Brainstorming for Cow Girl Flash Game

[CuddleBeam]

Herp. Posting from my summer work at Germanistan.

Ive got a CGF clone made in Ren'Py - the same engine Katawa Shoujo used!
I made it in Ren'py to be able to use the Dating Sim Engine framework it has got.


It has all of the Flash version's features (the bust/waist/hips calculator needs a bit of tweaking though), plus a bit more :3 (like cow breeds and emails from neighbours/companies).

I've also vastly improved the GUI, by having all of the "planning", shopping and equipment upgrades done of all of your cows done in one heavenly screen, as well as automated food purchase, so you dont have to to the repetitive task of buying food all the time. I've tried to make the "boreing" stuff as efficient and streamlined as possible, so that you can enjoy the scenes and the fun more.

I'll try to add some story to it too, as well as a quick tutorial given to you by Comma & Hirasawa (From my CuddleCow story, which was in turn, inspired by the original flash version of this, lol). I'll most probbably have the whole setting placed in a post-apocalyptic version of CuddleCow's universe.

I'll continue to polish it a bit until I get back home in Sept (It still has a few difficult bugs). I can't post screenshots yet, because I forgot to bring a pendrive!



-


Edit: I'm proooolly gonna add a battle system. I dunno yet. I was thinking of something simple and not too influencial (but relevant) though, so that it won't smother the main game. Something like patapon comes to mind.

[CuddleBeam]

About the story, I was thinking about having it be postapocalyptic - but not the "You're fucked" kind. More like "We're just a bit fucked, so it's OK."

Please read then gimme your opinions and feedback!

Humanity was all nice and well, until some world-wide disaster ocurred. This disaster mutated certain species, and spared others (like humans). However, after the disaster, leftover radiation remained. This radiation causes wireless communication to fail - and in the preapocalyptic world, everything was wireless. So the world becomes deglobalized, and the paradigm returns to that of feudal times.

So, in the end, people continued living thier lives pretty much as normal (they still preserve most of the technology and comodities of the past, like BE pills and whatnot.) but without being able to efficiently communicate or commerce with other towns (there is a plague of highly destructive mutants outside town walls. Inter-town transport is limited to the use of military vehicles - which is very expensive), so agriculture and farming become very important for each isolated human self-sufficient "community". You, the protagonist, are one of these farmers (a cowgirl farmer).


You start out by managing your first few cows, etc. However, your economic growth will be capped by the limitations of being in an isolated enviroment - You simply can't sell more milk if there is nobody else to buy it, and you can't buy better equipment because your town simply doesn't have them.

So.

Here is where the combat system comes in. An ambicious inventor NPC in your town has a machine that can make kilometers and kilometers of special tubing. The tubing is armored so that the mutants can't harm it with thier random attacking and destruction, and the tube can transport people and other goods a la Futurama. It also has regular electrical communication cabling within it. He also provides you with a powerful but rusty Junkmech (Think of Tow Mater from cars in mecha version), which can carry and lay the heavy tubing between towns. (At this point of the game, you're a very sucessful cowgirl farmer in your community, so people give you some respect and they can trust you with certain ambicious missions, like the tubing plan)

However, there is a problem. You can't being the cabling from A to B with the Junkmech alone - the mutants will attack and kill you - so you need protection while you lay the tubing. There is where the combat system comes in.

A la PataPon, you have a "commander" (JunkMech) and an army (Merc's and cows if they are trained to fight. Cowgirls would have superhuman qualities, which could put them on par with the mutants in direct combat if they train for it). Beat everything on-screen, thus get the Junkmech from the left side to the right side of the screen to win. Once you win, Town A and Town B will be connected, allowing you to commerce and communicate with them, allowing you to buy different (potencially better) upgrades and stuff for your cows. As you expand your little "empire", you'll have to cope with rivals who have done something similar to what you have done, pirates, etc.

In the end you reunite humanity back to its former globalized state.


So, how about it?

[Muhznit]

Originally Posted by CuddleBeam

About the story, I was thinking about having it be postapocalyptic - but not the "You're fucked" kind. More like "We're just a bit fucked, so it's OK."

Please read then gimme your opinions and feedback!

Humanity was all nice and well, until some world-wide disaster ocurred. This disaster mutated certain species, and spared others (like humans). However, after the disaster, leftover radiation remained. This radiation causes wireless communication to fail - and in the preapocalyptic world, everything was wireless. So the world deglobalized into a paradigm akin to feudal times.

So, in the end, people continued living thier lives pretty much as normal (they still preserve most of the technology and comodities of the past) but without being able to efficiently communicate or commerce with other towns (there is a plague of highly destructive mutants outside town walls. Inter-town transport is limited to the use of military vehicles - which is very expensive), so agriculture and farming become very important for each isolated human self-sufficient "community". You, the protagonist, are one of these farmers (a cowgirl farmer).


You start out by managing your first few cows, etc. However, your economic growth will be capped by the limitations of being in an isolated enviroment - You simply can't sell more milk if there is nobody else to buy it, and you can't buy better equipment because your town simply doesn't have them.

So.

Here is where the combat system comes in. An ambicious inventor NPC in your town has a machine that can make kilometers and kilometers of special tubing. The tubing is armored so that the mutants can't harm it with thier random attacking and destruction, and the tube can transport people and other goods a la Futurama. It also has cabling within it. He also provides you with a powerful but rusty Junkmech (Think of Tow Mater from cars in mecha version), which can carry and lay the heavy tubing between towns. (At this point of the game, you're a very sucessful cowgirl farmer in your community, so people give you some respect and they can trust you with certain ambicious missions, like the tubing plan)

However, there is a problem. You can't being the cabling from A to B with the Junkmech alone - the mutants will attack and kill you - so you need protection while you lay the tubing. There is where the combat system comes in.

A la PataPon, you have a "commander" (JunkMech) and an army (Merc's and cows if they are trained to fight. Cowgirls would have superhuman qualities, which could put them on par with the mutants in direct combat if they train for it). Beat everything on-screen, thus get the Junkmech from the left side to the right side of the screen to win. Once you win, Town A and Town B will be connected, allowing you to commerce and communicate with them, allowing you to buy different (potencially better) upgrades and stuff for your cows. As you expand your little "empire", you'll have to cope with rivals who have done something similar to what you have done, pirates, etc.

In the end you reunite humanity back to its former globalized state.


So, how about it?

Sounds like an idea that would probably be better split off into its own thread about another cowgirl game, but would wind up having the denizens of this forum asking "Where's the BE?"

Also, you don't strike me as the kind of guy all that fond about cowgirls in dangerous situations such as fighting mutants and stuff. ('-' )

[CuddleBeam]

Originally Posted by Muhznit

Sounds like an idea that would probably be better split off into its own thread about another cowgirl game, but would wind up having the denizens of this forum asking "Where's the BE?"

Also, you don't strike me as the kind of guy all that fond about cowgirls in dangerous situations such as fighting mutants and stuff. ('-' )

- Actually, the battle feature would just be an add-on (a minigame) to the regular CGF features. So the regular BE would still be there. However to get to bigger sizes, and quicker, you need better equipment which are unlocked by connecting to other cities (And connecting to other cities is achieved by combat).

- *shrugs* I'm trying to add a battle feature after seeing that Tick Tock said that NOT having a battle system was a drawback. You've also got mercs/volunteers, so you dont HAVE to fight with the cows if you're not so inclined.


-----


I dunno if the story sounds too grim. I was thinking of having each "town" be fairly nice and peaceful. Everyone lives well and nice in a community, dispite having to use crude technology loosely based on the remains of the pre-disaster stuff (The disaster would have happened centuries ago). The outside is more of a problem (think of it like dareing to go to the prohibited "Sacred Forest" in some Magical Fantasy game), because its dangerous. Then the darker part of the game is shown when you try to connect cities.

Another idea is to have the cowgirls be mistaken for "mutants" in other towns, so as you connect them, you show them that cowgirls are just cowgirls that want to be milked and taken care of - they are peaceful, thus extending the technique of cowfarming as people learn to accept them.

Another idea is to have the mutant be "machines" instead, and that the "machines" are sabotaging wireless communications (and global/regional communications in general) to hinder humanity's progress.

Another idea to replace the combat minigame is to have a plow-like machine that lays the tubing (http://images.fineartamerica.com/ima...ann-vitali.jpg). Pressing A and D alternatively (for example) powers up and pushes the plow. Why a plow? To plow the earth to leave the tubing semi dug-into the ground, hidden from the enemies (The plow would go at Gurren-Laggan speed through the ground to make it spectacular). You have to press A and D fast enough though to be able to prevent too many enemies hoarding onto the plowmachine (you can buy upgrades to the plow, like a static AOE discharge, etc). You "loose" if your plow takes too much damage. The minigame itself would also only fast a few seconds (and it would require expensive fuel), so it would have very little game-focus, and it would only happen occasionally.

Maybe I should just go with an Utopic futuristic setting (like regular CuddleCow)? Or medieval fantasy? I dunno. You tell me.

Edit: On second thought I don't think a battle system would be too nice. I see why TickTock opted not to include it. It would involve as much coding as the main game itself too - that's too just coding for something that is supposed to be "minor".

[Ryu_Knight]

you could go with more of a beauty contest mini game insted of a battle system

[CuddleBeam]

Originally Posted by Ryu_Knight

you could go with more of a beauty contest mini game insted of a battle system

That should work!

However, more of a country fair than a beauty contest, no? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_fair (Contest to see what cows give most milk, most beautiful, etc)

Edit: What is a beauty contest minigame like? :P

[Ryu_Knight]

Originally Posted by CuddleBeam

That should work!

However, more of a country fair than a beauty contest, no? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_fair (Contest to see what cows give most milk, most beautiful, etc)

Edit: What is a beauty contest minigame like? :P

country fair would fit better

and the best way I could give ya for how a beauty contest [country fair] could work would be your cowgirl has key stats that you have to build up to win ideal prizes and the competition would be a few npc cowgirls that depending on what difficalty the fair is will have those key stats at a set amount and you would need to raise her stats up to win

example would be local fair[easy setting] npc girls 1 has a milk stat level of 3, 2 has a level of 5, and 3 has a level of 7; your cowgirl will need a milk level of 8 or < to win that fair but if she ties with the npc for milk level but can get a total score that beats the npc wins
and points could be calculated by milk level, breast size, happines etc.

thats my suggestion and will probaly cost a good amount of coding but if you want to add a contest system it gonna end up being alot of work and will be well worth it, ad from playing other cowgirl sims I think this would make playing it feel like your achiving something and would fit better as part of a story line

[Muhznit]

Originally Posted by Ryu_Knight

country fair would fit better

and the best way I could give ya for how a beauty contest [country fair] could work would be your cowgirl has key stats that you have to build up to win ideal prizes and the competition would be a few npc cowgirls that depending on what difficalty the fair is will have those key stats at a set amount and you would need to raise her stats up to win

example would be local fair[easy setting] npc girls 1 has a milk stat level of 3, 2 has a level of 5, and 3 has a level of 7; your cowgirl will need a milk level of 8 or > to win that fair but if she ties with the npc for milk level but can get a total score that beats the npc wins
and points could be calculated by milk level, breast size, happines etc.

thats my suggestion and will probaly cost a good amount of coding but if you want to add a contest system it gonna end up being alot of work and will be well worth it, ad from playing other cowgirl sims I think this would make playing it feel like your achiving something and would fit better as part of a story line

Protip for gamedev: Don't bound yourself to rules of the real world. This a BE game. If you aren't blending a Country fair with a Beauty pageant, and wet-shirt contest and instead trying to have them separate, you're not imagining enough.
Secondary tip: Don't assume feature x will have the payoff that you hope it will. It's easy to imagine "This would be fun", and wind up hating it.

I estimate the most difficult part would be ensuring no one stat (aside from breast size, maybe) has an advantage over other stats and doing the appropriate balancing calculations. Second most difficult would be randomly generating competing NPCs that can be mathematically proven to be beatable.

But it's rather pointless for me to say it. I'm thinking of doing more of a Bimbofication game than cowgirls. Probably heavier on RPG elements too.

Also, I think I'll just leave this here:
http://www.process-productions.com/f...6&postcount=82

[CuddleBeam]

Asdasdasd....

Making a beauty pageant and stuff is going to be coded just like a regular "activity" (milking, rest, etc), due to how I coded the main engine. Its feasible.

Now that I think of it - I much prefer to release the CGF engine with some tutorials on how to add activities and food, and let other people add in those details (I might make excel sheets that output activity/email/food code to copypasta directly into the gamecode). Like that, we could make a much more complete game together, and I can continue coding other stuff.

The main engine is already useable and done (However, the balance is a bit off in some aspects, herp. I'll make an excel for you to be able to change that too.) . I just need to tweak the code a bit to make it good-for-crowdsourcing use.

Expect a CGF Engine + CGF Devkit release in Mid September or so.

[CuddleBeam]

Anyhoo. A quick briefing of some of the things I've coded in, to open your appetite.

Stats:
-Health (Regular HP mechanics)
-Lust (Works similarly to HP, but you want to deplete it every now and then as it accumulates quite quickly.)
-Happiness (Works as a global beneficial multiplier. For example: if you were to gain X by milking and happiness is high, you gain X*1.2 instead, for example.)
-Affection (Romantic interest. Gained by having high happiness over a long period of time, so it is of cumulative nature. Takes a relatively long time to raise.)
-Openness (How close are you, in the sense of friendship/trust? How much has she "opened" up to you? High affection and low openness results in a cow that can't express her feelings to you. Low of both would suck. High openess and low affection means a cow who likes you a lot - as a friend or a companion. Similar to Affection in growth.)


Happiness is special. Instead of gaining +X or -X depending on what you do, the cows current happiness averages with the "base" happiness the activity has. Its more natural that way. No matter how much you have bad sex at every hour, you will never build up as much happiness as if you had great sex at every hour. Bad sex and Great sex have different "base" happiness values.


Phyiscal stats: Bust_mass, Waist_mass, Hips_mass, height, muscle_mass, other_fat_mass (fat that isn't specifically in the formentioned places. General "fatness"), Bust_skeleton, Waist_Skeleton, Hips_Skeleton, Height_Skeleton.


I measure these in mass because its easier to compute higher realism with it. The BWH measurements are then calculated from these values and the skeleton values. Each cow will have a different body shape. Some have wider hips simply because her hipbones are wider, however, later in the game, your choices will affect more the overall outcome.

Tendancy: This is quite special. Each cow has a "tendancy" value for each of thier stats. Tendacy can be positive or negative. The higher the tendancy, the easier it is to gain that stat nad the harder it is to loose it. The lower, the easier it is to loose that stat and its harder to gain it. An optimistic cow, for example, would have a high positive happiness tendancy, whereas a shy cow would have a high negative openess tendancy. Each cow has different tendacy values within the range of thier breed.

Some breeds have a higher tendancy for bustmass, whereas others have a low musclemass tendancy but a high fatmass tendancy, for example.

[Ryu_Knight]

the physical stats could be what makes your score in the county fair game and happiness could and openness could be what determins weather a cow girl wants to be entered into a contest

and not to take the fair idea away from ya but after a bit of thought I think it should be more of a prominet factor for the game, [because speaking for myself here] I find that the other cowgirl games that people have made [dispite how along it is in dev.] tend to get a lil' boring after a point "yes I made her grow breast so large she can't walk and produces enough milk to feed a city YAY!... now restart and do it again" but since we don't know how your game is gonna work yet until we get a beta ver., so thats how I feel about it that it Should be a main focus point of the game

and if you still want as a later add in you can add a battle system for it but more of a wrestling kind of mini game and you can set it up as a turn base game like pokemon

[TickTock]

Originally Posted by Ryu_Knight

... I find that the other cowgirl games that people have made [dispite how along it is in dev.] tend to get a lil' boring after a point "yes I made her grow breast so large she can't walk and produces enough milk to feed a city YAY!...

Oh man that made me lol.

But it's pretty true since many of these games barely get past the mechanics phase if they even get that far. In my case, I got buried in the details and lost it once I discovered how much more difficult creative content creation can be rather than the underlying structure.