Ren'Py Abandoned Where I Belong [v0.1.0 Beta] [Elementario]

4.00 star(s) 1 Vote

Skylaroo

Well-Known Member
May 28, 2017
1,651
4,357
I understand, I did ask a few close friends to try it and they, like me thought this was a good idea.
But I guess this was the single worst idea I ever had :LOL:
Anyway, I was unsure of the gameplay myself that's why I decided to release it in beta, I will try to improve upon it.
Thanks for checking it out.
The key here is when you design a game, you want something that is easy to get into so people can enjoy your game without having to figure out too many things. Then your quality of the story and render would carry your game.

For example, riding a bicycle is easy, just pedal the bike and you can go. That's why even kids can ride a bike. Imagine if kids are asked to fly an airplane instead. There will be confusion, chaos, and danger all over the place. You don't want this to happen.

Just look at this https://attachments.f95zone.to/2019/07/353318_screenshot0098.png that's about a quarter of the screen being used for UI. In that screenshot alone, you have:
1. Date
2. Day
3. Time
4. Numerous stats
5. Numerous actions

That's way too cluttered and it doesn't feel good to use.

Obviously it isn't up to me, but I would strongly suggest for you de-clutter your UI before you continue on with the game. A strong foundation is required before you advance your game. It's always better to fix things as early as possible. Good luck and all the best with your game.
 

passiveDragon

Newbie
Aug 28, 2017
80
41
Thank you for your consideration :), I will try to improve it and hopefully not disappoint again.
I have a suggestion about the navigation, make the map also capable of traveling and maybe also some actions by placing some basic icons on it for people, sleeping and doing chores.
Otherwise, I've actually come to like it to a degree.
The fact that you added shortcuts is very appreciated, it makes things a hell of a lot easier. The WASD navigation isn't great, but also not too terrible, if it weren't for the fact that it sometimes stops working somehow...

Good luck, and if you need help with english, i'd be glad if i could help you with that.
 

ThunderRob

Devoted Member
May 10, 2018
9,497
26,464
perhaps our fine collection of F95 members can present some quality sandbox games with good UI's for him to sample and get a feel for how to elevate his game..my suggestion is High Rise Climb..there is A LOT to it..but it is very fluid streamlined and works like a charm.
because the story's premise is intriguing..mysterious..
 

CreepyGhost

Active Member
May 4, 2017
697
604
I played a bit yesterday since a good friend of mine made this. First off the bat, AMAZING work and LOTS and LOTS of hours spend on making custom UI and scripts. I like the way you can walk around, interact with many things and people (spend only 30 mins though, for now :ROFLMAO:) and this game has beautiful renders. What I would love to see in an update, is the function to use minimap as quick option to move around the house or even the town. For a beta version, it feels way complete-rer-ish than most games out there. Keep it up and I really hope to see news!
 

zandalari

Member
May 4, 2019
374
2,051
Pleasantly surprised to see the dev actively interacting with the community and being good about the criticism. It's easy to read the comments, get discouraged and drop everything, I'm glad he did not. Very possible we might get a really good game with time out of this.

I like the concept, dev. Polish some of the things that people have mentioned and keep on rolling, I'll keep this in my bookmarks and be rooting for you.
 

B-52reloaded

Well-Known Member
Aug 25, 2018
1,181
1,124
I like the idea behind the game and I also think the characters are outlined pretty clear. But the UI and thus the actual gameplay is just way too confusing and difficult ... it takes away the whole fun of playing. I believe not too many people want to start their computer and do some serious and hard thinking while playing a game which supposed to be fun and relief from stress . If the dev could change that I do believe his game would rock!
 

Elementario

Member
Game Developer
Nov 11, 2017
252
312
The key here is when you design a game, you want something that is easy to get into so people can enjoy your game without having to figure out too many things. Then your quality of the story and render would carry your game.

For example, riding a bicycle is easy, just pedal the bike and you can go. That's why even kids can ride a bike. Imagine if kids are asked to fly an airplane instead. There will be confusion, chaos, and danger all over the place. You don't want this to happen.

Just look at this https://attachments.f95zone.to/2019/07/353318_screenshot0098.png that's about a quarter of the screen being used for UI. In that screenshot alone, you have:
1. Date
2. Day
3. Time
4. Numerous stats
5. Numerous actions

That's way too cluttered and it doesn't feel good to use.

Obviously it isn't up to me, but I would strongly suggest for you de-clutter your UI before you continue on with the game. A strong foundation is required before you advance your game. It's always better to fix things as early as possible. Good luck and all the best with your game.
Thank you for your feedback, I see what you mean, at the time the idea seemed really good that the player has the choice to talk to other people about different things and get unique responses from different characters. But in the hindsight it just clutters up the screen and makes the game look messy...
What I had originally intended was that this kind of thing, giving characters many different responses on many topics would help build the characters' personality and make them more likable and human.
But now it seems that it needs to go.
What about other things, WASD movement, ZXC for doors and stairs, and other buttons for Map, Calendar, phone, etc?
What are yours and everyone else's thought on that?
 

Elementario

Member
Game Developer
Nov 11, 2017
252
312
I have a suggestion about the navigation, make the map also capable of traveling and maybe also some actions by placing some basic icons on it for people, sleeping and doing chores.
Otherwise, I've actually come to like it to a degree.
The fact that you added shortcuts is very appreciated, it makes things a hell of a lot easier. The WASD navigation isn't great, but also not too terrible, if it weren't for the fact that it sometimes stops working somehow...

Good luck, and if you need help with english, i'd be glad if i could help you with that.
I actually really wanted to do that, making a traversable map, showing the locations of all the npcs on the current map, etc.
But just to do that will take a very long time since there are like 13 different characters and they change places every 2-4 hours,
That is a lot of coding and mental gymnastics to make it work.
So I kept that pending for my next update, thinking this would be enough for the Beta.
Even on my patreon "Future plans" I said that I want a traversable map.
So I will do that, just as soon as I figure the UI elements out.
 

Elementario

Member
Game Developer
Nov 11, 2017
252
312
The fact that you added shortcuts is very appreciated, it makes things a hell of a lot easier. The WASD navigation isn't great, but also not too terrible, if it weren't for the fact that it sometimes stops working somehow...

Good luck, and if you need help with english, i'd be glad if i could help you with that.
Also, I am glad you liked the shortcuts, that was a pain in the ass to figure out too :LOL:
About why WASD doesn't work sometimes is because in some locations, if there's a wall on the left or moving back doesn't make sense, I disabled those button in locations like that.
Other than that I extensively tested it out, WASD works every place that it should, but I will still see if there's any problem with it.

About the English, for now I need to focus more on the game play elements of the story, when I start working on the story elements maybe I will let you know. Still, thanks for asking :)
 

Elementario

Member
Game Developer
Nov 11, 2017
252
312
perhaps our fine collection of F95 members can present some quality sandbox games with good UI's for him to sample and get a feel for how to elevate his game..my suggestion is High Rise Climb..there is A LOT to it..but it is very fluid streamlined and works like a charm.
because the story's premise is intriguing..mysterious..
Thanks that would be great, I can use a few suggestions for sure, I will check out High Rise Climb soon and if I can, learn something good from it.
 

Elementario

Member
Game Developer
Nov 11, 2017
252
312
I played a bit yesterday since a good friend of mine made this. First off the bat, AMAZING work and LOTS and LOTS of hours spend on making custom UI and scripts. I like the way you can walk around, interact with many things and people (spend only 30 mins though, for now :ROFLMAO:) and this game has beautiful renders. What I would love to see in an update, is the function to use minimap as quick option to move around the house or even the town. For a beta version, it feels way complete-rer-ish than most games out there. Keep it up and I really hope to see news!
Thanks for the feedback buddy, you really are the best.:giggle:
Its good to see hard work being appreciated but still criticism is equally, if not more important.
So, thanks for the support.
I know I have a long way to go and I will improve upon it for sure, but appreciation is well, always appreciated.:giggle:

P.S Get your ass back in the game, complete it and let me know what you think about it. :p
 

Elementario

Member
Game Developer
Nov 11, 2017
252
312
Pleasantly surprised to see the dev actively interacting with the community and being good about the criticism. It's easy to read the comments, get discouraged and drop everything, I'm glad he did not. Very possible we might get a really good game with time out of this.

I like the concept, dev. Polish some of the things that people have mentioned and keep on rolling, I'll keep this in my bookmarks and be rooting for you.
That is really good to hear, glad to see that at least the content is getting some people interested.
Hearing criticism about something you worked hard on for months is kinda disheartening at first, but seeing people give constructive feedback, actively spend their time to give you ideas on how you can improve your work and support you, is a reward on its own.:giggle:
 
  • Like
Reactions: Taher and zandalari

Elementario

Member
Game Developer
Nov 11, 2017
252
312
I like the idea behind the game and I also think the characters are outlined pretty clear. But the UI and thus the actual gameplay is just way too confusing and difficult ... it takes away the whole fun of playing. I believe not too many people want to start their computer and do some serious and hard thinking while playing a game which supposed to be fun and relief from stress . If the dev could change that I do believe his game would rock!
Thank you for the feedback.
I do believe I ended up making the game way too complicated which instead of bringing fun to players just ended up frustrating them... That was a very big fault on my side... Which I plan to improve and try to make it fun.
Still glad to see that you see potential in this game.:)
 

batman666

Member
Donor
Jun 18, 2017
277
564
Thank you, thank you very much for your feedback.
I am glad you liked some of the models, I tried to make everyone unique and different but mostly I wanted their characters to fit their personality.
I wanted to go a bit more sci-fi and maybe add some fighting elements too in the next version of the game, for now its just introduction to the story.
I really liked both most of the models and the sci fi / Mass Effect'y vibe the intro has given off. I think those two are strong foundations for your game.

About 720p renders, I am aware of that but sadly I can't afford to get better machine to get all 1080p renders just yet, I know how bad it looks believe me but since there were so many renders, I didn't wanted to kill my machine even before my game is released, I promise I will get all the renders re-rendered in 1080p soon though.
Don't worry mate. It's not like the renders look bad, my criticism was more based on something like "this looks awesome but I'd love to see it in even higher res". You could either resharpen the stuff via Photoshop of use the following advice which helped me alot: > Using this, you could still have great sharpness even though you're going the 720p route.

About English...its not my first language, I am sorry if its, well bad. I will and still am trying to improve it.
It wasn't that bad and the good render quality helps. Just maybe think about someone on Fiverr a few bucks to proof-read and correct your stuff once you got a few more versions done and (hopefully) made some cash through Patreon. :)

I thought Adrienne looked good, but if players don't like it then I will make changes to the character and re-render her scenes in the next version, she is going to be one of the important characters in the story, so I will try to make a better model of her.
That's just my personal taste. Like I said, I think Elaine is really hot, her model just speaks to me, fits my taste. There might be people who don't like her but prefer Adrienne, so don't focus too much on the opinion of a single player.

About the UI and the tutorial, criticism is noted, I got a bit too carried away with them, I will try to improve them too, I am not good at making UI, but I will try my best.
Sounds good. :) To me, it was just a bit too much. UI-heavy games kill the fun for me, even though the rest of the content might be great. That's why I could never play Superpowered, despite it being such a hit around F95.

The reason I made it a sandbox game is because, I thought it fits the tone of the game and the free roam element of the game better.
I still don't think I will completely remove the sandbox I will try to improve it a bit, but I will still think about removing it.
Or maybe just limit it a little? You could still have a Town map. My main criticism is that a complex UI just makes more work for a dev, slows updates and makes the game more prone to bugs and continuation / variable problems under its Renpy hood.

And mostly, sorry if clicking is a bit too much of an hassle, I thought leaving all the navigation to keyboard and character interactions to mouse was a good idea, but clearly not.
I will see if I can improve upon that.

Anyway thanks for your time and feedback, I really appreciate you checking it out.
I guess I got a bit lenient thinking this play-style would fit most people, I will try to improve on it
Thank you for your well-worded and complex reply! Really appreciate a dev reacting to criticism in such a manner.
 

Elementario

Member
Game Developer
Nov 11, 2017
252
312
reason i suggest that is because it is sandbox with a complex elaborate UI..but it works very very well and enhances gameplay...and it never hurts to learn new ideas :p
Definitely! I just started out with zero knowledge, it would be arrogant of me to think I can't learn anything new.
There's always new things to learn and improve upon, but what's more important is making sure people have fun in your work.
So, all ideas, feedbacks and criticisms are welcomed, I can't promise that I can make it suit to everyone's taste but I can always try to refine it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Taher

ThunderRob

Devoted Member
May 10, 2018
9,497
26,464
Definitely! I just started out with zero knowledge, it would be arrogant of me to think I can't learn anything new.
There's always new things to learn and improve upon, but what's more important is making sure people have fun in your work.
So, all ideas, feedbacks and criticisms are welcomed, I can't promise that I can make it suit to everyone's taste but I can always try to refine it.
do not change the story you want to tell though..always stay true to that..ya just gotta make it accessable to as many as possible..then those big porn bucks will roll in and you can buy hookers and blow..or RRSP's
 
4.00 star(s) 1 Vote