Rue Valley News

Hello, everyone!


It’s been a while since our last update, but we are happy to report that the development of Rue Valley never stopped. In fact, it’s been picking up pace lately, and our team is having a blast! If you check our Steam page, you can see that we’ve updated screenshots to better reflect how Rue Valley’s art style has evolved. Our numbers are growing too. We even had to move to a beautiful new office, and at this very moment we are busy unpacking boxes.



We didn’t enjoy being quiet all this time, and now we have resources to chat with you regularly and share all the news about Rue Valley! So keep an eye out for more Rue Valley news here on Steam, and follow us on our official social media. Spoiler: you won’t have to wait for long!

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If you want to chat, we also have a discord server and a subreddit dedicated to Rue Valley.

See you there!

Love, Emotion Spark.

Hi everyone!

Today, we’ll talk about Status Effects. While interacting with the world and other characters in Rue Valley, you’ll be making many choices. Some, that are less important - some more. But every once in a while you’ll make a choice (or a series of choices) that will grant you one of many Status Effects. Their purpose is to change your personality, your mood or your state of mind in order to make the game more unpredictable and challenging.

Let’s take a look at a few examples:

] If you don’t have a reason to talk to someone, Total Lack of Motivation status effect will not allow you to start a conversation.

Right at the start of the game, your character suffers from a Total Lack of Motivation. It is the first thing your therapist notices and very soon you encounter a dialogue option that is grayed out and blocked by that status effect.
Total Lack of Motivation Status Effect

While this specific status effect does not change your personality in any way it most certainly affects your progress as your character is just not motivated enough to perform certain actions (as indicated by the all caps orange letters that say “LIMITED INTEARACTIONS”). So until you manage to find something that motivates you, you are stuck fulfilling only your basic needs which are usually just quenching your thirst or finding a bed comfortable enough to take a nap.


Unlike Total Lack of Motivation, Anxious Apprehension actually modifies your personality. It occurs when your character becomes anxious when certain events happen. You become more sensitive and more careful when making decisions.
Anxious Apprehension Status Effect

And if you remember Personality Checks that we mentioned in the last blog you’ll notice that the status effect can drastically impact their outcome.

And if you remember Personality Checks that we mentioned in the last blog you’ll notice that the status effect can drastically impact their outcome.

Sometimes, just when you feel you got everything under control, a few wrong decisions and an unexpected status effect, followed by a personality check will send you down a rabbit hole of psychological chaos and emotional nightmare.



But not all status effects are that drastic. Some may provide fun results and give you additional options, but even those can alter your personality just enough so that you have to deal with them before continuing with the story.

Multiple status effects stacked together making you a completely different person. Also Tipsy status effect gives you an extra answer to the therapist’s question.

You see, even though the status effects are purely a mechanical part of Rue Valley’s personality system, they are often used to tell a story and sometimes even work as a task. And what’s more interesting is that people intuitively understand them without even knowing what’s going on under the hood, as we all relate to those changes of personality, mood or state of mind, every now and then.

These are just some of the status effects that exist in the game, many more will occur throughout the game. But we did tease some of them in September 2022 at the Reboot Develop Conference in Dubrovnik as a promotional material in form of small keychains. We were pleasantly surprised by the reception as each person managed to find the one they relate to the most before even playing Rue Valley demo.

Photo taken by the Dan Pearson. Link to original tweet: LINK

I hope this blog shows what kind of challenges await you while you’re figuring out to escape the time-loop. They are nasty and unpredictable, but also fun and often greatly contribute to the story.

Stay tuned for more stuff in the next blog!

Marko.

Hello again.

In this blog, we'll explore one of Rue Valley’s most important features: The Personality System. It is the driving force behind interactions and dialogues in the game. It is a system that differentiates a role playing game from a visual novel, and more importantly, it makes you consider the personality of the character you're playing, rather than just their abilities and occupation.



Your character’s personality is divided into three axes, Decisional (sometimes referred to as Cognitive), Social and Emotional. And each of those three axes consist of two opposite Personality Attributes.

• Decisional Axis: Impulsive - Calculated
• Social Axis: Introverted - Extraverted
• Emotional Axis: Sensitive - Indifferent

Character Creation Screen.

At the start of the game, you can assign up to nine points across all three axes, with a minimum of one point and a maximum of five per axis. You cannot assign points to both attributes on the same axis.

For example, if you allocate two points in the Calculated attribute, you can’t assign them to Impulsive attribute. Also if you put five points in Impulsive then you only have four more points available for Social and Emotional axis and each of them must have at least one point.

With these rules, you decide which axis of your character's personality is most prominent (if any) and which attribute they take to extremes. Even if you spread points equally across Decisional, Social, and Emotional, you still have to decide which attributes the points go to.

As you can see, the combinations are limitless. Each type of personality will give your character a unique vibe and open up a range of possibilities and outcomes throughout the story.



Often in dialogues or interactions, you will encounter a Personality Check. This is a special type of dialogue choice that has multiple outcomes based on the current state of your personality axis. These checks can be Decisional (Cognitive), Social, or Emotional. In most cases, a successful outcome of the check would be if your personality attribute for this check leans toward zero. That is, the more balanced person you are, the greater are your chances of a successful outcome.

But since the middle of the axis is a success, there are two different failure outcomes depending on whether the current axis value is closer to "left" or "right".

Emotional Check option during a conversation with psychotherapist.

In this example, If your character has one point or fewer in both Sensitive and Indifferent attributes, the outcome will be successful. However, if they have more than one point in Sensitive, the outcome will be a "Too Sensitive" fail, and the story will continue accordingly. Similarly, if they have more than one point in Indifferent, the outcome will be a "Too Indifferent" fail, and the story will take this into account.

Screenshot of branching dialogue nodes in Articy Draft.

So, as you see, the “difficulty” of these checks depends solely on the range of the personality axis where the success area is. The larger the area the easier the check is. Also, you might notice that I haven’t mentioned any randomness in these checks. That’s because there isn’t any. The trick is that you are never sure what the check’s difficulty is before you try it, so it’s up to you to decide whether to try it or not. This decision also eliminates the need to save scum as the outcome won’t change when you reload the game.

Another interesting fact is that since this is a narrative game, failing a check won't get you stuck or make you lose. It will only shift the story in an unexpected or unintended direction. Sometimes, failing a check can be a more enjoyable experience. So, when you need to decide whether to try a check or not, be more assured to do it, as you never know how the story will unfold.



On top of personality axes and attributes you character is also defined by Traits. They set a more concrete definition of you character’s personality and they directly impact on what choices you will be presented with and also what choices will be blocked for you.

Use of Traits in dialogue. Character is both UNKIND and SECRETIVE so choice 2 is available and choice 4 is blocked.

When your character has a Trait assigned, special dialogue choices appropriate to that trait will appear during conversations and interactions. These choices will be visible only to players who chose that trait while creating their character. Similarly, certain traits will block certain choices, making it impossible to act “out of character,” making Rue Valley a true role playing experience.

During character creation, for every two points you put in specific Personality Attribute you will be able to assign one Trait that corresponds to that attribute. For example: If you have two or three points in Impulsive attribute you will have either Reckless or Impatient trait. And if you have four or five points in Impulsive, you will have both Reckless and Impatient traits.



But as you see, Traits are directly connected to Attributes, as they are attached to second and fourth points. So if, during the game, you gain or lose points in a specific attribute you will gain or lose a Trait. Therefore the “position" of the trait also has a role in your character’s personality definition. To put it simpler, the trait you put closer to the center of the personality axis is the one that defines you more, since it’s harder to lose it.

In future blogs, we'll discuss about what makes your character's personality evolve during the game, and how your choices can alter their mood or state of mind, temporarily or permanently.

Until next time!

Marko

Hello everyone,

Since this is our first blog entry, before we dive deeper into the story and mechanics of the game, I’d like to give you a brief overview of what Rue Valley is about.

As a semi-isometric RPG, Rue Valley puts you in shoes of a man who is stuck in a time-loop while forced to attend a psychotherapy in an old and rundown motel in the middle of nowhere. You will meet a bunch of interesting characters, each stuck in past in their own way. You will learn about the history of Rue Valley and the mysteries it holds. You will do everything to figure out what causes the time-loop and how to stop it, all while battling your own past and learning to cope with it.



And while the story has all that good stuff a quality mystery needs, a small town with a secret, a protagonist with troubled past and an unexplained anomaly, it’s how this story is told where Rue Valley really shines.

Fist of all, because it’s an RPG, you get to create the character at the beginning of the game. But since Rue Valley focuses on narrative and has no combat whatsoever, instead of standard physical and mental attributes, you define your character personality. You choose whether you are Impulsive or Calculated, Introverted or Extraverted, Sensitive or Indifferent, and in what amount. Throughout the game, the choices you are presented with are defined by your character’s personality.

For example, if you are more introverted you will have troubles chitchatting with other characters and so you might not learn as much, but if you are more extraverted you might start to annoy them and so they will maybe try to end the conversation prematurely. A more impulsive character will make decisions on the spot, but those decisions might not always be the best and a more calculated character will think before they act but then the opportunity might be missed.

As you see in those examples, there is no better character personality definition per se, but only different. And those different personalities will provide a unique experience for each and every player.

In the future blogs we will explore the Personality System in greater detail, as well as other important mechanics such as Mind Map, Status Effects, Traits, Motivation etc.

That is all for now, I hope this shows a glimpse of what Rue Valley is about and what to expect from it.

Marko Smiljanić

Creative Director

Emotion Spark Studio