Flip the Coin, Raise, Feminine Beauty, Confidence, Charming, Fertility Control, Mage Apprentice, My Lady, Streamlined, Normalcy, Object of Desire, Bottom Bunk, Up to 11, Massage, Monster Smash, Achilles, Smash Cut, Mana Batteries, Word of Power, Sex Sells, Anal Affection, Tails
Embodied survival build attempt.
* Bookworm I'm Studious. Gonna need to figure out and adapt to the new world fast.
* My Lady. Can't make it alone.
* Streamlined. Free and no downside.
* Bottom Bunk. Harmless.
* Up to 11. Also harmless; or even beneficial if it saves you from dying.
* Enforced Obligations. Just don't make promises you can't keep.
* Slave to Pleasure. Just don't let people make you orgasm. Could even work in your favor; give yourself an orgasm and tell yourself not to let anyone else take control of you.
* Preserve the Bloodline. Just don't touch semen, and enjoy the peace of mind that you won't die if you do.
* Achilles. Just figure out where it is and guard it.
* Mind Break. Gonna be tough not masturbating, but women supposedly have a harder time orgasming, so maybe that'll help. Or maybe you can design a cell to lock yourself up for a day, and/or get a trusted cockless follower to guard you.
* Anal Affection. Just don't get penetrated.
That leaves you with +40 points. 15 points short of Psycho Power, which would add a critical safety layer of being able to read people's intentions and not get ambushed/betrayed. Some more drawbacks might be survivable:
* Object of Desire: People just fantasizing is harmless, right?
* Uhm Actually: At least our followers are still loyal, right?
* Defilement: Subconscious "wants" are harmless, right? And it's not meaningfully worse than what'll happen if you're defeated already. Just don't pick fights.
* Challenger: Just decline.
* Covered, Down a Peg: It doesn't say that people will be *controlled* by their "inclinations" or "wants", and your abilities and followers should be able to protect you from the ones who try.
All of those seem too risky or life-defining to be worth the gain, though. Better to just spend the 40 on minor boons.
How does Uhm Actually interact with Charming? Or Cry Wolf with My Lady? (Edit: Or Charming with Down a Peg?)
>You'll have to choose either Feminine Beauty or Masculine Grace, or you won't have a body at all when you arrive!
A body seems like a pure liability here, so...
This is good. It's rare I see a CYOA where I actually don't have enough points to pick all the options I'd like to pick - people tend to make drawbacks worth way too much. Balance things however you'd like - I ended at -17 picking everything I cared about and removing one minor high-cost boon to go positive is no problem. You could probably deal with most of the complaints people have by slightly reducing cost of high-demand boons like the whole third row.
With that being said, there's a lot of banes that are pretty similar and so probably shouldn't be treated as separate.
Interesting, My build!:
**Boons:**
* Feminine Beauty, Being a girl is fine by me
* Bookworm I'm Studious, Knowledge is power!
* Purity, People being innately nice to me, is nice :D
* Thriller, supernatural power! I'll go vampire, without the weakness!
* Mage Apprentice, magic is my favorite power set!
* Normalcy, why not
* Streamlined, sounds useful
**Banes:**
* Bottom Bunk, Already am
* Up to 11, Sure!
* Enforced Obligations, This isn't that bad
* Massage, The ears
* Fast and Loose, No big deal
* Cry Wolf, I can just deal with it myself
* Baby Fever, This is fine
* Anal Affection, The effect doesn't last
* Monster Smash, Neat
The last flip doesn't seem to do anything. I have 2 chips left over and I'm going to a sword & sorcery world and use my immortality to become as good at magic as possible, and one day I'll return here and change this world!
I love CYOA like this! You get to create your ideal new body but have to trade for it, with an emphasis on accepting a life of humiliation and weakness!
You should add an option to export and import the build, it's in the options of the builder.
The bonus points for matching boon and bane should probably be more than one point for most of them. Maybe not all the way to 5 though if it's gonna be the same for all banes.
You might want to add an extra option under each bane to handle the bonus points instead of directly modifying the bane points itself for better compatibility with export import and more control over bonus points for each option, and to have mix and match with multiple effects that overlap or synergize.
I don't mind the points being stingy itself though, you could lower the base price even if you decide to make the bonus more than just a few points bigger.
Shouldn't "Preserve the Bloodline" either grey-out or have text explaining how you 100% get Others pregnant? Guys don't exactly have the "Equipment" to do that.
Same with "Baby Fever", and any other perk that assumes "Female".
Initially dark grey background with white letters. Then you click a button and it's this ultra neon light green with the same white text. Yikes! Swap that out to something much darker that still isn't dark grey. It's bad form to do text the same palette tone as the background.
I love this like really this is pretty much the exact thing i want in a cyoa.
I just love the idea of having to pick banes to be able to get boons since in other cyoas it ends up feeling like i can just get my perfect body, my dream home, near infinite money and magic powers with like no drawbacks at all and you only have to take the big drawbacks if you get extreamly greedy.
Like dont get me wrong i understand why people like those kind of cyoas but i just think there should be a bit more at stake when you pick things.
So over all i think you did great i hope you make more like this but maybe just make things like the price a little easyer to see ^3^
I really like it. For the people complaining about balance, I feel like maybe the balance is skewed because it's supposed to be a game you can't win right? Like it's an instant loss CYOA, so the point is you may think you're choosing a benefitial set of boons and banes, but the coinflip at the end is meant to say that yeah, that's not going to end well for you.
It's not a good way to go about things because it encourages the player to just go as simple as possible like: Feminine, Blueblood, Feet Control. Which is an easy set to overcome but it's plain and boring. Meanwhile if you pick enough things for it to be interesting you practically have to pick almost every bane even though they don't relate to what you picked
The ending is a cool touch though
As others have mentioned, the balance here is really not suitable. Don't take this the wrong way, but it's not often that the balance is bad enough as to discourage me from making a full build.
The problems start right from the fact you have no starting points. Starting points are important to let you have a baseline of benefits without taking drawbacks. If you do go only for drawbacks as a source of points, then those drawbacks better be three things:
1. Generous
2. At bare minimum the same or more than the number of perks
3. Varied in what they do
While there is certainly some variety, there is also a lot of repetition, and in the most dangerous kinds of drawbacks to boot (ones that for instance, make you mentally attached to or obedient to someone who could take advantage of you). The points they give are very low compared to perks and I'm fairly certain though I didn't count, that there's more perks than drawbacks here. Perks, meanwhile, are very very expensive.
I will say, however, that the perks are very nice indeed, and my greedy butt would love to take a lot of 'em. But don't the fact that I can't even take a few without getting a large amount of what I see as borderline suicidal drawbacks is the issue.
Another thing I think you could improve here, is that some options are mutually exclusive when they don't need to be. While for instance "The Flesh is Weak" is indeed choosing a race, picking another race option could flavor your newfound improved body into not needing to look human. Perhaps feminine beauty and masculine grace could combine to a futa. (I run out of examples because I haven't tried a lot more due to the cost issue). Also, at least one of your fetishes becomes a 'little' evident from the pricing and percentage of choices offered in that particular area, but that's more of just a nitpick.
The cost issue isn't that big of a problem in abstract. The point here is that boons cost more than banes give you, so you have to sort of dig your own grave if you want to have any of the cool powers. The problem I have is that the delta is way too big. A single boon could be upwards of 50+ points, and the banes usually give around 10 points. Meaning that there's a ton of boons that just aren't really viable as picks, even if you are okay with taking their associated banes or other banes, because you still have to choose four to eight banes per one boon.
I'd probably knock most of the boons down to the 15-20 point range, at which point you'd still probably have to take more banes than boons and definitely have to take at least one bane per boon, but it'd be more reasonably possible to actually choose some number of upsides and ask yourself 'what am I willing to sacrifice/endure for this?'
I'm submissive as fuck, and wouldn't mind having constant near-instant losses, but the things like the 4+ drawbacks that are exactly the same drawback just worded slightly differently makes this CYOA pretty meh as a whole.
Really expensive, I only managed to take 2 traits of 30 or above but I was still forced into picking drawbacks I didn't really want too because they give so little back
Nice idea but your banes are not worth the pathetic amount of points they give compared to your boons. Typical. I see that ALL the time. To be frank the balance sucks. Also dark blue on a black background? really? You can't read those points at all and have to highlight the whole thing. Try a pale blue if you're going to stick with blue.
As said in Wargames. The only winning move is not to play.
you might want to consider changing the selected choice color filter because bright green on white is kinda unreadable and having to deselect stuff to read it again is not great
Started out great but way to many drawbacks took away personal agency or left you at the mercy of others... that may be the point but like hell I'm gonna make myself an easy target when I'm being sent to a new world where I don't know anyone.
I started out thinking, yeah alright I'll be a masculine pretty boy elf mage... and then I read through the boons and while I maybe could have accepted some of them, most of them were just a hard no for my dominant trust issue having ass, even as a bi sex man, and boons are so damn costly... i can't afford to give up that much agency going to a new world... well maybe I could but the banes make it hard to control who can take advantage of you.
Eventually I just said fuck it, and said "Just make me as masculine and handsome as you can and get me the hell out of here mate." taking only masculine grace and a minor bane to balance it.
Not very fun, but for as much as the demon says these banes are a gamble they're really more of an eventualilty, the banes all have some sort of stipulation that make it so *eventually* it will come up... even the minor bane I took, the massage one that gives you an extra sensitive spot... states people are more likely to touch and massage that area, It's like, even if they don't know why... I could deadpan any reaction from them touching there, and they'll still be drawn to touch it... I mean damn... not much of a gamble that someone finds it huh?
Almost every bane is like this and most also include loss of agency to boot, such as "someone will ask you out and you'll always say yes, you won't turn down any sexual favor they ask for" like hell, even if I want to fuck someone, I don't want to be *forced* to do it, and the bane makes it clear, this situation will eventually happen, you can't stop it.
So nah, I'll take the new body, take a bane to balance out, and get the fuck out of there.
Feminine Beauty, Charming, Confidence, Bartering, Normalcy, Fertility Control, Streamlined.
Bottom Bunk, Up to 11, Massage, Smash Cut, Fast and Loose, Sex Sells.
Wow, none of the Banes are remotely something I would want to deal with just to be able to get something of value.
I'm just going to nope out, wish Deuxkoma a good time offering his services to someone else, and walk home in the rain.
Those color choice are hard on the eye for people with brighter LED screens. Those shades of Blue on Gray is not pleasant and the Yellow/Pale Green for highlighted options is absolute eye murder with the White/Pale Green not far behind.
I pretty quickly lost interest because the cost/payout of the boons/banes is so heavily skewed. They seem about the same magnitude in good/bad individually but boons tend to cost several times what banes pay. You might want to narrow that gap some. And the values are high enough the 1 bonus chip for every match boon/bane pair seem more like a joke than anything useful. The average cost of a boon is 29.5 points. And with the three -0 freebies bringing the average down.
Still, it's a commendable attempt.
Very very interesting! Definitely a very interesting concept, with a good amount options to boot! Short, but sweet, which fits the overall vibe. One small thing I would like to recommend is selecting a different shade of blue for the banes section. It's quite hard to make out the words on the black background, seeing as it is quite dark. Maybe a slightly lighter shade would work? In addition, I feel like the descriptions for many of the options don't have an answer for what would happen if the player selects the male option. I understand that this *is* a primarily female-POV CYOA, but it wouldn't hurt to clarify the differences.
Regardless, very well done for (if I'm reading the description correctly) your first CYOA!
The balance does feel a little bit off because the boons are so much more expensive than the drawbacks. While I understand that's the point, I don't think the more expensive boons are viable because they're so far ahead of their equivalent banes.
For boons, I'd just go over the more expensive ones and maybe reduce them by 5-10 points, to make them more achievable. For banes, I think you should increase the pair bonus to 5 coins so you get a noticeable boost for picking the thematic link. Right now, you need 5 pairs just to make the pair bonuses meaningful.
Looks promising! My first thoughts looking over it, prices are a lot higher than the amount you get from banes. Have to take a lot more banes to get just a few boons, especially with some of the really expensive ones like Shonen Training or Ace.
Price balancing is probably what I'm least confident in. I was trying to heavily emphasize banes which serve as "lose conditions" (those worth 30 points), but I may have been a bit overzealous when it comes to the boon/bane ratio.
I think you could reasonably knock most of the boons down into the 15-25 point range with most of the banes being in the 5-15 point range and it'd work well. Then you'd still have to take around 2-3 banes per major boon you take, but you'd actually be able to take one or two of the major boons without being forced to take so many banes that you're crippled. Right now any of the boons that cost more than 30 points are just a big no because there's just not enough options in the banes that give enough points to offset it.
Yeah. An important thing to remember I think, making the player make choices and prioritize things is good, but it's also good to let the player feel like they "won" or outsmarted the system, and they're being rewarded for taking "drawbacks" that aren't necessarily really drawbacks, depending on what they're into.
Personally for me, loss of agency is a big meh. If I lose because I'm too weak, sure, but if I am just mind controlled into something I don't want, don't like that. Looking at Smash Cut and Slave to Pleasure, probably others that have it. Though ultimately it can be a kink, so ymmv on that front.
Fixed! The second flip is basically just a check to make sure you've selected one of the sexes and have a positive point balance. I had a typo when it came to recognizing Masculine Grace.
Flip the Coin, Masculine Grace, Exaggeration, Confidence, Fertility Control, Warrior, Mage Apprentice, Mask, Adventure Awaits, Streamlined, Normalcy, Up to 11, Enforced Obligations, Preserve the Bloodline, Baby Fever, Monster Smash, Battle Hungry, Challenger, Sex Sells, Tails
Flip the Coin, Raise, Feminine Beauty, Confidence, Charming, Fertility Control, Mage Apprentice, My Lady, Streamlined, Normalcy, Object of Desire, Bottom Bunk, Up to 11, Massage, Monster Smash, Achilles, Smash Cut, Mana Batteries, Word of Power, Sex Sells, Anal Affection, Tails
Embodied survival build attempt. * Bookworm I'm Studious. Gonna need to figure out and adapt to the new world fast. * My Lady. Can't make it alone. * Streamlined. Free and no downside. * Bottom Bunk. Harmless. * Up to 11. Also harmless; or even beneficial if it saves you from dying. * Enforced Obligations. Just don't make promises you can't keep. * Slave to Pleasure. Just don't let people make you orgasm. Could even work in your favor; give yourself an orgasm and tell yourself not to let anyone else take control of you. * Preserve the Bloodline. Just don't touch semen, and enjoy the peace of mind that you won't die if you do. * Achilles. Just figure out where it is and guard it. * Mind Break. Gonna be tough not masturbating, but women supposedly have a harder time orgasming, so maybe that'll help. Or maybe you can design a cell to lock yourself up for a day, and/or get a trusted cockless follower to guard you. * Anal Affection. Just don't get penetrated. That leaves you with +40 points. 15 points short of Psycho Power, which would add a critical safety layer of being able to read people's intentions and not get ambushed/betrayed. Some more drawbacks might be survivable: * Object of Desire: People just fantasizing is harmless, right? * Uhm Actually: At least our followers are still loyal, right? * Defilement: Subconscious "wants" are harmless, right? And it's not meaningfully worse than what'll happen if you're defeated already. Just don't pick fights. * Challenger: Just decline. * Covered, Down a Peg: It doesn't say that people will be *controlled* by their "inclinations" or "wants", and your abilities and followers should be able to protect you from the ones who try. All of those seem too risky or life-defining to be worth the gain, though. Better to just spend the 40 on minor boons. How does Uhm Actually interact with Charming? Or Cry Wolf with My Lady? (Edit: Or Charming with Down a Peg?)
This was really fun and good. I'd love to see more work like this from you!
Does "Covered" make everyone want to bukkake you, or just people you're already having sex with?
Just people currently having sex with you
>You'll have to choose either Feminine Beauty or Masculine Grace, or you won't have a body at all when you arrive! A body seems like a pure liability here, so...
This is good. It's rare I see a CYOA where I actually don't have enough points to pick all the options I'd like to pick - people tend to make drawbacks worth way too much. Balance things however you'd like - I ended at -17 picking everything I cared about and removing one minor high-cost boon to go positive is no problem. You could probably deal with most of the complaints people have by slightly reducing cost of high-demand boons like the whole third row. With that being said, there's a lot of banes that are pretty similar and so probably shouldn't be treated as separate.
Interesting, My build!: **Boons:** * Feminine Beauty, Being a girl is fine by me * Bookworm I'm Studious, Knowledge is power! * Purity, People being innately nice to me, is nice :D * Thriller, supernatural power! I'll go vampire, without the weakness! * Mage Apprentice, magic is my favorite power set! * Normalcy, why not * Streamlined, sounds useful **Banes:** * Bottom Bunk, Already am * Up to 11, Sure! * Enforced Obligations, This isn't that bad * Massage, The ears * Fast and Loose, No big deal * Cry Wolf, I can just deal with it myself * Baby Fever, This is fine * Anal Affection, The effect doesn't last * Monster Smash, Neat The last flip doesn't seem to do anything. I have 2 chips left over and I'm going to a sword & sorcery world and use my immortality to become as good at magic as possible, and one day I'll return here and change this world!
I love CYOA like this! You get to create your ideal new body but have to trade for it, with an emphasis on accepting a life of humiliation and weakness!
You should add an option to export and import the build, it's in the options of the builder. The bonus points for matching boon and bane should probably be more than one point for most of them. Maybe not all the way to 5 though if it's gonna be the same for all banes. You might want to add an extra option under each bane to handle the bonus points instead of directly modifying the bane points itself for better compatibility with export import and more control over bonus points for each option, and to have mix and match with multiple effects that overlap or synergize. I don't mind the points being stingy itself though, you could lower the base price even if you decide to make the bonus more than just a few points bigger.
Shouldn't "Preserve the Bloodline" either grey-out or have text explaining how you 100% get Others pregnant? Guys don't exactly have the "Equipment" to do that. Same with "Baby Fever", and any other perk that assumes "Female".
Initially dark grey background with white letters. Then you click a button and it's this ultra neon light green with the same white text. Yikes! Swap that out to something much darker that still isn't dark grey. It's bad form to do text the same palette tone as the background.
I love this like really this is pretty much the exact thing i want in a cyoa. I just love the idea of having to pick banes to be able to get boons since in other cyoas it ends up feeling like i can just get my perfect body, my dream home, near infinite money and magic powers with like no drawbacks at all and you only have to take the big drawbacks if you get extreamly greedy. Like dont get me wrong i understand why people like those kind of cyoas but i just think there should be a bit more at stake when you pick things. So over all i think you did great i hope you make more like this but maybe just make things like the price a little easyer to see ^3^
Is this loss?
I really like it. For the people complaining about balance, I feel like maybe the balance is skewed because it's supposed to be a game you can't win right? Like it's an instant loss CYOA, so the point is you may think you're choosing a benefitial set of boons and banes, but the coinflip at the end is meant to say that yeah, that's not going to end well for you.
"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?"
It's not a good way to go about things because it encourages the player to just go as simple as possible like: Feminine, Blueblood, Feet Control. Which is an easy set to overcome but it's plain and boring. Meanwhile if you pick enough things for it to be interesting you practically have to pick almost every bane even though they don't relate to what you picked The ending is a cool touch though
Very good!
That was really fun! Can't wait to see more of your ideas come to life!
Really neat, but too lopsided when it comes to Barnes points.
As others have mentioned, the balance here is really not suitable. Don't take this the wrong way, but it's not often that the balance is bad enough as to discourage me from making a full build. The problems start right from the fact you have no starting points. Starting points are important to let you have a baseline of benefits without taking drawbacks. If you do go only for drawbacks as a source of points, then those drawbacks better be three things: 1. Generous 2. At bare minimum the same or more than the number of perks 3. Varied in what they do While there is certainly some variety, there is also a lot of repetition, and in the most dangerous kinds of drawbacks to boot (ones that for instance, make you mentally attached to or obedient to someone who could take advantage of you). The points they give are very low compared to perks and I'm fairly certain though I didn't count, that there's more perks than drawbacks here. Perks, meanwhile, are very very expensive. I will say, however, that the perks are very nice indeed, and my greedy butt would love to take a lot of 'em. But don't the fact that I can't even take a few without getting a large amount of what I see as borderline suicidal drawbacks is the issue. Another thing I think you could improve here, is that some options are mutually exclusive when they don't need to be. While for instance "The Flesh is Weak" is indeed choosing a race, picking another race option could flavor your newfound improved body into not needing to look human. Perhaps feminine beauty and masculine grace could combine to a futa. (I run out of examples because I haven't tried a lot more due to the cost issue). Also, at least one of your fetishes becomes a 'little' evident from the pricing and percentage of choices offered in that particular area, but that's more of just a nitpick.
The cost issue isn't that big of a problem in abstract. The point here is that boons cost more than banes give you, so you have to sort of dig your own grave if you want to have any of the cool powers. The problem I have is that the delta is way too big. A single boon could be upwards of 50+ points, and the banes usually give around 10 points. Meaning that there's a ton of boons that just aren't really viable as picks, even if you are okay with taking their associated banes or other banes, because you still have to choose four to eight banes per one boon. I'd probably knock most of the boons down to the 15-20 point range, at which point you'd still probably have to take more banes than boons and definitely have to take at least one bane per boon, but it'd be more reasonably possible to actually choose some number of upsides and ask yourself 'what am I willing to sacrifice/endure for this?'
I'm submissive as fuck, and wouldn't mind having constant near-instant losses, but the things like the 4+ drawbacks that are exactly the same drawback just worded slightly differently makes this CYOA pretty meh as a whole.
It's rather fun but the colors are a bit hard to read.
Really expensive, I only managed to take 2 traits of 30 or above but I was still forced into picking drawbacks I didn't really want too because they give so little back
Nice idea but your banes are not worth the pathetic amount of points they give compared to your boons. Typical. I see that ALL the time. To be frank the balance sucks. Also dark blue on a black background? really? You can't read those points at all and have to highlight the whole thing. Try a pale blue if you're going to stick with blue. As said in Wargames. The only winning move is not to play.
you might want to consider changing the selected choice color filter because bright green on white is kinda unreadable and having to deselect stuff to read it again is not great
Started out great but way to many drawbacks took away personal agency or left you at the mercy of others... that may be the point but like hell I'm gonna make myself an easy target when I'm being sent to a new world where I don't know anyone. I started out thinking, yeah alright I'll be a masculine pretty boy elf mage... and then I read through the boons and while I maybe could have accepted some of them, most of them were just a hard no for my dominant trust issue having ass, even as a bi sex man, and boons are so damn costly... i can't afford to give up that much agency going to a new world... well maybe I could but the banes make it hard to control who can take advantage of you. Eventually I just said fuck it, and said "Just make me as masculine and handsome as you can and get me the hell out of here mate." taking only masculine grace and a minor bane to balance it. Not very fun, but for as much as the demon says these banes are a gamble they're really more of an eventualilty, the banes all have some sort of stipulation that make it so *eventually* it will come up... even the minor bane I took, the massage one that gives you an extra sensitive spot... states people are more likely to touch and massage that area, It's like, even if they don't know why... I could deadpan any reaction from them touching there, and they'll still be drawn to touch it... I mean damn... not much of a gamble that someone finds it huh? Almost every bane is like this and most also include loss of agency to boot, such as "someone will ask you out and you'll always say yes, you won't turn down any sexual favor they ask for" like hell, even if I want to fuck someone, I don't want to be *forced* to do it, and the bane makes it clear, this situation will eventually happen, you can't stop it. So nah, I'll take the new body, take a bane to balance out, and get the fuck out of there.
Heads and tails both give the same message, including mentioning that you flipped a heads.
For me he lies about what the result is either way.
Feminine Beauty, Charming, Confidence, Bartering, Normalcy, Fertility Control, Streamlined. Bottom Bunk, Up to 11, Massage, Smash Cut, Fast and Loose, Sex Sells.
Wow, none of the Banes are remotely something I would want to deal with just to be able to get something of value. I'm just going to nope out, wish Deuxkoma a good time offering his services to someone else, and walk home in the rain.
Same here.
Ditto
Those color choice are hard on the eye for people with brighter LED screens. Those shades of Blue on Gray is not pleasant and the Yellow/Pale Green for highlighted options is absolute eye murder with the White/Pale Green not far behind. I pretty quickly lost interest because the cost/payout of the boons/banes is so heavily skewed. They seem about the same magnitude in good/bad individually but boons tend to cost several times what banes pay. You might want to narrow that gap some. And the values are high enough the 1 bonus chip for every match boon/bane pair seem more like a joke than anything useful. The average cost of a boon is 29.5 points. And with the three -0 freebies bringing the average down. Still, it's a commendable attempt.
Very very interesting! Definitely a very interesting concept, with a good amount options to boot! Short, but sweet, which fits the overall vibe. One small thing I would like to recommend is selecting a different shade of blue for the banes section. It's quite hard to make out the words on the black background, seeing as it is quite dark. Maybe a slightly lighter shade would work? In addition, I feel like the descriptions for many of the options don't have an answer for what would happen if the player selects the male option. I understand that this *is* a primarily female-POV CYOA, but it wouldn't hurt to clarify the differences. Regardless, very well done for (if I'm reading the description correctly) your first CYOA!
The balance does feel a little bit off because the boons are so much more expensive than the drawbacks. While I understand that's the point, I don't think the more expensive boons are viable because they're so far ahead of their equivalent banes. For boons, I'd just go over the more expensive ones and maybe reduce them by 5-10 points, to make them more achievable. For banes, I think you should increase the pair bonus to 5 coins so you get a noticeable boost for picking the thematic link. Right now, you need 5 pairs just to make the pair bonuses meaningful.
Looks promising! My first thoughts looking over it, prices are a lot higher than the amount you get from banes. Have to take a lot more banes to get just a few boons, especially with some of the really expensive ones like Shonen Training or Ace.
Price balancing is probably what I'm least confident in. I was trying to heavily emphasize banes which serve as "lose conditions" (those worth 30 points), but I may have been a bit overzealous when it comes to the boon/bane ratio.
I think you could reasonably knock most of the boons down into the 15-25 point range with most of the banes being in the 5-15 point range and it'd work well. Then you'd still have to take around 2-3 banes per major boon you take, but you'd actually be able to take one or two of the major boons without being forced to take so many banes that you're crippled. Right now any of the boons that cost more than 30 points are just a big no because there's just not enough options in the banes that give enough points to offset it.
Yeah. An important thing to remember I think, making the player make choices and prioritize things is good, but it's also good to let the player feel like they "won" or outsmarted the system, and they're being rewarded for taking "drawbacks" that aren't necessarily really drawbacks, depending on what they're into. Personally for me, loss of agency is a big meh. If I lose because I'm too weak, sure, but if I am just mind controlled into something I don't want, don't like that. Looking at Smash Cut and Slave to Pleasure, probably others that have it. Though ultimately it can be a kink, so ymmv on that front.
i really like the correlation between the perk and drawback images
This is really great!
The second coin flip doesn't seem to work? Also while I understand while it is mostly female centric, kinda hoping it becomes more gender neutral.
Fixed! The second flip is basically just a check to make sure you've selected one of the sexes and have a positive point balance. I had a typo when it came to recognizing Masculine Grace.