HTML Back to Freedom [v0.40] [Bald Games]
- Thread starter Bald Games
- Start date
If you tap on the tooltip (question mark), you'll see what you could have done differently. In this case, win the fight against Cheng's fighter while maintaining at least 85% of your health bar.
Choose Angel to seduce Tom on day 24 (corruption route). This will start their storyline.
But I don’t have the option to choose which girl will go. And this event is happening on day 16, not in the day 24.
Review and Brainstorming suggestions:
Okay after my first playthrough I have a couple of thoughts. Some positive some negative. Overall good story telling, model selection, and scene integration from source materials. Esthetically well put together in main game and the story does keep you engaged even with the occasional writing errors like typos grammar and rushed writing in places. I will keep checking out the updates and if they are frequent and full enough I might end up funding if it fits in my budget of already funding other creatives.
Now a few negatives is some things that would hopefully be fixable/polish-able either from the creator of via fan mods from people much more familiar with coding and sugarcube/twine than I am. For the size of the game for playthrough it doesn't have well...a lot of replay ability unless you want to sink in a lot of time for what, from scenes unlocked and talking to other players, are changes but not transformative or deep enough to justify a full playthrough. I get the sandbox is intended to get the player to explore that and whatif/bonus content that doesn't fit in the story, but the UI is clunky for that. It's both not intuitive and a large enough leap from the main games play style that it's not enjoyable and can be frustrating. It feels like going into that one friends garage where 90% of people coming won't grasp their logic of how to sort things yet that friend feels it is the most natural organization system in the world and knows where everything is and how to get, but it takes a good chunk of time working with them till you can usually find what your looking for after some false picks. The sandbox is a good attempt but it doesn't quite hit the nail on the head. So while the extra content is there and you don't have to go through a storyline you didn't chose to see it it's clunky and disjointed enough that some almost want to do that instead, but it is long enough and unclear enough what gets unlocked where in the base game without the patreon game guide and patreon unlocking cheats. And All that still might be unclear, requiring multiple lengthy playthroughs, etc. Like with any indie adult game funding production via crowdfunding there are some other minor issues that are mostly polish and review, Job done. This issue for either seeing or playing all the content in an adult VN porn game is the main one that might not get addressed in standard revisions and new content/bugfix releases and just continue to be baked harder and harder in until you can't improve this part of enjoyment of the game.
I know that might sound like I am ragging on the game, but believe me I enjoyed the game as a whole. I am just saying either improving the UI so it becomes clearer what choices you are missing out on on the playthrough and reexploration of the content after your desired play path would be the two places that could be improved on by the Developer or Mod Developers out there to vastly improve player enjoyment and avoid a negative development spiral that could get some players/patrons to stop following/funding. A fix from the developer's side (apart from reworking sandbox mode) might be to allow for more cheats and some of the guide to be backed into the current online/nonpatreon version from a certain number of versions past. Somewhat like how some crowdfunded authors will have their FF/A03/HF release of chapter after x number of new chapters have been released on the pay sites, but in this case it's not hardlocking all cheat tools for the earlier/older parts of the game. You get the taste of what they can do for you as a carrot to fund and get them to avoid the stick of not having them in the newer content. Another fix that could be from the Mods (or developers side if they want to rework sandbox from jump) could be something similar to the the mods in College Daze by G28. Basically the mod allows for a checkpoint system where you can go down a decision path click the checkpoint and go down the other path but not undoing the option flags that were "unlocked" buy this. Would this narratively make all those options unlocked make sense? No but this setup is where the player would have the most control of where things go when trying to just explore the content vs curated story so fixing pardoxes is not this playstyle intent post story game. Which is why for modders it's up to the players when it can be implemented, but if the Developer is kind and patient enough to read this far into this review/brainstorm stream of consciousness and liked the idea as a concept I would recommend it being an unlockable feature after the first playthrough like sandbox. Yes you could have a new code on patreon and such where it unlocks it from jump and include which day you want to start from etc as extra bells and whistle. But I have to admit, this functionality did have me enjoy enough that the for G28 and a couple other developers that either used it or gave kudos to the Modder who kept it up I ended up backing for a good chunk of time.
Thanks for making the game, please keep it coming and making it better each time like this one seems to keep doing. You're doing great Baldgames
Okay after my first playthrough I have a couple of thoughts. Some positive some negative. Overall good story telling, model selection, and scene integration from source materials. Esthetically well put together in main game and the story does keep you engaged even with the occasional writing errors like typos grammar and rushed writing in places. I will keep checking out the updates and if they are frequent and full enough I might end up funding if it fits in my budget of already funding other creatives.
Now a few negatives is some things that would hopefully be fixable/polish-able either from the creator of via fan mods from people much more familiar with coding and sugarcube/twine than I am. For the size of the game for playthrough it doesn't have well...a lot of replay ability unless you want to sink in a lot of time for what, from scenes unlocked and talking to other players, are changes but not transformative or deep enough to justify a full playthrough. I get the sandbox is intended to get the player to explore that and whatif/bonus content that doesn't fit in the story, but the UI is clunky for that. It's both not intuitive and a large enough leap from the main games play style that it's not enjoyable and can be frustrating. It feels like going into that one friends garage where 90% of people coming won't grasp their logic of how to sort things yet that friend feels it is the most natural organization system in the world and knows where everything is and how to get, but it takes a good chunk of time working with them till you can usually find what your looking for after some false picks. The sandbox is a good attempt but it doesn't quite hit the nail on the head. So while the extra content is there and you don't have to go through a storyline you didn't chose to see it it's clunky and disjointed enough that some almost want to do that instead, but it is long enough and unclear enough what gets unlocked where in the base game without the patreon game guide and patreon unlocking cheats. And All that still might be unclear, requiring multiple lengthy playthroughs, etc. Like with any indie adult game funding production via crowdfunding there are some other minor issues that are mostly polish and review, Job done. This issue for either seeing or playing all the content in an adult VN porn game is the main one that might not get addressed in standard revisions and new content/bugfix releases and just continue to be baked harder and harder in until you can't improve this part of enjoyment of the game.
I know that might sound like I am ragging on the game, but believe me I enjoyed the game as a whole. I am just saying either improving the UI so it becomes clearer what choices you are missing out on on the playthrough and reexploration of the content after your desired play path would be the two places that could be improved on by the Developer or Mod Developers out there to vastly improve player enjoyment and avoid a negative development spiral that could get some players/patrons to stop following/funding. A fix from the developer's side (apart from reworking sandbox mode) might be to allow for more cheats and some of the guide to be backed into the current online/nonpatreon version from a certain number of versions past. Somewhat like how some crowdfunded authors will have their FF/A03/HF release of chapter after x number of new chapters have been released on the pay sites, but in this case it's not hardlocking all cheat tools for the earlier/older parts of the game. You get the taste of what they can do for you as a carrot to fund and get them to avoid the stick of not having them in the newer content. Another fix that could be from the Mods (or developers side if they want to rework sandbox from jump) could be something similar to the the mods in College Daze by G28. Basically the mod allows for a checkpoint system where you can go down a decision path click the checkpoint and go down the other path but not undoing the option flags that were "unlocked" buy this. Would this narratively make all those options unlocked make sense? No but this setup is where the player would have the most control of where things go when trying to just explore the content vs curated story so fixing pardoxes is not this playstyle intent post story game. Which is why for modders it's up to the players when it can be implemented, but if the Developer is kind and patient enough to read this far into this review/brainstorm stream of consciousness and liked the idea as a concept I would recommend it being an unlockable feature after the first playthrough like sandbox. Yes you could have a new code on patreon and such where it unlocks it from jump and include which day you want to start from etc as extra bells and whistle. But I have to admit, this functionality did have me enjoy enough that the for G28 and a couple other developers that either used it or gave kudos to the Modder who kept it up I ended up backing for a good chunk of time.
Thanks for making the game, please keep it coming and making it better each time like this one seems to keep doing. You're doing great Baldgames
Hello. Thank you for the long comment and your suggestions, even though I don't agree with all of them.
The sandbox mode has already been reworked and greatly improved compared to its previous versions, and I have no intention of reworking it further. I'm sorry your experience with the sandbox wasn't positive, but without more details on where it could be improved and why you found it unintuitive, it's difficult to make improvements.
You have a link to the map, one to find out where to locate each character at the current day and time, as well as the stats window, just like in story mode, plus the phone and inventory. I don't see how it could be simpler than that, considering that the sandbox mode doesn't require grinding to unlock scenes like in most games of this kind.
Regarding the checkpoint system, some players have already asked for it, but, as I expected (and you confirmed), it generates numerous inconsistencies in the story, which is why I discarded it.
What I intend to do before the final version to improve this aspect of the game is to include, before important choices, what their future consequences will be, although this may be a spoiler and some players may not like it, but I will find a way to let the player choose whether or not they want to see the repercussions of some choices in advance. I hope this helps improve the game's experience after restarting.
That said, I have no plans to include anything that alters the game's multiple-playthrough nature. I know this type of game isn't for everyone. While some love seeing that their choices matter and impact the story, others would prefer a kinetic novel where you can see all the content in a single playthrough. Unfortunately, I can't please everyone. Hope you understand.
Have a nice day.