Choice of the Vampire v.1.2.0 is being released today for web/Android, and will arrive on iPhone as soon as it is approved. That said, as I’ve been working on Choice of the Vampire, I’ve realized that I have been thinking about it more as an interactive novella than a game. In particular, I’m interested the idea of dynamic storytelling. As such, I am very much interested in the feedback generated by the game, because it gives the audience the opportunity to shape the content and direction of the project; see here some ways the game has already changed.

#1 Railroading: Daniel Hemmens made a good point about being “railroaded” into the scene with Yves Hébert. Now, if your feeding style does not include him, you have the option to decline meeting him.

#2 Combat: Again, Daniel Hemmens pointed out that struggling with Clotho was too hard. It was, in fact, much too easy for her to get the better of you. She’s not a pushover–which was the point of the high Combat check–but she was too tough. She, along with the Footman at the seance (and maybe one or two other places), has had her Combat check lowered.

#3 Shepherds and Wolves: Getting to the cliff with Calkins was too challenging: the requirements to overhear Estefania and Krupke were too high as well. Therefore, I tinkered with the numbers a bit, added another route to learn about Shepherds and Wolves (see #7 below). Now the scene with Calkins on the cliffs is easier to reach and take to its furthest point.

#4 Pitchforks: The end of the St. Charles storyline has been developed a little more, and the reasons for it better explained later. Many were frustrated at the appearance of the pitchforks, had they sought to maintain good relations with the locals.

#5 Bisexuality: Originally, I had coded the game so that if you pursued Clotho past a certain point, it locked out pursuing Silas. However, after reading some of the responses to Romance and thinking about it some more, at the last minute I opened up the possibility of pursuing both Clotho and Silas. I think this does make the game better. However, it resulted in the “discovering parts don’t work” error in the first release of the game. A big thank you to Dominic Selvo for all his post-release code-checking.

#6 Nostalgia for Clotho: Mallamun pointed out that, if you royally screwed up with Clotho, there was no mention of it afterwards. Adding little twinges of nostalgia here and there have been a definite improvement.

#7: Rapport Scene: One of the frequent requests by players was the opportunity to “get involved” with some of the vampire characters: the quaestor, Jesse and/or Estefania. While I don’t want to get a formal “relationship” started with any of these three so early in the story, introducing a moment of intimacy was acceptable. Therefore, I have just added a new vignette that takes place before the arrival of the governor’s party in New Orleans. In it, you can engage directly with the vampires of New Orleans, and ask them a little something about themselves and their histories.

Which leads me to #8: If you could ask those three characters one thing, what would it be? If you–the players–can agree on a question, and it makes sense for the game for me to write it in, I’ll put it in to the New_Orleans_Rapport scene. So, let’s hear it: what would you ask the quaestor, Jesse or Estefania?