A Penny For Your Thoughts - Dr. Aeon's Challenge

A Penny For Your Thoughts
Author: @Frija
ID: 348691
Tags: Non-Canon, Drama
Morality: Heroic (obviously )

Desc: As all of the city's Clockwork suddenly fall inert, Penelope Yin has a bad feeling as to the fate of her reluctantly accepted guardian brain-in-a-jar, the Clockwork King. A speculative short-arc on the Clockwork King.

This is my first (published) attempt at a drama piece, and my first try doing something like this with established characters, so I'm doubly interested in what do people think. I won't be submitting this arc till it gets closer to the deadline, so all feedback will be considered to improving this arc before the final 'cut'.

I may just be naively hopeful here, but if anyone does play it I'd also really appreciate it if you could post here with your general thoughts, as well as answering a few questions I am interested in knowing:

1) Should there be more combat, or do you think it has enough?

2) Did you find the final mission too easy/hard/just right?

3) Should the time limit be shortened/extended/leave it as it is?

4) Did you think a convincing argument was made for picking either choices?

5) And just for fun, which choice did you make?

I sent you a comment in-game, but I'll go and answer your questions here.

1) Should there be more combat, or do you think it has enough?

Yes, it definitely needs more combat. The first mission was practically devoid of any combat at all, and the second and third missions didn't have a lot of it either. While story-oriented players will really like your writing, I think the XP-oriented crowd will be disappointed by the lack of enemies.

2) Did you find the final mission too easy/hard/just right?

My DB/EA stalker had very little trouble with it. I just popped a purple and started whaling on the EB. My build isn't fully specced out yet, so I'm sure the average player should be able to handle it.

3) Should the time limit be shortened/extended/leave it as it is?

Forty-five minutes is plenty of time to complete the mission. But if you want to make it longer, an hour would be perfect.

4) Did you think a convincing argument was made for picking either choices?

This was probably my favorite part, having a multiple choice ending was great. I think some players might actually find it hard deciding on what to do. So, yes, I think a convincing argument was made. =P

5) And just for fun, which choice did you make?

I picked option number one, aka, beat up the boss and leave things the way they should be. I would rather leave things alone then start messing around too much, so going the natural route and leaving things the way they are now was my best bet. =P

All-in-all, I think the arc has a really great chance of winning the Aeon challenge. I'll be rooting for you!

Thanks for the comments.

I've been sitting on the fence whether I should add more combat, but now you convinced me to see if I can add some more.

Update: More combat added in mission 2, seems like the only place I could add it in without setting off the temperamental AE system.

So I just finished running this and thought I'd give my impressions. I've tried to avoid spoilers, but there may be a leak or two here and there. BE WARNED.

Penelope sends you in to find CK after all the Clockwork stop working. Of course, my first thought was to simply call Best Buy and see if they were still under warranty:



After being assured by customer service that they were NOT, it looked like I had to do things the hard way.

Mission 1 was pretty simple. Too simple, really. It looked great, and all the broken Clockwork really set the whole thing up nicely, but there was only a teeny tiny bit of combat where really, there could be much more and it still fit with the story.

So CK is in dreamyland and now you are stuck there with him. Mission 2 has you going through the looking glass and into CK's dream. This mission has a few humourous moments and more combat, though most is fairly easy to avoid if you want to. CK kicks more than enough butt helping you out - so no worries.

Best part about Mission 2? Clockwork donuts. Tasty, but a little greasy:



So it's back to Penelope and now you get sent back into CK's head but this time, it's less funny and more trippy. You are led through a series of very minor tasks which very nicely give you background on CK and his motivations. This mission is where the arc really shines IMHO. Visually it's spot on and the tasks really hammer home some quality story elements. A+ on this one for sure. There is even combat in there to mix things up a bit.

So Mission 4 comes and you have a choice to make about CK. The last mission is pretty straightforward if you opt to fight CK. If you chose -like I did - to fail, your options aren't as obvious. At first I decided to kill time destroying the wierd rock things, but after a dozen or so I got bored and wasn't sure it would do anything anyhow. Not being terribly bright, I didn't see any way to fail aside from letting the time run out. That was a LONG 45 mins. I would suggest you adjust the mission to allow for a quick fail if the player wants, or people will opt to fight CK simply out of not wanting to wait.

So here is my assessment:

1) Still a few spelling/grammar things to tighten up. I won't list them, but just give it a good read over -they are fairly obvious.

2) Easily soloable. Again, too much so. There was no real challenge here. More fighting won't take away from the story.

3) Very good story. Started off as kind of a fluff comedy piece and then flipped around in Mission 3 to become darker and more personal - though somehow it didn't seem so abrupt.

4) Great dialogue. Penelope was funny and well done, and CKs made sense and changed slightly as the mission grew more serious in tone.

5) As it pertains to Dr. Aeon's Challenge, I don;t think it meets the theme very well. The challenge was to force the hero to do something evil for the greater good. In this arc, we are given the option of doing something good for the greater evil, or doing nothing for the greater good. Really, after Mission 3 I felt like doing nothing would be better for the world AND CK, so it didn't feel like I was doing anything evil at all.

I gave it 4 stars. A very good arc, but maybe not so much for the current challenge.

Thanks for the comments, those are some great pics btw.

Spoilers in my next comments:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Supafunkadunka 2) Easily soloable. Again, too much so. There was no real challenge here. More fighting won't take away from the story.

Yup, I'm all too aware of this. Trying to add more action in the 1st mission is proving to be surprisingly tricky, as I'm still trying to figure out a way to add more enemies that don't end up fighting the 'sleeping' Clockwork.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Supafunkadunka 3) Very good story. Started off as kind of a fluff comedy piece and then flipped around in Mission 3 to become darker and more personal - though somehow it didn't seem so abrupt. 4) Great dialogue. Penelope was funny and well done, and CKs made sense and changed slightly as the mission grew more serious in tone.

I'm happy to hear you think that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Supafunkadunka 5) As it pertains to Dr. Aeon's Challenge, I don;t think it meets the theme very well. The challenge was to force the hero to do something evil for the greater good. In this arc, we are given the option of doing something good for the greater evil, or doing nothing for the greater good. Really, after Mission 3 I felt like doing nothing would be better for the world AND CK, so it didn't feel like I was doing anything evil at all.

By not doing anything you indirectly help to 'kill' CK, which opens up questions of morality, particularly on whether the idea of 'mercy deaths' is moral. If you believe you are doing nothing but good by doing something that many would find questionable, then I would like to think I have succeeded in 'having the hero commit acts of evil for the greater good'. I may just be naively hopeful though, so if I am wrong by all means correct me.

I'll have a look on speeding up the fail objective too.

I agree with most of what others have previously said. Like a lot of games these days, this was more to view/read than it was to play. The first level is really gorgeous, given the limits of the architect system, but it failed in keeping any interest. It really lacked much of an objective.

Mission 2, imo, would have worked better if it hadn't been on that map. It's just too open for those objectives to really play out.

Mission 3 really portrays the problems I had to a T. Great storytelling, but not fun to play. I understand that you were using that setup to tell the story, and from that aspect it worked, but not from a gameplay aspect.

Finally, I agree with the above on Mission 4. If it is possible to fail without waiting 45 minutes, I didn't know how. That is not going to work as a mechanism, imo. I'm not sure if we can use the Mayhem mechanism in AE, but it may work better to go the opposite way: Start with a shorter time limit and if players choose to not fail, they can destroy objects to increase the limit.

Also, the CK was pretty front and center for me, so I never released the 3 heroes and just took him on. I'm not sure if that is random or intentional.

To address your questions:

1) More of 'something'. That's pretty ambiguous, I realize, but I felt like I was reading a book rather than playing a game.

2) I found the entire arc too easy. I did it with a Blaster and was never the least bit threatened, even on the last mission. And, like I said, I didn't release the others on the final mission.

3) Re-structured.

4) Not really, and it doesn't really seem to fit to what I perceive Dr Aeon's challenge to be. A good example of what I feel his challenge is represented by is the story 'Identity Crisis'. Without giving anything away, that's a story about making and living with a choice that was made that simply "had to be made"......at least in the heroes eyes. I enjoyed this arc's story, but I didn't feel like my character ever had to make that same kind of decision.

5) The obvious one, based on the fact I had nothing else to do for 45 minutes.

A big update:

• Lots more combat added in all missions.

• Final mission now reduced to 15 minutes. I was hesistant to bring it down so low, but after several play tests where I took the time to read all the clues thoroughly and battled it out on 'heroic' settings, I will say it should give plenty of slack, as well as adding a sense of emergency for those wishing to suceed (and not bore out those who wish to fail).

• Fixed some grammar and typos.

I ran through it again.

Mission 1 and 2 I feel the same way as before.

Mission 3 was definitely helped, imo.

Mission 4: Timer seems about right (still not excited about that being the mechanism, but at least now if you have your settings set for enough people you can run around and kill things while it burns off). However, I released the fractures on a run this time and they put a serious hurting on CWK. I thought he was pretty easy without them, but he becomes pretty much a joke with them.

Overall, the arc still seems far too easy.

Update: New and improved souvenir, which helps to illuminate some of the more subtle parts.

I've had a fair amount of IRL issues this week, but I'll get to this ASAP

Just played this, and here are my thoughts:

1.) I'm good with a whole range of combat options, so I'll just say the amount of combat was just right.

2.) Easy, but I was an exemp'ed 50 blaster, and had two of the fragments with me. I think it's probably just right for most builds, and it's good that the fragments are optional.

3.) 15:00 was plenty for me.

4.) Actually, I didn't think there was a very convincing case to let him die in his dream. "Forever" is too absolute a term in a city of super-science, and there was no compelling reason given as to why there couldn't be hope for a cure someday. The case would probably be more convincing if you instead emphasized the damage and death he could cause, if allowed to continue in his madness.

5.) Without a second thought, I pulled him out of the dream.

-----

A couple other comments:

A.) That third mission was dynamite. A great story, told well and paced well through adept use of mechanics. I'm envious. I don't think I buy the childhood connection between them (see C, below), but as far as telling the story you wanted to tell, it did the job superbly.

B.) Make a few passes for language, mostly in the contact dialogue but especially in the Beginning-of-Mission Clue for the last mission -- look to reduce some overused/overdramatic terms like "forever", fix the last sentence of the third-from-last paragraph (where you end the sentence with "of"), and so on. A few sentences are a bit long and full of commas; these can be divided up a bit.

C.) This may be a personal hang-up coloring my perception (I found Penny's speech patterns a little too cloying), but Penny's age seems to be rather indeterminate here, though it seems to imply she's older. You may want to be more definitive in how you write her voice, or at least come out and state how old she is (unless I missed it).

Additionally, in the 'canon' game content, she seems to be significantly younger than Jim and Annette, probably in her mid-teens by now; and the "King/Princess" relationship seems to imply a twisted form of fatherly overprotectiveness ("safe from boys..."). Given the backstory you established in the third mission (the excellent representation of CK's relationship to his Pa), I think it would make much more thematic sense to strengthen the father/child theme, rather than trying to create a childhood (romantic?) history between them. I mean, of course you do acknowledge and discuss the protective aspects, but the romantic/peer thing just felt tacked on and contradictory to the game timeline. It's just my opinion, mind, you can take it or leave it, but I just think it'd make for a much stronger theme altogether to emphasize the parental issues.

Anyway, overall it's a really, really strong story as it is; a very cool piece of work.

Thanks for the feedback! I've actually been an admirer of your work since One Million Eyes and Wayfaring Stranger were still new, so to hear praise from you means a lot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by minimalist_NA 4.) Actually, I didn't think there was a very convincing case to let him die in his dream. "Forever" is too absolute a term in a city of super-science, and there was no compelling reason given as to why there couldn't be hope for a cure someday. The case would probably be more convincing if you instead emphasized the damage and death he could cause, if allowed to continue in his madness.

By 'forever' I was trying to mean 'forever in the way that superhero's stay dead forever, and so on'. There could very well be some last minute save, but at this very present it's just isn't available. I suppose it was too easy to take that line as 'word of god' though, and I'll see if I might be able to make it a bit more ambiguous. That's a good point about the what could happen if CK does wake up though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by minimalist_NA B.) ...look to reduce some overused/overdramatic terms like "forever"

I usually try and avoid the melodrama, but given how the challenge was "make a hero... do something evil! *dundundunnnnn!*" I guess I couldn't avoid the ham. I'll have a check through though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by minimalist_NA C.) This may be a personal hang-up coloring my perception (I found Penny's speech patterns a little too cloying), but Penny's age seems to be rather indeterminate here, though it seems to imply she's older. You may want to be more definitive in how you write her voice, or at least come out and state how old she is (unless I missed it).

Hmm that's interesting you found her that way, as if anything I was afraid she may be considered acting too 'mature' given her canon representation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by minimalist_NA Additionally, in the 'canon' game content, she seems to be significantly younger than Jim and Annette, probably in her mid-teens by now; and the "King/Princess" relationship seems to imply a twisted form of fatherly overprotectiveness ("safe from boys...").

As FredrikSvanberg has already mentioned, Penelope is probably older than most people would think. She's only slightly younger than Ann and Jimmy who are in their early twenties, and she's old enough to drive a scooter. I'm guessing that most people are thrown off and think she's younger, due to the way she speaks and how she is considered a 'little sister' by Ann and Jimmy.

CK was also described as being a young man when Blue Steel fought him, and again I think some people might have been thrown off since it's never really mentioned in-game. Together, I don't think it's too farfetched to consider that there isn't that much of an age difference between Penelope and CK, at least to make a "What if..." scenario plausible.

You've made a good point about the protective angle though. CK is portrayed as having extraordinarily bad luck in this What If, so after his own personal tragedy he may well be over zealously trying to make sure that someone he knows who has similar bad luck does not suffer the same fate as him.

Huh, I don't recall seeing anything in-canon implying CK's age when Blue Steel fought him. Mostly I guess it's a mental hangup that I can't associate "brain in a jar" with "young person", heh.

As for "forever" etc., I see your point. Obviously, only Dr. Aeon really knows the limits of what he'll accept as "doing evil for the greater good", but I think what you've done definitely qualifies: the player is caught between two bad choices, and while neither choice is thoroughly evil, they're not unalloyed good either. It's a victory that leaves a bad taste in the hero's mouth no matter what he chooses, and really, what could tickle Dr. Aeon more?

So yeah, in my opinion there's no real need to oversell the dilemma. You've done a lot to really humanize CK, and that goes a huge way toward making that choice believable and agonizing. On the other hand, it will be tough to drive home the fact that he's deadly dangerous. You can use mission text, of course, but this calls for a little "show, not tell" to balance out the excellent showing of CK's humanity.

Here's a thought: In mission 2, maybe the Tuatha boss could actually be the memory of a civilian he had killed in real-life while in the throes of one of his delusions. Penny would be appropriately horrified, of course.

Anyway, hope this helps a little. Thanks for the kind words! I've really enjoyed your stuff too.

Thanks for the comments!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eva Destruction What it needs is some polish. First off, the dialogue. Penny is starting to channel Becky the Tarantula Mistress in places. I would tone down the "like" and "totally." Secondly, there is quite a bit of awkward wording. This thing really needs another editing pass.

I'll see if I can tone down it down, I certainly wasn't trying to turn Penelope into a valley-girl. Btw would you happen to recall any particular bits that sounded awkward to you? I think I've hit the stage where I've re-read it so many times my eyes have taken this dull sheen.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eva Destruction Mission 2: The CWK ally's stranded and reacquired dialogue talks about needing to save the princess, which makes no sense if I lose him after I save her.

Ah thanks for that catch.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eva Destruction I also don't get why the Hero is a generic black blob. At this point in his memories the CWK didn't hate heroes, so wouldn't he remember a more, well, heroic figure? The rest of the customs are very well done throughout the arc, and I LOVED dream-world Kingy.

The blobbiness was supposed to represent an ill-recollected memory of the hero. I suppose you could counter that such an important event would be vividly recalled by CK, but I decided on CK's memory being hazy on the subject as I just didn't want to risk deviating the story too much with questions like "who's this [well defined] hero?"

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eva Destruction As far as the challenge goes, this is certainly not the way I would have handled it, but whether you met the requirements or not is really up to Dr. Aeon. See, I'm not actually killing the King. I am simply allowing him to commit suicide. Is it really evil to let a supervillain kill himself? Even if his life is so horrible he has to retreat to a fantasy world? Or are you taking the stance that by inaction the player is indirectly killing him?

I was going to write up a fairly long piece in response, but then I realised that ramblings made at 4AM are never the most coherent. I'll just leave that from the very start of this competition, I knew I would very, very unlikely ever be able to write an arc where a hero would do something unquestionably evil and still have it being called 'justified', or even keeping the 'heroic' tag. So I went with a moral gray, where the player could pick whichever bittersweet ending they think best represents what they think is the 'greater good'.

A Penny For Your Thoughts

TL;DR: 5 stars - Mechanically sound and reasonably sophisticated. Fun, quick, and presents a slightly different tone to story arcs than most. Good use of objects, emotes, linked objectives; Nice costumes. Does have some lingering proofreading issues, questionable on how closely meets Challenge criteria.

Pre-Game:

I played this solo on Lady Burlesque, a 26 Psi/MM Blaster; diff set at +1/x0/Boss ON. I didn't have another hero toon within range, so she was technically a little stronger than a regular toon would be at lvl 20 (more powers, common access to SOs). Tags seem okay, and I might even consider this a "Romance" arc.

Mission One:

The briefing looks good.

It is at this point that I realize that I know almost nothing about the clockwork king himself. Every time I've run the Synapse TF, it's been later at night and I wasn't the leader- so I really don't remember much of the storyline. I've also not been through any of the other storyline contacts that deal with him. So! I'd like to talk about canonicity - but I know bupkiss on it.

Mission starts off with the Clockwork King's Lair, which is unusual for an arc since I've seen a few end there. Nice animations on the Vahz and good choice of "destructable" items. I pretty much assumed that there was no need to destroy these items - so I didn't. I probably took longer than necessary on the mission, but I was taking in the scenery - which was well done.

PROOFREAD: Mission Start Clue - "...can you here me?" should be "hear me?"; also "...pretty cool am I..." should be "...pretty cool, am I..." (note the comma)

It's a short mish, basically a info collection mish - which is not a bad idea for a first mission.


Mission Two:

How do you change the contact emote?

Not sure why the Tuatha are on the map, but I guess they work as fantasy adversaries as well as anyone. The Redcaps would seem to be a little more devious and fantasy goblinish. But, pfft. It works. The clockwork are immensely cute, by the way. I'm still not exactly feeling evil at this point...

PROOFREAD: Debriefing - "Was you like..." should probably be "Were you like..."

Mission Three:

At this point, I'm wondering why the heroes would want to pull CK out from his delusion. It isn't hurting anyone except him, and ...well...he's a villain.

You did a really good job using the chained and linked objectives on this mission - which is really, really surprising considering how small the map is. This is a very full mish on a tiny map but it doesn't feel like a throw-away mission.

As far as the bosses go, both were fine. Blue Steel and Penny spawned as red-conned bosses. I died once on Blue Steel, and only because I was a little too slow on my insp draw. I think Psi Blast's -recharge kept him from slamming me hard, and Penny was more than reasonable. I am curious how you modeled Blue Steel - since I don't know how you got the shield worked out on him or how you added aura effects.

Mission Four:

First off, great title. I don't think a lot of people will get it, but I did and it was a nice reference.

PROOFREAD: Start Clue - "how it well end" should be "how it WILL end".

PROOFREAD: Post-CK#1 Clue - "I wish you don't need them" is probably supposed to be "I hope you don't..."

I finished the mission with about 2 minutes left, but I sort of twiddled around looking for allies and didn't realize there were two battles with the CK. Actually, let's just respond to your specific questions:

1) Should there be more combat, or do you think it has enough?

This isn't a grindy combat arc, and I don't think it has to be. The combat available is sufficient for anyone who wants to have it, but spare enough that you can avoid the majority if you want to. I think it's fine.

2) Did you find the final mission too easy/hard/just right?

I took this on with the two allies (unless there were meant to be 3), which did it pretty handily. Since the final mish has a time limit, I think that making the battle a big challenge is probably not a great idea (unless you want to make the mish a Race! Against! Time!)

3) Should the time limit be shortened/extended/leave it as it is?

As mentioned, I did this with about 2 minutes left - partially 'cause I was picking off some of the random spawns, and then looking for allies before they were actually there (I assumed the first battle in the final mish was the actual FINAL one). 15 minutes is a leeeetle long to wait if you want to take the mission failure option, but not vastly so - and its not as if you can't go around taking out some of the random spawns to blow the time (and get xp/inf/tickets)

4) Did you think a convincing argument was made for picking either choices?

I think it was a little weighted toward fighting to bring the CK out of the illusory world.

5) And just for fun, which choice did you make?

I completed the final mission "successfully", and did not opt to let him go gently into that goodnight. And here's why:

It's mostly an RP reason. It's sort of amusing that Lady B was doing this mish 'cause a lot of her powers deal with attraction, desire, longing, and love. And the arc is a lot about the (presumed) love between CK and Penny. Initially I was considering what was happening from a fairly pragmatic perspective. It would make sense to let the CK just slide off into the great beyond peacefully, painlessly, within his own dreams. It would end the menance of the Clockwork army and maybe bring some closure to Penny's life - even if it was a little painful.

But, I realized, I was doing all this not really for the CK but rather for Penny. And Penny wanted him to live. I felt like she had pretty genuine, if complicated feelings for the CK. And she's not stupid. She knows what he does, the threat he poses. And so, Lady B reasons, if she makes the decision to love someone (whether romantically or otherwise) then she needs to learn that decision comes with responsibilities and consequences. Basically, Lady Burlesque saved the Clockwork King in the hope that the love or affection that they share can allow both Penny and the CK to grow. Maybe for better, maybe for worse - but that's their decision, not our hero's. Letting CK drift off would be easier, it would be cleaner, it would be simple.

Love is none of those things, and the Glamourous Guardian knows that the there's only one law she's always upheld - Love.

Another toon I have might have done something else, this is just what I felt like was in character for Lady B.

Overview:

As I mentioned in my PM, this arc is pretty much finalized. I think you've got a strong voice here, I think the mechanical issues are fine - pretty polished. You've got a very good command of the interface. I think if you polish out the grammar issues, you should be good to go.

I said that I don't know how much it sticks to being part of the Challenge, but I really enjoyed the arc too much to really care. I think this is a good arc in general and would be good even outside of the Challenge.

I know this isn't much of a critical review, but there was really not much left to comment on. Good luck and thanks for your comments on my own arc.

Thanks for the comments!

Quote:

Originally Posted by twelfth How do you change the contact emote?

I wish you could - no the Penelope model just seems to fall into the clipboard animation of its own accord.

Quote:

Originally Posted by twelfth I am curious how you modeled Blue Steel - since I don't know how you got the shield worked out on him or how you added aura effects.

His shield is one of the shield model options, you can add auras to custom characters just like any other PC.

Quote:

Originally Posted by twelfth I think it was a little weighted toward fighting to bring the CK out of the illusory world.

I know what you mean. I've tried to have both sides as equal as it can get, but it still ends up leaning towards one side since your contact is obviously in favour of one side throughout, which would influence the player's decision a lot I would think.

Quote:

Originally Posted by twelfth 5) And just for fun, which choice did you make? I completed the final mission "successfully", and did not opt to let him go gently into that goodnight. And here's why: It's mostly an RP reason. It's sort of amusing that Lady B was doing this mish 'cause a lot of her powers deal with attraction, desire, longing, and love. And the arc is a lot about the (presumed) love between CK and Penny. Initially I was considering what was happening from a fairly pragmatic perspective. It would make sense to let the CK just slide off into the great beyond peacefully, painlessly, within his own dreams. It would end the menance of the Clockwork army and maybe bring some closure to Penny's life - even if it was a little painful. But, I realized, I was doing all this not really for the CK but rather for Penny. And Penny wanted him to live. I felt like she had pretty genuine, if complicated feelings for the CK. And she's not stupid. She knows what he does, the threat he poses. And so, Lady B reasons, if she makes the decision to love someone (whether romantically or otherwise) then she needs to learn that decision comes with responsibilities and consequences. Basically, Lady Burlesque saved the Clockwork King in the hope that the love or affection that they share can allow both Penny and the CK to grow. Maybe for better, maybe for worse - but that's their decision, not our hero's. Letting CK drift off would be easier, it would be cleaner, it would be simple. Love is none of those things, and the Glamourous Guardian knows that the there's only one law she's always upheld - Love. Another toon I have might have done something else, this is just what I felt like was in character for Lady B.

That's a really great and poetic explanation of your character's reasons. To save CK for Penelope was definitely one of the reasons I was going for, but I didn't want to explicitly spell it out in the mission start clue as the whole 'power of friendship/love' thing is so frequently used (and accepted) as the Ultimate Truth, that it would grossly swing players in favouring to save CK. Still I am happy to hear someone has taken this reason, noting the possibility for growth between the two, for their character.

Thanks for catching those typos too, I'll be sure to fix them.

The biggest update yet:

General

• Gave Penny some English classes, she now speaks less valley-girl.
• Now with less ham, noticeably with the M4 starting clue.
• All critters given custom bios, 'memories' have been given an extra line of detail.
• Some lines reworded so it reads less awkwardly, fixed various typos.
• Swapped out stock model of Penny with a custom, should fix the weird clipboard/hotdog animation bug.

• Crates are made clearer to be an optional objective.

• Fixed CK's lost and reacquired dialogue.

• Changed 'hero' critter to appear less sinister. A picture of his updated model can be found here.
• Added 'protecting Penny' motive to CK's actions.

• Revamped beginning clue: now includes several other reasons why you may choose one or the other, including more utilitarian reasons for either way, to fit more closely with the competition's theme. The new clue can be read here.