I went back and played the Electric level all the way through. I gotta say the game does have some really neat, novel ideas and gimmicks for an action puzzle-platformer. It can be a bit frustrating when you get sent all the way back to the start, or mess up the timing of something and have to re-do a platforming segment - but it didn't take me more than a couple attempts to figure things out, and this was by far the most confusing level for me. My biggest complaint is that it's really stingy with the health pickups, even on the easy mode. Found the boss pretty difficult too. And I guess conceptually, just like with the writing, relatively precise platforming that potentially results in frustration, doesn't really mix well together with an H-game. Sure, a bit of challenge is necessary otherwise you're never gonna lose to see the animations without going out of your way. Not saying it's nintendo-hard or anything, but I feel there's only one thing that should ever be truly hard when playing an H-game and it isn't anything to do with the game its self.
It's a neat little package, but I kinda disagree. Nothing about it is really novel, you can point at any various section and see the influences for it. It also plays a little clunky and goopy, like you're running in mud in a Half Life game.
The shooting also feels pretty lame. You're stuck on a horizontal axis for it, and certain platforms are at weird heights, so sometimes you need to short-hop just to take a single shot. Certain gravity-inversion puzzles come to mind when I write that, and it sounds like you got to experience those, too.
Also yes, there's little mesh between the sex events and the game itself. Just some seemingly-random stuff like "Hey, I'm a broken robot. Hop in and let's fuck!" but like ten times as many sentences to get that across. Kinda wish it had something more to it to mesh it together, like optional consensual hypnotism. There was one segment where you can just leave a bunch of soldiers alone and get through easy, so why not have another segment where you can choose to subject Talia to hypnotism or else the next segment is much harder? Then any lewd events in that next area would have made more sense and also been your own foolish choice.
All of this would be a neat little game, but sadly it gets blown out of proportion when you add the statement "and this level was made 6 years ago, and hasn't really changed since" after it.
I went back and played the Electric level all the way through. I gotta say the game does have some really neat, novel ideas and gimmicks for an action puzzle-platformer.
It's a neat little package, but I kinda disagree. Nothing about it is really novel, you can point at any various section and see the influences for it. It also plays a little clunky and goopy, like you're running in mud in a Half Life game.
The shooting also feels pretty lame. You're stuck on a horizontal axis for it, and certain platforms are at weird heights, so sometimes you need to short-hop just to take a single shot. Certain gravity-inversion puzzles come to mind when I write that, and it sounds like you got to experience those, too.
Also yes, there's little mesh between the sex events and the game itself. Just some seemingly-random stuff like "Hey, I'm a broken robot. Hop in and let's fuck!" but like ten times as many sentences to get that across. Kinda wish it had something more to it to mesh it together, like optional consensual hypnotism. There was one segment where you can just leave a bunch of soldiers alone and get through easy, so why not have another segment where you can choose to subject Talia to hypnotism or else the next segment is much harder? Then any lewd events in that next area would have made more sense and also been your own foolish choice.
All of this would be a neat little game, but sadly it gets blown out of proportion when you add the statement "and this level was made 6 years ago, and hasn't really changed since" after it.
So Contra style, jumps always reaching the same height no matter what, never needing to shoot while jumping, with no puzzles or mud? These sound like the foundations of a platformer, I think you might not like platformers.
You want to balance out a segment of not killing, with a segment of being hypnotized? How does that mesh better than "Hey I beat you in a fight, now you're mine" or "I'm a robot, hop on"?
It does, in source games. It decreases starting acceleration and it extends deceleration. Comparing movement in FF to a game like Megaman or similar games, Megaman lets you stop on a dime with very little or no sliding as you end your walk. FF has a wind-down that feels unsatisfying.
I'm aware, I already acknowledged how the game function. It's just that it's slower and sticker than other games, such as Megaman. If I were to record footage of Megaman 1 and Future Fragments, comparing walking, jumping, shooting, etc side by side, it'd be more apparent.
I often play platformers, and I have to say that FF just feels worse than most of them.
Puzzles can be tricky, but they, as well as all previously mentioned mechanics, are pretty well known and used features when it comes to the platforming genre. With your clarification I assume it's one of two puzzles, either your reaction speed is lackluster or you're not understanding the puzzle. I suggest Kirby as a starting point, they're pretty straightforward and simple, many of them also have a built in minigame that tells you your reaction time.
I've also already said I acknowledge that puzzle games have platformers, there's no need to pretend to be clever about something people can just glance up at and see. It isn't constructive.
But a puzzle based around timing a slow projectile to hit a switch mid-fall (in some cases repeatedly) gets tiring. It already wasn't interesting in the very first room, and it just gets boring as it gets repeated over and over.
In which, you state that currently in the game, there's a room, this room has enemies, you can just not kill the enemies and continue. But then you mention wanting to make another room, with enemies again, but this time you can choose to play as someone who's hypnotized, therefore making the game harder and adding some strange lore as to why you're having sex with robots? How does this make more sense than the tin man following his heart?
Because the lore is badly written, and that negatively impacts a narrative-driven game. Especially in that level. Why would a male-only factory have sex robots for women working as employees in an environment that has no women? Why would Talia stop and care at all?
You call my suggestion "fanfiction," but the entire game feels like someone made erotic fanfiction for some non-existent game. Well, some other non-existent game.
It's a video game with multiple choices. Also, I'll let you in on a little secret. Talia, she's not real, all those bad decisions being made, it's actually you making them.
Yes and no. Any decision that the game offers to Talia would be considered in-character for her. The choices offered are the choices that she would be willing to make, and then the player gets to swing the pendulum to the choice they pick for her. Though this may be seen more as a philosophical kinda thing, "Do characters in choose-your-own-adventure stories make their own choices at all?"
The game suggested taking that decision.
Your argument works for The Hole, the one the player can jump into on their own free will and Vie has to come get you out of.
But when the game literally brings up a prompt to pick between two options, both of those are choices Talia would be willing to make.
So for the hole, it makes sense to mock the player. But for actual prompts, it's just dumb. The player had actual agency in the former, but the latter removes all agency except for the bottleneck of Talia's character.
Once again, you're intentionally misrepresenting my argument. I never once said the game was too hard. I never said it was hard at all.
What I suggested was an inverse of the soldier scene from earlier. In that sequence, the path is easy if you do nothing, but harder if you act like a prick.
My suggestion was to add a path that would be difficult, probably way more difficult than anything in the game now, but to offer an option to disadvantage Talia later in exchange for cheesing the area now.
To give a real-game example, Breath of the Wild allows the player to either go to the final boss, or do four dungeons first. Opting to go do the larger task of fighting four dungeons makes the final boss much easier, but you can instead choose to make the boss even harder by rushing it now and fighting all four Blights first.
In this case, you could make choosing to dispel the large horde of enemies force Talia into an event sequence, whereas a good player might dispatch the enemies with ease, which would save them time and give them different alignment points.
Sadly I don't really expect a legit response.
Just more hyperbolic stuff like "You want a room that's hard but you can also choose to cheese it? This means you suuuuuck!" kind of crap. No actual discussion of the game's features, just some guy trying to turn every talking point into an insult.
I discussed the game for once, something nobody else but TJ412 has done for dozens of pages now. So that's good enough for me. I just wish the game was fine-tuned a bit.
Yeah, I do find some of these debates fun, but in this thread, there's nothing but debates, and most of the time they turn into mud-flinging, instead of actual debates.
I don't know if my comments here were seen as too angry or insulting towards the game or it's developers (only to HW, really), but I just want to see the damn game come out, play it, and decide for myself if the game is good. In this game's case, the question of "was it worth the wait?" doesn't exist for me, it's already been too long for that, the only question that remains is "did I enjoy playing the game?".
It does, in source games. It decreases starting acceleration and it extends deceleration. Comparing movement in FF to a game like Megaman or similar games, Megaman lets you stop on a dime with very little or no sliding as you end your walk. FF has a wind-down that feels unsatisfying.
The wind down is 10 frames, the game runs at 30fps, that's 1/3 of a second, your struggles with puzzles lead me to believe that your reaction time makes these lost frames not matter.
I mean, fire rate isn't one of the things I thought when you mentioned "speed". Bass has a machinegun if you want to shoot even faster still, free pro tip for you.
I'm aware, I already acknowledged how the game function. It's just that it's slower and sticker than other games, such as Megaman. If I were to record footage of Megaman 1 and Future Fragments, comparing walking, jumping, shooting, etc side by side, it'd be more apparent.
Sorry friend, it looks like I must not have been clear with this part. See, when I recommended that you jump less, or even time your shots on the way up or down, I in no way was making a jab at your knowledge of mechanics in video games and your ability to make comparisons between them. What I actually meant after reading this:
The shooting also feels pretty lame. You're stuck on a horizontal axis for it, and certain platforms are at weird heights, so sometimes you need to short-hop just to take a single shot.
I've also already said I acknowledge that puzzle games have platformers, there's no need to pretend to be clever about something people can just glance up at and see. It isn't constructive.
But a puzzle based around timing a slow projectile to hit a switch mid-fall (in some cases repeatedly) gets tiring. It already wasn't interesting in the very first room, and it just gets boring as it gets repeated over and over.
Because the lore is badly written, and that negatively impacts a narrative-driven game. Especially in that level. Why would a male-only factory have sex robots for women working as employees in an environment that has no women? Why would Talia stop and care at all?
You call my suggestion "fanfiction," but the entire game feels like someone made erotic fanfiction for some non-existent game. Well, some other non-existent game.
Yes and no. Any decision that the game offers to Talia would be considered in-character for her. The choices offered are the choices that she would be willing to make, and then the player gets to swing the pendulum to the choice they pick for her. Though this may be seen more as a philosophical kinda thing, "Do characters in choose-your-own-adventure stories make their own choices at all?"
The game suggested taking that decision.
Your argument works for The Hole, the one the player can jump into on their own free will and Vie has to come get you out of.
But when the game literally brings up a prompt to pick between two options, both of those are choices Talia would be willing to make.
So for the hole, it makes sense to mock the player. But for actual prompts, it's just dumb. The player had actual agency in the former, but the latter removes all agency except for the bottleneck of Talia's character.
Once again, you're intentionally misrepresenting my argument. I never once said the game was too hard. I never said it was hard at all.
What I suggested was an inverse of the soldier scene from earlier. In that sequence, the path is easy if you do nothing, but harder if you act like a prick.
My suggestion was to add a path that would be difficult, probably way more difficult than anything in the game now, but to offer an option to disadvantage Talia later in exchange for cheesing the area now.
To give a real-game example, Breath of the Wild allows the player to either go to the final boss, or do four dungeons first. Opting to go do the larger task of fighting four dungeons makes the final boss much easier, but you can instead choose to make the boss even harder by rushing it now and fighting all four Blights first.
In this case, you could make choosing to dispel the large horde of enemies force Talia into an event sequence, whereas a good player might dispatch the enemies with ease, which would save them time and give them different alignment points.
"What I suggested was an inverse of the soldier scene from earlier. In that sequence, the path is easy if you do nothing, but harder if you act like a prick." Oh shit, did no one tell you? If you shoot any of those enemies, they all get mad and attack you, which significantly raises the difficulty considering it was so low in the room to start.
"My suggestion was to add a path that would be difficult, probably way more difficult than anything in the game now, but to offer an option to disadvantage Talia later in exchange for cheesing the area now." So make the game really hard, but then let the player make the game easier by being hypnotized of all things?
Cool so, you're just going to go off the part that was quoted and not the context where you genuinely thought this hypnosis thing was a much better thought out idea than a sex robot wanting sex?
yeah i love trying to read through a thread for things that actually matter like news or fixes or guides and instead its just 2 guys arguing like its twitter
yeah i love trying to read through a thread for things that actually matter like news or fixes or guides and instead its just 2 guys arguing like its twitter
I think at the end of the day we all over complicated things thinking it there were more to this and contributed to all of this drama but, really, its just PAINFULLY simple: HW is just too inexperienced to know how inexperienced he is, and everyone who constantly asks him "why did he do this way" or "why didnt he fix this problem" is barking up the wrong tree.
And it is FOR this reason that everyone SHOULD buy the game, not pirate it, to give him a chance to figure his shit out.
"The dev doesn't know what they're doing so you should give them money until they know what they're doing" is certainly a take.
It's as you said, they're inexperienced and it's resulted in a mismanaged mess. We're how many years into development? How many missed release dates? If money hasn't fixed it yet, there's no reason to believe that'll fix it now.
Sorry friend, if I read something at face value, question it, then get responses of hidden or ulterior meanings, it genuinely piques my interest. Not answers and circle debates aren't my forte.
Since we're buds, I won't make assumptions and I'll only focus on this part being quoted. I'll ask a question, regardless of whether the answer is "yes" or "no" I won't push further, if you wish to elaborate that's fine.
It sounds like you're under the assumption that me posting here is somehow directly correlating to the game taking longer to develop. Is this the case you're making?
I'm not going to bother with the mouthpiece thing as that sounds like a can of worms.
No. Read it. Jesus. How do I seem under this assumption versus what I said? Noble's takes werent always great but you did the same god damn thing to him. This is not correlating to the game's lengthy development. I'm not saying HW is wasting his time commenting on this. Where are you getting that? Or are you placing this perspective on me to make it easier to refute vs what I actually said? Hardcorecuddler dude earlier made it seem like that's what the conversation is entirely about despite no one saying this, at least in the recent thread, and here you are, doing the same thing, almost like it's, ya know, coordinated. This is obfuscating the actual points being made. THIS IS AN EXAMPLE OF THE RED HERRING THAT KEEPS HAPPENING. People ask why this bullshit conversation continues, it's because this type of trash supportive commentary that makes HW look worse and worse for every comments that's made. It's why the comment from Sirritinee that makes it harder and harder to argue against even though I'm trying to give benefit of the doubt. I WANT this game, and the western industry, to do well. I'm TRYING to give your camp the benefit of the doubt but you keep replying with this type of statement.
"The dev doesn't know what they're doing so you should give them money until they know what they're doing" is certainly a take.
It's as you said, they're inexperienced and it's resulted in a mismanaged mess. We're how many years into development? How many missed release dates? If money hasn't fixed it yet, there's no reason to believe that'll fix it now.
I mean, perhaps it's a longshot, but the hope is that there is a learning experience out of this. God knows my first serious IRL work related projects required some serious help, but I had mentors for that and an actual legit budget that if I missed deadlines by any huge stretch, there were significant consequences. I doubt there is a real support group of experienced pixel art porn game developers here to lend insight for FF during it's development.
I mean, perhaps it's a longshot, but the hope is that there is a learning experience out of this. God knows my first serious IRL work related projects required some serious help, but I had mentors for that and an actual legit budget that if I missed deadlines but any huge stretch, there were significant consequences. I doubt there is a real support group of experienced pixel art porn game developers here to lend insight for FF during it's development.
I understand where you're coming from, and I really want to agree, because I do think that HW is less of a scammer, but is absurdly incompetent, to the point that the word "absurdly" doesn't even begin to describe just how incompetent HW is when it comes to managing the game development and managing critiques. The thing is, if there was a time when this whole development hell had a chance of becoming "a learning experience", then it was years ago, when the game's delays first started to become commonplace.
I don't think HW needs to wait for the game's completion to understand that he really mismanaged both the development (with his nonsensical delays that essentially changed nothing for the gameplay, since there's no new demo to check what actually changed and most of the changes in Progress Reports are basically "new cutscene added") and with handling the criticism of others (saying "but can you hire THIS MANY voice actors " is not how you handle criticism), and that the HW should either become better at tempering their ambitions and make smaller projects, or learn to stop channeling Norman Osborn and screaming how much they sacrificed to deliver the game.
Also, I don't think that there's a need to say that we should buy the game, because I don't think the game will sell poorly. On this site there are games like Pure Onyx and Cloud Meadow that essentially have zero development progress, yet still give tons of cash to theire respective developers, and, seeing how abolutely hell-bent the defenders of HW in this thread, I'm pretty sure that a noticeable amount of people supporting Future Fragments on Patreon will also buy the game when it comes out, I don't know if HW's claim of giving the game for free for remaining supporters still stands, but I'm sure that even if it does, a hefty amount of supporters will still buy the game to support the devs, for one reason or another. I genuinely don't think that FF's devs will go bankrupt after this game
you all keep shitting on HW for talking to much and "not developing the game" yet there are now 8 more fucking pages of comments since I last checked, on a thread that has not been updated in a while.
You could've built 2 games in the amount of time it takes you to write so much every day /s
Legitimately, there are games that really do not take a lot of time to develop. Simple games like a strip solitaire for exemple, could probably take less time than people spent arguing here over the course of the last few days to create. And I am talking from experience as I have done it before.
This is not correct. If you believe that someone is using an alt to mislead the community or break rules then please report the account, rather than make random accusations.
I have v027EX, and the mainframe boss is a little more irritating. It might be because I'm not good at platforming, and couldn't get all the fragments and other items. Do you have any guide for this version?
I have v027EX, and the mainframe boss is a little more irritating. It might be because I'm not good at platforming, and couldn't get all the fragments and other items. Do you have any guide for this version?
For the most part, if you go into the fight with full health, you should be able to sit on the platform and just keep spamming the boss until it's dead. Dodging will just waste time as you'll probably get hit and have to use precious invincibility time getting back on the platform.
If the boss stuns you during a pattern which seems really annoying, you can just wait it out and unstun yourself at a more opportune time.
Otherwise, I'd throw on any powerups that could possibly increase damage.
Context based on the the comment you were replying to, the words you used, and this specific part "I think what's making this super long is you have guys like Omni..."
So why are some people accounts here so hell bent on ending this argument and maintaining the status quo of a thread for a video game that has gone FUCKING NOWHERE in years? What's so important to you that you need this to stop right now? What pressing, alternative discussion do you need to have that this is getting in the way of? As for wall of texts, you can either not read them or maybe make your tweet posts about it on twitter, the place where you forgot how to read.
Or maybe, just maybe, the people who only follow this thread for game updates instead of the daily shit-flinging contest will actually get game updates. If the thread gets stagnant until that happens, oh fucking well.
Newsflash: I still gain absolutely nothing, and HW still gets money while every single one of you bitch and complain over and over until the heat-death of the universe.
At this point I've separated the art from the artist and encourage everyone else to do so as well. HW has already got their lashings from me and many others both publicly and in DMs, and it's just beating a dead horse at this point. I've done this wonderful thing called getting a fucking life and will just play the game when it comes out. Whether that is this year or 5 years from now makes 0 difference to my life or how I will enjoy the game on release.
If it never comes out, that's a problem between HW and his patrons, not randoms on a pirating forum.
I have v027EX, and the mainframe boss is a little more irritating. It might be because I'm not good at platforming, and couldn't get all the fragments and other items. Do you have any guide for this version?
Try to get powerups that increase Talia's HP and/or increase the power of her shots. If you start with full HP Talia should be able to simply tank the hits long enough for the boss to die first; do not bother dodging too much.
This thread is too fucking good. It is at least ten times more entertaining to read than 90% of fanfics released for the fandoms I frequent.
Seeing some arguments here that are incredibly idiotic. One of them being that you can't comment on something unless you are participating/part of something.
Complaining/criticizing HW for being an absolute idiot because he is incapable of giving good responses or excuses for whatever he's fucked up is not something exclusive for the ones paying for this game. Though I have to concede that they have "more" of a reason to. This, because commenting on something from an outside view does not make your arguments lesser in any way if they follow facts.
Anyways, almost half the issues that has been discussed in this thread would have never happened had HW simply chosen to take a more careful approach to updates on the game and release. Saying "We do not have an approximate release date, but we are aiming for end of the year, though complications could arise", instead of "Game is out tonight or I'm going to burn down the nearest orphanage" would have helped him in not having to constantly explain the reasons as for why the game isn't yet released and made a mockery of himself that's lead to so much criticism.
Instead of ever accepting blame and learning from previous experiences, HW has always doubled down. Why this is, I have no idea. But after the first two times of missing release, I at least would have taken the cautious approach and not commented on release until I was fucking sure the game was ready.
