Unreal Engine Fallen Doll: Operation Lovecraft [v0.4.9 Cracked] [Project Helius]

[Terix3]

says he’s not defending helius: uses the most generic blanket statements to defend helius.

"not to defend helius but..."
*proceeds to defend helius by writing a wall of text*

I know that it is hard concept to grasp but Helius being scummy doesn't mean every argument you bring against him is valid.

Small one person projects can't be compared to big ones. Has there ever been one person project making 3D game that saw fruition ? There was this project in past people referenced as the "on person making miracle game" i try to recall ... was it monster girl island?

 

[okeynice123]

"not to defend helius but..."
*proceeds to defend helius by writing a wall of text*

1. Irrelevant, no one cares how much a dev works in a day, we(player/patron/consumer) are not obligated to follow/know their daily routine or work hours. We only look at results since those results are the reason most of us pay for anything in the first place.
Imagine buying a car 5 years before it is even built. After 5 years you get your car but it is missing tires. When you confront the manufacturer, one of their fans join the conversation and say "but they worked hard on this, please understand". In this imaginery scenario, would you "understand" them or would you sue them for scamming you?

2. A developer's skill/talent/experience is not our(player/patron/consumer) problem

3. You are talking about mostly unmeasurable things so ofcourse you can't compare. Fidelity is not a measurable object. Lighting accuracy can be measured in simulations but in a game no one cares(see rtx meme, no one cares, dlss is talked more). Accuracy of movement doesn't mean anything. Game has monsters, how are you going to measure their "accuracy of movement"? Have you seen a monster irl? If you want to compare 2 games, talk about their measurable features, such as their genre, amount of characters, items, weapons etc in the game, how long it takes on average to finish them(their longevity), their accesibility options, their ui, their graphics quality(measurable things, like texture and shadow resolutions), their price...

4. A badly managed dev team consisting of many developers will still create more content than a solo developer ever will in the same timeframe, in any scenario. "Effectiveness" isn't as big of a factor as you are making it out to be.

5. More funds = more budget to make the game even better, unless dev doesn't want to make it better for some reason.
Also helius still didn't deliver shit, so this argument isn't valid in this scenario anyway ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Perfect summary

 

[MaestreOfChaos]

...In return for the above they have dropped development on campaign altogether...

Hey hey heeeey, remember it's not "dropped", only "put on indefinite hiatus (until the time comes to sell more promises for the cash to flow in again)"

 

[Rz85]

I know that it is hard concept to grasp but Helius being scummy doesn't mean every argument you bring against him is valid.

Small one person projects can't be compared to big ones. Has there ever been one person project making 3D game that saw fruition ? There was this project in past people referenced as the "on person making miracle game" i try to recall ... was it monster girl island?

Yeah, HenryTaiwan's "True Facials" - just one genius man and one year of work. And it is not the only example.

Purple_Heart
I believe you meant wheels, not tires, they are much more fundamental and you can't drive without them.

 

[Nihil5320]

Hey hey heeeey, remember it's not "dropped", only "put on indefinite hiatus (until the time comes to sell more promises for the cash to flow in again)"

I'm such a silly billy, I kept making that mistake when they abandoned indefinitely delayed story mode after completely abandoning finishing Origins.

 

[Nguyen Viet Thai]

I know that it is hard concept to grasp but Helius being scummy doesn't mean every argument you bring against him is valid.

Small one person projects can't be compared to big ones. Has there ever been one person project making 3D game that saw fruition ? There was this project in past people referenced as the "on person making miracle game" i try to recall ... was it monster girl island?

The thing is, Matt despite being 1 person, he actually show the progress of his development with in-game video, he also post his own sketchs for either character or monster, h-scene which you an see on either his patreon or twitter, if you want more Kemono.party also pretty up to date with his patreon update.

What did Helius do with the same amount of time???, almost nothing aside from posting some image, art which i doubt they are even belong to Helius in the first place, since some picture they posted i can find them exactly on different pixiv artist; always a wall of text about progression this, plan that, poll here and there, etc.........

Matt update is on point, he never delivered a wall of text, he directly post gameplay video which is more tangible than texts, he focus on the main thing of his game, Helius just go around the bush, that the thing, Matt is 1 person, but he made more than Helius as a team with a bigger amount of money, there is no defend here.

Also Matt actually give demo build of his game to veteran supporter for them to test his game to point out flaw or give suggestion to improve

 

[Terix3]

The thing is, Matt despite being 1 person, he actually show the progress of his development with in-game video, he also post his own sketchs for either character or monster, h-scene which you an see on either his patreon or twitter, if you want more Kemono.party also pretty up to date with his patreon update.

What did Helius do with the same amount of time???, almost nothing aside from posting some image, art which i doubt they are even belong to Helius in the first place, since some picture they posted i can find them exactly on different pixiv artist; always a wall of text about progression this, plan that, poll here and there, etc.........

Matt update is on point, he never delivered a wall of text, he directly post gameplay video which is more tangible than texts, he focus on the main thing of his game, Helius just go around the bush, that the thing, Matt is 1 person, but he made more than Helius as a team with a bigger amount of money, there is no defend here.

Also Matt actually give demo build of his game to veteran supporter for them to test his game to point out flaw or give suggestion to improve

I believe i said it is not about Helius. It's about "oh why people are supporting this when that dev is so much better", "oh why this doesn't have more patrons while that game has so many". People do that all the time, trying to use one project to cast shadow on another. It's bad already with similar projects but it is just ridiculous to try to use work of one dev to quantify work of a team of devs. Joe being able to build a one floor house in one year doesn't mean that a team of 100 Joes should be able to build a 100 floor skyscraper in a year.

Projects should be judged by what they promise not by the work of others. If a project promises 10 scenes a month and delivers 2 that is a problem. If project promises 2 scenes a year and delivers 2 that is fine even if there is many other project that deliver 20. It is a deal between the dev and the patrons if they think it is worth it then it is.

If anything people should stop supporting projects based on vague promises and no dates no proof of progress. But it is also complicated, we know that games are not developed linearly and it may be hard to show progress. That is where Helius thrives.

As for Matt, does he intend to build a team or he is going to continue work solo ? because as great his progress may not be i don't think one person can make 3D game i would be interested in.

 

[AsusPony]

Wouldn't this game be more profitable without being a scam? Like if they just kept it as an ongoing project and added costumes and animations every month instead of pretending they're going to make a release

 

[Alicetaria]

Wouldn't this game be more profitable without being a scam? Like if they just kept it as an ongoing project and added costumes and animations every month instead of pretending they're going to make a release

They're already banking by doing absolutely nothing, they have over 15k patreons. Once the game releases on Steam they won't all stick around, plus they already own a Steam key so they won't throw money at it again either.

 

[SortaLewd]

Is there an archive with some of the older versions?

 

[derpington1990]

Hi erm, Long time lurker, and indie game designer here. I've been reading alot of messages of folks, defending and attacking this project. I thought I can at least explain to you some basics on game development so maybe future arguments can refer to this and move on to discussing past these points and address the real problems.

Let me clear this talk about the complexity of getting a high-fidelity output for this project is hard...it really isnt, Unreal engine 4 out of the box is one of the easiest development tools to get into. In fact, most devs are moving their projects to unreal not because it looks good, but because it looks good with little effort. This is because unreal engine blueprints helps easily get the ball rolling on developing mechanics using virtual scripting tools, and the engine gives some great out of the box post processing FX already set up.

Then comes the discussions of difficulty of implementing the actual gameplay mechanics of this game thats not the porn (the campaign). Look from what I understood of it, its going to be a shooter (third person or first no clue). let's assume on defeat you get the awesome defeat animation, girl gets pumped, take some health damage and change up some stats maybe, and finally resets. Thats a pretty easy loop ngl. I haven't gotten into game programming myself until early this year, I started a shooter prototype that I call the Skitarii proto. I developed the basic shooter mechanics of the game in 3 months (shooting, swap weapons, different projectile types, track ammo reserves, set up weapon profiles so that it's easy to add various weapon types etc) Basic animations of movement, shooting, reloading etc, can be found on the unreal marketplace and the free template that I used in my prototype works and looks really good. Popped in a AI to test taking damage and destroyed on health 0 and voila, shooter prototype is done. So thats a guy with ZERO game programming skills coming up with the basic mechanics of a shooter in three months(ish). Thats the beauty of blueprints on unreal engine folks, it's really easy to get into.

So if you think about it, the hard part of Operation Lovecraft was done a long time ago when all the first batch of monsters had the sexy animations done. It was a case of setting triggers to play one animation randomly from the large number of available animations on defeat/stun and making a fun game of it. I'm sorry to say this to the defense but this game should have had a proper release by now. The rest could have been amazing expansions, paid DLCs etc. As a game designer it is very clear this game is being kept in this slow burn to simply extract as much funds from the donators as possible.

I do not want to elaborate further on possible game design approaches that would have been sensible for this Project as it will be paragraphs long, but if you're interested, I can lay that out too.

If you were a person with spare time and rip the characters and animations out of this project, you probably could make a game of it in 6 months, using the massive number of tutorials on YouTube itself. Heck this may be an opportunity to build a portfolio piece and get your foot in the game development door.

This ends my constructive observation of this project. Happy fapping everyone.

 

[Terix3]

Hi erm, Long time lurker, and indie game designer here. I've been reading alot of messages of folks, defending and attacking this project. I thought I can at least explain to you some basics on game development so maybe future arguments can refer to this and move on to discussing past these points and address the real problems.

Let me clear this talk about the complexity of getting a high-fidelity output for this project is hard...it really isnt, Unreal engine 4 out of the box is one of the easiest development tools to get into. In fact, most devs are moving their projects to unreal not because it looks good, but because it looks good with little effort. This is because unreal engine blueprints helps easily get the ball rolling on developing mechanics using virtual scripting tools, and the engine gives some great out of the box post processing FX already set up.

Then comes the discussions of difficulty of implementing the actual gameplay mechanics of this game thats not the porn (the campaign). Look from what I understood of it, its going to be a shooter (third person or first no clue). let's assume on defeat you get the awesome defeat animation, girl gets pumped, take some health damage and change up some stats maybe, and finally resets. Thats a pretty easy loop ngl. I haven't gotten into game programming myself until early this year, I started a shooter prototype that I call the Skitarii proto. I developed the basic shooter mechanics of the game in 3 months (shooting, swap weapons, different projectile types, track ammo reserves, set up weapon profiles so that it's easy to add various weapon types etc) Basic animations of movement, shooting, reloading etc, can be found on the unreal marketplace and the free template that I used in my prototype works and looks really good. Popped in a AI to test taking damage and destroyed on health 0 and voila, shooter prototype is done. So thats a guy with ZERO game programming skills coming up with the basic mechanics of a shooter in three months(ish). Thats the beauty of blueprints on unreal engine folks, it's really easy to get into.

So if you think about it, the hard part of Operation Lovecraft was done a long time ago when all the first batch of monsters had the sexy animations done. It was a case of setting triggers to play one animation randomly from the large number of available animations on defeat/stun and making a fun game of it. I'm sorry to say this to the defense but this game should have had a proper release by now. The rest could have been amazing expansions, paid DLCs etc. As a game designer it is very clear this game is being kept in this slow burn to simply extract as much funds from the donators as possible.

I do not want to elaborate further on possible game design approaches that would have been sensible for this Project as it will be paragraphs long, but if you're interested, I can lay that out too.

If you were a person with spare time and rip the characters and animations out of this project, you probably could make a game of it in 6 months, using the massive number of tutorials on YouTube itself. Heck this may be an opportunity to build a portfolio piece and get your foot in the game development door.

This ends my constructive observation of this project. Happy fapping everyone.

I think the campaign was supposed be isometric tactical combat la XCOM.
I imagine you are right about fact that UE covers the basics of gameplay for common types game types.
When i'm referring to difficulty of making of 3D game on bigger scale is the fact that you will have different people working on different things - you have people that will design art, level design , combat , AI , story/quests , cutscenes, networking etc. You need correct amount of people for each task and there is need to menage their work - you don't want situations where one team needs to wait for another or for one team to run out of work. There is need to control productivity (if people are not slacking) - especially important when you don't have office and people are working from home. Let's keep in mind this is a porn game with borderline legal content so it is probably hard to find skilled employees.

 

[HardcoreCuddler]

They're already banking by doing absolutely nothing, they have over 15k patreons. Once the game releases on Steam they won't all stick around, plus they already own a Steam key so they won't throw money at it again either.

I think that's really the real thing here.
It's one thing to make fat stacks while making content, and it's completely different to make fat stacks while releasing 0 updates in nearly a year

 

[Nihil5320]

Let me clear this talk about the complexity of getting a high-fidelity output for this project is hard...it really isnt, Unreal engine 4 out of the box is one of the easiest development tools to get into. In fact, most devs are moving their projects to unreal not because it looks good, but because it looks good with little effort. This is because unreal engine blueprints helps easily get the ball rolling on developing mechanics using virtual scripting tools, and the engine gives some great out of the box post processing FX already set up.

Then comes the discussions of difficulty of implementing the actual gameplay mechanics of this game thats not the porn (the campaign). Look from what I understood of it, its going to be a shooter (third person or first no clue). let's assume on defeat you get the awesome defeat animation, girl gets pumped, take some health damage and change up some stats maybe, and finally resets. Thats a pretty easy loop ngl.

Only really thing I'd add to this is that, based on old screenshots, they had intended on implementing some kind of "business management" elements and the game has been described in a few different ways from an x-com style horror game in the early days to a card-based tactical shooter (which I presume, given the implementation of playing cards, means a significant deviation from a pure x-com theme).

Still not something that should be overly difficult for a small and competent team to develop but it's not as simple as cloning ShooterGame and implementing some basic mechanics with BPs. Given that we're more than eight years in from Helius dropping that Daisy in Summer demo and we haven't seen so much as a single screenshot of gameplay though...

Personally I don't think Helius is dragging out anymore, even if he may have been historically. I think he genuinely realises he can't do that indefinitely and wants to switch to a F2P model with a continuous revenue stream but lacks the development and project management experience needed to pull it off.

 

[Vazont]

This game is not bad for a scam lol. Can't wait the new things.

 

[Zyro]

This game is not bad for a scam lol. Can't wait the new things.

Which is unfortunate. All of the potentials that could've gone into this game was thrown out of the window just like that.

 

[Dezzya]

I added the r.Streaming.PoolSize=0 in the engine.ini, but the textures still blurry.

 

[Erest]

Let's keep in mind this is a porn game with borderline legal content so it is probably hard to find skilled employees.

Didnt Helius keep talking about how he got some new folks in? Like from those elite companies? Whats that all about then? How is it so hard? He could also just hiring some folks with pretty good skills even from Pixiv or F95 here or anywhere. Skilled manpower isnt an issue. Theres even an example how few amateurs created a game and become a successful company (Mihoyo).

 

[Nguyen Viet Thai]

Then comes the discussions of difficulty of implementing the actual gameplay mechanics of this game thats not the porn (the campaign). Look from what I understood of it, its going to be a shooter (third person or first no clue)

Actually, iirc, they planed the campaign mode to be some kind of tabletop game, not shooter game

 

[SomeOriginalUsername]

Didnt Helius keep talking about how he got some new folks in? Like from those elite companies? Whats that all about then? How is it so hard? He could also just hiring some folks with pretty good skills even from Pixiv or F95 here or anywhere. Skilled manpower isnt an issue. Theres even an example how few amateurs created a game and become a successful company (Mihoyo).

He's talked a lot and made a lot of claims about his experience, interest from a big publisher, the people he hired, but nothing to actually back it up.