Manual Excerpt: Dating Delusions

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Manual Excerpt: Dating Delusions

By Saliaven Chronotis

Excerpt from the manual for Dating Delusions from FM Games Inc.

Introduction:

Dating Delusions is a turn-based situational game for one player. The plot, inspired by Show Me the Money, is that the player is a young male who for reasons determined by the chosen background has decided to disguise himself as a young female in order to go on dates for money. The interface is based on several popular franchises including ConQuest Online, the dress-up games from Arcadepod.com and AdventureQuest which can be found on battleon.com.

The game is split into the building phase (once per game, set up player), the preparation phase, the date and the post-date. The player is assigned various attributes that determine the effectiveness of each part of the disguise and how much time/money they have to prepare.

Gameplay:

Build phase/character:

The player decides on background, physical/mental attributes and chooses their avatar. In free play, the player may edit their background and traits, but in campaign mode the player must choose from various templates.

Body type:

Stay-at-home geek Slim and effeminate from lack of any sort of living outside of school and video games. The perfect pallette to work on if you have the right stuff.
Average Joe Not too big or small, the average Joe has some work ahead of him, but he can handle it.
Jock Big, bulky and well known with a deep voice. The Jock has a lot to worry about if he is caught and will require some serious working over if he is to have any chance of pulling this off. It's a good thing he's used to pain, because those corsets will have to be very tight.

Money:

Body Type Little money Some money Rich
Geek It's a good thing you're so girly, because you don't have much more than what you can scrounge to improve your appearance. You need this money to get that car and win some real girls. Well, you think they're real. You have enough to buy some basic equipment. With all the time on your hands from having no social life, you can research exactly how to pull this off so you get some repeat custom. Money, shape and time are your allies. You can fit into that new Mk5 femskin with no trouble. Heck, why bother buying a car? You're better off as a girl anyway! Let all those drooling boys take you around.
Joe OK, you're in a bind but you're sure you can bum some stuff off your female friends. It'd be a boost for your status to be able to drive them around. You're determined, you've got some cash put by and you've got some time to research and maybe some of those female friends can help. It's too bad your dream car is so expensive, but though you can't afford the car, you can buy some stuff off the internet that may help. If you buy the right equipment you could easily be the woman of another man's dreams.
Jock Unless a miracle occurs, you're nuts to try this. Yet you have no choice. No one wants to hire you, and if you don't get that car the team will kick you out. Well, things could be worse. With the money you can buy a decent set of support garments. Now if you can only figure out how they work... Those team dues are crippling even to your massive size and wallet. Screw the hard way, you're just going down to SRU. You've got money, what could possibly go wrong?

In free play, there is also the super-wealthy class which has unlimited funds and time.

Preparation phase:

This phase is split up into two sub-phases, shopping and training. Shopping is based on the player's money allocation, training is on the player's time allocation. Remember to leave some extra time to actually get dressed or your date may find you only half-female.

Shopping phase:

The player may buy items off the internet. There are four categories of items, one of which is clothing and anything may be bought at any time. The other three are cumulative feminization items and must be bought in sequence. This is also where you can sell some of your nonpermanent items.

Item categories:

Clothing: Items worn that any girl would have. Underwear, dresses, shifts, shoes etc.

Feminization items(present): Things that exist now in this universe. Falsies, implants, wigs, masks, corsets etc.

Feminization items(future): Things that do not exist but may in the next century or two. Femskin version 5, body swapping device, nano-mask etc.

Feminization items(fantastic): Things that cannot exist in a cosmos like this. Spells, magical bodysuits, potions, amulets etc.

Note that some of these items overlap in their effects. There are unique aspects of each of the three fem categories that players should note.

Fem(present): Requires most amount of training. Key components: Dex, Str

Least effective but most controllable.

Fem(future): Requires some training, more to lower chances of malfunction. Key components: Int, Dex

Midrange controllable, midrange effective.

Fem(fantastic): Requires little training, more to lower chances of trickery. Key components: Int

Extremely effective, unreliable if you don't know who you buy from. Knowing magic will help.

Training phase:

This is where the player seeks out knowledge of how to present a better image. This ranges from instructional video to girlfriends' makeovers to reading fictionmania.com.

This is based on how much time the character has. The more time they have, the more they can do to get ready and dressed for the date.

The Date:

This is where the player finds out if that day's preparation is enough. Various random events occur which the player must deal with based on their own judgement and how much they are prepared. Random events range from dancing to kissing to more serious relationships. Some events are based on training(like dancing or speaking), items(ogling, gusts of wind up the skirt etc) or both(kissing, sex).

Over the course of the date, several bars will show on the screen.

Your happiness: How much you're enjoying yourself. Go below the red line and your character will throw in the towel and find a real job. Go high enough and you expose yourself to random problems like forgetting to shed your female persona and getting caught. Hit the max and you'll be stuck as a girl, facing any and all consequences until those consequences lower your happiness enough, if they can.

Date's happiness: How much your date likes you. Lowest level and your date will refuse to pay you, lowering your female side's reputation. As the levels rise, you get more money for the date and your persona's reputation rises as well. Too high and you'll have to deal with a date that wants a more serious relationship. If you aren't well prepared for the more intimate requirements, you'd better be trained well in saying no!(

Physical wellness: How much more you can stand being a girl physically. This is split into the random error(future fem) and the physical strain(some present fem). Break a certain limit and you will be unable to maintain your disguise. Training can remove this problem by allowing you to know how to adjust your disguise in the ladies' room. Future fem may jam and get you stuck.

Mental wellness: Similar to physical wellness, this shows how much more your mind can take. Future tech may error and affect your mind as well as your body. Fantastic fem is the worst here, possibly submerging your ego and getting you stuck.

Post-date phase:

This is where all the bars are totaled and the various rewards/consequences occur. Random events can happen either helping or hurting you(finding a femskin in the attic, pilfering the goodwill basket, parents finding your stuff etc.)

This is where you get paid, gain reputation points and are given a chance to choose your next date. Various dates have attributes that can help or hurt you on a date. More dates are unlocked as you gain in reputation. Dates with more money are more discerning, and you have to make sure you don't change yourself too radically between dates with the same guy. Remember to check what you were using on your last date with him. Can't have a blonde voluptuous beauty greeting a guy expecting a flat-chested brunette. Dates also have a dating history so you know what they'd want most out of you.

Some dates are famous and if a picture of you enters the newspaper, you'll gain reputation, but whatever your appearance then can't be radically altered without consequences.

Free play:

In free play, the player may choose any attributes of their character. Free play does not count toward the high scores list.

Extension modules:

Upcoming extensions for this game include the bondage and toy category for items and a visual chat room in the spirit of Gaia Online for characters to flaunt their feminizing skills.

Disclaimers:

Not responsible for effects from unauthorized hakpaks or unauthorized use of bona fide hakpaks. Not responsible for transmutation from unauthorized tampering by wizards from the SRU megastore.

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Comments

Umm. huh?

Is this like an actual game or something? I'm totally lost, is a story coming from this, if it is, I want to read it. It sounds interesting :D

--------------------------------------------
I just got to be me :D

I know who I am, I am me, and I like me ^^
Transgender, Gamer, Little, Princess, Therian and proud :D

Re: Umm. huh?

If I had ten months of programming time, were ten times less rusty at doing so and had ten times more experience as a programmer, this would be a game. As it is, there might be more excerpts coming if I am bestirred. As for a story coming from it, that might be something of a reverse of what actually happened. As mentioned, this was partly inspired by Show Me the Money which you can find on this site. The rest was my own interest in the idea of a TG based flash and the games I based the interface on.

Or maybe if I get some real time away from the novels, I'll even post a walkthrough...

How dare you?

You're being sarcastic about our genre!

No, I like it really. You're not the first to point out the clichés, and you've done it in a new and fun way. I hope no one takes it personally (because it doesn't seem to be meant that way, actually it seems to be honoring others.), and we can recognize the clichés and still enjoy them, can't we?

Hugs

Story based on this

I had pique and some odd feelings today, so I started writing a fiction based on the tutorial for this. It might work out.

Basic idea:
Tutorial isn't played for money but for points to see how well you know the game. Fictionalization is a kid who has a Frizzle-like health and society teacher who wants to teach her junior high school class a lesson in gender identities and bullying. For massive extra credit, pairs of students must switch roles. Fun ensues, and possibly the main character ends up playing a Dating Delusions tournament for money to buy new feminization items...

This is just in the intro section right now, I'm not sure when I'll finish.

Game programming

Have you looked at Inform 7 as a game platform? It's got several things going for it, not least of which:

1. The programming language is English. No joke! It's the best thing to hit text adventures (interactive fiction) since the last time a slice of bread fell butter side up.

2. Games run on anything with a Z-machine interpreter, which in practical terms means anything.

3. It's free; the IDE and so forth run on Windows, Linux etc and Macs.

http://www.inform-fiction.org/

In fact, it's actually got me wondering about doing something in that line myself.

Xaltatun

Re: Game Programming

Go ahead, I'm more in the writing fiction end of this sort of thing. It'd be great to see an end product of that idea.

Awesome!

I mean if people can do a dating sim about amputees, why not this? I would totally buy it. Great story, good concpet, and bonus points for having a manual that's readable.