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Insomnimaniac Games

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Hmm I'm getting so much feedback for making them have a predictable schedule with pictures that I'm considering it now, it would involve an overhaul since the code itself is completely based on random chance and probability for the generic events, story and room events will feature specific girls and your reaction accordingly would affect their relationship to you, I aimed to have the generic stuff random chance and the latter events to be more predictable, so events in the lab for example will feature Yolanda and Lilly more than anyone else, so you can spend time with the girl of your choice so to speak. Unfortunately I've held off on those and filling the rooms until after 1.0. But that will be in there yes.
I played enough to get the gist like we discussed and am scared to play more because of that one bug you mentioned :ROFLMAO: but I think predictable schedules is probably for the best. (Unless you made it a toggle, like in Love & Sex Second base, but that seems unnecessary tbh). But whether you keep the rng or not, I have two refined suggestions from our discord convo.
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Adding on fixed character schedules to something like these would probably fix all the navigation issues, and probably make non-generic scenes and quests easier from not just a player standpoint, but also a developer one. Now you can just simply go "Talk to X character in X room". This way, you could prevent quest/specific scene overlap by ensuring two characters that have available scenes aren't in the same room at the same time while making it easier on the player. (Double easy if you have a schedule in-game.)

Now, gameplay loop. I didn't get very far, but it seems this game wants to be a kind of management sim. I recommend consolidation here. You have statuses for every room, which I think is a touch unnecessary. Instead, I think you should assign certain tasks at the start of a day and if they player doesn't do them a universal stat would go down. Maintenance, cleanliness, etc. Makes it easier to keep track of. (Could show a bar in the UI, a percentage, etc). You already have the energy system, so players would have to actually plan out their game day accordingly (I played without the spouse, so I don't know if it applies to them too). You cloud flesh out the gameplay from there. Various upgrades to the MC, or the dorm. More tasks like repairs, helping them study, or... other things.

No comments on the story or characters. I didn't play the original and I think it's a tad early to comment on the story.
 

Icarus Media

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I played enough to get the gist like we discussed and am scared to play more because of that one bug you mentioned :ROFLMAO: but I think predictable schedules is probably for the best. (Unless you made it a toggle, like in Love & Sex Second base, but that seems unnecessary tbh). But whether you keep the rng or not, I have two refined suggestions from our discord convo.
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Adding on fixed character schedules to something like these would probably fix all the navigation issues, and probably make non-generic scenes and quests easier from not just a player standpoint, but also a developer one. Now you can just simply go "Talk to X character in X room". This way, you could prevent quest/specific scene overlap by ensuring two characters that have available scenes aren't in the same room at the same time while making it easier on the player. (Double easy if you have a schedule in-game.)

Now, gameplay loop. I didn't get very far, but it seems this game wants to be a kind of management sim. I recommend consolidation here. You have statuses for every room, which I think is a touch unnecessary. Instead, I think you should assign certain tasks at the start of a day and if they player doesn't do them a universal stat would go down. Maintenance, cleanliness, etc. Makes it easier to keep track of. (Could show a bar in the UI, a percentage, etc). You already have the energy system, so players would have to actually plan out their game day accordingly (I played without the spouse, so I don't know if it applies to them too). You cloud flesh out the gameplay from there. Various upgrades to the MC, or the dorm. More tasks like repairs, helping them study, or... other things.

No comments on the story or characters. I didn't play the original and I think it's a tad early to comment on the story.
I appreciate you taking the time to do that, I know you're busy with your own game so it's appreciated, I do like option 1 and was leaning towards that I'll admit.
 
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PhazeUFO

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As per changelog linear and more focussed events are still to come, a for graphics, the old software wasn't the best to work with, it was from 2003, didn't support more than 3 people in a scene and me and the site that had everything to keep it updated and running (Modsgarden) died a couple of years ago. There is another site now called Klubexile, but apparantly it has a points based download system, not entirely sure. Yeah this engine isn't as good graphically, especially as it is Japanese software that doesn't really do western faces, but it is SO much more easier to do scenes on the fly. What took me months in the old game I did in one month with the generic sex scenes.
Now this is something that I have to ask. Which software was it? At the time I thought it was an earlier version of Daz, but since you say it was old software and the support site died years ago, I must have been mistaken. As far as the graphics, if it is Honey Select as I assume, then the main issue is the lack difference with the faces. A second would be the cartoony appearances, but the similar facial appearance that many games that use this software have are a turn off for some.
You are talking to a brick wall, the game is perfect apart from everything the author ignores, which they keep ignoring. These SEND kids have literally had no one else contradict them in their entire life unfortunately, they just live on vibes and delusion tbh.
Not going to lie, I did have to look that acronym up.
But I can agree that Icarus can sound a bit antagonistic in some answers, it's not easy receiving flak without understanding the problem.
That comes with being from the U.K. my man. The can see it from other devs from there and either accept and ignore it or bail and blacklist.
I was raised by my grandfather about 50% my mom and dad about 25% each. Since he was born in 1912 (died 2004) I've picked up a lot of his mannerisms and principles, one of those is you don't insult someone without cause, otherwise you rightfully got a clip round the ear 'ole as he used to say, i.e. be prepared to back up your words. You had respect for people's efforts, especially if you hadn't done something yourself. So when you talked about not only doing your own game, but the years you've coded as well as helping other devs like Torian with his coding and map. THAT feedback hit me harder this morning than most, because I instantly know you've done it, walked the walk, it's respect automatically for your effort, regardless of whether it is good or not (I haven't tried your game, I think it has a card mechanic?). Whereas I've found people now don't have respect, they say 'respect is earnt', No, I believe respect is given, until it is un-earnt. So the person you are quoting is fine with saying my game is x y z, bit to personally insult me by implying I am special needs, I don't think I would be antagonistic to rightfully call that out, and to defend my honour from such.
Unfortunately, that doesn't work very well when you are attempting to sell something. Fighting back against or arguing with your audience, regardless of how annoying or rude, rarely works out well for the merchant. This can be seen in our current entertainment industry. It is painful, but you can only ignore their bait to avoid worse troubles in the future. Another silly belief is that you have to have some form of product yourself or have worked in the industry to be able to give adequate or relevant advice or criticism. Although that in no way states you shouldn't value their opinion as they may have experience that you lack in an area do to their own path, just that they shouldn't be given some special authority as that can lead to its own issues.
So.. I'll ask a question the dudes, who do not want to take it up their ass :LOL: Can we choose who takes the lead?
Depends on who is giving it. :WeSmart: :WeSmart: :WeSmart:
 

Icarus Media

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not undestend... sooo we play both? or we have chosen?
You can play either, so you choose to be male or female in the beginning.
If you want to play as Futa (There is not much content at the moment) then you can choose to have a futa best friend who you can control.
 

Icarus Media

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Now this is something that I have to ask. Which software was it? At the time I thought it was an earlier version of Daz, but since you say it was old software and the support site died years ago, I must have been mistaken. As far as the graphics, if it is Honey Select as I assume, then the main issue is the lack difference with the faces. A second would be the cartoony appearances, but the similar facial appearance that many games that use this software have are a turn off for some.

Not going to lie, I did have to look that acronym up.

That comes with being from the U.K. my man. The can see it from other devs from there and either accept and ignore it or bail and blacklist.

Unfortunately, that doesn't work very well when you are attempting to sell something. Fighting back against or arguing with your audience, regardless of how annoying or rude, rarely works out well for the merchant. This can be seen in our current entertainment industry. It is painful, but you can only ignore their bait to avoid worse troubles in the future. Another silly belief is that you have to have some form of product yourself or have worked in the industry to be able to give adequate or relevant advice or criticism. Although that in no way states you shouldn't value their opinion as they may have experience that you lack in an area do to their own path, just that they shouldn't be given some special authority as that can lead to its own issues.

Depends on who is giving it. :WeSmart: :WeSmart: :WeSmart:
The software was called 3dSexvilla, although that stopped even earlier than 2003, it was maintained as a pirate form of it via the Modsgarden website but they renamed it TK17, that worked until a couple of years ago when that site died and the community from it split into two sites: Klubexile and there was another one whose name escapes me.

As for audience and selling something, there is the 80/20 rule, 80% were never going to buy or donate. You want to aim for the 20%. It's illogical that everyone coming into your shop is gonna buy something if you think about it right?
Hell it's well known: or the search itself:
Now maybe I'm wrong and that's the reason people think I'm antagonistic, but that's what I found 7 years ago when I first started doing this. I love my patrons and subscribers, I give them updates in advance, let them vote for next project or events, i chat with them on my Discord. But you can't appeal to everyone. I mean I saw that with Devs like Paradox, who had a really awesome game but because he/she kept listening to everyone they constantly revamped, changed things, added a fetish, removed it the next time etc etc. I don't want to end up like that, I want focus but also not to look like I'm a complete dick ignoring everyone, it's a fine line.
 

Icarus Media

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30% off your first month or annual pledge via patreon. Use 63E94 code at checkout to apply the discount, Hurry though, my offer ends 30th July 2025.
 

Icarus Media

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Here's some feedback, hopefully constructive.

I played the full intro, it was fine. The characters are quickly defined but the amount of them introduced makes it quite boring. The newer models also don't help in differentiating them since they look quite similar.
I'm not a huge fan of the newer models, they look too similar to each other, and the girls are a bit too one-note, but not a deal breaker for me (I don't mind being fucked by a girl I don't appreciate =3 (in a game))

But once I got in the gameplay, I quickly gave up. There are multiple reasons for it :
  • The movement isn't good, I mainly used the fast travel but it really needs a map in the background to illustrate it and I only used that since there are so many locations.
  • When I enter a room, most of the time nothing happens. No event, nobody there, nothing. It only wastes my time exploring empty rooms. I suppose it would be better if I walked room by room, but you can't find your way easily in such a huge map.
  • Even when there's someone in the room, the only way to know is the small menu in the bottom right, and you have to spot the true in all the false.
  • At last I find someone, I talk to them and a big menu of seven options pops up. Okay, that's simple subjects... no, surprise all of those have sub options. I pick a sub option, get a single line answer and they leave. I guess it changes their likes/dislikes of you but that isn't interesting, especially since that's almost all the active interaction you can have with them.
  • To get scenes, you just have to walk around (at random?) and hope they'll trigger. I already had that problem with your previous game and The Futa Experiment, but it isn't compelling.
  • The gameplay of cleaning rooms isn't interesting. Go there, click clean, leave. I guess sometimes they'll try to fuck you but I didn't play enough for that. There is no challenge, only busywork. I guess it's the job, but could be improved.
Last thing, the English isn't great. Quite a few spelling mistakes (your and you're, really?) and weird phrases. The dialects being written phonetically don't help, especially for those like me that aren't native English speakers.

Now, how I'd fix it :
I'll suggest you the same thing I did to Torian, a location map (I'm the one who quickly rigged their current map in an hour they just placed into their game without making much improvements). For you, I think a whole map would be a better fit.
  • First, make a top down view of the different levels of the place. You can use whatever method you prefer, either 3D models or something simpler with Dungeondraft or similar programs.
  • Make a button for each room and place them at the right places.
    • If you want something better than buttons with flat text, you can cut the image of each room and make that an image button.
That makes an improved version of your current Fast Travel. It doesn't seem much, but not having a black background with white text buttons will greatly improve the way players navigate.
Next, the gameplay, now that's a bit more subjective.
  • For the empty rooms, I'd suggest rolling randomly each time slot where each girl will be. So no randomness when the player is deciding what to do, if Nicole is in her room, she'll stay there.
    • Also, why don't you show the portraits of the girls in the room, it'd make it way less confusing to see who's there rather than that small menu. Or at least make the girls present more obvious, with icons and colors rather than true/false.
  • Next, make icons for all the girls. Either a small head or a logo to represent them. Add it to the map to show where they are at a current time. It'll help players find things to do and not wander in vain.
    • Want to surprise the player? No problem, make a generic "Someone's here" icon (like a question mark) and use that instead. It could be used for some events, like if they are currently fucking your wife it could act as "You hear something".
    • Bonus : you could implement them as some kind of perk. At the beginning, the player can't see the girls, but as they get closer to them or do good work, their location becomes revealed to them.
  • For the random events, I see two ways to do them.
    • You can assume the player will want to see them, so simply use the previous system and sometimes, when you visit a girl, the events will trigger.
    • The other is to limit the distance you travel on the location map. You can make it so the player can only move to a room adjacent to the one they're in. The player will be forced to travel through certain events and either deal with the horny futa and do whatever they wanted to do later, or displease them.
  • The cleaning... You have to introduce some kind of obstacle to the player, if possible not randomness.
    • If you picked the previous option, simply having to either help horny futas or do your designed work is already a good start.
    • Making cleaning a gauge that increases as time progress and kinky events occurs could be interesting. Certains rooms would be obviously excluded (Guard room, small parts of the player's apartment). After cleaning, an event could trigger at that place, which you can also do or leave to balance your time and displeasing the futas. And if you're cleaning their room, they could be more insistant, or you could find some surprises.
    • I don't like it but others might, making the cleaning a minigame is also an option. Something that can fail and the player would have to redo (loses time), hide (loses friendship), bargain (sex) or do later. The options are bigger, but it's harder to implement and balance.
    • Interacting with spouse/Sati at the start of each day to dispatch tasks. If they like you, they'll do what you want, otherwise they might visit someone they like instead. Managing their workload, which room they clean or futas they help could improve their like/dislike of the player, instead of the current talk menu and would include it more into the gameplay.
  • And lastly, the talking. Picking the good option between 28 of them is nice the first few times, but in the end you only pick the best one and it isn't interesting. I gave a suggestion for the spouse and Sati above, but for the other girls you have to revamp it.
    • First idea I have is to only have a limited number of options in each interaction. When the player talks to a girl, pick 3-5 random subjects and limit their choice to that. Make sure at least one is positive (or neutral if she's a difficult girl) and they'll have to learn to know the girls.
      • Bonus : Again, you can make it into a perk. Getting more options as you get closer to the girl, or less if she's horny. And you can also add colors to the good options if they really know her.
    • Adding some small requests. Instead of talking or fucking (fucking could still be included), they could ask the player for a fetch quest (fetch me a drink, cook me dinner, get something from someone...). The request itself don't have to require time, but might be time sensitive : they won't be happy if you take an hour to bring them a drink, so you'd have to avoid losing time.
      • You could also message your wife/Sati to do it for them, increasing the relationship between the two as well.
    • Again, a minigame is possible. I don't have a particular idea for anything specific, but it'd fit if that's your thing.
And finally, a few things about the UI (my personal kink is a good UI) :
  • Add a contrasting outline to the girls' nameplates, some of them are unreadable.
  • For the character stats, there's a lot to improve, especially the void that is a black background.
    • After that, make a menu at the side, top or bottom with the head of each girl for navigation.
    • The like/dislike menu don't have to include the whole "X like/dislike Y:". You're on a girl's page, of course you're talking about her likes, and the "like/dislike" should be obvious. Make a "Relationships"label at the top and everyone will understand.
      • Each gauges should have the same size. Either that or the girls with short names are more loved and loving than the ones with a long one. "Anabella likes/dislikes Chancellor" only leaves a tiny gauge.
  • The "Playing as" label isn't relevant most of the time. Maybe remove it when it's the player character and just keep it for Sati, as I assume the player will spend most of their time with their character.
  • Make the sub-menus (character stats, fast travel) close with right click. It's easier and faster than looking for a return button.
  • Don't be afraid to use icons, it's much faster to differentiate two images than two words. Almost all of the text on the game screen (outside of numbers) could be replaced.
  • I didn't go into your code, but you should use ids and names for the things that are displayed. Seeing "Up: Home_Lounge" makes it very amateurish.

And that's all I had to do with what I played. I spend more time writing this than in the game ^^".
It might sound like I want to change everything, but I see a good potential in this kind of games (since DD1) but it's held back by being more of a scene viewer than having compelling gameplay.

Good luck with the future updates, I'm here or you can pm me if you want me to explain more certain points, brainstorm or ask for how to implement it. I could even be persuaded to look into your code or explain you how to do certain things, everything I suggested is something I know how to do in Ren'Py (outside of the images, I suck at that).
List of Things To Do DDR.jpg

Like I said, writing it down makes it a bit more visible and is a reminder to me, I think I've distilled most of your points down to this, let me know if anything is really missed. I'll keep this by my computer now so I'm always aware of it.
 
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Toramizu

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Oct 14, 2017
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Looks fine for a todo list ^^
I'd just add two things
  • Fuse menus & sub-menus, like Character Stats should open on one character by default (probably the player) and you have the buttons to swap at the top/bottom. Same thing with the Fast Travel. It'll help reduce the amount of clicks needed to navigate them.
  • For the outline on the character names, it's literally one line to add, you can do that with
    Python:
    define gui.name_text_outlines = [ (3, "#000000", 0, 0) ]
    With the 3 being the size of the outline and hexcode the color (here, black). It'll apply to everything written in the name textbox
 

Icarus Media

F95 Comedian
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Jun 19, 2019
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ugh,so you'll leave this game in state of mess with random scenes popping out any time?You have your reasons,but now this game far from the original
I never said I'd leave the game! Don't put words in my mouth. READ what I said properly, I will be running the next project alongside DDR from from 1.1 onwards. Toramizu and other bug feedback I can act upon from 1.0 to 2.0. Next project will be a bit like Futa Grandma since that was quite popular and people liked that format, apparantely I write stories better than sandboxes despite liking sandboxes personally.

1.1 - 2.0 - Will be both DDR and the New Project that patrons will vote on. Events will be added, the rooms fleshed out, character development and story will be done as well. Because the New Project won't be as big as this in scope I can focus more without pressure and so I can craft something substantial.

yeah I don't blame him, a lot of people came in with futagrandma and have been slowly trickling out with DDV.
Yeah I had a LOT of patrons coming for that, doing one got me more support than my videos and the original DDR got together. I suppose you have to go for what people want.
 

Icarus Media

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Just make your next game Similar to my girlfriend and futa Grandma
Defo agreed on that! It came as a surprise to me that people prefer VN's or Choice based Story stuff rather than a sandbox, but that's me letting personal preferences in, I like games with management and numbers, I kinda fell into the trap of assuming others just wanted numbers and raw data. Oops... :giggle:.

I'm gonna put the next project vote up by this Sunday on Patreon and Subscribestar.
 
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BroProHelpas

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Defo agreed on that! It came as a surprise to me that people prefer VN's or Choice based Story stuff rather than a sandbox, but that's me letting personal preferences in, I like games with management and numbers, I kinda fell into the trap of assuming others just wanted numbers and raw data. Oops... :giggle:.

people were always complaining about sandboxes
 

Toramizu

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Oct 14, 2017
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Defo agreed on that! It came as a surprise to me that people prefer VN's or Choice based Story stuff rather than a sandbox, but that's me letting personal preferences in, I like games with management and numbers, I kinda fell into the trap of assuming others just wanted numbers and raw data. Oops... :giggle:.

I'm gonna put the next project vote up by this Sunday on Patreon and Subscribestar.
I don't want to be mean, but I think it's more about a problem with the game itself rather than people preferring VNs over sandbox. Look at , and you can see that there is a lot of interest for a game exactly like Dickgirl Dorm. I maintain that with a better gameplay, the game would be great, but as it is now, it's frustrating.

It's so close to being something great, yet the way it's implemented is holding it back to even be good... I almost want to slap you on the wrists, take DD2, rebuild its bases and hand it back to you :p
In fact, years ago I switched my game from Unity to Ren'Py because I wanted to make it as a quick practice project (haha, we can see what became of that) and do my take on DD1 after that, so I can tell you I see the appeal in the game ^^"
 

Icarus Media

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I don't want to be mean, but I think it's more about a problem with the game itself rather than people preferring VNs over sandbox. Look at , and you can see that there is a lot of interest for a game exactly like Dickgirl Dorm. I maintain that with a better gameplay, the game would be great, but as it is now, it's frustrating.

It's so close to being something great, yet the way it's implemented is holding it back to even be good... I almost want to slap you on the wrists, take DD2, rebuild its bases and hand it back to you :p
In fact, years ago I switched my game from Unity to Ren'Py because I wanted to make it as a quick practice project (haha, we can see what became of that) and do my take on DD1 after that, so I can tell you I see the appeal in the game ^^"
I appreciate that, and I do want to work on it, hence working on a new main project and having this as a side one. It'll still be updated up to 2.0.

And yeah, Torian was once my patron, he liked Dickgirl Dorm too.
 

PhazeUFO

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Sep 28, 2021
1,771
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Yeah I had a LOT of patrons coming for that, doing one got me more support than my videos and the original DDR got together. I suppose you have to go for what people want.
To be fair, both of those games were completed, so the people that liked the first had a good mindset that the second would be completed as well.
I appreciate that, and I do want to work on it, hence working on a new main project and having this as a side one. It'll still be updated up to 2.0.

And yeah, Torian was once my patron, he liked Dickgirl Dorm too.
Like I said, leaving the first version incomplete as well as taking a hiatus only hurt the patreon from what I would imagine.
Defo agreed on that! It came as a surprise to me that people prefer VN's or Choice based Story stuff rather than a sandbox, but that's me letting personal preferences in, I like games with management and numbers, I kinda fell into the trap of assuming others just wanted numbers and raw data. Oops... :giggle:.
Some of it is due to a quick fap as you can skip everything in a VN to get straight to the lewds. I don't think that works for the longevity of the game, but it does its merits for one looking to fap.
 
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