Ren'Py Abandoned Game of Life [v0.10.2] [Teron]

[Teron]

There's something to be said in working in what you're comfortable with, but there's also things to be said in using the right tool for the right job. If you're on the fringe of Unity rather than an expert then use Unity because the development will serve as a good learning process for you. If you just want a project off the ground and functioning then you're early enough on to swithc to Ren'Py

Oh I'm far from an expert that's for sure.

One of my main concerns with using Ren'Py, and this may just be due to lack of knowledge regarding Ren'Py, is that these types of games come with a lot of gifs that result in a massive size eventually. With the current method I can release updates that don't require downloading all of the gifs repeatedly and players will be able to update without having to redownload the gifs as well, just having to download the new gifs.

I'm not aware of a similar feature in Ren'Py, not to say there isn't one. I haven't really looked, just basing that off previous games I've played.

I did type all of that out and then actually thought about it. Probably able to use the same method I'm using just now, having a folder that's part of the overall package but separate from the build which can be called from the Ren'Py code.

Then we get into the territory of getting .gifs working in Renpy.
I was able to get a webm going though. Food for thought for me I guess.

 

[AHD]

I'm your biggest fan for making real porn game. the render stuff gets tiring after a while.

i'm on 1920*1080 and the picture scaling for avatars and content is all over the place. Is this really the resolution you scaled stuff for?

i would also prefer if the text size doesn't vary so much between dialogue options and text itself.

 

[alasad]

with enough content variation to suit most degenerates around here.

you already got me very interested with that statement. still im gonna wait for a few content patches before trying this out.
but i wish you best of luck. i absolutely love QSP games like ETO/ Girl's Life etc.i just wish they were a little darker / more extreme perverted.

 

[PandaLulz]

you already got me very interested with that statement. still im gonna wait for a few content patches before trying this out.
but i wish you best of luck. i absolutely love QSP games like ETO/ Girl's Life etc.i just wish they were a little darker / more extreme perverted.

I wish QSP received more love, I have been tempted many times to try and make a game on it. Girl Life / Province / Son of a Bitch etc are all cracking QSP games but they just dont tick "enough boxes"... We'll see.

Goodluck with this game Teron, i'll be keeping my eye on it!

 

[Anders Oppenheimer]

Is it x64 version only?

 

[dspeed]

Oh I'm far from an expert that's for sure.

One of my main concerns with using Ren'Py, and this may just be due to lack of knowledge regarding Ren'Py, is that these types of games come with a lot of gifs that result in a massive size eventually. With the current method I can release updates that don't require downloading all of the gifs repeatedly and players will be able to update without having to redownload the gifs as well, just having to download the new gifs.

I'm not aware of a similar feature in Ren'Py, not to say there isn't one. I haven't really looked, just basing that off previous games I've played.

I did type all of that out and then actually thought about it. Probably able to use the same method I'm using just now, having a folder that's part of the overall package but separate from the build which can be called from the Ren'Py code.

Then we get into the territory of getting .gifs working in Renpy.
I was able to get a webm going though. Food for thought for me I guess.

I'd offer a couple pieces of advice to you anyway:

• WEBMs over GIFs. It will make you life an awful lot easier in the longer run and there's been many a real porn developer who has started with GIFs then found themselves having to change 2GB worth of them into WEBM to save file size. Should probably help you when snipping/converting from long video anyway.
• Getting your workflow down to produce clips is a pretty big task on its own and being able to procure, edit and crop your source material is something you should put a bit of thought into.
• Your update methodology is nice but to be honest, it's solving a problem that doesn't really exist yet. People who download these types of games understand that they're often going to be in the couple of Gig range and will work around this. A better way of producing a "delta" version isn't to give the StreamingAssets folder zipped up, but instead recreate the folder structure in the zip file so the user doesn't have to go looking for folders and can just make sure that the EXE file overwrites the EXE file they have an the rest works itself out.
• On the engine discussion, the key factor is "what will I be able to keep working in?". It's no secret that the biggest problem with game development is keeping that motivation to grind and keep going after the initial enthusiasm has worn off. Money sometimes helps for this if you've got good support. A great community around your game can also help. But neither will do it for you, only you can keep your discipline going. If you have to learn a whole new engine while trying to produce a product and you have none of these in place then it's better to stick to whatever is simpler for you and that's probably working in Unity. The game that you have now is essentially complete from a technical perspective - everything else is just repetition of the work and adding in the story, structure and dialog.
• You're doing good, man. Keep at it. Rome wasn't built in a day but they never stopped laying bricks.

 

[dingo4life]

I'm really glad to finally see one of these sandbox games where you got real porn in them and half the stuff is not machine translated. As always though, I would love if you made some sort of roadmap for your work. Granted this is not as important in this instance since you aren't asking for money. I would still suggest it since I'm certain it could help smooth your dev experience to decide that during x time you will focus on y and decide that z amount of time ahead of when you actually start.

 

[PrEzi]

I'd offer a couple pieces of advice to you anyway:

• WEBMs over GIFs. It will make you life an awful lot easier in the longer run and there's been many a real porn developer who has started with GIFs then found themselves having to change 2GB worth of them into WEBM to save file size. Should probably help you when snipping/converting from long video anyway.
• Getting your workflow down to produce clips is a pretty big task on its own and being able to procure, edit and crop your source material is something you should put a bit of thought into.
• Your update methodology is nice but to be honest, it's solving a problem that doesn't really exist yet. People who download these types of games understand that they're often going to be in the couple of Gig range and will work around this. A better way of producing a "delta" version isn't to give the StreamingAssets folder zipped up, but instead recreate the folder structure in the zip file so the user doesn't have to go looking for folders and can just make sure that the EXE file overwrites the EXE file they have an the rest works itself out.
• On the engine discussion, the key factor is "what will I be able to keep working in?". It's no secret that the biggest problem with game development is keeping that motivation to grind and keep going after the initial enthusiasm has worn off. Money sometimes helps for this if you've got good support. A great community around your game can also help. But neither will do it for you, only you can keep your discipline going. If you have to learn a whole new engine while trying to produce a product and you have none of these in place then it's better to stick to whatever is simpler for you and that's probably working in Unity. The game that you have now is essentially complete from a technical perspective - everything else is just repetition of the work and adding in the story, structure and dialog.
• You're doing good, man. Keep at it. Rome wasn't built in a day but they never stopped laying bricks.

I agree with all the points dspeed posted.
--WebM over GIF anytime. GIF is outdated and outbloated, and provides inferior quality and size over WebM ANY FREAKIN TIME.
--If you would create a smart directory structure then you could easily produce the deltas.
I am thinking about creating something like this

Root
-----|
-----assets
-----exes and other files
--------------|
--------------libs
--------------content
--------------------|
--------------------maingfxandmenus
--------------------soundsandothers
--------------------deltas
-------------------------|
-------------------------1.0
----------------------------|
----------------------------content1.0
-------------------------1.1
----------------------------|
----------------------------content1.1
-------------------------1.2
----------------------------|
----------------------------content1.2

etc.
I know you can bind more than 1 source in both RenPy and Unity.

Doing it that way you could only pack the files that changed/have been added and voila! You have a smaller delta.

 

[mac1000]

The game is so dope i cant wait for more content. You must insert gloryhole for male player too. When can we expect some more content? If you need any help holla at me, i watched everything from cory and molly

 

[dimsss]

 

[Papa Ernie]

@Teron
Just to expound upon the GIF vs Webm format discussion:

4.8MB GIF - vs. - 0.16MB Webm (see attached file)

You must be registered to see the links

You must be registered to see the links

 

[Teron]

32bit Windows - I didn't have a build for this but there is one in the OP now. I haven't tested this at all.
You'll need to download the GIFs separately and place the StreamingAssets folder into the GameOfLife 'data' directory to use them.

Re GIF vs webm - I'm sure you can all imagine my frustration when I converted one of my 10MB GIFs and it produced a 200kb webm only to discover the method used to display the GIFs in Unity does not work with webms. Initial testing didn't produce much using the Unity video player either. Difficult to ignore that kind of size improvement though.

Unity vs Ren'Py - I've never written anything in Ren'Py before but my curiousity is piqued. Now that the Unity build works (relatively speaking) and people can actually play the content in the game just now, I'm going to have a look at recreating some of the 0.1 release in Ren'Py and see how easy it is to write content. I'll upload something this week.

Thank you guys for the feedback on webms, game engine etc - it has been helpful and I really do appreciate it.

 

[xןʞ]

You might want to check out trying to develop it in TWINE.

Most of these types of games are HTML based adn you can still add in your images and videos and such, and it would probably make writing go a hell of a lot faster.

 

[satan1972]

Does money work yet ?

Went to night club and bought multiple drinks and money didnt change from $100

Also playing on a 3840x2160 screen, the images and gifs are stretched horizontally. To make the images look normal i have to make the game window 4:3 ratio. Images stretch or widen when changing window size. This is the first time ife seen this in a game (Chubby chase Cory anyone ?)

 

[cooperdk]

You get a lot of good advice here.

Here is a very important advice:

Avoid using downloaded material. You risk a hefty legal demand for using copyrighted material. Use some legal stock photos/videos you can get for free or very cheap, get your game on Patreon, and try to monetize it in order to purchase legal material. There's a lot of places where you can get it, or you can have it done for not-so-large fees in East Europe.

Just please, don't use other people's work without permission.

 

[LewdKitty]

Some of the pics at the beginning look stretched, while others look like the correct proportion. The video cutscenes were a pleasant surprise ;-).

 

[Teron]

I've spent a couple of hours each night this week putting together a Ren'Py version of the current content and I reckon it should be playable without issue just now. I thought the same about the Unity initial release also though so...

I'd appreciate it if I could get some feedback on the Ren'Py edition especially if you spot something that looks off (images appearing at the botom of the screen for example).

It is my intention to go back and review all of the video files as space is no longer a concern when using webms so the quality of the video files can now be increased substantially. An example of this can be viewed by a male character visiting Molly's room at night. I'm torn between the video being too big or if bigger is indeed better.

Cheers

 

[dasf8756]

I've spent a couple of hours each night this week putting together a Ren'Py version of the current content and I reckon it should be playable without issue just now. I thought the same about the Unity initial release also though so...

I'd appreciate it if I could get some feedback on the Ren'Py edition especially if you spot something that looks off (images appearing at the botom of the screen for example).

It is my intention to go back and review all of the video files as space is no longer a concern when using webms so the quality of the video files can now be increased substantially. An example of this can be viewed by a male character visiting Molly's room at night. I'm torn between the video being too big or if bigger is indeed better.

Cheers

when talking to lex, sunday evening, syntax error in game/script.rpy line 954: "invalid syntax"

 

[Teron]

when talking to lex, sunday evening, syntax error in game/script.rpy line 954: "invalid syntax"

Thank you. I see the issue on that one and will fix that shortly.

edit: New links updated with that syntax fix, redone female clinic scenes with new webms.

 

[Teron]

You might want to check out trying to develop it in TWINE.

Most of these types of games are HTML based adn you can still add in your images and videos and such, and it would probably make writing go a hell of a lot faster.

Some of my favourites are actually built in Twine and the one thing I dislike most about them is the game engine
I think I started to develop muscle memory playing one of them with the amount of scrolling to selections for repeatable content.

Does money work yet ?

Went to night club and bought multiple drinks and money didnt change from $100

Also playing on a 3840x2160 screen, the images and gifs are stretched horizontally. To make the images look normal i have to make the game window 4:3 ratio. Images stretch or widen when changing window size. This is the first time ife seen this in a game (Chubby chase Cory anyone ?)

Money works in the latest version, the stretching should be fixed as well due to Ren'Py's resolution restriction.

@dspeed @PrEzi @jerricho13

I just wanted to thank you guys for the constructive feedback regarding the game engine. I realise now that I spent a fair bit of time scripting features into the Unity engine that replicated Ren'Py features which was a case of reinventing the wheel. I'm much happier with the outcome of the Ren'Py 0.1 release than the Unity and I will be moving forward with Ren'Py for the rest of the game.

0.1 Ren'Py link updated with latest build, majority of video content now fits fully in middle panel. Roadmap added for what I'm trying to get done for 0.2.

Cheers