Arcade Spirits will have cheevos. This really shouldn’t come as any surprise, as every modern game has achievements in it — Steam’s got support built right in for it, and we can hook into that. (Although I do need to research a bit more what we do about non-Steam versions. I’m sure this is a solved problem given how many renpy authors are out there.)
The question is… what do we do for achievements? I’ve been brainstorming, so let me run some by you.
The obvious one is endings. One cheevo for finishing the game with each of our seven romance options. One cheevo for each of our hidden “bad” endings. One for a clean sweep of all possible outcomes. I mean, that’s Visual Novel 101, right? But we can go deeper.
What about achievements for becoming a Paragon of Quirkiness? Or a Stalwart Steady? Or a Kindly Caregiver, a Gutsy Improviser, or a Basic Bitch? …okay, the last one probably needs work *cough* but basically, finish the game with your top identity trait as one of our five available options. You can stack this up with the character-specific endings, too, to optimize your playtime.
But I’m also debating what else there could be. Hidden achievements for taking unusual options, or unexpected decisions that normally would feel out of whack. How deep should I go with this? What becomes annoying busywork and what becomes a nice extra?
And… should I tie other things to cheevos? Art gallery items like concept sketches, for example? Desktop wallpapers? We’ve got a lot of possibilities, here. What would people enjoy?
I welcome your feedback!