Marvellous Lunatic

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Mar 22, 2018
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Hotfix-Release: A Long Journey - Betelgeuse [Build 0.2.1]

- fixed exception when loading save file while in choice screen
- fixed secret leftovers from test version


 

osanaiko

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Jul 4, 2017
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I hate counting dream/flash backs sex as vaginal sex tag.
Are you concerned the MC is cucking himself in his memories? How can memory sex be real if our eyes aren't real? Maybe you can tell us some other things you hate...
 
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Almighty

Engaged Member
Jan 27, 2017
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Are you concerned the MC is cucking himself in his memories? How can memory sex be real if our eyes aren't real? Maybe you can tell us some other things you hate...
Since you getting all mad. When I see vaginal sex tag I expect to see it with the current cast. Not in some dream/flash back. Maybe you one of them people who hate cucking or w/e. If you love seeing a MC jacking off more power to you.
 

Marvellous Lunatic

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Mar 22, 2018
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Well, that escalated quickly.
Almighty I see where you come from, but I think it is still content of the game, even if it's "just" a memory it still has really happened to him. To distinguish those scenarios from another we would need more specific tags which would make the search more confusing in my opinion. I can't speak for others, but for me it doesn't matter if certain tags only happen in the present or in the past, or maybe in the future as vision. To me this is still content as it is.
No offense here. Like I said, I can see your point, I just think differently.
If this is truly bothering you, maybe a mod should address this then.
 
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aaa90

New Member
May 4, 2017
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To the Dev, just want to say that this game is looking fantastic from first impressions. Enough that I rarely post on here and felt the need to give you some kind words. You'll likely encounter a lot of negativity along the way, please don't let it get to you. Just take the good criticism and do the best that you can. Good luck.
 

Hornyowl

Active Member
Jun 4, 2020
712
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I do hope i get the sandbox part right. But I want this challenge and most for I want the freedom to move around.

What do you mind about Unity? I tried to replicate the comfort functions of renpy like rollback, save and load handling, gallery, ... while having the freedom to do more in Unity.


A left-over from the test version. My bad. Thanks for posting! Will fix that.
Its generally slow...well slower than other engines and, in my experience with other Unity games, a greater chance that the code bugs. I've had two (different devs) do something similar to what Amazon's New World Game recently started doing (maxing fps and power). Animations are generally good, but in this case they were sticking after adjusting playback speed. Also when scanning (oogling) the NPC's body using the little icon on the lower right, it sticks (I won't say freeze because you can continue oogling the NPC), in that Enter doesn't advance anything and neither does mouse clicks. Oddly enough even though animations are good, the actual body graphics/renders (in all Unity games I've played) aren't visually appealing. In this particular case as well, the Character Config doesn't really work. Isn't it supposed to allow me to change relationships or names?

EDIT: The map animations also stick.
 
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Marvellous Lunatic

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Game Developer
Mar 22, 2018
297
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Its generally slow...well slower than other engines and, in my experience with other Unity games, a greater chance that the code bugs. I've had two (different devs) do something similar to what Amazon's New World Game recently started doing (maxing fps and power). Animations are generally good, but in this case they were sticking after adjusting playback speed. Also when scanning (oogling) the NPC's body using the little icon on the lower right, it sticks (I won't say freeze because you can continue oogling the NPC), in that Enter doesn't advance anything and neither does mouse clicks. Oddly enough even though animations are good, the actual body graphics/renders (in all Unity games I've played) aren't visually appealing. In this particular case as well, the Character Config doesn't really work. Isn't it supposed to allow me to change relationships or names?

EDIT: The map animations also stick.
Regarding bugs, that might be true. As I didn't use a Framework like renpy I had more implementation to do on my own which could lead to more bugs. However, I knew that from the beginning, but I wanted to build my own framework.

Regarding speed. Can't really say something about that. I played renpy games where I had longer waiting times at the beginning or longer waiting times before playing animations. Not sure where the differences lie here.

I think Unity has VSync enabled by default. I actually was thinking about adding an option the max FPS, but I wanted to wait for complains if it is really necessary. This just maybe the case now.
By sticking you mean stuttering or jumping? I noticed this as well in the editor but not in the build. In this case it's a known Unity-Issue. The PC can't decode fast enough to allow higher playback speed and Unity doesn't handle that very well. I have an eye on that Issue and see if they fix it or if I come across a workaround. I could implement a slightly different handling where I wont offer a slider but predefined values like other games have. However, I wanted to have the slider as I think it's a nice little feature.

About the vertical scroll images (ogling/scanning) I didn't have any issues. Not sure if I understand you right here. If you mouse-click, skip (left or right control) somewhere in the image while it's still auto moving or after finish it should advance the dialogue. If you you want to roll-back-scroll or advance-dialogue-scroll and not just scroll in the image you have to move the mouse over something that isn't a scroll-able area, like the dialog box or the SD button. Not the best user experience, but I haven't found a better solution yet.
It will auto-scroll until it reaches the top once. So, if you scroll down while in this auto-scroll mode it will continue to scroll up automatically.
Maybe this is a decoding Problem as well, because those pictures have a higher resolution.
And "enter" never advances in-game dialogues. It only accepts modal dialogues. I guess you meant control, maybe?

Regarding graphics. Maybe I didn't understand you on this point. But the graphics / character models in such visual novels / kinetic novels / sandbox-type games have nothing to do with the engine, at least not in this case. They are just static images that are loaded, not real-time rendered 3D graphics.

Regarding the character configuration. I need to make it a bit more user friendly even if it's mentioned in the help tab. However a help should never be necessary, so i have to implement a more user friendly experience. That's already on my to-do list.
If you want to change something you need to create a new config by clicking the plus icon. It duplicates the default config, which is not editable as it is used as template. The newly created can be edited. Just don't forget to save.
To make it more user friendly in the future I will hide the default config and will make a custom copy right at the first start. This way you can edit right away and I will try to implement save on change, so there won't be a need for a save button.

If the map animation is jumping as well this seems to be a decoding issue. It's a 24fps full hd webm animation. I'm wondering here. If this is stuttering why not the other animations on default playback speed that have 30 or even 45 fps. I will see if I can optimize there something.

I'm not sure if this isn't mostly about hardware specs. Currently I don't have an workflow in mind to have a version with smaller images and movies that probably would work better on a little older hardware. Need to think about it.

Being fair, I once had a similar few on Unity games. But especially for Unity I think that it's most about the implementation itself. Renpy offers a solid framework out of the box, but as I didn't have any experience in python but c# I just went with Unity. And there are good Unity games, "Timestamps - Lost Love" with it's own framework VNEngine, at least in my opinion.

I try to improve my framework, but I wont migrate to renpy. I put quite a lot of effort into this framework and I think it comes along. There are obviously still issues and I will try to fix them.
 
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Gamer_01

Member
Dec 16, 2019
202
85
Marvellous Lunatic, I have encountered these issues in V0.2.1 (Windows)
When I load a save from version 0.1 I am able to visit most of the accessible rooms but, I get the following errors/problems:
=> Hint function does not work. (webp.dll)
=> Task function does not work. (webp.dll)
=> Inevitably come across a glitch trying to enter a room. (This happens with at least 2, could be more.)
=> On top of these, for some reason, it seems to think that I haven't gone through the intro. (I completed all of V0.1. (None of which it seems to remember.))

When I start a new game it won't let me continue past the intro animation. Every time I try advancing the scene, it gives me an error referring to webp.dll.
 

Cendash

Newbie
May 30, 2021
35
25
From the banner, a harmless looking MC and 2 beard male(1 with tattoo)..th-there won't any NTR RIGHT?!
Thanks a lot buddy! I sprayed coffee on my keyboard. This was suddenly hilarious when I read it.
NTR ain't my thing, but the fear it causes players is usually hilarious.

The actual NTR will be when the two angry dudes wake up to the handsome MC already banging their wives all over the spaceship. Their beards (like most beards) are to catch their cuckoldy tears.
 

osanaiko

Engaged Member
Modder
Jul 4, 2017
2,208
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Marvellous Lunatic, I have encountered these issues in V0.2.1 (Windows)
When I load a save from version 0.1 I am able to visit most of the accessible rooms but, I get the following errors/problems:
=> Hint function does not work. (webp.dll)
=> Task function does not work. (webp.dll)
=> Inevitably come across a glitch trying to enter a room. (This happens with at least 2, could be more.)
=> On top of these, for some reason, it seems to think that I haven't gone through the intro. (I completed all of V0.1. (None of which it seems to remember.))

When I start a new game it won't let me continue past the intro animation. Every time I try advancing the scene, it gives me an error referring to webp.dll.
(Note: I'm not the developer) Sounds like the installation itself is broken somehow. For the record, I've played every version so far (including non-public pre-releases) and not seen any issue like that. I always extract new versions to new folders however.

Do you have the following folder: "<game root>\A Long Journey_Data\Plugins\x86_64" ? It should have the libwebp.dll and related files in it.

What windows version are you playing on?
 

osanaiko

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Modder
Jul 4, 2017
2,208
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woah it's the exact same plot as this movie with chris pratt
Yeah, the dev has stated that the movie "Passengers" is one of the inspirations, but I feel like the story takes a similar start and then heads off in a new direction.
There's a lot of different things going on in the plot and I think everyone is going to enjoy the next episodes.
 
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Marvellous Lunatic

Member
Game Developer
Mar 22, 2018
297
1,861
I'm trying to resolve the issue Gamer_01 has posted. As I already feared this could be a more complex issue to discuss I took that conversation to private messages to not spam the thread.

But maybe a summery here:
- dll files are in place
- system and hardware are 64 bit
- Unity throws "DllNotFoundException: libwebp" even if it's in the file-system
- tried to copie dll files next to executable

The load issues where resolved by deleting the old save files from tech-demo.

I'll keep investigation this Issue. My best guess at the moment is that something is blocking the dll read operations but I keep searching.
 

osanaiko

Engaged Member
Modder
Jul 4, 2017
2,208
3,707
Regarding "Netorare", for the record the dev @MarvellousLunatic has stated:

- there is no NTR in the game
- he does not like NTR
- even if the story development leads to a possible route where it makes sense to have something like that, it would never be unavoidable.

So it looks like our "beardy duo" will just have to become "good friends". Roommates. On-board buddies. Lifelong companions. Fans of musicals. Friends of Dorothy. Never married. Confirmed Bachelors.

Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge, say no more.

;););)
 

Hornyowl

Active Member
Jun 4, 2020
712
639
Regarding bugs, that might be true. As I didn't use a Framework like renpy I had more implementation to do on my own which could lead to more bugs. However, I knew that from the beginning, but I wanted to build my own framework.

Regarding speed. Can't really say something about that. I played renpy games where I had longer waiting times at the beginning or longer waiting times before playing animations. Not sure where the differences lie here.

I think Unity has VSync enabled by default. I actually was thinking about adding an option the max FPS, but I wanted to wait for complains if it is really necessary. This just maybe the case now.
By sticking you mean stuttering or jumping? I noticed this as well in the editor but not in the build. In this case it's a known Unity-Issue. The PC can't decode fast enough to allow higher playback speed and Unity doesn't handle that very well. I have an eye on that Issue and see if they fix it or if I come across a workaround. I could implement a slightly different handling where I wont offer a slider but predefined values like other games have. However, I wanted to have the slider as I think it's a nice little feature.

About the vertical scroll images (ogling/scanning) I didn't have any issues. Not sure if I understand you right here. If you mouse-click, skip (left or right control) somewhere in the image while it's still auto moving or after finish it should advance the dialogue. If you you want to roll-back-scroll or advance-dialogue-scroll and not just scroll in the image you have to move the mouse over something that isn't a scroll-able area, like the dialog box or the SD button. Not the best user experience, but I haven't found a better solution yet.
It will auto-scroll until it reaches the top once. So, if you scroll down while in this auto-scroll mode it will continue to scroll up automatically.
Maybe this is a decoding Problem as well, because those pictures have a higher resolution.
And "enter" never advances in-game dialogues. It only accepts modal dialogues. I guess you meant control, maybe?

Regarding graphics. Maybe I didn't understand you on this point. But the graphics / character models in such visual novels / kinetic novels / sandbox-type games have nothing to do with the engine, at least not in this case. They are just static images that are loaded, not real-time rendered 3D graphics.

Regarding the character configuration. I need to make it a bit more user friendly even if it's mentioned in the help tab. However a help should never be necessary, so i have to implement a more user friendly experience. That's already on my to-do list.
If you want to change something you need to create a new config by clicking the plus icon. It duplicates the default config, which is not editable as it is used as template. The newly created can be edited. Just don't forget to save.
To make it more user friendly in the future I will hide the default config and will make a custom copy right at the first start. This way you can edit right away and I will try to implement save on change, so there won't be a need for a save button.

If the map animation is jumping as well this seems to be a decoding issue. It's a 24fps full hd webm animation. I'm wondering here. If this is stuttering why not the other animations on default playback speed that have 30 or even 45 fps. I will see if I can optimize there something.

I'm not sure if this isn't mostly about hardware specs. Currently I don't have an workflow in mind to have a version with smaller images and movies that probably would work better on a little older hardware. Need to think about it.

Being fair, I once had a similar few on Unity games. But especially for Unity I think that it's most about the implementation itself. Renpy offers a solid framework out of the box, but as I didn't have any experience in python but c# I just went with Unity. And there are good Unity games, "Timestamps - Lost Love" with it's own framework VNEngine, at least in my opinion.

I try to improve my framework, but I wont migrate to renpy. I put quite a lot of effort into this framework and I think it comes along. There are obviously still issues and I will try to fix them.
Thank you for the detailed reply dev...kudos to you for that and much appreciated. I understand what you are saying about building your framework and I don't think you should migrate to Ren'Py if you don't want to. N engine is perfect and you seem to know what you want to achieve with this one. Go for it!

As far as the vertical scroll images are concerned...the game auto scrolls once then stops. The player (me) can use the image to redo the scroll or view different parts of the body if you wish. After this is done the game 'sticks'. Mouse clicks will not advance the dialogue. (And "enter" did work for me in advancing dialogue.) As I said, it does not freeze, since I can go back and scroll over the body again...but that's all I can do until the engine sorts itself out...hence my first comment that it is slow.

I mostly play Ren'Py and all of them are faster than this.

As far as the renders are concerned, it is something I have noticed on the Unity games I have played, thus I assumed it had to do with the display code itself. In the game, Pia's eyes looked like she walked through some nettles that left a network of red scars. And the other girl (can't remember her name)...the freckles were too prominent, bordering on being discoloured. I have seen similar patches of discolouration in other Unity games, but never in Ren'Py games, which lead to my comment.

And a suggestion, currently you have three/four ways to navigate the ship and they overlap (map, clickable zones, train, and side bar). This could get a bit confusing. Maybe remove one?
 
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