VN Ren'Py Abandoned Ecchi Sensei [Day 22-23 Final] [BlueCat]

[Deleted member 1471]

The bit of the code I looked at quite some time ago was a mess. Every decision you made was tracked in a variable like d2d17 for day 2 decision 17. It makes for an extremely large data set that is non trivial to read and understand. I could see them wanting to restructure that part of the game.

Is there any semblance of object utilization? Or is it truly that much of a spaghetti code monster?

If the code doesn't pass stats in to objects, and instead just aggregates the information from loose variables, it would explain why character cards seemed like such a hurdle. Actually, it would explain why all these features are seemingly so convoluted as well as revealing the programming lead as... inexperienced, to say the least.

It really is a better idea to rebuild from the ground up if that is the case. You simply can't unfuck fucked spaghetti code. It will become refucked as soon as complexity increases.

 

[Smarmint]

It's necessary to disassemble the core code of the engine because of our new storage system.

As a long time programmer myself, what does this even mean? Are they reprogramming the open source RenPy engine because it doesn't meet their requirements (ha)? Are they rewriting the Python language itself, which is also open source, because they can do better?

What are they talking about? Seriously?

Yes, unironically they would have saved MORE TIME if they remade the game from scratch using the original dialogue and renders rather than doing this insane process of hacking the save system together.

They would have saved way more time, which is what I have been saying since January. It was obvious in January, March, May, etc, etc, until now that if the code is that bad, they should just start over with default RenPy for everything, and just cut and paste all the dialog, images, and they would be done. It could all have been completed in about 2 or 3 weeks with 3 or 4 hours a day working, max. Probably a lot less.

Which is why I wonder if all the talk of refactoring or disassembling or rejiggering the code or whatever it is they call it this month is not all an just an excuse just so they can take a year off without pausing donations. Kind of like, "my dog ate my homework", but on a larger scale.

But what do I know. The fans around here keep telling me that I should have faith, that things are happening, that the devs are hard at work, and that they are just disorganized, the poor dears, and that they will really, really, get organized now, and finally release something.

Since all I care about is new content, not the code, not the file size, not the phone, not the main menu screen, not the translation into Portugese, it seems like I still have a long, long, long, long, way to wait.

 

[Deleted member 1471]

As a long time programmer myself, what does this even mean? Are they reprogramming the open source RenPy engine because it doesn't meet their requirements (ha)? Are they rewriting the Python language itself, which is also open source, because they can do better?

What are they talking about? Seriously?

BlueCat does seem to be buying time. Their statement reads like something that someone who's pretending to know how to program would feed someone who doesn't know anything about programming to repeat to a customer.
"Programmer" > CEO > Customer

Personally, I think it means whoever is programming the thing doesn't like reading (or doesn't understand) documentation and is instead inventing save functionality that has already been written. I speculate that they are doing this in order to legitimize their (lack of) efforts and show progress where none has actually been made.

This dev cycle is feeling like Mr. Bones' Wild Ride.

 

[ZunMadun]

As a long time programmer myself, what does this even mean? Are they reprogramming the open source RenPy engine because it doesn't meet their requirements (ha)? Are they rewriting the Python language itself, which is also open source, because they can do better?

What are they talking about? Seriously?

You fool! How can you not see their brilliance? They are creating their own OS which uses their custom build hard drives that they will send to their patrons to fight against piracy.
It will be "innovative" and contain "machine learning"
In addition to all that great work it will have an app that connects to the phone thing in their game so you can see stats changing in real time.

 

[Hoplow73]

I played the first and second day, when i want to play the third day, nothing works even my saves, So i downloaded the first week. nothing works no patch norhing and most of the images are gone bug error. what a garbage, dont even fix it when you ask for help no respons.

Don't bother until they release the entire Month 1. They are messing with so much stuff your saves probably won't work anyway. Having said that I would go play something else for and check back later...much later.

 

[Hoplow73]

Hi Guys!
It's time again for a new state of the Nation status report.
Those of you with access to #gitlab-notification in Discord might have seen that new revisions have recently been made to the calendar and the Ecchi Phone 2.0 (or is it 3.0 by now?).
We are also working on the translation files for the Charinfo and its functionality as a whole.
Some of you have asked me why we not just release Month 1 but instead keep wasting time on “pointless” features.
Well, for some might the features be a waste of time, but for others, they are a big part of what makes the game what it is.
Even if we'd give up the features, that would only marginally speed up the work since the big challenge lies in Ren'Py itself — It's necessary to disassemble the core code of the engine because of our new storage system.
Still, we're making progress, and to all of those out there who, like me, want to see new Ecchi Sensei updates, times are getting better, I promise. We will be back to our usual rhythm after Month 1, and we will be giving out monstrous updates again.
To be able to present you a playable Month 1 version as soon as possible, we will proceed to work our asses off.
So long,
Blue

So once again there's no eta. All they give their paying supporters (which I was one before I saw the light) is as soon as possible. I'll check back in October and see if they released a Halloween special before Month 1.

 

[Motoko Kusanagi]

As a long time programmer myself, what does this even mean? Are they reprogramming the open source RenPy engine because it doesn't meet their requirements (ha)? Are they rewriting the Python language itself, which is also open source, because they can do better?

What are they talking about? Seriously?




They would have saved way more time, which is what I have been saying since January. It was obvious in January, March, May, etc, etc, until now that if the code is that bad, they should just start over with default RenPy for everything, and just cut and paste all the dialog, images, and they would be done. It could all have been completed in about 2 or 3 weeks with 3 or 4 hours a day working, max. Probably a lot less.

Which is why I wonder if all the talk of refactoring or disassembling or rejiggering the code or whatever it is they call it this month is not all an just an excuse just so they can take a year off without pausing donations. Kind of like, "my dog ate my homework", but on a larger scale.

But what do I know. The fans around here keep telling me that I should have faith, that things are happening, that the devs are hard at work, and that they are just disorganized, the poor dears, and that they will really, really, get organized now, and finally release something.

Since all I care about is new content, not the code, not the file size, not the phone, not the main menu screen, not the translation into Portugese, it seems like I still have a long, long, long, long, way to wait.

None of what they said in that Patreon post makes sense from a programming point, It's all technobabble, recoding or redoing renpy makes absolutely no sense. On top of that they just proved that they are unwilling to put aside features (aka stupid phone stuff no one wants) in order to make a release.

It's beyond amateurish and just further solidifies that they are just stretching this for as long as possible without pausing monthly payments. There is no reason to have any faith in this project, I'm so glad I stopped support when I did. At this point it has become a reality tv show.

 

[baloneysammich]

If the code doesn't pass stats in to objects, and instead just aggregates the information from loose variables, it would explain why character cards seemed like such a hurdle. Actually, it would explain why all these features are seemingly so convoluted as well as revealing the programming lead as... inexperienced, to say the least.

The data on the character cards was stored in the save "whole hog." So yeah.

Spoiler: hexdump of 'log' file from a save

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[jamdan]

So it looks like my previous analogy of a mechanic working on an engine was taken way too literally by the developers.

Hell, they're gonna try to rebuild the entire car!

They could easily just download other games, take a peak at that code, and base their own code on that. They don't need to reinvent the wheel to get a phone app or character cards. It's all been done many times before.;

 

[jaw1986baby]

If Bluecat is German, can't he talk to fellow Germans Killer7 and/or recreation about how to make a good ren'py game build. They both crossover Discord with a ton of other game devs on a lot of Discord servers where they all help out each other. It almost feels like they are willfully and stubbornly going about it the worst way.

Absolutely in the worst way. Not milking because nothing they are doing is helping make money and their monthly divided by the team-members = worse pay than McDonald's. So clearly not milking.

But it is sad, that Bluecat's creativity is mangled by at least one team member being so inept and yet receiving so much leeway.

 

[me130]

Where can I see the github repo that's mentioned in the patreon post? I'm a programmer (A shit one) but at least I can look at the code and get a sense of what work is being done that requires a year of just refactoring the game. Then to find out that the engine(?) itself needed to be forked for what? Saves? I'm so confused all you need to do is create a datafile with the objects/variables and write it to hdd which pretty much any game engine does. What does this game need that specifically that an engine fork is needed?

Anyway if someone can link their github page or whatever code repo they have I'd be grateful.

 

[baloneysammich]

But it is sad, that Bluecat's creativity is mangled by at least one team member being so inept and yet receiving so much leeway.

While I'm particularly critical of the programmers, I'm not sure BlueCat is exactly a victim here. Very early on he was dreaming of a whole Ecchi Sensei franchise:

Spoiler

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Also consider his choice of medium:

Spoiler

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And the fact he seems singularly determined to create or improve upon features few people care about:

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Along with some other things I can't point my finger at, I don't think pragmatism is one of BC's virtues. So I can imagine that his vision of ES represents a constantly moving target that would challenge even experienced programmers.

 

[literaloxygen]

the big challenge lies in Ren'Py itself — It's necessary to disassemble the core code of the engine because of our new storage system.

I really hope this is a translation error. Disassembling code means taking a closed-source binary and turning it into (minimally readable at best) source code, usually for the purpose of reverse-engineering it to figure out how it works. It's not something you would ever do for open-source code like RenPy. (I have a graduate degree in comp sci, and I used to routinely disassemble things.)

Like I said, maybe this is a translation error, since BlueCat is German. I'm generally a patient person, and I haven't been too stressed about the delays; I know shit happens in this field. (I am also not a Patron, so I have no basis to be unhappy about delays.) But the above quote definitely raised my eyebrow. Skummy, if you happen to have BlueCat's ear and it's not too much bother for you or him, would you be able to ask him to clarify what he meant here?

 

[baloneysammich]

Where can I see the github repo that's mentioned in the patreon post?

AFAIK the repo isn't public. What's being referred to is a Discord channel which AFAIK is only accessible to patrons. And I imagine just consists of commit messages or something similar.

I realize this is all conjecture, but I share your interest and this is the best I can figure.

 

[Dragon59]

Along with some other things I can't point my finger at, I don't think pragmatism is one of BC's virtues. So I can imagine that his vision of ES represents a constantly moving target that would challenge even experienced programmers.

I'm hoping that when I start making my own project, I will have learned from developer stumbles I've seen to avoid the most obvious pitfalls.

 

[Smarmint]

I'm hoping that when I start making my own project, I will have learned from developer stumbles I've seen to avoid the most obvious pitfalls.

I am not a game developer, but I program in Python and several other languages for a living. I think with everything, the best advice as a beginner is to keep it simple, and to not try to reinvent the wheel. Whatever you want to do, especially as a beginner, has been done many times before, and much of the code is available online, for free.

After you have lots of projects under your belt, then try to tweak things if absolutely necessary.

RenPy does most things for you, which is why there are so many low effort games released every day. Look at F95, there are at least 20 games released a day, about 50% or more in RenPy. 90% of the games just have a custom main menu graphic, with everything else totally stock RenPy.

I wish someone from the Ecchi Sensi team would take all of our advice, but clearly they are antagonistic toward anyone telling them what they should do. They should just make a workable game using the built in tools, and after everything is solid, add in more features if they want, and if they have the expertise to do it.

Since BlueCat clearly isn't a programmer, he needs to take control of his own game. Even with the declining donations, he has plenty of funds each month to get a new programmer. Give someone $500 a week, and they will have the merge done in a few weeks. Or even better, BlueCat can learn it himself in a few weeks of online training.

That is what baffles me so much about this project. RenPy is very simple, and Python is one of the simpler programing languages, compared to Java or C. And there are tons of tutorials online to walk you through everything. Plus, this game is simpler than most with no choices other than "see scene" or "skip scene". No long term variables needed. Ecchi Sensi is just about the simplest RenPy game I have ever played, so all the claims about the complexity of the code, don't make any sense.

Everyone has their opinion, but I think it is all a smokescreen to distract from what is really going on, which only BlueCat really knows. Maybe someday he will tell all his Patrons the truth.

 

[Dragon59]

I am not a game developer, but I program in Python and several other languages for a living. I think with everything, the best advice as a beginner is to keep it simple, and to not try to reinvent the wheel. Whatever you want to do, especially as a beginner, has been done many times before, and much of the code is available online, for free.

After you have lots of projects under your belt, then try to tweak things if absolutely necessary.

RenPy does most things for you, which is why there are so many low effort games released every day. Look at F95, there are at least 20 games released a day, about 50% or more in RenPy. 90% of the games just have a custom main menu graphic, with everything else totally stock RenPy.

Thanks for the advice. I'll take it to heart.

 

[baloneysammich]

Plus, this game is simpler than most with no choices other than "see scene" or "skip scene". No long term variables needed.

Isn't there enough to criticize about this game without resorting to hyperbole?

 

[Smarmint]

Isn't there enough to criticize about this game without resorting to hyperbole?

I like Ecchi Sensei. Too much for what is going on, unfortunately. I hope that all of us can be proven wrong one day, and that we will login and see a surprise update, with new content.

But, what did I say that wasn't correct? Are there any choices other than "see scene" or "skip scene"? Sure, Bluecat uses different language like "Visit Mao's Room" or "Go To Bed", but basically each choice is just to see a particular scene or not. Occasionally there will be a choice of two different scenes presented to the player, but none of the choices, as far as I can tell from the gameplay, affect anything other than the current moment. So no need to track a lot of long-term player variables.

If I missed something, and there are long term choices that I just forgot about, since it has been awhile, than I will stand corrected. My only point was that the status updates try to make it sound like Ecchi Sensei is an especially complex game, which is why so much re-coding is needed. My point is just that ES seems very simple compared to other RenPy games. The only thing "special" that I can discern are the bios, which is fairly basic, and the phone, which is done in many, many RenPy games without issues.

Look, I don't want to sound like a broken record (too late probably). I honestly hope for success for Ecchi Sensei. It is not the absolute greatest game here, but it is honestly quite fun to play, and I enjoy the large variety of characters, and the story. I just wish the devs were straight with the fans. Just tell us that he wants to take 10 months off to learn Japanese, or travel, or work on another job, or whatever. Or admit that he doesn't know what to do next, that he has writer's block, or whatever the issue is, and that he hopes he can get back to it. Or that a team member took all the code, and won't give it back to him, or whatever the real problem is. But what we are being told, at least his paying supporters on Patreon, about how the code is so complicated that it takes nearly a year to "merge" everything together, makes no logical sense, and it hasn't since January when he told everyone that the merge was almost complete.

 

[Dragon59]

Look, I don't want to sound like a broken record (too late probably).

Wait, what?
You're old enough to know what a broken record sounds like?