Unity A Long Journey [v0.8.1] [Marvellous Lunatic]

[Slick Bean]

Spoiler: This game be going on ... and on.

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[Remarius]

Normally I'm fine with minigames but wow the combination of slow repetitive days make the minigames grindingly bad.

 

[Aristos]

The dev is still working on the third and last day of next episode.
I'm a subscriber and I must admit I haven't played the two beta releases because I prefer to experience the whole thing when it comes out. No need to hurry as far as I'm concerned.

Here are a couple of last month's dev updates from Patreon (mind you, not the most recent ones):

[Episode Hamal] Progress Update XVIII

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Greetings,
I'll keep it short today. I've started working on a bigger scene on day 3 that requires quite a lot of posing so progress was a bit slower. I'll continue to work on this scene this week and hopefully finish it and move to the next big scene.
Beta - Day 2
The beta with day 2 is available for the 3 top tiers. There will be a few smaller dialogue changes, but nothing that should make much of a difference. It's mostly grammar stuff. And I noticed I made a composing error on the second animation. This will be fixed in the final version.
Current Status
~ 710 rendered and edited images
- 2 HQ vertical scroll images
- 2 animations
~ 100% written
~ 72% scripting

[Episode Hamal] Progress Update XIX

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Greetings,
this will be again a somewhat shorter progress update, sorry. I'm just to busy at the moment with overtime at work, holiday preparations, getting and preparing gifts and all that stuff and some other private matters I postponed for to long.
I couldn't finish the big scene entirely I was talking about last week but there are only a few images left to do. So this should be finished either today or tomorrow. After that the next scenes will go by quicker hopefully.
Current Status
~ 770 rendered and edited images
- 2 HQ vertical scroll images
- 2 animations
~ 100% written
~ 74% scripting

The dev has reached 900 rendered images as per his latest message.

Also, wan can she possibly be laughing at?

Spoiler

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[Slick Bean]

Also, wan can she possibly be laughing at?

MC inability to fight back? MC being close to useless this whole time? MC being fodder for discount Riddicks?

 

[Slick Bean]

The dev is still working on the third and last day of next episode.

Here is one idea: why not have MC get and amass all sorts of oddities then makeshift multiple weappons and go hunting for the agressors? You know...if home alone can do it multiple times in different settings, how dumb must MC be to not do it even once? Not even crossing his mind? Seriously?

 

[osanaiko]

Here is one idea: why not have MC get and amass all sorts of oddities then makeshift multiple weappons and go hunting for the agressors? You know...if home alone can do it multiple times in different settings, how dumb must MC be to not do it even once? Not even crossing his mind? Seriously?

Haha, luckily the dev has foreseen your suggestion and cut it off already:

 

[Slick Bean]

Something tells me he would have still found a way out if they had tried that.

To that point, my biggest complaint about this story so far is that the antagonists are almost too capable and too in control. It seems to me that they are too smart to be fooled by the MC's plan to tamper with the SDs and there would still be no major change in the status quo...

Frankly I feel like by now it's past time to tie a bow on the whole blackmail plot and move on to a new problem or crisis... preferably one that isn't centered around saboteurs sitting on ass while playing Selene and the MC like fucking marionettes.

Does MC stand a chance tho? Does this story even have anything to pull it through what insurmountable obstacles dev put into our path already, just to get a giggle outta dissing the players?

Literal Riddik plug means dev wrote themselves into a corner no amount of suspension or disbelief can rescue the plot outta this now. There is no point now as there is nothing for resolve to even atempt to be actually surviving ... what a total let down about building tension and actually delivering a somewhat inticing motivational copium strategy for MC - total hopelessness makes this sand box grinder even more depressing to sit through.

Haha, luckily the dev has foreseen your suggestion and cut it off already:

View attachment 3224513

 

[osanaiko]

Literal Riddik plug means dev wrote themselves into a corner no amount of suspension or disbelief can rescue the plot outta this now. There is no point now as there is nothing for resolve to even atempt to be actually surviving ... what a total let down about building tension and actually delivering a somewhat inticing motivational copium strategy for MC - total hopelessness makes this sand box grinder even more depressing to sit through.

I disagree, it's entirely possible to continue the story with MC and/or Selene using their skills and ingenuity to overcome the challenge without some deus ex machina plot device to save the day. One of the beautiful parts of this game is that the Dev has a logical and clever plot without needing MC or his opponents to have some super-powers - it's more like a crime thriller than a Marvel comic.

 

[Cabin Fever]

I disagree, it's entirely possible to continue the story with MC and/or Selene using their skills and ingenuity to overcome the challenge without some deus ex machina plot device to save the day. One of the beautiful parts of this game is that the Dev has a logical and clever plot without needing MC or his opponents to have some super-powers - it's more like a crime thriller than a Marvel comic.

Careful now. You are using a big brain latin term that the "suspension or disbelief" types might not understand, let alone realizing that the way the story is written is actually more plausible and requires less suspension of disbelief (or for that matter, whatever "suspension or disbelief" means) than MacGyvering something useful out of all sorts of oddities. After all, Home Alone was being sited as what's possible.

 

[osanaiko]

Well AKSHUALLY, it's ancient greek, not latin

 

[Slick Bean]

This game is interesting ... plugs obvious from Alien, Passenger and A space Oddissey movies

Regarding the tech-talk. I try to keep it as high-level as possible and try to add even higher-level comparisons when he tries to explain it to Selene. I want to have this, for showing that Elios (MC) has a purpose in this story and is not just a random mc that wants to bang his way through town. And this talks and spending time together serves the purpose for them to have time to bond. They shouldn't jump to bed right after they met. Also it serves the immersion of passing time and they don't achieve everything miraculously within moments (Even if they still do this way faster than it usually would be, if even possible). At least these are some of my thoughts to this scenes.

Why, quite the opposite, dear Watson: the purpose of talking the broad to death with your psycho babble in hopes of impressing her is the trope of utter failure idiotic simp minded guys who lack the actual will, let alone any actual skill to escalate their conversations into anything intimate or even a little bit inticing for the girl to get actively invested in hanging around this much of a boring tech geek.

The concirns talked about by this player below and the responses do have a lot of cracks in the seams:
”My issues are with the story, or more precisely with the lack of choices for such an important matter as is the (in the spoilers)

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”

Thanks for the feedback as well!
This might doesn't set well with all but I'm developing this story to my liking, not as a community project. So in regards of the story, my focus is on my preferences. The reason why I don't add much choices is because I have a very clear story laid out that carries into act 2. As noted I'm not fasted in terms of developing as I do this as a hobby in my free time and branching stories would even take more time develop and bear the risk of plot holes which I try to avoid as best as possible.

The cracks in there are the facts that Selena is very much embroiled in using every asset she has, including sex, to goad MC into her plans, she has him as a tool to scratch her itch and is wildly extatic about fooling him and using him - so that bodes the question:
Why not use this vilain attribute of getting her needs met quick and with little ado?
This could be a wonderful scenarion where her making steamy long and throbbingly fantastic sex to MC would be a fabulous testament to actually living in the present and writing for the now.

 

[Ottoeight]

Well AKSHUALLY, it's ancient greek, not latin

latin: deus ex machina

greek: ἀπὸ μηχανῆς θεός

 

[Slick Bean]

Dev hypothesis:
” Regarding the tech-talk. I try to keep it as high-level as possible and try to add even higher-level comparisons when he tries to explain it”
Reality of this game:

MC swearing at the AI - so much for high level tech -talk.

MC asking non scripted questions to the AI that has only used formal jargon for querries. MC must have never played text only games.

Treating the AI as if MC was only talking to himself sure tells of his high level.

Great self coping babble directed at further alienating the AI from running any help script or debug routine for MC.

Keep hammering the gate keeper for obviously unscripted inadequate impossible answers, why don*t you!

Yeah .. that right there pretty much sums up MC skill level in this game .. wonderful!

What? The obvious fact you saw everyone else asleep in their pods right the very next moment you came to your senses?
The fact you have no skill or knowhow or any authorisation to actually do this yourself, but you keep alienating the AI?
The fact you never investigated any of your surroundings for actual clues as to your situation?

Right! Copium about totally unreasonable ploys to escape the reality that MC refuses to acknowledge:
- such strong evidence of that high level smarts of MC.

Clearly lacking basic skills at life in outer space should have been a tell tale cautionary tale, is that right! Would be really helpful to remember all those Moon landed astronauts telling of how they would constantly work on their bodies and on their life support mechanisms every awake minute to ensure further survival and always be on the lookout for the next makeshift repair to their space ship - as countless glitches and clogs and malfunctions kept endangering their lives.

Britannica explanations:
Deus ex machina, (Latin: “god from the machine”) a person or thing that appears or is introduced into a situation suddenly and unexpectedly and provides an artificial or contrived solution to an apparently insoluble difficulty.

The term was first used in ancient Greek and Roman drama, where it meant the timely appearance of a god to unravel and resolve the plot. The deus ex machina was named for the convention of the god’s appearing in the sky, an effect achieved by means of a crane (Greek: mēchanē). The dramatic device dates from the 5th century BC; a god appears in Sophocles’ Philoctetes and in most of the plays of Euripides to solve a crisis by divine intervention.

Since ancient times, the phrase has also been applied to an unexpected saviour or to an improbable event that brings order out of chaos (e.g., the arrival, in time to avert tragedy, of the U.S. cavalry in a western film).

merriam-webster:
The New Latin term deus ex machina is a translation of a Greek phrase and means literally "a god from a machine." "Machine," in this case, refers to the crane that held a god over the stage in ancient Greek and Roman drama. The practice of introducing a god at the end of a play to unravel and resolve the plot dates from at least the 5th century B.C.; Euripides (circa 484-406 B.C.) was one playwright who made frequent use of the device. Since the late 1600s, "deus ex machina" has been applied in English to unlikely saviors and improbable events that bring order out of chaos in sudden and surprising ways.

 

[Aristos]

OMG, I can't believe the things I've just been forced to read in this thread!!!

 

[Marvellous Lunatic]

Here is one idea: why not have MC get and amass all sorts of oddities then makeshift multiple weappons and go hunting for the agressors? You know...if home alone can do it multiple times in different settings, how dumb must MC be to not do it even once? Not even crossing his mind? Seriously?

They discussed assault on them multiple times but decided the risk to fail is not worth at the moment as they aren't sure about the intention of Johannes and Reddick.

Does MC stand a chance tho? Does this story even have anything to pull it through what insurmountable obstacles dev put into our path already, just to get a giggle outta dissing the players?

Literal Riddik plug means dev wrote themselves into a corner no amount of suspension or disbelief can rescue the plot outta this now. There is no point now as there is nothing for resolve to even atempt to be actually surviving ... what a total let down about building tension and actually delivering a somewhat inticing motivational copium strategy for MC - total hopelessness makes this sand box grinder even more depressing to sit through.

I'm not really sure I could follow along. Why is there nothing to resolve to survive? That's what they are trying to do... They try to play along with Johannes and Reddick while trying to figure out a safe way to deal with them without risking any lives. Why total hopeless? Selene hopes they weal either keep their word and nobody gets hurt or she hopes they can figure something out to deal with them. Elios hopes he can manage to keep everyone safe and sound.

Why, quite the opposite, dear Watson: the purpose of talking the broad to death with your psycho babble in hopes of impressing her is the trope of utter failure idiotic simp minded guys who lack the actual will, let alone any actual skill to escalate their conversations into anything intimate or even a little bit inticing for the girl to get actively invested in hanging around this much of a boring tech geek.

I never got the simp analogy in that case when they are attached to each other. Quite a lot of the evening talks are exactly targeted at this bonding factor. I guess we have a different view point on flirting or building relationships.

The cracks in there are the facts that Selena is very much embroiled in using every asset she has, including sex, to goad MC into her plans, she has him as a tool to scratch her itch and is wildly extatic about fooling him and using him - so that bodes the question:
Why not use this vilain attribute of getting her needs met quick and with little ado?
This could be a wonderful scenarion where her making steamy long and throbbingly fantastic sex to MC would be a fabulous testament to actually living in the present and writing for the now.

It's not my goal to turn Selene in a simple villain. Selene should be a character that's dealing with dilemmas just like Elios does. Selene was initially forced to bond with Elios in order to protect her sister but she took a liking in him. The dilemma is should she help Johannes and Reddick and hope they keep their word or try to stick with Elios and find a better solution.

MC swearing at the AI - so much for high level tech -talk.

With high level I meant I didn't want to go too deep into the tech talk. Maybe I didn't phrased that right or I don't get the point here.

MC asking non scripted questions to the AI that has only used formal jargon for querries. MC must have never played text only games.

In the face of the capabilities of current AI's like ChatGPT and the idea that this story plays quite a few years in the future I don't think asking formal questions is really a problem.

Great self coping babble directed at further alienating the AI from running any help script or debug routine for MC.

He asked for logs to figure out what's happening. He asked the AI to help, she can't because there are no protocols for this situation.
Initially there was even more dialog but I decided to cut it to move forward.

What? The obvious fact you saw everyone else asleep in their pods right the very next moment you came to your senses?
The fact you have no skill or knowhow or any authorisation to actually do this yourself, but you keep alienating the AI?
The fact you never investigated any of your surroundings for actual clues as to your situation?

He is wondering why the others aren't awake and immediately goes to the Information to investigate, so I don't really get that point.
I wanted Elios to be in shock, act human and not get everything right the second something appears.

Right! Copium about totally unreasonable ploys to escape the reality that MC refuses to acknowledge:
- such strong evidence of that high level smarts of MC.

I think there is a misunderstanding of my usage of the phrase "high-level". If you talk to someone about "low-level" that usually means describing implementations closer to the hardware while talking about "high-level" it usually means a simple abstract picture of the process from a user point perspective.

 

[Slick Bean]

Thank you for putting your mind and your personal iterations of how things would go in a commercial airline during a long trip around the world where our protagonist would wake up in a desolate empty compartment and play pretend talking to the AI and his immaginary girlfriend, into this game.

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[Marvellous Lunatic]

While in this game, playing, sometimes rather strange thoughts hit me:
The truth of the matter is, MC is rather a Bezos absolute uninitiated simpleton when it comes to outer space travel, as astronauts and pilots who actually do those today would atest, you have to prepare countless hours on knowing every inch of your shuttle and reading up on all sots of possible makeshift repairs on the fly should you ever hope to survive the return trip, or how things are in this game, the actual trup right to arriving at your destination.
MC never asks for directions or a map from the information desk, he does not ask for the skematics of the spaceship, does not make mental notes of where things are, he is just aimlessly wandering about the ship - is Mc supposed to know where everything is? Did MC just haphasardly happen upon the INformation desk and stumbled on the AI?

MC is not prepared to deal with any of those things, he is a newborn on this spaceship and lacks even the basic skills of propperly learning the lay out and the schematics of this ship even after he gets up.

He is not a deeply trained astronaut. He is a colonist and the spaceship is more like a commercial liner. The comparison to current astronauts is not really suitable I think. The current astronauts live in close rooms and do work on and in the ship. The most colonists on my ship don't need to operate the ship or take care of it.
Elios knows the ship and where which location is. I don't know where that aimlessly wandering around comes from. In dialogue they always go pretty straight from a to b. Only in the free roam mode where you control the path yourself you may get that feeling, but than it's yourself who is not looking at the map to be fair.

My comments were all based on what the harrative and the game shows me - as much as I could advance, because much to my dismay, MC seems able to babble on and on theorising about all the nonsensical scy fy babble he can coin, in front of a girl he wants to impress, but he is a whiny little incompetent lousy excuse of a human being in the screen shots I showed:

Getting in Selene's pants is not the first thought of his when he just found out about his situation. I said it before, I don't want him to wake up and go around all bossy. He is in distress after learning about his situation. If this makes him a whiny incompetent what-so-ever I can only smile...
If you think any regular person would instantly go full Rambo mode, than we obviously have very different views on regular human behaviour.

- MC does not even get to remember where the sleeping pod is, he does not make arrangements with the broad about where he would sleep the next night, does not ask the Ai for where to sleep, where his chambers would be, his family, nothing. MC does not even sleep on the benches that nobody uses or the places that are empty around the ship, we have to click the hours away until next morning where we can find the girl again in front of the sleeping pods.

Why does he not remember where the sleeping pod is? Where did I wrote that? Where did I wrote he does not remember where something is?
Selene made arrangements with Elios in the evening. Sleeping was just not instantly on his mind after just waking up.
He does sleep on said benches in later episodes and before that he sleeps in Selene's pod.
To advance time you can use the clock icon in the SD menu. (Described in the help tab)

MC does not talk things out with the girl like adults would, where we sleep, babe? Where you be the whole day, babe? Can I crash at yours for the next nights also? I found some restaurants and other places, do you maybe want to explore them with me? I want to penetrate this wall you keep around you where I am just lost when you dissapear and then appear outta nowhere in some places.

I'm not sure if this is troll or not. You think adults talk like that or is that sarcasm?

MC knows it is just them, there is no hopes and dreams to save them, it is actual work put together by the two of them.

I don't get what you mean here.

MC is acting all oblivious, like he does not care, but he does, he is obsessing about the only other human being around him,
should he not talk about doing stuff together? Should he not pursue a relationship with her? When she asks him ”What do you want to puncture?” MC just freezes - lost for words, actual simp kid who is caught thinking of the gutter and suddenly she just tripped him up, shge punctured his line of thought and shut him up with the simplest of questions.

I guess you mean the scene where they talk the first time about hacking.

mc "Wouldn't call it hacking... Let's call it... penetration testing on a live system?" setImage(Act1/EpisodeCanopus/MainStory/ep2_45)
sa "..." setImage(Act1/EpisodeCanopus/MainStory/ep2_29)
sa "Huh? What do you want to penetrate?" setImage(Act1/EpisodeCanopus/MainStory/ep2_32)
// Images
mc "<i>... Your sweet little..."
mc "<i>NOOOO... Bad thoughts."

That wasn't 'lost for words' that was just a comic relief. A little chuckle over a inuendo.

The fact MC gets to pass the hours of the night walking alone because he cannot interact with literally nothing for the whole night and then we have to click the hours away is breaking immersion all together. MC is not thinking - ”where am I sleeping tonight?” - we are lost waiting on our feet the whole night to go catch the girl sitting in front of the sleeping pods - like a ”fuck you looser, I am sleeping in my bed, you go be a homeless dumpsterdiver for all I care” where the hints are a joke.

You must have missed they nearly always go to bed together. The wandering around is not necessary. Like I said you can use the advance time icon. This sections are usually just between episodes where the free roam can be used to search for secrets.

That is why I cannot see her winning MC over - she is not putting in any effort, MC is doing all the summer saults to keep chatting her up about all the nonsense in the world, she keeps putting him down, dissing him, making him feel like a creep, a looser, thinking of sex - with her only line that trips MC all up - ”What do you want to puncture?”

It's called friendly banter and inuendo's. I already read that some people interpret it differently but I'm not going to change that. I like this friendly banter. If you take that as 'dissing' I don't really know what to do to push it more into the friendly-banter direction for you. I always try to add the fitting facial expressions and osanaiko is helping me with the right phrasing in a common natural English Language.

You already made her a vilain when you made MC auto chase her like a lost puppy, a beggar in the street, literally homeless, hanging on her every word, with no place to sleep, literally - that is the game choice to make MC keep going after her like she was any wiser or anything - she does not offer anything to MC, MC is left homeless and abbandoned - yet ge goes beg her for stuff and keeps pursuing her while she could not be bothered to make any effort.

She does not offer him anything? She offers him a place to sleep. She talks with him about what it's bothering him. She leads him to the class roam. She leads him to the gym and does all kind of stuff.

Making MC a horn dog talking all that ”high level” psicho babble while she keeps shutting him down, that is pure simp ”I donno how to talk to girls” nose bleed conversations.

Sure...

When the girl asks ”What do you want to puncture” - MC is already lost, tripped, shamed and locked into this idiot stance where she holds the high ground.

Misinterpretation.

Where is the humanity in that whole exercise of shitting on MC?
That whole insulting shameful disgusting monologue of her - ”I thought you were my white kinght” but you are ”just as useless as me” - after she dissapeared and MC was left homeless for a whole night.

sa "... But it looks like you're just as lost as I am."

I can't change the fact that you interpret the text differently. If you think that monologue is insulting I can't really help with that. I know I'm not the greatest writer and I don't pretend to be. But having a native English speaker (osanaiko) editing my dialogue I'm pretty confident that most people will read it the way I intended it. And what you are reading into it is not what I intended. And I still can't read that into it even if I try.

Summary
- We have very different viewpoints on how adults talk to each other.
- My writing with the intentions for friendly-banter didn't seem to get through to you which is why you may villainized Selene.
- The sleeping situation confused you. Maybe I will make adaptions to the current episode handling before releasing a final version of the first act so this won't be a problem anymore.
- I seemingly still have a very different opinion on what a 'simp' is or what 'simping' means and I personally don't see it fit here.

 

[Toni891]

It's called friendly banter and inuendo's. I already read that some people interpret it differently but I'm not going to change that. I like this friendly banter. If you take that as 'dissing' I don't really know what to do to push it more into the friendly-banter direction for you. I always try to add the fitting facial expressions and @osanaiko is helping me with the right phrasing in a common natural English Language.

Don't worry. It's absolutely great written with a nice although subtle sense of humour. Selene is making fun a lot while obviously having "issues" (I'm fairly early in the game, she's just talked to that bald guy for the second time) and I absolutely get the growing (positive) tension between her and the MC. She likes him. She teases him. It's obvious to the reader. But there are people who will always feel treaded on their toes and maybe they should stick with Chuck Norris jokes where humour doesn't need to be explicitely explained

 

[Slick Bean]

...Borealis - featuring not one, but two faces looking you dead in the eye
with a flippant bird gesture to hammer home all her points.

Thank you very much for all the clarifications.
It is a rare feat to get to talk to the author of the novels you read,
let alone the author of a very well made and quite polished Unity game.

I confess I am always lost during the free roaming segments, looking at all those places and feeling like MC is discovering them for the first time himself when we, the players, get to explore the ship looking for the cryo pods and then for Selene.

Only in the free roam mode where you control the path yourself you may get that feeling, but than it's yourself who is not looking at the map to be fair.

The GUI is quite well put together, with many features and a neat save mechanism that, coupled with the mouse usage mimicking RenPy, offers a great experience well above and beyond many other Unity games around here.


Quite a long way wayward from MArtha - the titular holy mother of both Superman and Batman.
By all the heavens, she is worth toppeling all the stars in that galaxy to feel her sweet motherly touch one more time.

 

[NebulousShooter]

All my time here and I still have the dubious pleasure in running into new types of scumbaggery like this. Knows its hated, admits its useless so far, yet paywalls the solution.