Hi all,
As you might have noticed from the last changelog there's a new age category. This is currently given the rather clumsy name "Eighteen or Nineteen". Properly it should be called "Late Teens" to be consistent with the other ages, but this isn't possible because it doesn't make it 100% clear that the character is over-18.
I've had a number of suggestions for alternatives. One was to use "Barely Legal", another to ditch the "nineteen" part and just have it be "Eighteen". I'm feeling indecisive on the subject so I'll run a vote in a week or two and let supporters decide.
If you have any other suggestions for better names, then post them in the comments and I'll include them in the vote.
The main place this is relevant is the character descriptions. The current text there is "eighteen- or nineteen-year-old woman". An example for a female NPC would be: "She's a pretty white eighteen- or nineteen-year-old woman with pale skin, light brown hair and blue eyes".
The suggested alternatives would replace this with "barely-legal woman" or "eighteen-year-old woman".
I've also considered some wordier options such as "a young white woman just a year or two shy of her twentieth birthday" or "a young white woman no more than a year or two past her eighteenth birthday" but I'm not convinced that these longer descriptions would be better to read.
Maybe use "Young Adult"? It's what The Sims use for basically the same thing.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the suggestion. A problem with 'young adult' is that it's also used as a category for books aimed at under-18 teenagers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_adult_fiction
DeleteYoung adult by itself therefore might not be definite enough, and the description would need extra text to make it clear that they're over-18.
What about "Early Adulthood"?
Delete"Fresh out of highschool"
Deletewouldn't it be simplest to just use "18"?
ReplyDeleteThat'll be an option in the vote. It's a bit inconsistent with other age categories because they're much broader than a single year, but 18/19 has the same issue.
DeleteHow about this? "She's a young white girl, an 18 or 19-year-old teenager, with pale skin, light brown hair, and blue eyes." (Can't forget that Oxford comma.) Using "girl" instead of "woman" or "adult" emphasizes her youth, as does the label teenager, but using the numeric instead of written display of eighteen or nineteen saves space and time (in our minds at least).
ReplyDeletereplace teenage with young adult and that's fine for me.
DeleteThanks, I like your rewrite there. I'll definitely be keeping it in mind for the vote choices and when I come to actually writing the description for whatever wins.
DeleteJust "eighteen" is the best option in my opinion. Can't get more straight forward than that.
ReplyDeleteI think you might be over-thinking it. I agree with just having an '18' and '19' categories, but have them flag as the same category for coding purposes.
ReplyDeleteMakes the text easier to read, and allows people to pick their preferred flavour and you won't have issues.
Isn't a on first game screen disclaimer saying "all characters in the game are +18" enough to avoid problems with "-in late teens" ?
ReplyDeleteI agree with this view. "Late teens" with the disclaimer should be legally safe and the best fit with the other age categories.
DeletePerhaps, but I'd want to be very sure in that case - probably need to check with a lawyer again unless I can find a reliable source on UK law online that gives a clear explanation.
DeleteIf you do check with a lawyer, ask about emancipated teenager. Any teen living on her own should fall into this category and be legally an adult.
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ReplyDeleteWhy not just use young?
ReplyDeleteWoman usually means an adult so it could work
Anyone below 30s gets described as a young woman already, so it'll look odd if the lowest age category doesn't have any more detail than that.
DeleteCollege Freshman?
ReplyDeleteNot for a game set in the UK - College is from 16. "University fresher" would work but assumes the character goes to university, which is something I'd like to avoid. University-aged would also work, but I'm not convinced it reads all that well.
DeleteYoung Adult, Jailbait :v
ReplyDeleteI think jailbait is the opposite of what I want!
DeleteNoticed the :v, did we :P
DeleteI really don't know what to do here- you might want to give a safe and short name to the category while picking it, such as 18 and 19 or Barely Legal, I like the sound of that, and when it pops up in character description you can have "woman just a year or two shy of her twentieth birthday"
I'm more concerned if you have an aging mechanic in place. Going to be very weird for my newer playthroughs when i've spent 5 years giving birth to multiple children but I'm still 19 :V
There's currently no aging - one reason why I like the vaguer descriptions! The game is intended for a 1-year playthrough so things like aging, kids growing up and so on are a bit out of scope.
DeleteFor the character creation age categories you could consider: "Legal Teens", "Legal Late Teens" or "Adult Teens".
ReplyDeleteFor the character descriptions I prefer these options:
"She's a pretty [...] woman in her legal late teens with [...]", "She's a pretty [...] woman in her adult teens with [...]" or "She's a pretty [...] teen of legal age with [...]".
Thanks. I'll put that in the voting options when I set the vote up. Of those I think the third one ("teen of legal age") reads best so that'll be the one I'll put in - I don't want to have multiple similar options as I'll probably use Patreon's poll functionality.
DeleteAs a suggestion, the PC can see the NPC get carded, as explicit proof she's of-age? I'm not sure how that works in England, though.
ReplyDeleteDrinking age is 18 in the UK, same as the legal age for adult game characters, but there are ways to meet other characters outside of bars and clubs.
Deletethere is a bug where if you are a virgin and choose anal, and then choose to use your own juices as lubrication, you stay a virgin.
ReplyDeleteI think that unless you want to use 3-9 extra words every single time you want to describe the person, you're going to need to just stick a disclaimer below the age category choice in the beginning screen.
ReplyDeleteWorse... FAR worse, is that you risk making the final product so awkward-sounding to read that you lost all benefit from having the age category in the first place.
If putting the disclaimers in ONCE works for movies and the like, there's no consistent reason they can't for you.
TLDR: Put the phrase "(Simple one-word description like "teenager") refers to women who are of age of consent in your country."
DeleteUnder the age selection box, and maybe alter the opening a bit to make it clear. You can't spend the whole game re-explaining.
Agreed.
DeleteYou might be right. I think I will put the "late teens" choice into the vote.
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ReplyDeleteBarely legal, I think is the shortest and the better
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteI got a scene where a pervy friend asked me to help him have sex with one of my female friends. But I have never got it again after that does someone know what traits are required to get that scene again?
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ReplyDeleteBarely legal is alright
ReplyDeleteBarely legal is cheesy, does not fit with the other age categories and contains too much innuendo. "Barely legal" enough for what? It's way too "porny" compared to every other age range. Late teens with a disclaimer is the right way to go.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, if your PC is in her late teens or early twenties, there's no way she would look at another person and think of them as "barely legal". That would only happen if the PC is significantly older than them if at all.
Delete