally Posted by SoylentOrange

I like the idea of having body-type determine starting stats and maximum stats. Maybe have all the cowgirls start just as humans with the ability to get a B- in every skill, but changing body type to something else boosts some skill or other to be able to get an A or S rank.

The one thing I want to absolutely avoid is "One size fits all", such that you could have an entire farm staffed with only one kind of cowgirl. It just ruins the game's balance to me if you do that.

And having the entire farm staffed with a multitude of varying degrees of furriness and fetishisms ruins the fappability for people not heavily into the cowgirl thing. <_< So long as appearance and stats remain separate and don't affect each other drastically, balance should remain intact. Yes, it would make perfect sense for one furry cowgirl to have beanbag chair-sized breasts and be capable of making milk by the barrel, but I'll be damned if a near-human can't have the same privileges given enough time and dedication.

I'd suggest implementation of a "Sandbox mode" to encourage having whatever kind of cowgirls you want, but sandbox-style gameplay doesn't seem to click well with the idea of raising a farm full of cowgirls. Since customizing the way the farm operates is a part of the main form of gameplay, a sandbox mode would just be redundant.

[SoylentOrange]

Then I guess it would come down to Shinigami's breadth of tastes in cowgirls. ^^;

[Vejita00]

I have to agree with Soylent Orange on the range of customization and type of cowgirls. Also with the emphasis on there actually being a game to it, rather than just a fetish dispenser.

[TickTock]

I'd hate for discussion to get bogged down too much on one aspect, as complex and important as it may be. After some thought I'm leaning on the end of not having anthro-ness being a limiting factor on roles. My rational is that I want the game to be palatable to more people than less. I feel that treating the anthro-ness as an aesthetic such similar to an outfit with small bonuses will allow for the greater mod-ability as well. The weight gain/loss feature I wish to implement is planned to be balanced in that it will create small bonuses and demerits to stats that could be made by other means as well. And don't forget we can still take account for events like milking with udders for hot steamy text.

The focus on specialization of the cows should fit the bill for differentiating a player's herd. I'll need to toy with the types of specializations cow girls can take, but the main goal is to force the player to make a variety of different cows. This achieves two fundamental game design goals; encouraging a path for progression, and forcing the player to experience all the aspects of a game. I know the same can be said about the anthro design, but this method would be more acceptable the greater number of players.

Taking this direction would also allow me to make anthro-ness entirely optional and toggle-able like futanari and tentacle monsters are in Slave Maker.

As for other discussion, I'm curious to think up of more activities one can do on their farm with their cow girls. Think on the lines of particular actions such as milk cows, or tend field. Also what could happen if more than one cow participates in a single activity. I'm also curious on what sort of small adventures can be had by exploring the nearby areas, say a forest or lake with your cow girl. These would be things like finding exotic items, but remember, no combat stuffs :/ but we could probably do stats checks.

[malhavoc]

I only have a few moments, but I simply had to drop in and say this about this idea:

Such. Epic. Win. ಥ ⌣ ಥ

[SoylentOrange]

Wel, when you're talking stat checks, the kind of activities are necessarily limited by the kinds of stats we can check against? Is it the standard D&D STR/DEX/WIS/CON/INT/CHA? A Fallout-Esque S.P.E.C.I.A.L.? An early-Final Fantasy Strength/Intelligence/Agility split?

You tell me what kind of stats there are and I'll be able to come up with all kinds of scenarios and events for them.

[TickTock]

Originally Posted by SoylentOrange

Wel, when you're talking stat checks, the kind of activities are necessarily limited by the kinds of stats we can check against? Is it the standard D&D STR/DEX/WIS/CON/INT/CHA? A Fallout-Esque S.P.E.C.I.A.L.? An early-Final Fantasy Strength/Intelligence/Agility split?

You tell me what kind of stats there are and I'll be able to come up with all kinds of scenarios and events for them.

Lets just say old school D&D for a cowgirls overall ability, and something like feats for individual ability gained from practicing actions.

How those main stats are raised I'll need to think about, but I'm just guessing it will be some sort of feed back loop with the feats.

I dunno how we can use wisdom, but I'm laughing inside at how low these cows' dexterity may become.

[Lurking Guy]

Originally Posted by Shinigamis Past

I dunno how we can use wisdom, but I'm laughing inside at how low these cows' dexterity may become.

Obviously it determines how adept they are at functioning in human ways and their ability to understand complex things. And rate of learning, if Intelligence isn't a separate stat.

Too much Wisdom would obviously lead to rebellion, against your farm or the practice as a whole depending on your moral choices (not a karma meter, but how you treat your cowgirls and whether you'd be willing to let them be independent).

[SoylentOrange]

Ha, you're right, Dex would be a pretty useless stat.

How about combining them into four stats?

Physical- anything relating to completing a task of labor.
Mental- anything requiring book-smarts, like accounting and so on.
Emotional- Anything requiring people skill, like administration, being a receptionist, etc.
Maternal- A catch-all for all the cow-ish activities like expressing milk, giving birth, raising new cowgirls, etc.

That will probably be less of a monster stat-wise to keep track of, you think?

[Tinn]

Ah, thanks for the compliment, SoylentOrange.

Originally Posted by SoylentOrange

The one thing I want to absolutely avoid is "One size fits all", such that you could have an entire farm staffed with only one kind of cowgirl. It just ruins the game's balance to me if you do that.

...If you'll allow me to extoll the virtues of my own ideas again, since the 'cowgirls have advantages from bodytype and from personality' idea means that the 'type' of a cowgirl is not purely dependant on body-type, strategies based on having different types of cowgirls could still be as complex as they would be in a game where body-types are the only limiting factor.

Unfortunately, the easiest way to preserve strategy with this option would be strictly limit the improvement of abilities a cowgirl doesn't have advantages for, e.g.: if a girl doesn't have the 'good milker' advantage, she'll never give more milk than an average human, barring ultra-rare game events. It sounds like the general consensus is to allow substantial improvement of any cowgirl, though. Ah, well.

[TickTock]

Originally Posted by Tinn

Ah, thanks for the compliment, SoylentOrange.



...If you'll allow me to extoll the virtues of my own ideas again, since the 'cowgirls have advantages from bodytype and from personality' idea means that the 'type' of a cowgirl is not purely dependant on body-type, strategies based on having different types of cowgirls could still be as complex as they would be in a game where body-types are the only limiting factor.

Unfortunately, the easiest way to preserve strategy with this option would be strictly limit the improvement of abilities a cowgirl doesn't have advantages for, e.g.: if a girl doesn't have the 'good milker' advantage, she'll never give more milk than an average human, barring ultra-rare game events. It sounds like the general consensus is to allow substantial improvement of any cowgirl, though. Ah, well.

Unless I misunderstood you, this is the idea I'm going to use. I'm going to allow cows to gain any body type they want which wont matter as that will be mostly an aesthetic choice. The defining factor of whether they can max out milking or what not depends on which specialization they take, which they can have a max of say 2 specializations at a time.

This allows for players to have cow's look however they want, get the appropriate flavor text for actions, and need to mix up their cows to take advantage of all the specializations.

[Tinn]

Originally Posted by Muhznit

And having the entire farm staffed with a multitude of varying degrees of furriness and fetishisms ruins the fappability for people not heavily into the cowgirl thing. <_< So long as appearance and stats remain separate and don't affect each other drastically, balance should remain intact.

Mm, I think SoylentOrange is more worried about the game's depth and complexity suffering, rather than balance.
I reckon we should be able to find a happy medium.