Discussion: Notoriety and the Police


In the midst of your fantastical night of nakedly strolling around the quiet neighborhood at night, it can be easy to forget something important: streaking is illegal. While being seen by others can be exciting, others might not take to your sight kindly. When word gets around—which it will—then Japan's finest will be brought in to investigate.

Introducing Notoriety and the Police

This is the first in a series of open discussions that I hope to have with the community to gather feedback of various mechanics before they are implemented. There is a lack of variety of NPCs, but the first—and most obvious—would be the police. The police would be tied to a new mechanic called notoriety. When you become too known, the police will be called in.

When an NPC sees you walking around town undressed, your notoriety meter will increase; the more undressed you are, the faster it climbs. When the notoriety meter is maxed out, the police will be called into the area to patrol the neighborhood, looking for you. While the police are patrolling, your notoriety will begin to drain. If it reaches zero, the police will leave the area having found nothing wrong. However, if they catch sight of you undressed while patrolling, they will give chase. If they get too close, you'll be arrested and the night will be swiftly over.

My Thoughts

I am a bit mixed on adding police to my game. I want to keep the game fairly lighthearted, so I feel introducing police makes a bad end really bad. I want to keep the game about an exhibitionist girl's fantasy, so adding something very life-ruining like this seems antithetical to the original idea. It is the logical consequence of streaking, but I also find myself bound too much by common sense. I do like the notoriety mechanic and think it could stay; it's only the police that rub me the wrong way.

What do you guys think? Is the notoriety mechanic a good or bad idea? Should police be added as an immediate game over? Does police make the game feel like it darkens the lighthearted fantasy? Share your thoughts in the comment section below!

Get Roshutsu | 露出

Comments

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Maybe I'm a little weird, but I like the idea of police in an exhibitionist game like this. The actual consequences could be handwaved, or maybe have a sequence where she escapes custody. At worst, maybe say she paid a fine. It'd take extra animation, and I get it if you'd rather not, but if, when she gets arrested, there was a cutscene actually showing her getting handcuffed behind her back and taken away, that could be neat. But, that might just be me. It's your game. It's up to you.

I think it makes sense as a mechanic and doesn't darken the tone of the game at all. Adding the cops to the game gives you more obstacles to overcome, which keeps things interesting, but also wouldn't darken things so long as you control what exactly happens after she's caught. Like for example, if you show our protagonist being released from police custody a couple hours/days later with a slap on the wrist, that wouldn't be very dark or life-ruining at all. Unrealistic, sure, but it's a video game and realism isn't that big a deal. If them being let off easy is too unrealistic for you, just say that they escaped police custody somehow and get right back to streaking. All that really matters is how you portray the whole situation, not necessarily how it would play out in real life.

I do agree that police make for a new obstacle to overcome, which is why I think they're worth keeping; or at least some variation. I don't plan on having some epilogue if you get caught, and the screen just fades and shows the results. Maybe I'm just overthinking it?

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I think you're just overthinking it. If all that happens when you get caught is a game over screen, then people won't really think too hard about the implications of getting caught in this scenario.

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I think as long as you keep tight control over the tone of the whole ordeal, police would be fine. But maybe an alternative could be recognition? Like, as people see you, some "recognition" meter would fill up, and on max the people would know it's you and word would get out, making you a social outcast or something.

Re-framing notoriety as recognition is an option. The game originally stems from the embarrassed nude female (ENF) sub-genre, so the idea of her becoming more embarrassed as she becomes more locally known is an option. The system I wrote in the article was actually inspired by the police mechanics in The Simpsons: Hit and Run. If notoriety becomes recognition, what does that entail? She loses confidence faster? More people are out-and-about? Do certain NPCs come out only after a certain amount of recognition in pursuit of her?