VN Ren'Py Dog Days of Summer [Rework v0.2.1b] [BlackWeb Games]

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bacienvu88

Well-Known Member
Aug 3, 2021
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BlackWebGames

When going the different shopping paths for the walkthrough I work on I noticed a couple of things that seem odd to me.

When asking Tara about Katherine all paths except shoppingdes path set the cluekat variable. Surely all of them should set it?

When on shoppingmom path you can't ask about Tara herself. But you can on all other paths. Is that intentional?
 

FrostRabbit7

Member
Aug 20, 2022
386
395
BlackWebGames

When going the different shopping paths for the walkthrough I work on I noticed a couple of things that seem odd to me.

When asking Tara about Katherine all paths except shoppingdes path set the cluekat variable. Surely all of them should set it?

When on shoppingmom path you can't ask about Tara herself. But you can on all other paths. Is that intentional?
Tara story will apparently always lead to the same conclusion it seems. No matter the path, it is hinted you will sleep with Tara once at the end of the game and she will leave you to your life. The prologue, the interesting painting, and your assignment paper give everything you need to know about Tara.
 

dolfe67

Forum Fanatic
Apr 25, 2020
4,671
12,704


Yeah remember when these were a thing. Sorry for not doing a better job and keeping you updated but I hope to do be more consistent with my progress going forward.

That being said, I've gotten a lot of work done on the Sorority party and am nearly done with the 'base' route though the party. This is the path that doesn't take in any factor of your relationship with harper or Evaline and is just the base line events that happen. That is going to include the second and third party game as well as the 'prize' for winning. If you win.

However, working through this I have come to the horrible conclusion that my coding, specifically the variables is going to need a complete rework from start to finish. It was something I was really hoping to not have to do but the more I have put it off the worse it has gotten.

This stems from several factors, the main one being when I first started DDoS I had never coded anything in my life and as such my organization is mess. Making it hard to track down and solve problems when they arrive. Second problem and probably the more crippling is that how I did my switches at the start of the game was very impractical especially given how many choices there are. And now that I have a lot more experience under my belt I know how to them better but to change them now means breaking everyone's saves.

So this is what I am going to do. I will finish the vanilla sorority route and likely the other Harper date as well. And once that is done I will go back and start reworking the code. But that dose bring me to a question. Since I am going to have to do a major rework of the code what are your thoughts of me going back and redoing at least some of the original graphics in the early part of the game?

There have been a lot of comments made that they didn't think that Vivian was all that attractive and I understand the sentiment at least. It wouldn't be a radical change but it would be using the new model that I reworked a while ago and especially going back and changing the sprites.

Let me know your thoughts and also if there are any suggestions on what you would like to see changed since I have to go back and rework everything anyway now is the time to make any changes to the beginning of the game. I wont promise you that I will make them but I would like to hear them none the less.
 

GokutheG

Active Member
Oct 20, 2022
687
1,162


Yeah remember when these were a thing. Sorry for not doing a better job and keeping you updated but I hope to do be more consistent with my progress going forward.

That being said, I've gotten a lot of work done on the Sorority party and am nearly done with the 'base' route though the party. This is the path that doesn't take in any factor of your relationship with harper or Evaline and is just the base line events that happen. That is going to include the second and third party game as well as the 'prize' for winning. If you win.

However, working through this I have come to the horrible conclusion that my coding, specifically the variables is going to need a complete rework from start to finish. It was something I was really hoping to not have to do but the more I have put it off the worse it has gotten.

This stems from several factors, the main one being when I first started DDoS I had never coded anything in my life and as such my organization is mess. Making it hard to track down and solve problems when they arrive. Second problem and probably the more crippling is that how I did my switches at the start of the game was very impractical especially given how many choices there are. And now that I have a lot more experience under my belt I know how to them better but to change them now means breaking everyone's saves.

So this is what I am going to do. I will finish the vanilla sorority route and likely the other Harper date as well. And once that is done I will go back and start reworking the code. But that dose bring me to a question. Since I am going to have to do a major rework of the code what are your thoughts of me going back and redoing at least some of the original graphics in the early part of the game?

There have been a lot of comments made that they didn't think that Vivian was all that attractive and I understand the sentiment at least. It wouldn't be a radical change but it would be using the new model that I reworked a while ago and especially going back and changing the sprites.

Let me know your thoughts and also if there are any suggestions on what you would like to see changed since I have to go back and rework everything anyway now is the time to make any changes to the beginning of the game. I wont promise you that I will make them but I would like to hear them none the less.
The dev should focus on improving the code before finishing the party since saves will get nuked anyway and the rework may introduce new bugs to those scenes which would just double the amount of work anyway. Reworking scenes always seem to slow development down to a crawl with little actual upside compared to actual new content. I personally find all the characters to be attractive and think all focus should be on continuing the game's progress.
 
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c3p0

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Nov 20, 2017
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The dev should focus on improving the code before finishing the party since saves will get nuked anyway and the rework may introduce new bugs to those scenes which would just double the amount of work anyway. Reworking scenes always seem to slow development down to a crawl with little actual upside compared to actual new content. I personally find all the characters to be attractive and think all focus should be on continuing the game's progress.
You could adress the dev directly (BlackWebGames) as he/she? is around the zone:
https://f95zone.to/members/blackwebgames.1936263/

For myself, cleaning up now may be the better variante, I think too. But I'm happy either way and for rework of scene, perhaps it is a variety to rework the code.
 
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BlackWebGames

Dog Days of Summer developer
Game Developer
Jan 11, 2020
727
2,317
The dev should focus on improving the code before finishing the party since saves will get nuked anyway and the rework may introduce new bugs to those scenes which would just double the amount of work anyway. Reworking scenes always seem to slow development down to a crawl with little actual upside compared to actual new content. I personally find all the characters to be attractive and think all focus should be on continuing the game's progress.
And I was thinking about that but then you are talking a long time before the next update and it has already been a long time. So the plan was to give you some new content to enjoy while I go through and tear the code apart.
 
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CHFan

Member
Feb 25, 2019
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I feel that touching up the graphics in the early portion of the game should wait until you get done with the game/story. I have no issue with the appearance with the MC in the beginning, she shouldn't be smoking hot then. If she is then what's the point of meeting Tara? She should be a bit of a train wreck before the shopping trip as she hasn't begun her transformation. No idea if this conflicts with the sub route as I only explore the dom options.

I totally get wanting to clean up the code as it will make your life that much easier. I'm not too concerned with breaking saves as I tend to replay this game from the start with every update.
 
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GokutheG

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Oct 20, 2022
687
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And I was thinking about that but then you are talking a long time before the next update and it has already been a long time. So the plan was to give you some new content to enjoy while I go through and tear the code apart.
Hmm that is a good point. It sounds like you may be close to finishing the party's base route so how about completing that and then focusing on it's branches and the Harper date after the code rework. This would be a nice compromise for people waiting on an update and the risk of having to redo a scene due to the rework is lower.

I wonder if the code rework will make bacienvu88's work on the walkthrough easier.
 

BlackWebGames

Dog Days of Summer developer
Game Developer
Jan 11, 2020
727
2,317
Hmm that is a good point. It sounds like you may be close to finishing the party's base route so how about completing that and then focusing on it's branches and the Harper date after the code rework. This would be a nice compromise for people waiting on an update and the risk of having to redo a scene due to the rework is lower.

I wonder if the code rework will make bacienvu88's work on the walkthrough easier.
That is the plan for the most part. I only added the Harper date part because I have already done one half and it wouldn't take a lot of time to finish the other half once I get going on it.
 
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BlackWebGames

Dog Days of Summer developer
Game Developer
Jan 11, 2020
727
2,317
I feel that touching up the graphics in the early portion of the game should wait until you get done with the game/story. I have no issue with the appearance with the MC in the beginning, she shouldn't be smoking hot then. If she is then what's the point of meeting Tara? She should be a bit of a train wreck before the shopping trip as she hasn't begun her transformation. No idea if this conflicts with the sub route as I only explore the dom options.
And that is what I am going for only there are a lot of people complaining about how she is ugly looking and that is turning them away from the game. So if redoing some of the sprites helps with that and maybe a few of the CGs that isn't that much of a time sink and if I get good feedback because of it all the better.
 

GokutheG

Active Member
Oct 20, 2022
687
1,162
And that is what I am going for only there are a lot of people complaining about how she is ugly looking and that is turning them away from the game. So if redoing some of the sprites helps with that and maybe a few of the CGs that isn't that much of a time sink and if I get good feedback because of it all the better.
But that's also a risk. If you change how she looks for people who don't even like the game you run the risk of running off the people who like the way the game looks now. (Personally it wouldn't be worth it. It reminds me of an interview I saw of the new Halo devs being people who dislike Halo and we can see how well that went.)

Everyone looks beautiful to me and I'm confused about what those people can be complaining about. Do they want her to have a bimbo body, remove all character in her face like some Instagram filter or do they want her looking like a kid? These types of changes would really suck.
 
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Alley_Cat

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Jul 20, 2019
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But that's also a risk. If you change how she looks for people who don't even like the game you run the risk of running off the people who like the way the game looks now. (Personally it wouldn't be worth it. It reminds me of an interview I saw of the new Halo devs being people who dislike Halo and we can see how well that went.)

Everyone looks beautiful to me and I'm confused about what those people can be complaining about. Do they want her to have a bimbo body, remove all character in her face like some Instagram filter or do they want her looking like a kid? These types of changes would really suck.
Like what happened to Free Pass? Dev fundamentally changed the game by introducing a male protag because of all the requests, but then ended up alienating her loyal supporters
 

FrostRabbit7

Member
Aug 20, 2022
386
395


Yeah remember when these were a thing. Sorry for not doing a better job and keeping you updated but I hope to do be more consistent with my progress going forward.

That being said, I've gotten a lot of work done on the Sorority party and am nearly done with the 'base' route though the party. This is the path that doesn't take in any factor of your relationship with harper or Evaline and is just the base line events that happen. That is going to include the second and third party game as well as the 'prize' for winning. If you win.

However, working through this I have come to the horrible conclusion that my coding, specifically the variables is going to need a complete rework from start to finish. It was something I was really hoping to not have to do but the more I have put it off the worse it has gotten.

This stems from several factors, the main one being when I first started DDoS I had never coded anything in my life and as such my organization is mess. Making it hard to track down and solve problems when they arrive. Second problem and probably the more crippling is that how I did my switches at the start of the game was very impractical especially given how many choices there are. And now that I have a lot more experience under my belt I know how to them better but to change them now means breaking everyone's saves.

So this is what I am going to do. I will finish the vanilla sorority route and likely the other Harper date as well. And once that is done I will go back and start reworking the code. But that dose bring me to a question. Since I am going to have to do a major rework of the code what are your thoughts of me going back and redoing at least some of the original graphics in the early part of the game?

There have been a lot of comments made that they didn't think that Vivian was all that attractive and I understand the sentiment at least. It wouldn't be a radical change but it would be using the new model that I reworked a while ago and especially going back and changing the sprites.

Let me know your thoughts and also if there are any suggestions on what you would like to see changed since I have to go back and rework everything anyway now is the time to make any changes to the beginning of the game. I wont promise you that I will make them but I would like to hear them none the less.
Do what you gotta do. As for Vivian, I think her being rather bland at the begginning shows how little effort she put in her appearance and really helps show how attractive she can be when she starts wearing makeup. It was a smart move to be honest.
 

bacienvu88

Well-Known Member
Aug 3, 2021
1,714
3,169
However, working through this I have come to the horrible conclusion that my coding, specifically the variables is going to need a complete rework from start to finish. It was something I was really hoping to not have to do but the more I have put it off the worse it has gotten.
Yeah, this is very noticeable when doing a walkthrough. There are lots of variables that refer to almost the same thing. And there are a *lot* of variables. Honestly I am impressed that BlackWebGames is able to manage it all. :)
There have been a lot of comments made that they didn't think that Vivian was all that attractive and I understand the sentiment at least. It wouldn't be a radical change but it would be using the new model that I reworked a while ago and especially going back and changing the sprites.
I can understand it a bit from having a great first appearance and so on. But I honestly think the story in part is great because you clearly see Viv's growth also in how she looks. I'd be sad if we lose that aspect.
I wonder if the code rework will make bacienvu88's work on the walkthrough easier.
Yes, definitely. Although it won't help with the inherent complexity of all the branches.
That is the plan for the most part. I only added the Harper date part because I have already done one half and it wouldn't take a lot of time to finish the other half once I get going on it.
I think it is worth it to spend some time cleaning up the code. I'm sure that the time spent on cleaning is going to be recuperated many times over with faster dev time later.
 
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GokutheG

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Oct 20, 2022
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Like what happened to Free Pass? Dev fundamentally changed the game by introducing a male protag because of all the requests, but then ended up alienating her loyal supporters
Yes! That was one of my favorite adult games of all time. I was really invested in the characters and wanted to see how their story would unfold. Then all of a sudden all the time I invested in the game was wasted due to that reboot. Not only did she remove all the character from the MC's face resulting in her looking like a plastic doll/filter addiction. The worse part was changing the characters especially their personality. The game actually spent time building up a connection between the characters so that when something actually sexual happens it was much more enjoyable. I gave the reboot a shot and dropped it due to it devolving into a just another fuck fest game. At least it still had lesbian mode I believe.

The less said about the "brother" the better.
 
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