Case: Housepets!-A Choose Your Own Adventure Game
Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2016 8:42 pm
Welcome to Case: Housepets!, a community driven choose your own adventure mystery game where you and your fellow forum users will determine how the story goes!
This game is heavily inspired by (and partially parodies) other adventure games such as Heavy Rain, The Telltale games, and the comic "Prequel". The players (that's you guys) will take control of one of 5 characters throughout the game and make decisions that effect and direction of the path of the story you go down, and ultimately shape who these characters are and what their motive is. While some choices may seem small or incredibly drastic, all choices and actions can and will effect the outcome of a scene, and may even cost you a character.
Here are the Character Files; Your list of characters and their stats:
Name: Echo
Player Status: Active
Gender: Male
Species: Dog - Dalmatian
Occupation: Police K-9
Mental Status: Low
Current Inventory: Collar and Tag, Bravo's Collar, Bravo's Tag
Personality Notes:
-Cautious
-Obedient
-Passive
-Makes frantic actions if indecisive
-Clever
-Can pinpoint contradictions
-Straight Forward
-Good artist
Name: Bravo
Player Status: In-Active
Gender: Male
Species: Dog - German Shepard
Occupation: N/A
Mental Status: ???
Current Inventory: N/A
Personality Notes:
-Sergeant Ralph is his role model
-Curious
-Bold
-Anger Issues
-Heavy sleeper
-Would do anything to protect his brothers
-Slightly poor eyesight
-Strong sense of smell
Name: Maple
Player Status: Active
Gender: Female
Species: Cat - Tabby
Occupation: Stray
Mental Status: Fine
Current Inventory: Maple's Scarf, Maple's gloves
Personality Notes: Self-conscious of own nudity, aggressive, blunt
Name: Vial
Player Status: Active
Gender: Female
Species: Cat - Nebelung
Occupation: ???
Mental Status: ???
Current Inventory: ???
Personality Notes: ???
Name: Charlie
Player Status: Active
Gender: Male
Species: Dog - ???
Occupation: FBI FK-1 Dog
Mental Status: Critical
Current Inventory: Collar and Tag
-Cheery
-Well mannered
-Clumsy
-Panics in stressful situations
-In tight situations, will become enraged.
-Studies spiritual happenings
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Karma Status: Normal
Good Karma Count: 0
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(These files will change frequently as you guys play the game.)
How to play:
As the story goes on, you will all have to collectively put your input on what should be done in the form of a message. Most decisions will be decided based on a majority vote, other times you will be presented with a "free roam" prompt where you can just request specific things to do while on a certain scene. This is the list of things you can request:
-Action: A request to do something ranging from picking up an item to doing a flip!
-Talk: Talk to a character
-Inspect: Look around your environment or at something specific. This can be very important in certain situations, but a waste of time in others
-Listen: Check for any sounds. This can come in handy in dangerous situations
-Use Item: Use or inspect something in your inventory
-Change Character: On rare occasions, you may change which character you are controlling. Be careful who you control though, as you can't determine another character's actions unless you actually control them. Note: You can only control main characters
-Hint: You may ask to have a hint if you have no idea what to do. This is most effective during free roam scenes, but if I find the scene too linear, obvious, or important that you are the one who decides, it'll probably be as simple as "Act fast" or "Think carefully"
WARNING:
The only way to get a "game over" is if all characters become in-active. This means that if a character goes "missing", or becomes "in-active", THEY ARE GONE. Depending on the scenario and how you've played the game, another character may notice that said character has gone missing, and can go on a "redemption mission" to go look for them. However, you may not want to do these for personal reasons or because you feel it's not safe, as these missions are VERY RISKY.
If you see an exclamation mark in the corner of a scene, it can mean a 1-4 level of danger. This doesn't always mean danger to a character though, it can also mean you are in danger or losing evidence or failing a scene, therefore hurting your chance of solving a mystery or even your ability to progress in the game.
-A white exclamation mark is level 1 of danger, something important is happening or a character could be hurt. The scene may also escalate to a:
-Yellow warning, level 2 danger. You are in danger of getting hurt or losing evidence, which may then escalate to an:
-Orange warning, level 3 danger. A situation has gotten much worse and you may lose a character or major evidence. If you do the wrong thing, you may get a:
-Red warning, level 4 danger. Hope that you never have to see this, because this means that depending on your next move, you could lose a character then and there.
Disclaimer: While all that sounds scary, there's nothing terribly graphic or horrifying that will happen, this is still Housepets! after all. The story is somewhere between PG-PG13. It may discuss serious or dark topics at times, but it's still pretty cartoony for the most part. A lot of it is parody of the more serious games it's inspired by.
Chaining and Karma
Chaining is a feature that allows you to string 2-3 choices in a given situation. If you feel you need to do or say more than one thing, you can coordinate people to select multiple actions in a specific order. If not enough people agree to do your specific chain, the chain will not work. Much like regular voting, it's a majority rule, so you have to work together to get done. 3 chains are riskier than 2 chains, as it's a bit harder for people to agree on your exact chain
However, when you either chain too much, or begin to make incorrect chains (like ones that don't make sense or everyone susbmits a different chain), you will receive minor penalties throughout the game. The way I measure this is through something called "Karma". Karma is expressed in game through pink text, and will warn you when you are accumulating said karma. Depending on how much karma you have accumulated, a character will randomly slip up at any given scene. The more Karma, the higher chance of it happening at riskier scenes. You can trip on a pebble while casually walking across the sidewalk, or sneeze when you are trying to sneak around an enemy.
There are 3 ways to get rid of Karma:
1 - Stop chaining. The Karma will eventually fade away on it's own.
2 - Feel the effects of Karma. Once you're hit with Karma, it will reset to zero.
3 - Make a perfect chain. Feeling lucky? If the majority of people all agree on a chain that happens to have a really good outcome (or an intentionally really bad outcome), your Karma will fade away. However, this is not something you should try to do, you will probably gain far more Karma than lose it attempting to do this. It's better to let this happen naturally then attempting to force it.
There are also 3 levels of Karma:
1 - Uneasy - a chance of minor, harmless penalties
2 - Unlucky - a chance of minor penalties that make you look like an idiot, or make you forget non-crucial things
3 - Jinxed - a chance of minor penalties at the worst times
There will also be scenes where I don't allow you to chain at all for plot reasons. But keep in mind that just because I allow you to chain in a scene, it doesn't always mean you should. I recommend you try to coordinate your chains before you do them, if you even do them. If everyone has different chains, calculating the votes as to what to do can be a bit complicated as I have to add together every time an option is listed. If the chains are too confusing for a given scene, I'll try to just ignore them and go with the most selected choice instead to save you from stacking up on Karma instantly.
You can also accumulate "Good Karma" by not chaining while at zero Karma, getting through combat scenes mostly successfully or intentionally poorly, or by doing specific actions. Good Karma grants you one free chain regardless of it's outcome. You can also use it to remove any Karma you may have accumulated instead.
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Now that that's all said and done, we will begin this game whenever you guys are ready, just say the word! If you have any questions before we start, feel free to ask. I'm curious to see which path you all take this story, or if you manage to create a path I didn't predict would happen.