Virulenz
Engaged Member
- Sep 27, 2017
- 2,938
- 3,765
Maybe he waits until he can buy a coder instead of just hire one ^^
- Thread starter 7767
- Start date
- Apr 25, 2017
- 348
- 670
This is exactly why i switched to Buy Me a Coffee and similar payment methods.
I started by supporting few games on Patreon at $20 and $10 level. When some devs started doing really well with pledges, I changed it to up to a dozen games at $5 to $10 level, mostly to upcoming devs. Supported this game as well.
After a while, just decided to pay per update whether by above mentioned method or by subscribing to Patreon for 1 month. There are lots of honest and productive devs here but I feel that this form of compensation is the most appropriate for me.
I also understand distinction between quick updates and ones that show 6+ months of work so I donate accordingly.
As Somebody365 mentioned, Ren'Py is not that complicated and half-decent (competent?) programmer should have handled this merge in a meter of months. If you don't count Halloween Special, which was basically a filler, there was no update like in 18 months.
Yes, this game is good. So is Waify Academy which is also marred by dodgy promises. If you like similar style games, for people who haven't played it already, I recommend Eternum by Caribdis.
Just my 2 cents. Think that this method of compensation would keep devs more honest.
I started by supporting few games on Patreon at $20 and $10 level. When some devs started doing really well with pledges, I changed it to up to a dozen games at $5 to $10 level, mostly to upcoming devs. Supported this game as well.
After a while, just decided to pay per update whether by above mentioned method or by subscribing to Patreon for 1 month. There are lots of honest and productive devs here but I feel that this form of compensation is the most appropriate for me.
I also understand distinction between quick updates and ones that show 6+ months of work so I donate accordingly.
As Somebody365 mentioned, Ren'Py is not that complicated and half-decent (competent?) programmer should have handled this merge in a meter of months. If you don't count Halloween Special, which was basically a filler, there was no update like in 18 months.
Yes, this game is good. So is Waify Academy which is also marred by dodgy promises. If you like similar style games, for people who haven't played it already, I recommend Eternum by Caribdis.
Just my 2 cents. Think that this method of compensation would keep devs more honest.
Had you just finished reading my post I mentioned that Bluecat may have already moved on to plan B. Indicating I don't know for sure any work is being done on the proper merge. I'm working on the same progress reports as everyone else here, I've just been paying attention to them in spite of the difficulty. As for new content I'd guess March or April. If the proper merge is basically done, as it should be, then it should be tested soon and publicly released before the end of the month. This would mean either a late February or early March release for the first days of week 4. If they switched to plan B then the scaled back merge probably won't be released until February meaning a late March or early April release for the beginning of week 4. Since the scaled back merge would presumably drop all the extra features causing problems it really would be little more than slapping the existing content together and shouldn't take long to do. If there's nothing out by the end of April I'm hitting the ignore button at the top of the thread and washing my hands of this game.
AnimeKing already answered most of your questions. As for this, some people don't recover in 3 days and quite a few have long term consequences from covid. It doesn't take much for respiratory infections to have permanent effects on people's health and ability to work. It's also not been a year of nothing happening. It was 3-4 months of nothing followed by 9 months of slow progress. Just because the update hasn't been released doesn't mean nothing has been done. I don't like how slow it's been either, and I wish Bluecat had hired another programmer when Latecomer got sick, but I'm also not going to behave like you smarmy shitstains out of impatience. Even triple A titles see delays that last several months, and that's with a whole team of programmers getting paid to do the work. Try to remember you're dealing with a passion project where all the workers have real jobs they do on top of making a game most people play for free.
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If I remember right, they confirmed that it wasn't covid that he had but rather he has long standing health issues that took a turn for the worse at that time. Which also begs the question (and many people were asking this when we found out about this) why not have a backup for that scenario? Bluecat was aware it was an eventualality and still had that person be the person the entire merge hinged on. Personally, I can still count that as amateurism and incompetence on bluecat's part but now that that same person is lying to the team to secure their posiition they should honestly be let go immediately (or at least as soon as the merge finishes if it truly is close which I hope it is).
Myself and any other person with programming experience who have looked at the code have said that it souldn't take nearly this long even in the worst cases of incompetence. It's time the bluecat team finds themselves a different project manager/lead programmer (ideally separating those two roles).
Dukez
Member
- Dec 19, 2020
- 446
- 1,575
It's simple stuff really, like why isn't there updates saying how much *content* has been put into the merged product so far? E.g Week 1 & 2 in, and they're working on Week 3. What about the phone? Does it work properly now? Were there any UI changes? etc...
I feel like there's a bunch of questions they could answer and given picture showcases, or stats (current game size for example) and so on.
I think I might poke around in renpy for some fun..
I feel like there's a bunch of questions they could answer and given picture showcases, or stats (current game size for example) and so on.
I think I might poke around in renpy for some fun..
Kulman
Engaged Member
- Sep 28, 2017
- 2,886
- 7,420
I no longer trust any developer that does not have weekly updates. Just tell us what was done, it will probably take you like 10 minutes to write per week and also at least gives you a nice summary to better manage your time.
Dukez
Member
- Dec 19, 2020
- 446
- 1,575
Yeah I don't get it.. lol. I mean it's quite easy to rip the game and chuck it in a new project in renpy to merge it all together. The only bulk of things I imagine need changing judging on this short look into would be, I'll put it in a list:
1. Pull character definitions out of each days and set them in the first file/settings so it's done globally. Unless renpy doesn't let you cross file defintions for this (???) it's also not hard to just put them in the top of each file.
2. Compress images and videos since this is the bulk of the sizing.
3. Fix Phone System?
4. Fix Calendar System?
5. Fix Char info System?
6. Fix Saving System - Likely requires going through all the days.
Basically... no needs to do any translations since it's already done unless they are also changing the script in which case it depends on the level of changes which is probably extremely little. I doubt there's any changes to the script.
The bulk of the work would be fixing their already broken systems so based on this, I fail to see why they couldn't easily backport Week 1-2 into the Week 3 build since it would be the most working foundation for the phone etc. The actual getting content into the same build is trivial at best. Compressing mass pictures/video can be done via programs these does you just queue them all up, I can imagine quality checking each one would be tedious and a little time consuming but not as much as the systems.
My only conclusion is the custom systems must be fucked, may as well redo them from scratch but it still shouldn't take over a year. I'd be curious to know how long it took to get added in the previous days between updates as to give a hint how long the initial making of those systems took.
1. Pull character definitions out of each days and set them in the first file/settings so it's done globally. Unless renpy doesn't let you cross file defintions for this (???) it's also not hard to just put them in the top of each file.
2. Compress images and videos since this is the bulk of the sizing.
3. Fix Phone System?
4. Fix Calendar System?
5. Fix Char info System?
6. Fix Saving System - Likely requires going through all the days.
Basically... no needs to do any translations since it's already done unless they are also changing the script in which case it depends on the level of changes which is probably extremely little. I doubt there's any changes to the script.
The bulk of the work would be fixing their already broken systems so based on this, I fail to see why they couldn't easily backport Week 1-2 into the Week 3 build since it would be the most working foundation for the phone etc. The actual getting content into the same build is trivial at best. Compressing mass pictures/video can be done via programs these does you just queue them all up, I can imagine quality checking each one would be tedious and a little time consuming but not as much as the systems.
My only conclusion is the custom systems must be fucked, may as well redo them from scratch but it still shouldn't take over a year. I'd be curious to know how long it took to get added in the previous days between updates as to give a hint how long the initial making of those systems took.
Maybe some people don't know and/or have already forgotten;
Except for Bluecat, everyone on the team works part time on the project as they all have other Jobs. And secondly, Bluecat has shared content (images) for days 22-23 and 24-26, to his T8 patrons. So the "nothing has been done" statement is factually untrue. The game, in my personal opinion is not abandoned.
Where I stand 100% with the doubters is the lack of communication from Bluecat. A problematic development is nothing new in a project. Be it for beginners or veterans. B U T with good communication and specific information about - what has been done, setbacks, unforeseen issues that came up, features added/removed you can keep a lot of good will from donors of the project. The trolls will always find something to complain about, that's natural and can't be avoided but the majority will be on the teams side and understanding. Maybe even offer support in some ways.
Concluding, for now Bluecat should (again only my personal opinion) delete some of the patreon tiers and change the perks on the rest of them. The promises simply cannot be kept at this time. Post detailed information on a regular basis for his high tier patrons, especially about the status for their sponsored characters. For his lower tiered patrons, less detailed, but still informative posts about the current state of the game should also be posted in an at least semi regular fashion.
Edit: Correction - Images were released to +T7 Members according to Patreon post from 14.Feb.2021
Except for Bluecat, everyone on the team works part time on the project as they all have other Jobs. And secondly, Bluecat has shared content (images) for days 22-23 and 24-26, to his T8 patrons. So the "nothing has been done" statement is factually untrue. The game, in my personal opinion is not abandoned.
Where I stand 100% with the doubters is the lack of communication from Bluecat. A problematic development is nothing new in a project. Be it for beginners or veterans. B U T with good communication and specific information about - what has been done, setbacks, unforeseen issues that came up, features added/removed you can keep a lot of good will from donors of the project. The trolls will always find something to complain about, that's natural and can't be avoided but the majority will be on the teams side and understanding. Maybe even offer support in some ways.
Concluding, for now Bluecat should (again only my personal opinion) delete some of the patreon tiers and change the perks on the rest of them. The promises simply cannot be kept at this time. Post detailed information on a regular basis for his high tier patrons, especially about the status for their sponsored characters. For his lower tiered patrons, less detailed, but still informative posts about the current state of the game should also be posted in an at least semi regular fashion.
Edit: Correction - Images were released to +T7 Members according to Patreon post from 14.Feb.2021
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The above comment makes me laugh: Communication from bluecat
Good topic
Let's see how bluecat has done so far;
He makes you pay to see his once every 3 month posts. Posts that tell you nothing. Posts that are perfectly timed to prevent the game being tagged differently on here (It's just a coincidence I'm sure). Apart from that, he spams cat pictures in his discord
And just to make it even sweeter, he has a devoted PR boy that comes here to call everyone pirates and says anyone that complains about his master is a troll
'Reminder, the merge will be out by the end of this year, they've already scrapped Character Info for now to make that happen' I wonder who said this?
He also said in a post, Jay82, that he had done the coding and writing for the next few days. That the next few updates are ready to be thrown out as soon as the merge is finished. The coding isn't done for the merge, which needs to be completed before anything else can be. So it would be impossible for that to be true
Meaning he lies to you and makes you pay to read his lies
All things considered, I'd give bluecat a 10/10 for communication so far
Good topic
Let's see how bluecat has done so far;
He makes you pay to see his once every 3 month posts. Posts that tell you nothing. Posts that are perfectly timed to prevent the game being tagged differently on here (It's just a coincidence I'm sure). Apart from that, he spams cat pictures in his discord
And just to make it even sweeter, he has a devoted PR boy that comes here to call everyone pirates and says anyone that complains about his master is a troll
'Reminder, the merge will be out by the end of this year, they've already scrapped Character Info for now to make that happen' I wonder who said this?
He also said in a post, Jay82, that he had done the coding and writing for the next few days. That the next few updates are ready to be thrown out as soon as the merge is finished. The coding isn't done for the merge, which needs to be completed before anything else can be. So it would be impossible for that to be true
Meaning he lies to you and makes you pay to read his lies
All things considered, I'd give bluecat a 10/10 for communication so far
Damn Blue must have an in with the mods here because they go on deleting sprees on this one, had a couple posts deleted responding to someone's questions lol, and asking about the updates.
Dukez
Member
- Dec 19, 2020
- 446
- 1,575
Well, a few hours of boredom later I merged the game myself using the 'work backwards' approach lol. The DM stuff kinda tripped me up since I kinda wanted each week with a diff patch still but didn't seem possible since patches in this game just replaces the whole file, didn't seem to work like other games? So in the end it's just pre-patched and you gotta use the toggle.
Was poking around it trying to make sure it would jump between days etc properly and found a random keypad that's used twice and caused errors and jumping back in days. Couldn't seem to separate what it was looking at and the code wasn't setup for looking at what day you're on (If Bluecat plans to use this same code in the future they'll need to alter it to do this efficiently) so instead just changed the first time it pops up which is when Saki finds it... so now it ends on a cliffhanger for that day
Did look at saves briefly, none of my quick stuff worked but I'd imagine it would be fixable. How they were looking at saves seemed to change between each week but meh, it's only a for fun project. New saves seem to work fine & Week 3 saves from previously do load.
I noticed there seemed to be a bit of duplicate data, like pictures for the phone etc which could be trimmed out. No idea if there was duplicate code and why this became a thing or not. Phone still disabled in week 2 or 3?, never tried enabling it in the code to see what would happen but I'd imagine there isn't even script lines for it since they dropped it for that week or days.
They really should've just gone with a week 4 separately, maybe even just merged towards the end of the project since it seems to just work putting it together with minor changes needed.
Accidently used an uncompressed week 2 so ended up 5GB total, so I'd expect the official one (or post f95zone compression version) to be even smaller whenever it releases. Incase anyone's interested and to wants to poke around it all put together here's a link for it:
Was poking around it trying to make sure it would jump between days etc properly and found a random keypad that's used twice and caused errors and jumping back in days. Couldn't seem to separate what it was looking at and the code wasn't setup for looking at what day you're on (If Bluecat plans to use this same code in the future they'll need to alter it to do this efficiently) so instead just changed the first time it pops up which is when Saki finds it... so now it ends on a cliffhanger for that day
Did look at saves briefly, none of my quick stuff worked but I'd imagine it would be fixable. How they were looking at saves seemed to change between each week but meh, it's only a for fun project. New saves seem to work fine & Week 3 saves from previously do load.
I noticed there seemed to be a bit of duplicate data, like pictures for the phone etc which could be trimmed out. No idea if there was duplicate code and why this became a thing or not. Phone still disabled in week 2 or 3?, never tried enabling it in the code to see what would happen but I'd imagine there isn't even script lines for it since they dropped it for that week or days.
They really should've just gone with a week 4 separately, maybe even just merged towards the end of the project since it seems to just work putting it together with minor changes needed.
Accidently used an uncompressed week 2 so ended up 5GB total, so I'd expect the official one (or post f95zone compression version) to be even smaller whenever it releases. Incase anyone's interested and to wants to poke around it all put together here's a link for it:
You must be registered to see the links
Soulonus
Newbie
- Dec 23, 2021
- 55
- 77
Didn't take you an year and half of your time I hopeWell, a few hours of boredom later I merged the game myself using the 'work backwards' approach lol. The DM stuff kinda tripped me up since I kinda wanted each week with a diff patch still but didn't seem possible since patches in this game just replaces the whole file, didn't seem to work like other games? So in the end it's just pre-patched and you gotta use the toggle.
Was poking around it trying to make sure it would jump between days etc properly and found a random keypad that's used twice and caused errors and jumping back in days. Couldn't seem to separate what it was looking at and the code wasn't setup for looking at what day you're on (If Bluecat plans to use this same code in the future they'll need to alter it to do this efficiently) so instead just changed the first time it pops up which is when Saki finds it... so now it ends on a cliffhanger for that day
Did look at saves briefly, none of my quick stuff worked but I'd imagine it would be fixable. How they were looking at saves seemed to change between each week but meh, it's only a for fun project. New saves seem to work fine & Week 3 saves from previously do load.
I noticed there seemed to be a bit of duplicate data, like pictures for the phone etc which could be trimmed out. No idea if there was duplicate code and why this became a thing or not. Phone still disabled in week 2 or 3?, never tried enabling it in the code to see what would happen but I'd imagine there isn't even script lines for it since they dropped it for that week or days.
They really should've just gone with a week 4 separately, maybe even just merged towards the end of the project since it seems to just work putting it together with minor changes needed.
Accidently used an uncompressed week 2 so ended up 5GB total, so I'd expect the official one (or post f95zone compression version) to be even smaller whenever it releases. Incase anyone's interested and to wants to poke around it all put together here's a link for it:You must be registered to see the links
- Nov 9, 2019
- 6,893
- 47,536
Well, a few hours of boredom later I merged the game myself using the 'work backwards' approach lol. The DM stuff kinda tripped me up since I kinda wanted each week with a diff patch still but didn't seem possible since patches in this game just replaces the whole file, didn't seem to work like other games? So in the end it's just pre-patched and you gotta use the toggle.
Was poking around it trying to make sure it would jump between days etc properly and found a random keypad that's used twice and caused errors and jumping back in days. Couldn't seem to separate what it was looking at and the code wasn't setup for looking at what day you're on (If Bluecat plans to use this same code in the future they'll need to alter it to do this efficiently) so instead just changed the first time it pops up which is when Saki finds it... so now it ends on a cliffhanger for that day
Did look at saves briefly, none of my quick stuff worked but I'd imagine it would be fixable. How they were looking at saves seemed to change between each week but meh, it's only a for fun project. New saves seem to work fine & Week 3 saves from previously do load.
I noticed there seemed to be a bit of duplicate data, like pictures for the phone etc which could be trimmed out. No idea if there was duplicate code and why this became a thing or not. Phone still disabled in week 2 or 3?, never tried enabling it in the code to see what would happen but I'd imagine there isn't even script lines for it since they dropped it for that week or days.
They really should've just gone with a week 4 separately, maybe even just merged towards the end of the project since it seems to just work putting it together with minor changes needed.
Accidently used an uncompressed week 2 so ended up 5GB total, so I'd expect the official one (or post f95zone compression version) to be even smaller whenever it releases. Incase anyone's interested and to wants to poke around it all put together here's a link for it:You must be registered to see the links
fuckmymamarunnin
Member
- Feb 12, 2021
- 434
- 539
i just noticed my most recent comment was deleted, for "general rule #1 violation: trolling"; i don't even remember what i said, but i always make an effort to NOT troll...so yeah, pretty sure what you're saying is accurate
To be fair in programming you tend to spend around 90% of the time on 10% of the code. But I think you have indeed proven that it should have been more than possible to do the merge in the year and a halfWell, a few hours of boredom later I merged the game myself using the 'work backwards' approach lol. The DM stuff kinda tripped me up since I kinda wanted each week with a diff patch still but didn't seem possible since patches in this game just replaces the whole file, didn't seem to work like other games? So in the end it's just pre-patched and you gotta use the toggle.
Was poking around it trying to make sure it would jump between days etc properly and found a random keypad that's used twice and caused errors and jumping back in days. Couldn't seem to separate what it was looking at and the code wasn't setup for looking at what day you're on (If Bluecat plans to use this same code in the future they'll need to alter it to do this efficiently) so instead just changed the first time it pops up which is when Saki finds it... so now it ends on a cliffhanger for that day
Did look at saves briefly, none of my quick stuff worked but I'd imagine it would be fixable. How they were looking at saves seemed to change between each week but meh, it's only a for fun project. New saves seem to work fine & Week 3 saves from previously do load.
I noticed there seemed to be a bit of duplicate data, like pictures for the phone etc which could be trimmed out. No idea if there was duplicate code and why this became a thing or not. Phone still disabled in week 2 or 3?, never tried enabling it in the code to see what would happen but I'd imagine there isn't even script lines for it since they dropped it for that week or days.
They really should've just gone with a week 4 separately, maybe even just merged towards the end of the project since it seems to just work putting it together with minor changes needed.
Accidently used an uncompressed week 2 so ended up 5GB total, so I'd expect the official one (or post f95zone compression version) to be even smaller whenever it releases. Incase anyone's interested and to wants to poke around it all put together here's a link for it:You must be registered to see the links
I had the same thing replying to scummy...
rostabu
Active Member
- Mar 8, 2019
- 530
- 607
Thanx Dukez
seeing you already posed the file I'm gonna d/l and play through your merge just to try to remember why I liked this game, how long did you invest in it? Maybe if it looks good you should apply for a position in bluecats team, using this as a resume (or cv depending where you are from) Either way thanks for the work done
seeing you already posed the file I'm gonna d/l and play through your merge just to try to remember why I liked this game, how long did you invest in it? Maybe if it looks good you should apply for a position in bluecats team, using this as a resume (or cv depending where you are from) Either way thanks for the work done
Parnso
Member
- Aug 7, 2016
- 219
- 499