Others Dark Dimensions: A Spiritual Successor [v0.07-8-13-25-Update_1] [Stray Dream Games]

[Morah SDG]

Any chance for impregnation/pregnancy?

Oh, my bad.

 

[Bloo]

I wanted to like this, but the engine choice kills any enjoyment. It’s poorly optimized, and the overall UX is bad. Even the most basic feature of a visual novel, advancing text, feels clunky, with noticeable delays between button presses whenever there's an animation/transition or just at random. The text speed option is grayed out, the rollback button doesn’t work, and the save/load system sometimes glitches, resuming from the previous spot you were already in. Some of the settings keep resetting at random, like SFX setting itself to 50% when I put it at 100%. Menus overlay each other making it hard to read.

Saying it'll improve in the future just leads me to ask "Why release it like this in the first place?" It leaves a bad first impression.

There’s nothing here that couldn’t be done better and easier in Ren’Py and it shows with all the engine complaints in 12 pages worth of comments.

PS: I'm running this on a 4070 and a Ryzen 7, there's no reason that a visual novel with barely any idle animations should be kicking up my fans the way this is, just switch to Ren'py.

 

[MrGraphiceyes]

I load the game and get the engine screen then it disappers and nothing shows up at all.

 

[pietrinhs]

Hey! Game is looking good, I see that others have asked why you guys didn't use or switch to Ren'py, but honestly, I don't mind. If the game runs smoothly and it's playable, it's good enough for me.

I didn't play this last update though, did you guys add a lot of content? Cuz if not, I'd rather just wait for further updates.

 

[TheTMBS7]

So I've just "finished" the new update I guess cause' I can not find out how to get changed (in Danny's room there are only bed and computer buttons active so that's it for now?). It's kinda crazy and many people have already told you that it's quite hard to play comparing to renpy though a little optimization and fixes for that engine can do miracles I guess. The animations just take too long of your time for those who read fast and it's frustrating in a way. The phone is made completely unusable cause' in menu you have to use keyboard and to get back you have to click using mouse. Wtf? Why? Just make it respond to both keyboard and mouse and everyone'd be happy. Other than that some sprites are still not fixed lol, that eye glint is on weekends I guess. I appreciate the artstyle though, it's good and I'd like to see new updates at least once a month, GL. Oh, and at least you guys are here to respond to your actual audience, that's highly appreciated

UPD: I just had to use shower, so there WAS some quality content here

 

[Epadder]

I wanted to like this, but the engine choice kills any enjoyment. It’s poorly optimized, and the overall UX is bad. Even the most basic feature of a visual novel, advancing text, feels clunky, with noticeable delays between button presses whenever there's an animation/transition or just at random. The text speed option is grayed out, the rollback button doesn’t work, and the save/load system sometimes glitches, resuming from the previous spot you were already in. Some of the settings keep resetting at random, like SFX setting itself to 50% when I put it at 100%. Menus overlay each other making it hard to read.

Saying it'll improve in the future just leads me to ask "Why release it like this in the first place?" It leaves a bad first impression.

There’s nothing here that couldn’t be done better and easier in Ren’Py and it shows with all the engine complaints in 12 pages worth of comments.

PS: I'm running this on a 4070 and a Ryzen 7, there's no reason that a visual novel with barely any idle animations should be kicking up my fans the way this is, just switch to Ren'py.

We released this for two reasons:
To show people directly that we have actually been working on this and not just taking donations and their support to do nothing.
Also to get the critical feedback of more people's input, both for diversity of devices and diversity of thought.

If I, the other staff, or our playtesters had some of the issues that have been reported it would of course been delayed and things would be reexamined.

We will not switch engines, I will just put the time in to optimize things... the version number here isn't for show.

I'm sorry for everyone who has had a bad time or thinks that we should just switch, but if things are too clunky / low performance for you at the moment ,wait until a much later update to check the game out.

I thank everyone for letting the team and I know of these issues so they can be addressed in the future.

 

[Alkaid_]

I wanted to like this, but the engine choice kills any enjoyment. It’s poorly optimized, and the overall UX is bad. Even the most basic feature of a visual novel, advancing text, feels clunky, with noticeable delays between button presses whenever there's an animation/transition or just at...

I haven't tried this myself yet because I'm waiting for there to be some ero scenes in the game, but I will say it's not like Ren'Py games are immune to poor optimization. I've played some shockingly laggy ones before. In fact I'd say Ren'Py in general seems to be a little bit laggy, at least relative to the proper JP VNs. That may have been MUCH older versions of it, though.

On the other hand, it is true there is a question of "if you are going to be making a VN, why not just use the VN thing rather than recreating a VN engine for yourself in something else." I'm sure it was elaborated on in the past, I just can't remember exactly why. Ren'Py used to be pretty awful for any gameplay elements if you wanted to do anything more complex than the most basic turn based combat, but that was also a long time ago, and may longer be the case.

 

[papel]

I haven't tried this myself yet because I'm waiting for there to be some ero scenes in the game, but I will say it's not like Ren'Py games are immune to poor optimization. I've played some shockingly laggy ones before. In fact I'd say Ren'Py in general seems to be a little bit laggy, at least relative to the proper JP VNs. That may have been MUCH older versions of it, though.

On the other hand, it is true there is a question of "if you are going to be making a VN, why not just use the VN thing rather than recreating a VN engine for yourself in something else." I'm sure it was elaborated on in the past, I just can't remember exactly why. Ren'Py used to be pretty awful for any gameplay elements if you wanted to do anything more complex than the most basic turn based combat, but that was also a long time ago, and may longer be the case.

I'm immediately reminded of that futa centaur VN, which the creator decided to throw EVERYTHING away in order to start from scratch and add a shitty D20 roll, a la baldur's gate 3. Said D20 roll will lag so much you'll wonder if your CPU just became a 2005 single core Celeron.

So, my guess is that most of the problems with RenPy are the infinite plugins, whose QA can be boiled down to "it works on my, the dev's, computer" - It's not like there aren't alternatives for VNs either, but I guess people will just go for what's more popular, kinda like the amount of RPG Maker games that somehow manage to lag the fuck out while having nothing going on on the screen.

 

[Josh M Spicer]

Yeah, insert standard gripe with the engine here, you get the jist.

Adding in a pause after every "animation" (specifically characters turning back and forth) seems stilted and is a pause that doesn't seem entirely necessary.

But, beyond that issue with it, I've gotta say I like the designs and artwork for the characters, especially in defining shots like Sam in the locker room and Jazz in the shower.

 

[Josh M Spicer]

I do actually have one other thing. I'm assuming it's a victim of just not getting it all done, but the phone seems in complete.

Tasks don't show up and the photos Sam sends you don't reappear in the phone tab. Like I said, I'm assuming that's intentional, but I just figured I'd mention it.

 

[Morah SDG]

I do actually have one other thing. I'm assuming it's a victim of just not getting it all done, but the phone seems in complete.

Tasks don't show up and the photos Sam sends you don't reappear in the phone tab. Like I said, I'm assuming that's intentional, but I just figured I'd mention it.

Yeah, no, the phone is not “built” with functionality or the apps it’s supposed to right now.

 

[M1K3_0]

My game screen is like this
Is there any way I can reset or change the resolution/size?


P.S. I already tried deleting the game and installing it again but it didn't work

 

[Epadder]

My game screen is like this
Is there any way I can reset or change the resolution/size?
P.S. I already tried deleting the game and installing it again but it didn't work

Win+R then put `%APPDATA%\Godot\app_userdata\Dark Dimensions- Spiritual Successor\` in the box and run it. Then edit `spiritual_successor_user_preferences.tres` in a plain text editor (like Notepad/Notepad++) is your best bet.

Options explained below.

# Don't touch yet,
censoring = 0
# Don't touch yet,
language = 0
# 0 = EASY, 1=NORMAL, 2=HARD, combat difficulty doesn't matter atm.
difficulty = 1
# As a percentage of 1.0, so 1 = 100 or 0.5 = 50%, in that sort of pattern. Master volume controls the max volume of all other sliders.
master_volume = 1.0
# As a percentage of 1.0, so 1 = 100 or 0.5 = 50%, in that sort of pattern. Ambient volume controls the max volume of ambient (breathing / hums)
ambient_volume = 1.0
# As a percentage of 1.0, so 1 = 100 or 0.5 = 50%, in that sort of pattern. Dynamic volume controls the max volume of most of the music currently in use, it represents 'songs' that are controlled via code.
dynamic_volume = 0.5
# As a percentage of 1.0, so 1 = 100 or 0.5 = 50%, in that sort of pattern. Master volume controls the max volume of normal music, mainly the title screen atm.
music_volume = 1.0
# As a percentage of 1.0, so 1 = 100 or 0.5 = 50%, in that sort of pattern. Master volume controls the max volume of all sound effects.
sfx_volume = 0.5

# The main color of the interface, used for the 'normal' dimension. Uses hex code common on the web to represent the color. Currently the only one in use.
normal_base_color = "#72eeff"
# The main color of the interface, used for the 'dark' dimension.
dark_base_color = "#b478f6"

# The main color of the text in the game, used for the 'normal' dimension, currently the only one in use.
normal_text_color = "#FFFFFF"
# The main color of the text in the game, used for the 'dark' dimension.
dark_text_color = "#DDDDDD"

# The main color of the outline for text, used in the 'normal' dimension.
normal_outline_color = "000000ff"
# The main color of the outline for text, used in the 'dark' dimension.
dark_outline_color = "#000000"

# As a percentage of 1.0, so 1 = 100 or 0.5 = 50%, in that sort of pattern. How transparent the background of frames of the UI is in the game.
background_alpha = 0.9
# As a percentage of 1.0, so 1 = 100 or 0.5 = 50%, in that sort of pattern. How much the base color is darkened for the background frames.
background_darkened = 0.2
# As a percentage of 1.0, so 1 = 100 or 0.5 = 50%, in that sort of pattern. How much the hue of the base color is shifted for the background frames.
background_shift = 0.2
# As a percentage of 1.0, so 1 = 100 or 0.5 = 50%, in that sort of pattern. How much the base color is brightened for the frame of UI elements.
frame_brightened = 0.2
# As a percentage of 1.0, so 1 = 100 or 0.5 = 50%, in that sort of pattern. How much the hue of the base color is shifted for the frame of UI elements.
frame_shift = 0.2

#NYI completely, will offer a couple of adjustments of how the coloring of the UI is done.
color_scheme = 2

# 0 = Windowed, 1 = Exclusive Fullscreen, 2 = Borderless Window
window_mode = 0
# Starting resolution, in this 1600 is the width and 900 is the height in pixels.
# The current defaults.
# Vector2i(1280,720),
# Vector2i(1440,900),
# Vector2i(1600,900),
# Vector2i(1920,1080),
# Vector2i(1920,1200),
# Vector2i(2560,1440),
# Vector2i(3840,2160),
window_resolution = Vector2i(1600, 900)
# For multi-monitor setups this is the index of the monitors, and where the window will open by default. If you only have a single monitor it should be 0, and 0 on windows should be the monitor you've set as the 'primary' monitor.
window_monitor = 1

# Just adjust these through the UI unless absolutely necessary.
display_font = 0
font_scale = 0.75
text_speed = 1.0
auto_speed = 1.0
skip_unread = true
resume_skipping = false
primary_font = 2
secondary_font = 0
tertiary_font = 3

 

[Karnewarrior]

Oh, my bad.

[snip]

Crossing my fingers for a nice animated fertilization cut-in when it happens. Or even a minigame, if the way it's implemented allows for that.

 

[M1K3_0]

Game crashed out of nowhere while I was playing
It's the scene after Danny ends talking with Jazz and will go up to his room I assume, it just crashes the game, when normally these kind of warning screens from Windows ask if you want close the application, it took the initiative and close it for me this time

 

[Antonisimo]

 

[Josh M Spicer]

View attachment 5192140

Eh.

I mean there's something there for sure. It's just not really a lot yet.

 

[Kalran]

I just hope that the next update will be soon enough.

 

[UglyBastard69]

Sex in it?

 

[Morah SDG]

Sex in it?

Not yet, no, still very, very early.