Unreal Engine Breeders of the Nephelym [v0.761.53] [DerelictHelmsman]

[aspar4gus]

You are a bit wrong about this as most of the porn games with beating stuff/arcade style, you should lose to see hot stuff.

Breeding games should have some grinding if you ask me as the goal is to get the best breed with time. Do you play Botn for animations? Maybe at first but if you play it to breed you nearly always skip the animations.

Haha yeah, i know i worded it badly, it was just my knee-jerk reaction after reading all the DS comparison comments

 

[Downloadgamer1]

Hey,
I just got back to playing the game and I have a two questions:
1. Where is the cheat code menu
2. Is there a way to disable all males. (I only want female and futa)

 

[Squark ⚧❤️]

Hey,
I just got back to playing the game and I have a two questions:
1. Where is the cheat code menu
2. Is there a way to disable all males. (I only want female and futa)

1: From what I hear, your keyboard must be set to US English Layout. It's either the Tilde(~) or Grave Accent (`) key.
2: Yes. From the Main Menu, go into the Settings. It's in the Fetish menu.

 

[florameriadoc]

Hey,
I just got back to playing the game and I have a two questions:
1. Where is the cheat code menu
2. Is there a way to disable all males. (I only want female and futa)

with what Squark said: 1: From what I hear, your keyboard must be set to US English Layout. It's either the Tilde(~) or Grave Accent (`) key.
you can also change the binding key tilde to something else also in the settings, I changed for 0, but it can be anything if it's not in use already

 

[Drages]

Although it was marred with shit management, Breeding Season (which is sadly dead now) is a fine example of what can be done with a talented team of animators and coders (Stupidly, HBomb gave the kill button to S-Purple). An example of a game that didn't try to be more than it is.

Tbh, I see the Breeding Season superior still with the game concept, brave combinations and simplicity. That game does not need animations at all. At a point I told them to use image series for breeding combinations at least as a placeholder but they did not listen.

Another thing is, at some point, someone from BS developer team shared everything with DH. I mean everything, from plans to design, code to all images. He shared them with me too. The new creatures and plans were very lovely.

I plan to resurrect it someday, probably after I am done with my game. Not the same game on flash ofc but same concept with the ideas I have my own. I need to figure out the art part for so many creatures first .

 

[dusk2340]

Tbh, I see the Breeding Season superior still with the game concept, brave combinations and simplicity. That game does not need animations at all. At a point I told them to use image series for breeding combinations at least as a placeholder but they did not listen.

Another thing is, at some point, someone from BS developer team shared everything with DH. I mean everything, from plans to design, code to all images. He shared them with me too. The new creatures and plans were very lovely.

I plan to resurrect it someday, probably after I am done with my game. Not the same game on flash ofc but same concept with the ideas I have my own. I need to figure out the art part for so many creatures first .

from what i understand there is some legal red tape around the game so i wouldnt try to straight up copy it or even use the name, but i wish you all the luck. i also want to someday make a game in that style.

 

[Squark ⚧❤️]

Tbh, I see the Breeding Season superior still with the game concept, brave combinations and simplicity. That game does not need animations at all. At a point I told them to use image series for breeding combinations at least as a placeholder but they did not listen.

Another thing is, at some point, someone from BS developer team shared everything with DH. I mean everything, from plans to design, code to all images. He shared them with me too. The new creatures and plans were very lovely.

I plan to resurrect it someday, probably after I am done with my game. Not the same game on flash ofc but same concept with the ideas I have my own. I need to figure out the art part for so many creatures first .

Best of luck. I hope everything works out well for you.

 

[nulnil]

You are a bit wrong about this as most of the porn games with beating stuff/arcade style, you should lose to see hot stuff.

Only ever seeing sexual content when you lose is just as problematic as only seeing sexual content when you win (or make it to some other milestone).

You should be seeing sexual content in a porn game, whether you're winning or losing.

...

On an unrelated note, there's ways to make grinding more fun in a game. The #1 thing is for the player's input to matter. More skill, shorther grind.

 

[Squark ⚧❤️]

You should be seeing sexual content in a porn game, whether you're winning or losing.

True, some games use it as the reward for doing well.

 

[RubyZeronyka]

Tbh, I see the Breeding Season superior still with the game concept, brave combinations and simplicity. That game does not need animations at all. At a point I told them to use image series for breeding combinations at least as a placeholder but they did not listen.

Another thing is, at some point, someone from BS developer team shared everything with DH. I mean everything, from plans to design, code to all images. He shared them with me too. The new creatures and plans were very lovely.

I plan to resurrect it someday, probably after I am done with my game. Not the same game on flash ofc but same concept with the ideas I have my own. I need to figure out the art part for so many creatures first .

OwO That's some amazing news!

Just please, when you do make the game happen, please make sure saves are compatible with newer versions, pleaaaase? XD

Seriously I love BotN's premise but the whole save wipes issue is the bane of it's existance -w-

Among other things of course, but.... You get what I mean ^^'

 

[Salva95O]

but how much does it take for another version ... come on

 

[Pixie.TS]

i love this game.......

 

[dusk2340]

OwO That's some amazing news!

Just please, when you do make the game happen, please make sure saves are compatible with newer versions, pleaaaase? XD

Seriously I love BotN's premise but the whole save wipes issue is the bane of it's existance -w-

Among other things of course, but.... You get what I mean ^^'

idk if every dev is in 100% control of this, i think in some cases you might have to eat one or two save wipes but i guess it would depend on if the dev even cares or not. (disclaimer: i am not a game dev what i said might be bullshit)

 

[slick97]

Only ever seeing sexual content when you lose is just as problematic as only seeing sexual content when you win (or make it to some other milestone).

You should be seeing sexual content in a porn game, whether you're winning or losing.

I'm of the mindset that it should be considered a mechanic similar to weapons in FPS games or building units in RTS games. Tieing sex to punishments/rewards should only ever be the case for special scenarios, such as different positions with Queen Slime or the Dragon Matriarch.

What's aggravating is DH understands this with the implementation of Pride and her quest. To have physical sex with her you need to complete a borderline impossible quest (which really should've just been lvl 2 versions of the traits. Instead, every sex positions - aside from missionary - is locked behind tedious zone progression made worse by the grind needed to reach level 5 for a zone to start spawning somewhat decent Nephelym. Even worse is DH's personal vendetta against save compatibility between versions since he purposely breaks saves even for miniscule updates.

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Overall state of the game rant

I typically don't mind solo devs relying on RNG as a replacement for proper gameplay balance, but DH hasn't really shown any inclination towards improving the core mechanics. I honestly wouldn't be opposed to the addition of an options tab for game difficulty before the start of character creation that would allow us to change probabilities. Both Conan Exiles and Ark: Survival Evolved took this approach and it's the only reason those games are playable.

The UI update also removed the ability to check pregnancy progress and player stats from the inventory screen. The frustrating part is that there exists a stats screen which could easily be given its own tab that you can view from the breeding yard, so DH can't use the excuse that he doesn't have a functioning version of it.

I already mentioned this, but the "cockblock" gates were a horrible addition to the game that removed any sense of exploration. However, the addition of the blessed nephelym offering unique quests is the perfect opportunity for DH to tie zone levels to completion of these quests. It encourages the player to learn about where to find traits that are tied to specific species (i.e. titans carrying the "meaty" trait).



Unreal Engine is such a powerful tool that streamlines some of the most difficult things to code (such as shaders and physics). There are demo releases of gameplay concepts from solo devs on this site that have more to show in a few months than what DH has shown over the span of several years. The only redeemable factor for him is the fact that BOTN is free to download off of Steam, otherwise I'd be so bold as to claim it's an outright grift.

 

[muschi26]

I typically don't mind solo devs relying on RNG as a replacement for proper gameplay balance

I’m not sure I understand your point. RNG makes games harder to balance, because it increases variance. Instead of knowing for sure that players facing X enemy with Y health will deal Z damage per turn and take W turns, the dev of a game with RNG has to factor in possibilities like the player critting and oneshotting the enemy, or the enemy critting and oneshotting the player, etc.

If I were a new game dev, I think I would try to have as little RNG possible in my game (I might make an adventure–puzzle game, for instance).

 

[nulnil]

I typically don't mind solo devs relying on RNG as a replacement for proper gameplay balance..

Like muschi26 said, RNG is no band-aid for bad game design. Funnily enough, it's usually the giant AAA games overdosing on RNG, not the indie games.


As for balancing the game, all that needs to be done is to make traits inherit more often. (Edit: in terms of breeding grind, not all the anti-quality of life)

 

[slick97]

I’m not sure I understand your point. RNG makes games harder to balance, because it increases variance. Instead of knowing for sure that players facing X enemy with Y health will deal Z damage per turn and take W turns, the dev of a game with RNG has to factor in possibilities like the player critting and oneshotting the enemy, or the enemy critting and oneshotting the player, etc.

If I were a new game dev, I think I would try to have as little RNG possible in my game (I might make an adventure–puzzle game, for instance).

My point was that implementing proper game balance is a tedious task that takes months to accomplish, even with a team of developers. Breaking mechanics down into governing equations with basic weights (difficulty sliders, essentially) takes a level of competence that very few devs possess on their own.



Let's take an example from the game to clarify further:

Let some nephelym be represented by a variable (i.e. colossus = c)

We want to generate a list of traits for the colossus based on its species, resulting in the following available traits:

• Meaty
• Hung
• Buxom
• Busty
• Chubby

The number of traits chosen is randomized from 0 - 3 with each training having an even chance of being picked. We'll ignore the level of the trait since that adds complexity I don't want to deal with for this example.

The resulting formula is the easiest to implement for this scenario (written in c++ for demonstration purposes):

// Trait list
trait[] = {"meaty", "hung", "buxom", "busty", "chubby"};

// Generate random number between 0 and 4
n_trait = rand() % 4;

for(i = 0; i <= n_trait; i++){
     index = rand() % 4;
     c[i] = trait[index];
}

That right there is what I meant when I said RNG determined values are the easiest to implement.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Now let's look at how to potentially add a better version of this (i.e. not using "rand" functions). We'll use the same trait list to keep things simple.

The simplest implementation is assigning weights to each trait which can be thought of how common they are for a nephelym. Here's the same trait list with potential weights:

• Meaty = 50%
• Hung = 50%
• Buxom = 35%
• Busty = 35%
• Chubby = 10%

Those percentages could easily be implemented as sliders in an options menu to make it easier or harder to obtain certain traits.

An alternative approach is to take the level of the player and use that to generate the traits. This would mean each trait becomes more common to spawn as the player essentially increases the chance for traits to be present. Again, this still relies on probability, but it's a better implementation of it.

Example of implementation:

col_busty_base = 0.3;
sum = p_lvl/p_lvl_max + col_busty_base

if(sum >= 1){
     col_busty = 1;
}
else{
     col_busty = sum;
}

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Another implementation of traits is to add a mechanic in which you can create items that remove/add specific traits. This could be accomplished via mixing types of semen/milk for the trait, and using some other material for increasing the level of the trait. I personally dislike this method since it removes the point of breeding, but it at least allows for some control over traits.

The best implementation of traits (in my personal opinion) is through the second method under the RNG section, and adding the weights of two identical traits between nephelym together for a maximum of 100%. Since the weights of a trait are tied to the nephelym rather than a global value it's rather easy to implement and incentives players to learn about the system.

Here's an example of what I mean since describing math is obnoxious:

c_b = weight for busty trait in colossus
s_b = weight for busty trait in succubus
o_b = weight for busty trait in offspring

if(c_b + s_b >= 1){
     o_b = 1;
}
else{
     o_b = c_b + s_b;
}

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Author notes:

I'd like to apologize about how massive this post became. Explaining code or math in any capacity is difficult to do without providing the necessary context. I've learned this the hard way when teaching students at my community college how to accomplish certain tasks.

I'd also like to emphasize that my methods are purely for demonstration purposes and can easily be modified to make the calculations more simple/complex depending on the developer. The use of player level is a commonly used method that it's essentially standard industry practice. The game should reward the player for leveling up, and my method is the most basic implementation of it.

Finally, I only have coding knowledge that pertains to simulating or solving complex problems. I personally don't have the expertise to develop a game on my own and only offer feedback. Someone like Drages would be far more suitable than me at fixing this game for DH.

 

[slick97]

Like muschi26 said, RNG is no band-aid for bad game design. Funnily enough, it's usually the giant AAA games overdosing on RNG, not the indie games.


As for balancing the game, all that needs to be done is to make traits inherit more often. (Edit: in terms of breeding grind, not all the anti-quality of life)

Dang, I spent so much time in writing my response mushi that I didn't get to tag your post as well. I'm not expecting anyone to fully read everything, but I'd encourage you to read some of the sections talking about the different implementatjons of RNG.

I figured it be better if I wrote a proper post on what I meant because:

1. I'm shit at describing what I meant
2. It's a complex topic that players misunderstand due to lacking coding knowledge

The tl;dr
RNG is inherent in game design for balancing/variability purposes. Things such as bullet spray, critical hits, world events, and various other gameplay aspects all rely on various implementations of RNG.

 

[Drages]

In a breeding game, you need RNG because the breeding nature is RNG. I mean, you child will be a DNA RNG result.

You can put some extras in it but if you add direct manipulations like adding a trait to a neph with a quest, you just get what you want with your own control. This could be used without breaking the game purpose but it should be very limited or hard to do which would add more grind.

At this point, this is mostly about the taste of the player and a low chance RNG could kill the game progress and fun too.

To be honest, I don't understand why people think the Botn is a grindy game. What is the "grind" means for you? Do you wanna get perfect Neph in 30 min? Then what? I like to play the game for at least 10 hours to get the very good ones. You breed for 10 hours yeah because it's fun to get a good one at every mass breading and making other combinations to get better.

I know the world level part is not fun as I expected and it takes time at start but as the pregnant nephs can boost world leveling very much, after the start of the game, it gets a momentum very fast as you can breed your new type nephs with high level old nephs and release them.

Maybe the problem is, people don't know the whole mechanics of the game and they don't know the faster ways so they need to give more time then needed.

As I said, I did not have time to improve those as I kicked from the project. The Botn discord server and the 3 mods were mostly toxic so I did not give a shit to explain everything or make a wiki.

I am asking those questions to get more clear idea from players so I can use it when time has come.

I already got all the plans, functions and ideas for a new breeding game. As I am a huge fan of this type of game, I am just ready to fire something everybody can enjoy and "finished" somehow .

 

[RubyZeronyka]

In a breeding game, you need RNG because the breeding nature is RNG. I mean, you child will be a DNA RNG result.

You can put some extras in it but if you add direct manipulations like adding a trait to a neph with a quest, you just get what you want with your own control. This could be used without breaking the game purpose but it should be very limited or hard to do which would add more grind.

At this point, this is mostly about the taste of the player and a low chance RNG could kill the game progress and fun too.

To be honest, I don't understand why people think the Botn is a grindy game. What is the "grind" means for you? Do you wanna get perfect Neph in 30 min? Then what? I like to play the game for at least 10 hours to get the very good ones. You breed for 10 hours yeah because it's fun to get a good one at every mass breading and making other combinations to get better.

I know the world level part is not fun as I expected and it takes time at start but as the pregnant nephs can boost world leveling very much, after the start of the game, it gets a momentum very fast as you can breed your new type nephs with high level old nephs and release them.

Maybe the problem is, people don't know the whole mechanics of the game and they don't know the faster ways so they need to give more time then needed.

As I said, I did not have time to improve those as I kicked from the project. The Botn discord server and the 3 mods were mostly toxic so I did not give a shit to explain everything or make a wiki.

I am asking those questions to get more clear idea from players so I can use it when time has come.

I already got all the plans, functions and ideas for a new breeding game. As I am a huge fan of this type of game, I am just ready to fire something everybody can enjoy and "finished" somehow .

I think that people and myself we dont have an issue with BotN's default nature so to speak but more like the way Derelict deliberately multiplies it. Like, sure, as you said, there is a lot of natural RNG that is inevitable for the very way things work like getting a hybrid is a chance not a garantee, and having or lacking traits is mostly luck based.

But it started to become a problem when Derelict forces on to you things like the bloody save wipes, the whole progression gates system that locks behind hours of gameplay previously available stuff from minute 1, making mandatory certain steps that before were optional and overall forcing you to think on the most optimal way of aproaching gameplay if you wanna optimize your playtime spend and not having to do the same task for hours until you get it (Which started to make me compare the game to the Soulslike style of games from which Derelict takes inspiration as a concept of "fun").

I compare the grind of BotN with something like Pokemon, you would have to deal with repetitive stuff like training your Pokes to make them stronger and having them evolve and stuff. But imagine that everytime that Pokemon gets a hotfix update it forces you to start from the begining. The game can be grindy by default but enjoyable, however if you have to restart every 4 updates and on top of that another 100 BS things, them you start seeing why we complain about the grind. Its not for the nature of the game itself but more like Dere's (and his diehard fans') deliberate desinterest in adding QoL features.

Anyway, Im looking forward to how your game would be. Wish I could help a bit further but my current knowledge of Unreal is near 0.... Yet XD