Unity A Long Journey [v0.9.4] [Marvellous Lunatic]

[Majere40]

I would like too, but I don't have a MAC to debug what the issue is with my current implementation. I want to give the android-build another go soon. I hope if I fix the issues with that build that it might resolve the issues with mac too, as long as the issue are just 'path-related' in some way. However, sadly I can't promise anything yet. But I haven't forgotten or dismissed mac and android user.

No problem, man. Take your time.

 

[Tikita]

Nice beginning ! The art, characters, and premises of the story are great.

I know it's an early stage but I wish there were more witty exchanges/scenes in the little routine the protagonists set for themselves. It might feel a little empty sometimes between waking up, walking, working, eating, working again, etc... But I know you need to really feel in control and comfortable with your story when writing those for them to truly mather, so no stress about it. The mini-games are definitely very easy to handle but I hope it doesn't take too much time from the actual development of the story. I prefer extended plots over more complex mechanics.

One thing I'm a bit afraid of is the free-roaming system which can feel like breaking the flow of the story, especially when combined with using a time schedule to reach an objective (for example at the very beginning when you need to find Selene between 8 and 10 am while getting used to moving around the place). This might put off plenty of people especially so early in the story.

I look forward to more tension also, this first part is focusing on two people learning about each other and how to behave together which is alright for a beginning. Can't wait to see how you're gonna raise the stakes from now on, so we can be more implicated in whatever is going on.

I don't understand why the game is receiving such a low level of support from Patreon considering how much passion you can feel through the art but there is definitely a crowd for well-written sci-fi out there. Now there is an actual sex scene maybe consider doing a cross-promotion with some other well-known projects so you can harness more financial support ?

All in all, I'll be watching your progress with great pleasure. Thank you for your work!

 

[Hildegardt]

Well, we can only guess, now. Anyway, I think our best clues are the first animated scene and Selene's reaction when they watch the recorded black hole scene in the observatory.

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The scene with the black hole seems to contain a misconception about gravity. It's the same for every object in space, so it's not like the black hole would suck them in any more than any other large object. To get trapped they would have to come as close as the Schwarzschild radius and I don't think they could ever make it that far seeing as the black hole is activ with an accretion disk that's radiating something fierce.
I hope there's no misconception about sucking black holes in the story and then the slingshot maneuver Raziel_8 suggested makes the most sense imo. It's a chance for them to change course for a planet that's close enough to reach alive without cryo sleep.

 

[Raziel_8]

Well, we can only guess, now. Anyway, I think our best clues are the first animated scene and Selene's reaction when they watch the recorded black hole scene in the observatory.

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[SHER!FF]

Hey folks. Had to clean reinstall windersOS after nvidia killed everything and lost my save. I looked, but couldn't find one. Help a brother out? Thanks in advance.

 

[Hornyowl]

Hornyowl said:
I am getting a CTD at the Breach mini-game after about 4 or 5 failed attempts. There was brief splash screen with something about a log but it happened too fast for me to click it. Now I have to start the whole thing over.

Sorry to hear. I've never experienced a crash to desktop. Mhmm. If it should happen again, could you send me the log-file? Unity automatically creates one at this position: %userprofile%\appdata\locallow\Marvellous Lunatic\A Long Journey\Player.log (File is only for the last session)

The log (as a .txt file) is attached as per request. It was very annoying so I didn't play again after the initial crash. This would be the log which was generated from that. View attachment Player.log.txt

 

[Marvellous Lunatic]

Nice beginning ! The art, characters, and premises of the story are great.

I know it's an early stage but I wish there were more witty exchanges/scenes in the little routine the protagonists set for themselves. It might feel a little empty sometimes between waking up, walking, working, eating, working again, etc... But I know you need to really feel in control and comfortable with your story when writing those for them to truly mather, so no stress about it. The mini-games are definitely very easy to handle but I hope it doesn't take too much time from the actual development of the story. I prefer extended plots over more complex mechanics.

One thing I'm a bit afraid of is the free-roaming system which can feel like breaking the flow of the story, especially when combined with using a time schedule to reach an objective (for example at the very beginning when you need to find Selene between 8 and 10 am while getting used to moving around the place). This might put off plenty of people especially so early in the story.

I look forward to more tension also, this first part is focusing on two people learning about each other and how to behave together which is alright for a beginning. Can't wait to see how you're gonna raise the stakes from now on, so we can be more implicated in whatever is going on.

I don't understand why the game is receiving such a low level of support from Patreon considering how much passion you can feel through the art but there is definitely a crowd for well-written sci-fi out there. Now there is an actual sex scene maybe consider doing a cross-promotion with some other well-known projects so you can harness more financial support ?

All in all, I'll be watching your progress with great pleasure. Thank you for your work!

I know the start of the last episode was pretty slow and a lot of time skipping but it should serve the purpose to make the player recognize that time is passing and MC is spending time with SA and they are getting closer. If I would add more dialogue I fear I would slow the story down too much. Also, the time between updates would increase even more... Sadly I have to cut corners here and there.

The free roam has quite a few intentions. The major point is, with act 2, when more characters are introduced I want to go a little bit more in a sandbox style and let the player choose what he wants to do next or which character paths he want to follow. At least this was my initial intention. Before it comes up again. There won't be any major repetitive grind.
Second, I want the player to feel that he is on a big ship and it's empty. It should add to the immersion of the story.
Third, I wanted to have secrets and I planed to add some exploration and a little bit more complicated secrets.
Another reason it is in. I implemented it before creating the first act and why should I hide it till it actually will be a major role. By the time I would actually switch, I guess more players would be annoyed. This way they have to get used to it right from the beginning.
In regards to people missing the triggers because they were exploring or searching for the secrets the hints, help and toasts have been introduced. I'm trying to offer as much help as I can. I could scratch the time dependent trigger, but this would be weird with the time jumping back or forth.

In regarding of 'less support'. I'm not much of a marketing guy or someone who spams. I don't like that. Cross-Promotion has it's downsides... I would have to spend time to get to know the other game / developer and see if I can relate to them and if I want to be recognized with them. That's time I don't want to spend at the moment.
I'm not depending on the money, that's why I don't push or beg people to join my Patreon. They can join if they like my content and when they want to support me. I have a job that's paying okay for where I live, maybe not the most fulfilling but for balance I have this project as my hobby. I have fun creating it... (If the render engine isn't fucking with me again... Looking at you Otoy...)
Another thing... I don't offer much on Patreon at the moment other than the game, 4K render rewards, a build with cheats, or minor polls and some other smaller things.
I won't do major polls about story or main-characters as I want to do it my way. Another reason why I don't really like to work with others... However, in regards to this... I had a huge struggle to decide whether I want to have an editor or not... In the end I'm very happy to have osanaiko doing the editing who does the heavy lifting on the refinement on the language of the dialogues.

Hey folks. Had to clean reinstall windersOS after nvidia killed everything and lost my save. I looked, but couldn't find one. Help a brother out? Thanks in advance.

From which point you want to start? But tbh, it probably will be faster if you just skip till the point you where left off.

The log (as a .txt file) is attached as per request. It was very annoying so I didn't play again after the initial crash. This would be the log which was generated from that. View attachment 1715877

This bug is known already. At some occasions my string-formatter fails and when reviewing the code again I saw I made a few mistakes there. However, I replaced it with a default formatter in the next build, so it will be fixed with the next build. Sorry for the inconvenience.

 

[SHER!FF]

I know the start of the last episode was pretty slow and a lot of time skipping but it should serve the purpose to make the player recognize that time is passing and MC is spending time with SA and they are getting closer. If I would add more dialogue I fear I would slow the story down too much. Also, the time between updates would increase even more... Sadly I have to cut corners here and there.

The free roam has quite a few intentions. The major point is, with act 2, when more characters are introduced I want to go a little bit more in a sandbox style and let the player choose what he wants to do next or which character paths he want to follow. At least this was my initial intention. Before it comes up again. There won't be any major repetitive grind.
Second, I want to play to feel that he is on a big ship and it's empty. It should add to the immersion of the story.
Third, I wanted to have secrets and I planed to add some exploration and a little bit more complicated secrets.
Another reason it is in. I implemented it before creating the first act and why should I hide it till it actually will be a major role. By the time I would actually switch, I guess more players would be annoyed. This way they have to get used to it right from the beginning.
In regards to people missing the triggers because they were exploring or searching for the secrets the hints, help and toasts have been introduced. I'm trying to offer as much help as I can. I could scratch the time dependent trigger, but this would be weird with the time jumping back or forth.

In regarding of 'less support'. I'm not much of a marketing guy or someone who spams. I don't like that. Cross-Promotion has it's downsides... I would have to spend time to get to know the other game / developer and see if I can relate to them and if I want to be recognized with them. That's time I don't want to spend at the moment.
I'm not depending on the money, that's why I don't push or beg people to join my Patreon. They can join if they like my content and when they want to support me. I have a job that's paying enough, maybe not the most fulfilling but that's why I have this project as my hobby. I have fun creating it... (If the render engine isn't fucking with me again... Looking at you Otoy...)
Another thing... I don't offer much on Patreon at the moment other than the game, 4K render rewards, a build with cheats, or minor polls and some other smaller things.
I won't do major polls about story or main-characters as I want to do it my way. Another reason why I don't really like to work with others... However, in regards to this... I had a huge struggle to decide whether I want to have an editor or not... In the end I'm very happy to have osanaiko doing the editing who does the heavy lifting on the refinement on the language of the dialogues.


From which point you want to start? But tbh, it probably will be faster if you just skip till the point you where left off.


This bug is known already. At some occasions my string-formatter fails and when reviewing the code again I saw I made a few mistakes there. However, I replaced it with a default formatter in the next build, so it will be fixed with the next build. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Marvellous Lunatic I meant end of last update.

 

[Marvellous Lunatic]

Marvellous Lunatic I meant end of last update.

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There you go. Everything unlocked. Extract in %userprofile%\appdata\locallow\Marvellous Lunatic\

On a side note... Well, I have to change my save-file handling. The preview images don't need to be hd... Another thing for my to-do list.

 

[Dan2hot]

I like the game nice story, renders etc. but the mini games for me are frustrating, example the hacking the text is so small its almost unreadable, (32" screen) and the night club dj setup the flashing buttons is totally out of sync. The buttons light but also light when you hover over so I couldn't tell how many times it flashed! a simple idea would be have the button flash and change to red for example once hovered over (I thought maybe its just me but im not the only one reading comments) seriously I gave up ! good to the dev with game anyway

 

[Marvellous Lunatic]

I like the game nice story, renders etc. but the mini games for me are frustrating, example the hacking the text is so small its almost unreadable, (32" screen) and the night club dj setup the flashing buttons is totally out of sync. The buttons light but also light when you hover over so I couldn't tell how many times it flashed! a simple idea would be have the button flash and change to red for example once hovered over (I thought maybe its just me but im not the only one reading comments) seriously I gave up ! good to the dev with game anyway

For the hacking game, do not try to read the code line by line. This is a pattern recognition game. Every code-segment is different to another in structure and coloring. I could stylize the code to be not readable at all, but I decided against it in favor to add some jokes in case someone actually tries to read it. When I developed the mini-game I didn't expect the players to read the segments at all and they would focus on pattern recognition right away or at least after a failed attempt. I have to that admit this was probably a wrong assumption on my side.

For the dj game. The input is disabled while flashing sequence. However, you are right about the coloring. I just realized I forgot to change the color for the flashing lights. The code for the game was designed for this, I really just forgot to change the color.
Will be fixed in the next build.

I'll add another section to the help for a little more explanation on the mini-games.

 

[Ottoeight]

For the hacking game, do not try to read the code line by line. This is a pattern recognition game. Every code-segment is different to another in structure and coloring. I could stylize the code to be not readable at all, but I decided against it in favor to add some jokes in case someone actually tries to read it. When I developed the mini-game I didn't expect the players to read the segments at all and they would focus on pattern recognition right away or at least after a failed attempt. I have to that admit this was probably a wrong assumption on my side.

My 2 cents:

Just remember what statistical science says: you can bet that lots of people played it, and you can bet that a significant part focused on pattern recognition right way; a large part did it after a couple of failed attemps; a tiny part kept failing and quit; a tiny fraction kept failing, quit, then came here and complained.

Remember what life is constantly reminding you: you cannot please everybody.

 

[osanaiko]

For the hacking game, do not try to read the code line by line. This is a pattern recognition game. Every code-segment is different to another in structure and coloring. I could stylize the code to be not readable at all, but I decided against it in favor to add some jokes in case someone actually tries to read it. When I developed the mini-game I didn't expect the players to read the segments at all and they would focus on pattern recognition right away or at least after a failed attempt. I have to that admit this was probably a wrong assumption on my side.

I was aware of the hacking game as I had the chance to play it several weeks ago during the development phase. Marvellous Lunatic and I did discuss it, but in the end it was accepted.

As I am a software developer I found it challenging because I *did* try to read the code... because I do that all day for my $$$job!! Of course, that doesn't work because of the time limits. (there are a few good programmer jokes in there too )

It took me several attempts to realise I needed to un-focus my eyes and just look at the shape and colors. Perhaps this is part of the difficulty some players have.

Anyway, I'm sure that the developer has taken the feedback and will change things up (make it skippable after a failure perhaps?) in the next release.

 

[Marvellous Lunatic]

My 2 cents:

Just remember what statistical science says: you can bet that lots of people played it, and you can bet that a significant part focused on pattern recognition right way; a large part did it after a couple of failed attemps; a tiny part kept failing and quit; a tiny fraction kept failing, quit, then came here and complained.

Remember what life is constantly reminding you: you cannot please everybody.

That may be right. However, if there are 'complains', never the less they are rare or presented vocal, they still might be an opportunity to improve the design even if many people wouldn't have recognized it as an issue.

And in terms of statistics. I don't have any statistics... I'm not pulling any data from players, so I don't know if the people who downloaded it just quit when facing issues and put it down silent or actual expressed there experience in this thread or on my discord.
So if there are complains or even multiple complains here, there probably is a much bigger audience who were facing the same issues, but choose to not complain about it anywhere.

Anyway, if there are vocal, or vulgar complaints, I just ignore those parts and try to focus on if there are valid complaints / improvement tips behind it.
So therefor I'm alright with any kind of criticism, even if they are negative but constructive.

 

[Raziel_8]

As one of those who also had problems with the breach minigame (and complained here) i think it would be rather easy to improve it.
Maybe give a hint after a couple of fails, like ''this ia a pattern recognition game, don't focus on the text'' because as soon u realize that it's easy, even more easy when u realize u just need to read the last line.

I can't even say why that didn't occur to me earlier, because normaly i have no problem with that, but here i was for some reason dead set on focusing on the text...

I think giving the option to skip minigames or maybe just deactivate them completely in the options is always a plus.

 

[Astravanger]

It's really weird that you people have hard time clearing the code minigames.
I honestly found then funny, if not for the time constraint I would actually love to read them more as they are really funny kind of bloopers.
"In this part of code MC decides if he's being naughty" and among those things of comment sections and then the code xD

GG dev, well played.

Awfully short game tho. Honestly is passable on a single breath as plot for now is quite neat imho, but I'm not really a huge pro on plot unravelment, still, to me it's quite decent. Some secrets are a bit on the hard side, I still am a bit lost on "concentrate on the stars" and "behind the bench" secrets but oh well.

The supposedly main villain is, well, main villan-y. Real easy to start hating the guy, now to give him some conviction, a proper non-bonkers plan and a lick of sense and the guy is set.

 

[BGRW2020]

minigames crap - why can;t they be bypassed - not a programmer thus it means nothing to me but bor

That may be right. However, if there are 'complains', never the less they are rare or presented vocal, they still might be an opportunity to improve the design even if many people wouldn't have recognized it as an issue.

And in terms of statistics. I don't have any statistics... I'm not pulling any data from players, so I don't know if the people who downloaded it just quit when facing issues and put it down silent or actual expressed there experience in this thread or on my discord.
So if there are complains or even multiple complains here, there probably is a much bigger audience who were facing the same issues, but choose to not complain about it anywhere.

Anyway, if there are vocal, or vulgar complaints, I just ignore those parts and try to focus on if there are valid complaints / improvement tips behind it.
So therefor I'm alright with any kind of criticism, even if they are negative but constructive.

You want to improve it - then give people that hate these mingames a way out of them - either after two fails it auto passes or a n option to completely avoid them

 

[cat2311]

I cant dj minigame ... how can ı ?

 

[Marvellous Lunatic]

I cant dj minigame ... how can ı ?

Maybe, try to move the mouse away from a trigger after a click. The sequence will be the same like the round before but will increase by one additional button each round, like:
first round: Button A flashing
click A
second round: Button A flashing -> Button D flashing
click A then D
third round: Button A flashing -> Button D flashing -> Button B flashing
click A then D then B
and so on...
Kinda like the simon says task in among us:

Spoiler: Among Us - Simon says

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[osanaiko]

Here's the origin of the "Simon" game:

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I remember playing with one of these at a friend's house in the mid 80s.

Get off my lawn!