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

[Dragon59]

There seems to be a new progress update posted on patreon. Is there anyone here that could repost the contents of that post for the rest of us to see?

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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

 

[baloneysammich]

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

I confess I was woefully unprepared for anything this disturbing.

 

[Milkman69]

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

Thanks for making this post. It's much appreciated.

 

[RandoCard3]

I confess I was woefully unprepared for anything this disturbing.

What does that mean exactly? I don't really understand.

 

[baloneysammich]

What does that mean exactly? I don't really understand.

Well, re: your advice about being prepared, the idea of them re-engineering the engine isn't something I would classify as good news, so...

 

[Arcaneshadow]

Well, re: your advice about being prepared, the idea of them re-engineering the engine isn't something I would classify as good news, so...

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.

 

[R68waga]

ive been postponing on playing this game for 8 months already lmao

 

[Ayhsel]

ive been postponing on playing this game for 8 months already lmao

My advice that nobody asked for? forget about this game altogether. If you happen to ever see a new update in future, then you have a nice surprise. Otherwise, you don't stress about some silly game on a forum. The way I see it, win-win.

 

[Dragon59]

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.

Yeah, with 20/20 hindsight, it probably would have been.

 

[Regardie]

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.

 

[JohnTitor1up]

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.

 

[JohnTitor1up]

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.