Ren'Py Corrupted Academy

[BolHeX]

You seem to be putting alot of thought and work in it, so im getting excited to finally play it!
When do you think a first version would be released?
I will keep my thoughts and remarks for when i have actually played and tested it!

Sorry for the late reply, I check the thread all the time but never got a notification a message has been posted.

One thing I have proved to be very bad at is estimating how long things will take. So I can't give a release date just yet.

I have finished my previous TODO and have moved on to working on the PTA meetings and home visits. I do also want to finish the intro story sequence which I have not started with at all yet.

So right now my main blockers are:

• Sex interaction system/menu. This requires some planning, mainly on when the interaction ends.
• Intro story sequence. This I still either need to write or get a writer on the team(which is my plan in the future after the initial release).
• Photo/Video shoots need an introduction tutorial to show players how to start them but they already have a short mechanics tutorial.

On a released note, I'm not going to make a new thread looking for a writer just yet but if anyone reads this and is interested in helping develop the world/lore/story or events/interactions send me a DM.

 

[BolHeX]

A quick update, I will try keep it short.

I've mainly been doing play tests and trying to make the gameplay loop a bit more smooth and enjoyable. This has mainly come in the form of exposing mechanics and making them more obtuse and understandable.

This includes more tutorials and some tooltip additions/changes.

• Each area you can interact with now has its own sensitivity rather than girls having a single extra sensitive area.
  • This sensitivity can be also be modified by traits.
• Rebalanced several Sponsor requests which were too hard to complete.
• Improved how girls react to exam actions, i.e responding positively while reporting the action.
• Improved some of the post exam office/home events. They are still quite simple and will be expanded upon after release in a large "content" update.
• Improved gameplay loop/flow for the weekend, when no exams are scheduled.
• Maked starting home visits take fewer clicks to help it less tedious to do.
• Added "during class" modifiers to Exam Subjects, so now something like "Sex Ed" increases arousal again during the exam.
• Added support for cleanly removing and adding girls and mothers.
• Added new notification system allowing multiple notifcations at once. Used to help report changes like earning money, reputation and prestige which can sometimes happen all at once.
• For clarity exam actions now show:
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  • Actions "tolerated" by rules are now highlighted in green.
  • Their report chance, high report chance actions are highlighted in red.
  • Girls sensitivity for the targeted part.
• Fixed and improved a lot of dialogue, mainly making it flow a bit more naturally including:
  • Mother report calls.
  • Photo/Video shoots.
• Fixes for modding:
  • Exam subjects now correctly update when subject info is changed.

This is not an exciting update, just lots and lots of bug fixes and balance changes most of which I didn't bore you with. But its also a good sign, it means I am happy with most of the systems and focusing on polish and making them more user friendly.

As a small side update the sex interaction system is still being worked on, really struggling on finding a good balance with it. The first release will probably include a somewhat under developed version while I think of something better.

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Currently is works as follows:
You can select a girl and part you want to interact with much like exam actions. You also have the option of "group" actions which involve both girls; this is only available in threesomes of course.
There are also "player" actions which directly involve a girl i.e "Take Break" above.

Your goal is to pleasure all the participants and not cum before you do so. Right now im not happy with it, its a bit simplistic and not really a fun system. There is also not much sense of "reward" for accomplishing your goal or failure if you don't.

This system has been less of a priority so its understandable but I would like to make it interesting enough to be a main system in the game. If you have thoughts or examples of a "sex" system like this please let me know, I would like to check it out for inspiration.

There I go rambling when I said I would keep it short but writing these does help me actually visualize problems and possible solutions. I won't be giving a list of my current blockers because I need to take a step back and actually see what still needs to be done outside of polish.

Thanks to everyone interested, I hope to have an initial release soon but I won't give a date because I have proven to not be very good at it. Anyway, back to work.

 

[BolHeX]

This is going to be a super quick update, basically just a to show that I am still working on this.

I have complete almost everything I wanted for the initial release, I am going to be dropping a Discord link here soon because I want to have a smaller test before releasing it here on the forums. So if you want to be a alpha/beta tester be on the look out for that.

Before that though I want to do a long form playtest myself just to make sure there aren't any errors because of the changes I have been making. I won't be listing any of the changes here like I usually do, they are mainly small under the hood changes.

One big thing I need to finish before my play test is a rework to the video player and how the videos are tagged. This change is mostly backend and will just change how modders will need to tag their videos. I am still in the planning phase for this

This change comes with another change I am made to "sex interactions" where I wanted the option for MMF and FFM threesomes.

So that's it for now, nothing too interesting to show. I'll leave that for the testers to see, remember to keep an eye out for the Discord link.

 

[BolHeX]

I have finished with the tagging changes, I also applied it to photo/video shoots to keep it consistant. It also better supports modders adding new tags. This also gave me some ideas for sponsor requests.

Sponsors can now have "prefered" sub tags, which give a compatibility bonus for shoot items with said tags. They also have a small chance to request items with exclusively those tags, i.e photos only with the "lingerie" tag.

I also made some small tech changes to how I was rescaling images, which helps with small stutters that were happening.


So as it stands I have 3 small tasks before my playtest can start.

1. Rewrite dialogue
   • "home_visit_discuss_daughter_sexual_favor_fuck" currently just has placeholder dialogue.
   • "pta_concern_reported_requests" which is a pta discussion about sponsor requests that the girl has reported.
2. Add sub tag "lewdness" bonus for ~9 shoot item sub tags, should only take a few minutes.
3. Replace a few of the very placeholder images.

Hopefully I can finish these tasks this weekend and start with the playtest sometime next week.

EDIT: Tasks are all finished, playtest can now begin! Hopefully there are no nasty bugs I need to spend a lot of time fixing.

 

[BolHeX]

I have put a good few hours in at this point, gathering a bunch of information about what I need to change and fixing small things. I am going to continue again tomorrow but I think I will be releasing the test build this weekend.

There are likely going to be a bunch of small hotfixes as issues are found, so like I have said before it will only be available through Discord. I will post the link on Friday sometime this weekend, and will try make myself available to do quick hotfixes for any possible crashes people experience.

EDIT:
Doing my best to get it as polished as possible because I don't want to push the release back. I hope you temper your expectation for the initial release. There are a lot of things I feel are incomplete and need more polish.

I hope having a few more eyes on the project can help point out things that I missed and improve the balacing.

 

[BolHeX]

So there is a bit of a block for me releasing right now.

I changed how and when report calls are generated so you can have a chance to go to the mother directly to resolve reported actions. I won't go into detail about the issue but if you resolve the reported actions while she also has a call event initiated it empties the reported action list.

I already know how I am going to solve this and it will also make the gameplay much more believable I is just going to take a bit of writing to do. I hope I can finish this today.

EDIT: I actually came up with a much simpler solution that I originally anticipated.

I expect the release to be sometime this evening. I want to keep playtesting and seeing if there are any other major issues but I don't believe there are anymore game breaking ones (fingers crossed).

EDIT2: The solution I came up with. If mother has a queued report call when you try phone her it will trigger immediately(with slightly different dialogue).

Mother will now immediately bring up any unresolved reported actions when you arrive at her house. I also added the option of discussing it over the phone if you rather not visit in person. These two new options are only for exam actions, reported sponsor requests currently can't be resolved by talking to the mother. This is because it would require a lot of dialogue and it is not super important for this initial test release.

EDIT3: Turns out I was VERY wrong, I have a massively game breaking bug that I absolutely cannot release with. Turns out shoots can roll back progress when reloading saves. I am not sure of the exact cause because it doesn't seem to happen everytime, going to need to read through and debug this...

EDIT4: I think I found the issue, basically a very large "return" stack and when loading it sometimes hits a return and takes you all the way back... This is mainly an issue because when I started this project I didn't know much about RenPy and its inner workings. I went back and changed all the appropriate labels, avoiding unnecessary "returns" when possible.

This does mean I am going to need to go and test all the labels and menus again to make sure that there aren't any errors and that they are functioning as intended. There are quite a lot of changes though, so it may take me a while...

 

[BolHeX]

I have gone through a large portion of the labels and resolved a bunch of errors my changes caused.


Really hoping to get this finished today.

While I have been going through these I have been doing some balance changes and importantly making sure that updates are save compatible. Adding, removing and changing pretty much anything should be save compatible even removing girls, images or renaming shoot items.

EDIT:
Shoot rollback issue is still present, really thought I had gotten it... Looking at doing a full rewrite of this system to fix it.

EDIT2:
Rewrote the shoot screen and all related labels, I didn't have any rollback issues with the new stuff(yet). So that is promising but the last issue was also not an everytime thing.

I have posted the discord link in my signature and on the front page of this thread. If you want to come hangout feel free to join. There is no download link yet as I am going through and rewriting other screens which could have the same rollback issue. I will just be easier to keep up with the news there.

 

[BolHeX]

For those that haven't seen I have posted a Discord link in the first post and my signiture if you want to join. Not much going on right now but its a good place to keep up with what I am doing.

There are a lot of videos to go through around 3.3 GB or 1k files, it does need to be done since a lot of the tags need to be changed a simplified.

So there are a couple options right now. Release as is, with all the videos at a larger file size while I work to rename and change their tags or delay until this is done. So would you rather I release now at around 5 GB file size or have me delay and cut out subpar videos and release it somewhere around 3-4 GB

: Release as is for now.
: Delay until videos are renamed and cut down

 

[BolHeX]

Sounds really interesting! When is your expected release date?

Hopefully very soon, like this weekend if I can finish renaming and sorting all these video files.

 

[BolHeX]

I have just uploaded the initial release with the download links available on the Discord server, this will be temporary until I deem it stable enough to release it here.

The main reason to make it Discord exclusive for now is because I expect errors and bugs and releasing quick patches will be much easier on Discord than here. I hope this to only take a few days to iron out all the issues and release it here.

So if you are interested in helping test or just want an early preview feel free to join:

You must be registered to see the links

 

[BolHeX]

I am pushing for a release here soon.

I have started doing documentation and docstrings for various classes and methods to help modders. This is more something I am doing on the side which I am working through my main focus which at the moment is a few story and girl events to help keep things interesting.

If you haven't tried it yet there is a a preview build available via the discord link, if you want to try it and give feedback I would appreciate it.

 

[TheExordick]

Seems like i discovered this thread just in time! I was a fun of Examination Day and was really sad when it got abandoned (WTM does not resonate much with me) so i'm very glad you are working on this kind of project.

can't wait to test your build, but given you are so close to release it on the website i will wait for the official release! I'll make sure to give you my feedback.

Keep up the good work!

 

[BolHeX]

Seems like i discovered this thread just in time! I was a fun of Examination Day and was really sad when it got abandoned (WTM does not resonate much with me) so i'm very glad you are working on this kind of project.

can't wait to test your build, but given you are so close to release it on the website i will wait for the official release! I'll make sure to give you my feedback.

Keep up the good work!

I would be curious to hear what you think WTM was missing that Examination Day had if you have any ideas what it was. Could help me with what "feel" to aim for.

 

[TheExordick]

I would be curious to hear what you think WTM was missing that Examination Day had if you have any ideas what it was. Could help me with what "feel" to aim for.

Well,the core concept of Examination day was to prevent your students from passing your exam: easy! in WTM you have to track how many days the parents expects you to keep them and then all of a sudden they have to pass the exam, otherwise you don't get paid (i may be wrong here but i remember you have a good reason to release them). This wouldn't be bad per se but there was nothing suggesting you during the exam that a girl was "ready to pass" and the problem is that you are working hard to make them "dumber" let's say and when a girl is ready to go she is not working hard to pass your exam, she risks to fail because she doesn't complete the exam on time...

The second problem i had are the photoshoot: they are OK-ish as a game mechanic but they were too grindy: every time you have to scroll through all the photo already taken to take the new ones, i'm ok with a bit of grindiness and i'm ok with not starting right from where you stopped last time but not with going through all the photo all the times.

On top of that, when a girl passes the exam you lose all the photo taken with her... i mean, i worked hard to get those photos and to use them with the sponsors, why do you take them away? So i find myself that i started contract with more demanding sponsors and all of a sudden i have no more photos to sell to them or the girl i wanted to send has passed the exam and i can no longer fulfill the contract.

My perception was that WTM main game loop is not the exam anymore and the focus is more on those side activities, which i believe is a bit of a shame.
My very personal feeling is that it would be more enjoyable (for me) to expand on the exam mechanics itself, with rules, tools that can help you (vibrators, plugs, clamps) and other ideas (dunno, black market for panties).
The side activities are fine, but should not become the main focus as they are in WTM, because it has become a game where the focus is collecting photos from the pornstar photoshoots (and that is not very funny for my personal taste), it lacks the interactivity, the personification the cohesion with the gameloop. It reminds me a bit of the HTML type games but not the good ones.

Having said that, i'm sure that there are plenty of people that appreciated the work done in WTM, and i'm also sure that there are many ways that would turn these side activities in fun game mechanics.

What i think is the very difficult part is to find the gifs and videos for the exam actions that works well in a cohesive way and this is, from my point of view, the point where time must be spent. The photoshoots are easy to make cohesive because the photos are all from the same collection.

I'm sorry for the wall of text, and please remember, this is just my personal opinion.

 

[BolHeX]

...

I see, my version does keep a lot of the mechanics from WTM but most if not all of your issues with them are same ones I had and are changed to help eleviate said issues.

1. During exams you can see how long her parents expect her to be kep and whether you have met their expectations. I have also tried hard to balance it so that even corrupted girls can pass the exam if left alone.

I do plan on a seperate system where you can either pass the girl or expel them to help free student slots. I just haven't implemented it yet.

2. Photo/videoshoots are generally much shorter now and tries to give you shots where are still locked. It still tries to keep the shoot cohesive so some shots can be shown again but as a whole it should be fewer.

3. You can now give sponsors photos/videos of passed girls. Shoot items given to sponsors now also have a timer which once it expires allows the same items to be handed in again. This is because there are a finite number of shoots and if a user wants to keep playing the same save for a long time I don't want them punished.


As for the gameplay loop, I feel there's only so much that can be done during the exam so expanding to other activities was inevitable. I have also added a lot of small side activities.

I hope you will still give it a try and see how you like it. User feedback is important and I like some of your ideas and have made notes of them.

 

[TheExordick]

i'm really glad to read that you found the same issues i found in WTM and addressed them.

As you say, in the exam phase there is only so much that can be done, from a gameplay mechanic point of view, and this was the limitation of Examination Day. What i feel is very important is to try to keep the graphics cohesive in the exams and not throw a bunch of random gifs.

Anyway, i will try your game for sure. The base mechanics and the settings resonate with me so it would be a pity not to give it a shot! I'm looking forward to it!

 

[BolHeX]

Alright I am stopping any feature development, just working on testing everything now. Hope to get build out soon. I got a bit distracted working on the "personality" system which I didn't plan to start working on yet. It is still WIP and not full implemented.

For next update I have a few system ideas:

• (Big) Finish moving other actions to "personality" system to keep action responses somewhat consistent.
• (Big) Allow the player to setup girl and subject schedule for the week and change it anytime. The current subject scheduling leaves a lot of be desired. I would rather consolidate this into a single screen where you can choose the subject and the students to attend that day, it can be setup in advance and would repeat each week. You will also be able to leave it completely random or a combination of both.
• (Small) With the addition of some new stats for the player there needs to be a place for players to check them. It's not super important atm because these stats aren't really being used, just tracked.
• (Small) Nickname/first name basis system for characters, i.e you are friendly with a mother why do you still call her "Mrs. XXX".
• (Small) Expel/passing girls to free up space.

As to which I focus on will probably be influenced by user poll. Lets just get a build out here first xD

 

[BolHeX]

Version 0.2 has been available for testing on Discord for a little while now. I think we have found most of the issues so expect a release here soon.

I still need to write a thread, get some screenshots and read up on the rules of releasing a game here, so don't expect it today.

 

[TheExordick]

OK so! i saw your publication in the game section, and downloaded the game.
i put a couple of hours into it and i have to say i liked what i found so far.

The gameloop feels already solid

first of all i liked that you took away the pressure to release the girls just to make money for the school. As i personally like to take it slow and enjoy the girls i have before letting them pass the exam.
I also like that there are already the events to go to the student house and talk to the mother even though i'm not sure how much of an impact it has. (i still need to explore all the choices)
Photoshoots and sponsorship seems very pleasant to play, not much pressure, or better i'm not rushed to accept a lot of them due to financial issues and can concentrate on increasing the partnership one at a time.
Great thing the training session to modify in a controlled way the statistics of the girl (a bit overpowered maybe)

what i found that could be better (in terms of balancing the game):
i don't understand why the mothers get upset if their girl leave the exam before time. So i need to pass a lot of turns doing nothing just to keep them there.
The PTA rules are very easy to pass and it is difficult to understand the overall approval towards you. I personally find a bit useless the rules on the "free use acts" which sould be the focus. What i mean is that you can do whatever you want from the beginning. I feel it would be better if the options not approved by the PTA where blocked or with an incredible malus. This might turn the beginning of the game a bit repetitive but should give a better sense of progression as you unlock more actions.

Overall i'm really impressed with your work and hope to see it grow in quality and audience. I will keep playing it in the next days and add my considerations if they are useful.
keep it up!

 

[BolHeX]

Great thing the training session to modify in a controlled way the statistics of the girl (a bit overpowered maybe)

This is quite a placeholder and experimental system. I thought of the idea but never full fleshed it out.

what i found that could be better (in terms of balancing the game):
i don't understand why the mothers get upset if their girl leave the exam before time. So i need to pass a lot of turns doing nothing just to keep them there.

I could do a better job at communicating it, but "perfect"(no girls leave or pass) exams give the player a small pay bonus at the end of the week. I think the reputation and prestige penalty could be a bit harsh. I thought it would serve as a good way to keep players actions less harsh early on, I think penalties scaling based on something i.e "free use" rule level could be a good way to allow players to have free reign in the late game.

The PTA rules are very easy to pass and it is difficult to understand the overall approval towards you. I personally find a bit useless the rules on the "free use acts" which sould be the focus. What i mean is that you can do whatever you want from the beginning. I feel it would be better if the options not approved by the PTA where blocked or with an incredible malus. This might turn the beginning of the game a bit repetitive but should give a better sense of progression as you unlock more actions.

Balance is definitely still WIP and very hard to get right. I thought for this release I would rather things be too easy so users can atleast get to experience/test everything. I do agree though, passing rules should be harder and I could do a better job at communicating each mother's approval. This could be a UI overall in the future.

I haven't really come up with any goods ideas on how to "punish" the player for pushing past allowed rules, if you have ideas please share.