Game based on being a public figure

Hi y’all!

I’ve made a couple of games on TextAdventure in the past, but I was thinking of taking it a step up and working on one on Ren’Py over the summer. I’d like to hear what y’all think and if you have any more plot point suggestions. Also, I’d like to have the player be able to see the characters gain weight, so if anyone has any suggestions for ways I can make character models that get fatter, I’m all ears.

Anyway, the idea for the game is that you start off as a news presenter for a major TV company. From there you could push the people working for the tv company to gain weight through various methods like setting up food related events and keeping them supplied with snacks. You could also make your news presenting partner gain and gain yourself, which would slowly help normalise being fat for the people of your city.

Other ways to normalise it would include showing lots of ads to do with food, and pushing food related news when possible. I think what I’d do is have a series of things you can choose to present each day, so you can pick the more fat normalising ones.

Later on in the game, it would be possible to campaign to the local government to have more fattening foods available and less healthy ones, or to limit physical activity. This would be made easier if you run for mayor and win, and you could also buy up the tv company to make those upgrades easier.

Finally, I might add a lab you could invest in, to get them to make foods even more fattening, add things to the water to increase gain and appetite, and maybe even add a level of hypnosis to the food adverts.

The challenges would be that each activity would carry a risk of people catching on to what you’re doing (high risk for the lab, low for bringing donuts to work for example) which could be mitigated if you’re important and respected. There would also be some people who would be extra hard to make gain, either because they are health nuts or do not watch TV.

Thoughts and potential plot points?

6 Likes

I’d love to play a game like this. I see a lot of potentional in it

2 Likes

This idea is pretty well rounded (no pun). The only thing that came to mind is a budget system, as in how much can be spent within a certain time frame ( i.e. days, weeks, months ) and the means of earning money.

2 Likes

Yeah, that would be good. I’ll look into it, thanks!

Maybe it’s just me, but I’m finding the manipulation angle as the sole driver of the plot - playing the active agent whose insidious aim is to embiggen all the peoples - a little derivative now. It doesn’t make the best use of exploring the concepts found within the premise, which is a shame as the initial premise as described - that of a screen personality for a TV company - is a fresh and interesting one… before it goes off the rails into “secret feeder agenda” territory with secret labs and whatnot.

Obviously make the game you want, but note that you could slap a “secret feeder agenda” plot onto anything as it’s a cheap and low-effort means to do so. You could do more with the TV company premise is what I’m saying.

I’m liking this idea! Maybe have different manipulation paths with different overall outcomes and have rival companies/political groups try to thwart your efforts.

1 Like

I’m open to new ideas, so I’m curious what you have in mind

I’ll definitely consider it, although that’ll be pretty late stage and I’ve only just started coding the game

To add a little onto what @AlexKay aid, I have a few ideas if you want to ease into weight gain content a bit more gradually rather than overtly being a secret feeder.

I agree with what @BorkFork said about adding a budget system to the game because it could work as a motivating issue for the story, at least to get it started.

Maybe it’s just more my style, but I’d have the story start more innocently with a fairly new-ish, small tv station that the main character gets hired at but it’s struggling to make money. Main character is a presenter but also in charge of the ads that run on the site and eventually what’s aired on it in terms of programming. This a gameplay and story idea, where you have to choose which ads run on the station/website (depending on when this set). After a while, into the game maybe have a major fast food company come to the station with an offer to heavily favor their ads to keep the station afloat monetarily (get paid more if you run these ads, since this is a weight gain game in Ren’Py, I’d make it mathematically necessary to do this so to move the story forward).

For game mechanics, I’d make heavy use of variables for things like:

  • studio funds

  • personal funds

  • days passed

  • company/product popularity (use for pay increases when running ads as well as impact of weight gain for related companies/products)

  • “global” weight gained (rates at which people have become overweight), health consciousness (how aware/concerned the public/political structure is aware of the weight gain as a result of your actions. Since you want to include some level of politics into this, I’d have this be what moves you into the political phase of the game)

  • fat trendiness (think things that have become more popular in real life recently; things like the slang “Thicc”, the body positivity movement, and plus sized modeling etc. Increased slowly on its own, or increased faster with selective programming for what the network is airing and if the main character co-host is gaining weight)


I’m not sure exactly what you had in mind when you get to the phase where you run for office so I can’t offer as many ideas there, hope some of this helps.

2 Likes

Failmuseum, damn. Hi! I love your work! Thanks so much for the suggestions! I’ll definitely use at least some of that. I really like the fast food company idea, and I was planning on having most of those game mechanics.

The reason why it seems like a secret feeder is more because by and large getting fat and encouraging it is not socially acceptable at the moment. The beginning of the game, especially when it comes to your co-workers, could involve secret feeding depending on your playstyle, but the aim of the game is really to make being fat socially acceptable and even encouraged. I really appreciate the suggestions for ways to do that, with things like thicc and plus sized models, since I was struggling with coming up with early stage ways to push it.

But yeah, thanks so much for the advice and ideas, and I hope this made my vision for the game more clear. Of course, since it’s my first time using Ren’Py I may not be able to achieve my goals, but we’ll see.

1 Like

Glad to hear I could be of some help :slightly_smiling_face:

If I may ask, have you worked out why the main character would be interested in encouraging weight gain? I could give some help with ideas if you haven’t.

If you intend for the powers that be to push back on weight gain becoming more accepted, I’d recommend looking at things like that old documentary “Super Size Me” (its free with ads on youtube) for inspiration of what kinds of arguments and grandstanding they would employ to push their arguments. I could help with counter arguments to it, but if you need help with that it might be best to just message me since I don’t want to accidently run afoul of the “no politics directly in the forums” rule.

Also if you need some artwork, while I wouldn’t say I’m fantastic at it, I could draw some for things like the advertisements. No charge and you can do whatever you want with them, because I like the idea (and I also suffer from artist block pretty often and need something to draw). Since I’m a bit busy with my other projects, I would only be able to do it on my spare time though.

Finally, if Ren’py doesn’t work out for you, RPG maker is always an option. Even if you are set on making a traditional visual novel, it’s capable of doing that, it’ll just take a bit more finesse (even though it wouldn’t need much if any programming knowledge, see Super Fatty Office Simulator for example).

1 Like

Wow, thank you so much for the support. I haven’t really thought about why they’d want to do it, so I’d love to hear your ideas.

I watched Super Size Me a while back, actually, thanks for reminding me. I’d be happy to hear any counter arguments you have, but I think my game will deviate from reality in that being fat won’t really cause many medical issues because that’s just not something I enjoy in my fiction.

As for the artwork, if you’re ok making some, that would be incredible. I’m awful at art so anything you can make would be greatly appreciated. Of course there’s absolutely no rush, I’m sure you’re very busy and this project of mine is going to take a while (as a side note I can’t wait for Heroes on a Budget!).

I’m learning Python at the moment, which is part of why I’m doing this, and I’ll figure any issues out eventually, so I think I’ll stick with Ren’Py, but thanks for the suggestion!

1 Like

Also I had no idea SFOAS was made on RPG Maker?! Damn

1 Like

One reason to do it is pretty basic that was sort of outlined earlier, money to keep the lights on at the studio. With a lucrative deal with a fast food company, it would be in your best interest if being fat was encouraged since you need it to keep the cash flowing. Feeding yourself and co-workers would help if you could make being fat trendy and desirable, since it makes pushback against the fast food company less convincing, and therefore you gain more and easier money.

Could go for the simple fetish angle, where your character is taking advantage of their position for obvious personal benefit. Both this motive and the above aren’t mutually exclusive either, character could be enjoying this as a nice side benefit or the results your actions awaken a fetish in the character, could even make the fetish optional if you want differing paths and dialogue.

I don’t like health issues either if I’m honest, just putting it out there. Even still, they could just make a bigger deal out of minor things like exhaustion. Usually the best counter arguments/strategies are either to be more liberty minded or moralizing right back at them. Basically its be more persuasive then your opponent, which would require understanding of the audience (maybe have one type of argument work better based on the other stats?).

1 Like

While we’re on the topic of motivation, I want to put forth an idea that’s been eating away at the back of my braincase like a chipmunk for a while: maybe this act of fattening is ultimately altruistic in nature.

Big businesses are almost as powerful in the developed world as they’ve ever been, rivalled only by their power and influence in the days of Standard Oil. At the same time, climate change stands to make resources scarcer and, therefore, more expensive; and rising sea levels coupled with diasporas between nations will increase population density.

These factors together will probably make cheaper food, as well as food that’s easier to acquire and cook (or doesn’t need to be cooked) more prominent in the coming years–corporations may have more freedom to manufacture and distribute it, and the average citizen will be on a tighter budget. If this happens, fast food’s gonna be BIG in the coming years. Super-sized, you might say. Now, with more people having access to and potentially relying on this really unhealthy food, obesity will follow suit, and with it a slew of problems. Not only will health issues become more prominent, but everything from elevators to cars will be harder to use.

Your game, therefore, could be about fattening up the population not just to get them used to obesity, but to prepare them for an oncoming crisis by starting it early, giving engineers, doctors, etc. enough time to advance their fields to accommodate for a growing population, as well as a growing population.

Maybe that doesn’t fit your vision, but it’s an angle on the subject I haven’t seen yet.

1 Like

Well, when I think of a TV studio and the potential characters therein a few keywords spring to mind (in no particular order): ego, competitive, ambition, appeal, influence, image, appearance, ratings.

So if I was to spin a plotline out of this, I would create an interactive VN that told the story of a young and upcoming news reporter as our protagonist, beleaguered by an unfortunate rivalry with a hated co-worker. She has some dirt on us and makes us play a cruel game to gain weight so as to ruin our figure in the hopes of sabotaging our career ambitions. We play her game and over the course of it, we grow to secretly enjoy the feeling of being stuffed.
Performing well, our rival’s plans backfires as our new voluptuous figure pulls in ratings and adds to our confidence over our self-image, particularly since it hasn’t hurt our career chances.

Next chapter: the corporate endorsement. This is where a big food company takes interest in our protag and sees an opportunity to leverage her growing appeal… Can our protag balance maintaining her professional performance whilst inadvertently pilling on the pounds? What will this mean for her “growing” fanbase?

So, again, that’s how I would approach the theme, but not necessarily how you should approach it. I’ll explain more via DM to prevent thread derailment.

That’s really interesting as a concept, although the altruism is debatable, but it doesn’t really fit with my game plan. I appreciate the suggestion tho!

1 Like

My plan for the game I’m making is more for it to be a sort of management simulation combined with personal goals, so that doesn’t really fit with it, but it does sound like a fun game. If you or anyone wants to make it, I’d love to play it!

1 Like