Ren'Py Completed Callisto [v1.00] [Xavster Gaming]

[Xavster]

Thanks Xavister for your quick reply. One quick question (hope it hasn't been asked before) When 0.2 comes out, since it is a departure into a real game, does it require a restart (IE did you re-program the prolog) or just continue from where we left off with the prolog optional for new gamers?

I understand most devs don't like walkthrus (more work plus gives it away). For users, it allows us to follow the story without getting lost/confused. It helps those of us with 'time crunch's in our gaming. For those who want to live in the world you're creating, they're no good/distracting. I think from a dev's pov they're an added product (solutions) that also get given away and don't help the bottom line. Me, I like 'em 'cause I'm time crunched.

Ok, thanks again for your fine work. I wish you the best of success. (but I still think those girls are going to be at each other's throat sooner or later with the personalities you've set up...but maybe that was your intent?) Cheers

You start a new game in 0.2 that begins after the events of the prologue. The prologue is still within 0.2, however is accessed via the computer in the captain's room. The prologue is also split up into chapters, which makes viewing in parts easier.

With 0.2 I have also allowed the player to give both a name and a nickname to the main character. I have tweaked the prologue such that the MC's name is replaced with the player selected one.

As far as a walkthrough, I don't believe it is necessary at this point. There is an in game hint system to ensure that the main story line progresses. It will be interesting to see how easily the beta testers are able to progress the story.

 

[Xavster]

Development Update:

Callisto 0.2 is now in beta testing. The duration of the testing will largely depend upon how many errors are encountered and how challenging they are to resolve. I tested it fairly thoroughly myself prior to the beta, so hopefully things will go well.

Whilst the beta testing is being undertaken by others, I am still keeping busy with the following:
- Tweaking a couple of renders in 0.2 that were sub-optimal.
- Will likely do some more testing in parallel with the beta testers.
- Starting development of 0.3 by doing the following:
- Planning which game mechanics and locations are to be added in 0.3.
- Checking I have the appropriate assets to complete 0.3.
- Experimenting with renders and coding.

Spoiler: Holo-Projector Experiment - For ship salvaging in 0.3

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Spoiler: Bridge Render Tweak

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[professorx10]

Checked the Bridge Tweak.... Unless it saves you time/effort the change is barely noticeable on my monitor. Lighting seems a little toward the white/blue tint and the railing seemed to be turned around. Walls patterns a little more noticeable but I don't think it adds anything much.
The Holo-projector experiment looks cool! I assume you'll skin the projected image?
Thanks for the battle report... Keep on, Dude! I've checked out 4 other games lately and yours is the only one worth keeping/following.

 

[Sin'Gul Arity]

Checked the Bridge Tweak.... Unless it saves you time/effort the change is barely noticeable on my monitor. Lighting seems a little toward the white/blue tint and the railing seemed to be turned around. Walls patterns a little more noticeable but I don't think it adds anything much.
The Holo-projector experiment looks cool! I assume you'll skin the projected image?
Thanks for the battle report... Keep on, Dude! I've checked out 4 other games lately and yours is the only one worth keeping/following.

Oh, I like this "spot the difference" game )) You noticed minor tweaks and missed the elephant - chair in bottom-left corner replaced with ... well... interactive table / holo map, or whatever it is?

 

[Sin'Gul Arity]

Xavster Hi! You did mention some coding challenges earlier. Please can you give a few words about it? I'm curious

 

[Xavster]

Checked the Bridge Tweak.... Unless it saves you time/effort the change is barely noticeable on my monitor. Lighting seems a little toward the white/blue tint and the railing seemed to be turned around. Walls patterns a little more noticeable but I don't think it adds anything much.
The Holo-projector experiment looks cool! I assume you'll skin the projected image?
Thanks for the battle report... Keep on, Dude! I've checked out 4 other games lately and yours is the only one worth keeping/following.

The bridge adjustment was predominately to adjust the lighting, however I also flipped the railings. I also changed out the second control chair for the holo-projector. In terms of the look of the ship on the holo-projector my intent is for it to be semi transparent with the ship asset native skin and also to provide the wireframe look. With the holo-projector in the foreground I may be able to do some rotation animations of the hologram by overlaying webp's on a background. More experimenting required.

Xavster Hi! You did mention some coding challenges earlier. Please can you give a few words about it? I'm curious

There were three main coding challenges:
- Creating a trading economy and interface where commodities prices vary by time and location. Also that you are able to control how much you purchase and see what you have purchased appearing in the ship's hold.

- The Callisto ship itself is far more dynamic than the environments in other VN's. When you travel from one sector to another, the space environment outside the window changes and also hues on characters and objects change as well. This essentially meant duplicating some renders with different external HDRI's and then having the code smart enough to know what sector you were in and show the corresponding image. This will also be developed further in future releases as new locations are visited. Also navigation through the ship is more natural as the view you have of the common areas depends upon which direction you approach from. The whole ship is also created in 3D with the contained rooms, Hence everything is in scale and the exterior view of the ship corresponds to the internal view.

- The other aspect is to create story line progression, whilst allowing the player freedom to do what they want, when they want. The only routinely forced scene is the Sunday evening meeting, where you get a report of finances over the previous week and also serves as the hint system to progress the main story line. Much of this work is the creation of a number of variables so the game knows what you have and haven't seen and which subsequent scene can be shown. If you take something like Harem Hotel, the character progression is 100% linear and uses a single variable. Within Callisto this progression occurs in levels, where a number of events can occur in any order on that level. Given that you will not have to see every minor event and that they can occur in parallel, this largely eliminates the requirement for a walkthrough (I hope).

 

[Sin'Gul Arity]

The bridge adjustment was predominately to adjust the lighting, however I also flipped the railings. I also changed out the second control chair for the holo-projector. In terms of the look of the ship on the holo-projector my intent is for it to be semi transparent with the ship asset native skin and also to provide the wireframe look. With the holo-projector in the foreground I may be able to do some rotation animations of the hologram by overlaying webp's on a background. More experimenting required.

There were three main coding challenges:
- Creating a trading economy and interface where commodities prices vary by time and location. Also that you are able to control how much you purchase and see what you have purchased appearing in the ship's hold.

- The Callisto ship itself is far more dynamic than the environments in other VN's. When you travel from one sector to another, the space environment outside the window changes and also hues on characters and objects change as well. This essentially meant duplicating some renders with different external HDRI's and then having the code smart enough to know what sector you were in and show the corresponding image. This will also be developed further in future releases as new locations are visited. Also navigation through the ship is more natural as the view you have of the common areas depends upon which direction you approach from. The whole ship is also created in 3D with the contained rooms, Hence everything is in scale and the exterior view of the ship corresponds to the internal view.

- The other aspect is to create story line progression, whilst allowing the player freedom to do what they want, when they want. The only routinely forced scene is the Sunday evening meeting, where you get a report of finances over the previous week and also serves as the hint system to progress the main story line. Much of this work is the creation of a number of variables so the game knows what you have and haven't seen and which subsequent scene can be shown. If you take something like Harem Hotel, the character progression is 100% linear and uses a single variable. Within Callisto this progression occurs in levels, where a number of events can occur in any order on that level. Given that you will not have to see every minor event and that they can occur in parallel, this largely eliminates the requirement for a walkthrough (I hope).

Thanks! It was very interesting to read!

Few thoughts:

- The trading system needs a decent variety of goods and some deep mechanics underneath to looks genuine ... You sure it's justified for the VN? Or it will be something simpler like general static price for a product name with a random coefficient in each star system?
Damn, this gave me such a strong nostalgia about the "Freelancer" and "Space Rangers" games ... such a shame I have no time to play them now ...

- Sounds cool. But I hope it will be possible to fast travel to any other room without running through the whole path? Time waste on running in RenPy game is something unique for sure, but IMHO hardly fun

- I dug into the code of a few popular games and there are mostly walls of boolean variables describing each minor event. Not sure if it's the best practice in RenPy, but the most popular. The key is to name them properly, or you will be lost in this woods very fast with the game growth. Gues I will do it like this too... for the first game at least. Or there is a better approach maybe?

 

[Xavster]

Thanks! It was very interesting to read!

Few thoughts:

- The trading system needs a decent variety of goods and some deep mechanics underneath to looks genuine ... You sure it's justified for the VN? Or it will be something simpler like general static price for a product name with a random coefficient in each star system?
Damn, this gave me such a strong nostalgia about the "Freelancer" and "Space Rangers" games ... such a shame I have no time to play them now ...

- Sounds cool. But I hope it will be possible to fast travel to any other room without running through the whole path? Time waste on running in RenPy game is something unique for sure, but IMHO hardly fun

- I dug into the code of a few popular games and there are mostly walls of boolean variables describing each minor event. Not sure if it's the best practice in RenPy, but the most popular. The key is to name them properly, or you will be lost in this woods very fast with the game growth. Gues I will do it like this too... for the first game at least. Or there is a better approach maybe?

The trading system has 6 different commodities at this time. The prices are not random, however they do change over time. Achieving this was not all that difficult once I found out what maths functions I could use in python. It will require the player to think about what items they are purchasing and where they are taking it. This decision will also change over time as prices fluctuate. Each of these commodities has corresponding crates that will appear in the hold, following purchase. Trading will be one of the methods of earning credits within the game. however is the only one implemented at this time. My goal to to make each one of these methods enjoyable and to require thought, rather than relying on mini-games.

There is no fast travel implemented at this time, however navigating the ship is fairly quick. The maximum number of clicks to get from any part of the ship to any other is 4. However at certain times of the day it is logical to be in certain parts of the ship, hence the number of clicks are generally less. Also via the moving around the ship you will see what the other crew members are up to. Note there is a corridor from which you can access all bedrooms / engine room / medbay / bathroom / common room.

As far as coding within the game it is very important to label everything clearly (variables / labels / images). Each event can be assigned a variable (what I have done), or you can use a single variable for each parallel stream of events (eg Harem Hotel). When you use a single variable, the events have to play out in a certain order.

Example (Say variable for Tiffany Event):
Single Variable:
if tif_dev == 4:
tif_dev += 1
'Event 4'

Multi-Variable:
if tif_dev == 1:
tif_dev_1d = 1
'Event tif_dev_1d"

The multi-variable allows events 1a, 1b, 1c, 1d to play out in any order, however the game remembers which one has already been undertaken. You can also describe a criteria to advance to the next level.
if tif_dev_1a + tif_dev_1b + tif_dev_1c + tif_dev_1d > 2:
tif_dev = 2
Hence in this case you would have to see 3 of the 4 events to proceed to the next level.

 

[Sin'Gul Arity]

The trading system has 6 different commodities at this time. The prices are not random, however they do change over time. Achieving this was not all that difficult once I found out what maths functions I could use in python. It will require the player to think about what items they are purchasing and where they are taking it. This decision will also change over time as prices fluctuate. Each of these commodities has corresponding crates that will appear in the hold, following purchase. Trading will be one of the methods of earning credits within the game. however is the only one implemented at this time. My goal to to make each one of these methods enjoyable and to require thought, rather than relying on mini-games.

There is no fast travel implemented at this time, however navigating the ship is fairly quick. The maximum number of clicks to get from any part of the ship to any other is 4. However at certain times of the day it is logical to be in certain parts of the ship, hence the number of clicks are generally less. Also via the moving around the ship you will see what the other crew members are up to. Note there is a corridor from which you can access all bedrooms / engine room / medbay / bathroom / common room.

As far as coding within the game it is very important to label everything clearly (variables / labels / images). Each event can be assigned a variable (what I have done), or you can use a single variable for each parallel stream of events (eg Harem Hotel). When you use a single variable, the events have to play out in a certain order.

Example (Say variable for Tiffany Event):
Single Variable:
if tif_dev == 4:
tif_dev += 1
'Event 4'

Multi-Variable:
if tif_dev == 1:
tif_dev_1d = 1
'Event tif_dev_1d"

The multi-variable allows events 1a, 1b, 1c, 1d to play out in any order, however the game remembers which one has already been undertaken. You can also describe a criteria to advance to the next level.
if tif_dev_1a + tif_dev_1b + tif_dev_1c + tif_dev_1d > 2:
tif_dev = 2
Hence in this case you would have to see 3 of the 4 events to proceed to the next level.

As always - thanks for your message. The more I reading about - the more I want to see it. Hope public release will be soon

 

[BTungsteno]

Game looks promising and is only in 0.1 ,can't wait to see how far can reach.

Hoping we can upgrade the ship engines to be able to surpass light speed with ludicrous speed.

 

[Xavster]

Beta Testing Update:

Beta testing has been progressing well following the release of the first beta revision last Thursday. Following a coding review by a programmer I have enlisted, optimisation of the code allowed the removal of about 1000 lines of code. Whilst this did not affect game mechanics, it streamlined my rather verbose code, which makes error checking easier. An updated beta 0.2b was released last Monday and following gameplay comments the following items have been addressed:

Completed:
- Inclusion of current location display / tooltip for mouse hover.
- Inclusion of information panel to show sector / cargo and crew location on ship.
- Inclusion of hint panel, that provides a walkthrough of the character main storyline. Personally I don't think it is necessary for you to be able to progress the game, however it's there if you want it. Also note that ~70% of the content lies outside this main storyline.
- Inclusion of an advance time button.

To Be Completed:
- Addition of a significant character development scene. Really just waiting for the final 8 of 16 images to render for this scene. Coding and testing of scene should take about 1 hour.
- Final review / tweaking of all scene dialogue.




Pre- Release:

As I do not currently have Patreon established with higher tier Patrons, I do not have a pool of players to stress test the code prior to public release. Whilst I will do a full run-through test prior to creation of the pre-release version, as the game is fairly wide open, different play styles may highlight some bugs. Hence this will act as an insurance policy to avoid the game suffering from an unforeseen bug during public release.

This pre-release should be available on Friday. If you are interested in taking part, please just send me a PM on this forum. Please note the following:
- I will only be inviting established F95 members to participate.
- Have some time on the weekend to play the game (at least an hour).
- Play the game however you want, but I will need you to report any bugs should you encounter them.
- Do not under any circumstances share the pre-release download link or game with others.

If all things go well, I hope to release to the public early next week.

PS: Given that the game currently has ~8,000 lines of code and ~2,200 images (including button / imagemaps) it is likely the beta testing will have missed something, hence the reason for pre-release.

 

[professorx10]

[U]Xavster[/U] as I've been following this game and have been impressed with your prequel I'd be glad to help beta test although I can't have time after Friday to play until Sunday so my imput would be delayed...

 

[Xavster]

Version 0.2 is currently available on my newly established Patreon site. It will be available on this site as soon as a forum uploader is able to assist with the creation of suitable download mirrors. I believe the game should be fairly stable, however if you encounter any bugs, please feel free to message me.

Spoiler: Version 0.2 Teaser

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[arms99]

Version 0.2 is currently available on my newly established Patreon site. It will be available on this site as soon as a forum uploader is able to assist with the creation of suitable download mirrors. I believe the game should be fairly stable, however if you encounter any bugs, please feel free to message me.

Spoiler: Version 0.2 Teaser

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Congrats, I’ve been eagerly anticipating this release since I played the prologue when it first came out.

Look forward to seeing your open world implementation.

Best of luck

 

[arms99]

So, I thought I’d give some feedback on the new update.

There is a bit of a learning curve trying to figure out where all the different information is displayed and how to navigate the ship. But once you get past that it’s quite intuitive and easy to navigate. The open world has been very well implemented with plenty to see and do.

Kudos for the skip time button, I hate it when open world games don’t have it forcing you to keep returning to your room and nap to advance time.

Already some very nice repeatable H content. The girlfriend seems to be OK with sharing, so looks like I’m going to get my harem . Also I have to say if doctors in real life where that hot and provided such five star service, there’d be long queues in front of every hospital.

One suggestion I’d make, it would be nice to have a schedule of the crew you can access, that tells you who’s where at what time.

A very promising open world game. Looking forward to more

 

[Xavster]

One suggest I’d make, it would be nice to have a schedule of the crew you can access, that tells you who’s where at what time.

Well there is a schedule, however it is not provided in game. I will however be likely to adjust this schedule in future updates and also potentially have it vary dependent upon where the story line is (eg. Lia isn't always in the same part of the engine room at a given day / time). Also my goal is to make the ship feel as organic as possible, hence 100% predictability takes away from this. The way the game is coded, it is fairly easy for me to make these schedule changes.

Just in case you didn't notice it, there is a information button where you can see the location of the crew members at any given time. Kinda like an internal sensors report.

Thanks for the feedback on the game. This version is just the start of the open world which will be expanded with every update. Through this update however, I have already solved 90% of the coding challenges I will be likely to face. This means that time on future updates can be spent more on story line and renders, rather than establishing the environment and coding.

PS: It is intended to be a harem game, however not necessarily with group hugs all around. Life is always more challenging than that.

 

[arms99]

Just in case you didn't notice it, there is a information button where you can see the location of the crew members at any given time. Kinda like an internal sensors report.

You're right, I failed to notice. I was so caught up in reading which star system I was at, that I didn't read past that part .
Oops, I guess I take back my suggestion.

 

[Xavster]

You're right, I failed to notice. I was so caught up in reading which star system I was at, that I didn't read past that part .
Oops, I guess I take back my suggestion.

You can thank CookieMonster666 for that addition. I had to do the coding, but it was his idea.

 

[arms99]

PS: It is intended to be a harem game, however not necessarily with group hugs all around. Life is always more challenging than that.

I have to say, I'm all for group hugs. Especially, when you're the only man in a group full of beautiful women

 

[SeventhVixen]

Gonna follow this game closely. I've only read 3 or 4 pages of comments and I don't have time to comment now, but for anyone new reading the thread;

Just a hint:
-Big quality and love put to the renders, and characters.
Hoping to have time to play the 0.2 soon.

PS: no discord? (as said, didn't read all, don't have time right now)