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Airhead Academy Classic (No Longer Updated)

(18+) Dating sim where you can romance your classmates, or transform them and just let them follow their newfound lust. · By Nomsar

Adventures in Library Studies - feat. Twilight

A topic by C. Snacks created Jun 18, 2017 Views: 2,164 Replies: 37
Viewing posts 1 to 14
(7 edits) (+1)

Linking the S-Link scripts for Twilight's Normal/Standard Branch here. Still treating them all as a working draft, but it's important to at least get a map, I think. Not sure if I'll have the option to edit this post later, so if this whole thing gets stretched out, I apologize.

S-Link 1 https://pastebin.com/5Pyr1eRf
S-Link 2 https://pastebin.com/su0CwC69
S-Link 3 https://pastebin.com/LQmFNJsJ
S-Link 4  https://pastebin.com/9LcezCin
S-Link 5 https://pastebin.com/SCJYU8WG
S-Link 6 https://pastebin.com/vtqnC2mR
S-Link 7 https://pastebin.com/phRsu02r
S-Link 8 https://pastebin.com/rWhA3VpK
S-Link 9 https://pastebin.com/CwvEty3J

S-Link 10 [Fail] https://pastebin.com/PU0Z1Zx5

S-Link 10 [Success] https://pastebin.com/K8UC06Bp

Thoughts/Input/Suggestions always appreciated

Change Log:

8-1
Added S-Link 10 Good End

7-23
Added S-Link 10 Bad End

7-20
Added S-Link 9

7-9
Added S-Link 8

7-7
Added S-Link 7

7-6
Added S-Link 6

6-22
Added S-Link 5

6-18
No changes to 2 since the original posting.
One adjustment to S-Link 1, on line 55, to keep it congruent with the conversation in S-Link 4.
Added Cheerilee interaction to the beginning of 3, removed references to Twilight contacting the Player.

(3 edits)

Oh didn't see these until now, great addition! Spending time together with pinkie will have a whole different meaning later on.

Seems these S-Links are getting longer, but seems appropriate at this point since it really fleshes out her dilemma.

As for how this will continue, one thought did occur to mind. At this point twilight seems so stressed that in order to talk to her again, one needs to use bimbo magic on her. Doesn't have to change her appearance or speech pattern, but she just feels somehow more relaxed easy going. So as an idea

----------------------------------

S-Link 5: Twilight is not in the library, but hiding somewhere different in the school to even get away from player, tantrum ensues.

S-Link 6: A very short conversation, where she's back in the library, but doesn't want to talk (ashamed of her actions?)

At that point when meeting her again in the library, one will only get ''She won't meet your gaze, her face buried in the books'' repeated until more bimbo magic is casted.

S-Link 7: When she sees you again she apologizes, somehow feeling better and reflected upon her actions.

- From that point on the player could make the choice that changing her was wrong and proceed the game without any further changes as the mental positiveness subsides with time.

----------------------------------

But again just suggestions, not sure if you already have a definite story route in mind.

Developer

LOVE it so far, really helps build character.

I really like the idea of requiring bimbo magic, but I still would prefer if it remained optional... and yes, I'm aware of how counter-intuitive that is considering the subject matter, but it helps the player feel like it's their choice.

So maybe you CAN use bimbo magic at least once to relax her a bit to go along with the party idea, or your Charm needs to be high enough to convince her. Since it's much easier to just cast a spell and call it done, most players would go along with that anyway. This way, players are still compelled to use bimbo magic, but are in no way required to. 

Alternatively, we could give the player another way in by starting Pinkie's S-link, but I feel that could overcomplicate this little proof of concept game a little too much.

Understand the wish to play it without the use of it, and sounds like raising the charm thing is a fine optional choice as well.

Thinking in just this single case it might be fine to pass it, just to keep it simple.

Like no matter how much bimbo energy she already has had before doesn't influence anything. what matters is the action of using it after the 6th S-link. so no matter if her bimbo stats were 1 or 10, it's just a required thing to do at this point so the story would could just progress as normal.

I haven't really worked out the extent of the route yet, so I certainly don't mind the assist. I'm also interested in the idea of encouraging the player to use magic, while also leaving the door open to choose not to if they don't feel like it and build up their own stats. While the extra stats wouldn't help them in the demo, it would certainly be handy for those who just want to run a 'pure' story.
I do like the one for the fifth, though I'm torn between a tantrum and a small breakdown a la Lesson Zero.  Unhinged Twilight would be fun, and give a pretty good reason as to why she throws herself into her studies and shuts the player out.

(+1)

https://pastebin.com/SCJYU8WG

Added S-Link 5. Really liked the idea of using magic to either beef up the Player's brains, or teach Twilight to relax a little, so I tried to convey that by portraying her as high strung, while the player as not being smart enough to assist, since I've been writing options that allow the Player to skate by Charm up to this point. I figured it could be be an either-or situation, where the player could expedite the next S-Link by using the magic on her, at the cost of reducing her smarts a bit, and raising the risk of her not getting into the program as a result, or just spend a few nights/week supercharging their brain to become Twi's study buddy. Or Flash Card handler, whichever.

Either way, I thought I would lay it out there and see what people are thinking.

Liking how this is going from a story's standpoint, really getting to connect with the interactions here. Also liked there was mosre description on the player's actions. 

But think the set-up is pretty good for either using magic to calm her down, or not and somehow power through without. 

So depending on if magic was used to interact with her again, the sprite could look like her fine self saying (sorry about last time, I feel better now)

And if no magic was used, but spend alot of nights to buff up (Int) it could be her sprite still looking terribly untamed but say (I don't think I can handle this much longer, can you help me somehow?)

I wrote the interaction with a slight visual branch like that in mind, with the option to just go full Haggard Twilight (like in the spa chapter) if that ends up being too much. I also thought both of them could stem from the same conversation, with the Player offering their assistance, and Twilight taking them up on it; so S-Link 6 would be comparatively short. Maybe one or two study-dates, another little round of pre-submission panic, and then a good/bad end, possibly with a Congratulations or Welcome Back party for Twilight depending on the ending.

Aha the good or bad ending is determined she keeps her INT high enough? These seem hard to work with when the changes can go either way.

Got any ideas on how to handle what changes the violet room can do?

It was my understanding that the endings will be influenced by the character's own stats, INT being the central one I'm focusing on for Twilight's (pure?) route. That's mostly because I can't remember what the other three (four? five?) stats are at the moment, and can't find a post with them either, but also because she's a Brain and it fits.
I'm still a little in the dark about the mechanics for the Violet Room, but for the time being I'm working with the knowledge that it's mostly used for stat tweaks, rather than transformation-based. Not that the latter isn't a major component, but for this route I'm not considering that. Maybe having a sliding rule would be good, that Twi can be changed up to a point before one route trips and switches over to the other.

Yeah alright, it's easier to just keep in mind it's stat changed. Guess we can always see what to do with the violet room once the non-bimbo paths are layed out and see how to work with that.

(1 edit) (+1)

To start with, the Stats are: Intelligence, Fitness, Charm, Guts and Bimbo. Guts being what Courage is in Persona.

So is the idea that you go through 5 skits before you get the choice to start bimbofying in earnest? That is, you can start the process physically and make some relatively minor changes, but it caps off until you reach a decision point in skit 6, at which point the physical changes kick off and the mental ones start, too?

If so, that's a good idea. It allows even the players who decide to do a non-bimbo run to still have some sexy optional TF to spice it up a little. I guess 5 Bimbo Points would be the cutoff, with the cap rising to match your level with them from then on?

I think there should be at least 2 stats you could use to solve major problems, to sort of give the player two chances to have a high enough one to succeed. For example, if you go the "pure" route and refuse to use bimbo magic to make Twilight calm down, you can instead use Intelligence, to either reason with Twilight/help her study and make her feel like she's progressing enough that she de-stresses a little bit, or you can try to make a (perhaps slightly more difficult) Charm check to convince her that she's hurting her friends by ignoring her so that she spends some time with them and de-stresses that way (and you could have an option to flirt to trigger the "pure" romance route at this point, much like in a Persona game).

Maybe structure it so that each Social Link has one "favored stat," one that you can use to pass most (if not all) of the major decision points successfully, with the alternative being to pass slightly higher checks for 2/3 different stats throughout the Social Link. So it'll be possible to pass Twilight's SL without high Int, but only if you have at least two other high stats. That way players feel like they aren't being railroaded into grinding a particular stat to get a girl (even though they're being strongly encouraged to).

Though, to make the Good End/Bad End structure work, we might need to add a new mechanic: a unique stat for each girl that represents their progress in their personal mission, with the name changing depending on the character and their route. For Twilight on the pure route, it would be "Stress," and would measure how close Twilight is to a meltdown, and thus the goal would be to make it lower than a certain threshold by passing checks during skits (and maybe stuff like talking on the phone could do it, but by a lesser amount?). If it's too high when you reach the end of her route, Twilight collapses of exhaustion/has a breakdown and needs to be hospitalized, missing the deadline for her program and thus securing the Bad End.

Though it doesn't have to be really bad, it can be you visiting Twilight in the hospital, where she's happy to see you (especially if you romance her) but quickly gets depressed, confiding in you that it's both because of her failure with the program and because she's afraid she's pushed away all her friends, only to have them show up behind you (maybe at your signal?) to throw her a (small and quiet, this is a hospital!) party to cheer her up and show her that they still love and support her. Maybe end with Twilight happier (though still regretful about missing her opportunity with the program), getting ready to write a letter to Celestia and/or Cadance about what she's learned about friendship from all of this...

Whereas if you get her Stress low enough, the help and support of you and her friends keeps Twilight from blowing a gasket and she gets in with flying colors. Her friends throw a big party to congratulate her, and the two of you share a dance (as friends or as more, with "more" being a slow dance. Either way, make sure to mention that she dances like a total dork) where she tells you that she's lucky to have you as her friend. And if you romance her, add to the end a little bit by having her blush and whisper in your ear that she'd like to continue the party later, just the two of you...

As for the Violet Room, I kind of gave some thoughts on that (and other stuff) in the General Writing thread.

EDIT: Then again, implementing this might add too much to everyone's workload. I'd be willing to write some small stuff if anyone wants me to, but I can't code or draw for sh*t.

Developer

In order to keep things simpler to write and code, all character storylines are determined by their own stats (Int, Fit, Charm, Guts, Bimbo). These stats can be affected by the player and the player's stats as well, for example studying with Twilight helps both raise Int the higher their own Ints are. So instead of stress maybe Twilight's story is tied to her Fit and Int, with a good ending resulting in her having enough Int to pass whatever exam but also enough fitness to not have her stomach eating itself out of undernourishment and exhaustion.

something like that

https://pastebin.com/vtqnC2mR

Finally got over the plague and got the next one done. It ended up being a little longer than I thought it would, but I'm pretty happy with at least the shape of it. Still going with responses favoring benefits for the player trying to be charming and self-assured, but working in the Intelligence angle as well. I don't know if it would be too much to include an option for the Player to get into the McGuffin as well as a sort of special end with Twilight, but If figured it'd be fun to play with a bit.

Developer

How 'special' a special end are we talking?

If it requires more art assets, that's something you'd have to discuss with Annon, but if it's something thats triggered by a variable or something minor that uses already existing art, hey, I can work it in.

My thought was mostly just a one-time event at some point in the game and variable epilogue flavor text if he went with her into the program or not. Nothing too robust. It's something I realized in passing might be an interesting touch, but we can just as easily write it out as the player already have missed a submission deadline or whatever.

Developer

Unique interactions based on if the S-Link has already been cleared might be do-able, they'd certainly have to exist for sex scenes to function.

After finishing incorporating Twilight's story into the game, I'll see what I can do system-wise to enable this.

Developer

One thing I would add: You start every s-link with 'You decide to spend time with Twilight'. This is fine, and is where it will begin, but you could also open with customized pre-read first if you like.

For example, when you click on Twilight and are about to start S-Link 3, you get this message first:

"Twilight is hard at work in her usual place by the counter, with a pile of books on either side."
"She doesn't seem to notice you..."

Then you get to choose whether or not to spend time with her.

It's a nice way to let the player know 'hey, this isn't the default message, meaning story will happen here'.

But if you don't want to write them, they're only two sentences anyway, I don't mind knocking them out.

(+1)

Yeah, I can take care of that. I wasn't sure how in-depth we were going with a demo seeing as Twilight's the only one the player can interact with, but if we're aiming for a fuller experience, then lets go ahead.

(1 edit)

New S-Link for the normal Twilight

https://pastebin.com/phRsu02r

Trying not to add much to Twilight's character at this point as to just expand it out over this link and the next two, so they should be pretty straightforward and not have too many curves. I don't really have much to say other than that; I did do this pretty quickly, so it hasn't really had time to sink in. A fresh set of eyes would be good, just to make sure everything seems in order.

Addendum:

I did try to add an approach option like with what was discussed previously. Does that work?

Finding the approach to be great in this one.

This s-link work more than fine, the question is if two more S-links of only studying is getting tiresome. Would love to throw in a suggestion of somekind of curveball to add, but can't think of anything. 

but nice addition with the party question.

I've actually given that some thought and figured the library portion is done. The next might be good to have her in the clinic from overwork and too little sleep, just to show equal parts run down and dedicated. Either that or an awkward study date at her house.

For 9, a walk to the exam centre might be a good change of pace. And then hang around for her afterwards to walk back And deal with some of that drama. Would be another nice place to check out her bedroom.

That sounds good, either options. Clinic could also introduce redheart, while her home could introduce her mother but with a short hello.

https://pastebin.com/rWhA3VpK

Trying some new concepts, specifically the phone, so let me know how that works out, or what needs to change to make it work. Also introduced the Twilight Velvet (just going with Velvet for the sake of simplicity), with the thought of having two characters on screen at once. Don't know if that's too much or if we just want to stick to one at a time.

Pretty good section. Think it's fine, just gonna crank up a Velvet asap, that's gonna be fun as she's a personal favorite of the mothers.

Still chugging away, hoping to get the last three done in quick succession. To facilitate that, general inquiry if we're able to have events occur within a period of time, say, one week following the exam (S-Link 9) can the next S-Link be made available automatically? I can write it either way, but don't want to add unnecessary work.

Second, just for clarification, 10 is the end if the route, so are the questions necessary? Or how does that work?

Here's 9
https://pastebin.com/CwvEty3J

Working on 10 A/B, but still waiting to hear if the S-Link Questions are necessary for this, or if they're just general questions this time around.

Also scheming out the Bimbo  route, curious if there's anything in particular that needs to be different.

Developer

As 10 is the end of the route the questions are not necessary.

The formula you followed for the non-bimbo route would pretty much be the same. Having a uniform gameflow makes the game easier to make, and easier to play.

OK. So here's a rough idea of what the 10th S-Link might look like.

https://pastebin.com/PU0Z1Zx5

I'm not entirely sold on it yet, as we haven't really discussed how things ought to be wrapped up. So, for the time being, lets call this a work in progress and go over what's good, what's bad, and what's missing.

If it's really called for, I can swing  a party scene, but I was really saving that for the alternate, good, ending.  Anyway, thoughts are helpful at this point, because, well, we are putting a cap on the storyline, so we want it to end on a good or bittersweet note.

Developer

I like it, it's real bittersweet without being too brutal. 

Thinking this end had just the right about of feels, well balanced you keep surprising. Very happy how this turned out, and a great way for the player to be put in a dilemma to change her for the broken dream. 

Would say if you were to add anything more, instead of the party scene, it could be the player about to pick her up at her house, but hears her sobbing to herself that she wished she was less strict with herself and be more fun etc.

Of course where it just ended now is also more than enough. Good work.

Here it is, the final S-Link!
https://pastebin.com/K8UC06Bp

You'll probably notice right away that it's pretty huge. I wanted to try something a little different, allowing the player to delay satisfaction, or bypass it completely, so I included an option selection at the end to give it some personal feeling. That might be a bit too much, especially locking the player out from pursuing Twilight [Option 2], so that one can be removed if necessary.


Otherwise, I'm thinking there should only be a couple intimate scenes [First time, Subsequent times, possibly alternate positions?] and that should wrap up the big component of Twilight's story, just leaving small and flavor texts, right?

-that was pretty lovely, reading through it, it felt really rewarding to choosing to go the non-bimbo path. This would also leave the door open to change her still later on.

Only thought here is that this work beautifully as a demo or a (one-path dating route) where she is the focus.  But let's say in the future if it became possible to interact with all the main six girls, wouldn't it be weird to have all the non-bimbo couple endings at same time? Maybe there can't be more than 1 couple ending if everyone is still at level 0 bimbo?

Just wanted to throw that thought out there even though it wouldn't play the slightest role in the demo.

Don't mind drawing the cutscenes once a script is made. Shouldn't be too difficult making edits depedending on the bimbo levels. Would say the art shouldn't be the limitation at the moment.

Developer

It looks great! Love it, will work on integrating it.

As for your 'multiple couple endings' thing, again, it helps a lot that we're stealing a lot of design choices from Persona.

In the Persona series, having multiple romances usually results in you choosing one to spend time with on Valentine's Day. The next day, every other girl you've been cheating on calls you out, resulting in a comedic and humiliating response. This seems like a good way to handle That Situation.

While that's a possibility on the multiple couple ending, personally it would feel like the weight of the writing gets taken away if there's not been used any bimbo magic at all. Would it be possible to only allow one couple ending if there's not been used bimbo magic once?

Developer

Absolutely, a simple matter of not letting the player choose other couple endings once they're already on one.

Developer

So one thing that's unclear is what factor influences how exactly we trigger a good end.

Is it based on Twilight's Int or should it be about charm (to show she's spending more time with her friends) or fit (to show she's at least taking care of herself)?

(+1)

I'm inclined to respond with  simple 'yes'.
From a more technical aspect, I was working from the idea of a point spread, specifically a Primary (A) and Secondary (B) stat that are more or less cumulative. So for Twilight's ending, the A stat would be INT and the B stat was Charm/Charisma, and the goal was to get over ten (more like thirteen) of some combination. So 7A and 7B would still be passing, but 10A and 3B would not, even though she maxed out her primary stat.
I was also kind of basing this off the idea that, as you used the magic, Twilight's CHA would naturally increase. I thought it might be a good way to reduce grind, and encourage the use of magic, but at the same time I considered that it might drop her INT, although to a lesser degree. That's all speculation on y part though.
If there's really a want, we could do a three-tier system and appropriate value based on that, where C points are worth half of B are worth half of A, or something. Just something in place to encourage the player to develop something beyond INT because "brains lol".

I don't even know if that makes sense.