VN Ren'Py Harem Hotel [v0.18 Beta3] [Runey]

[Runey]

I've developed different standards for sandbox in my gaming experience. And I feel like HH is more sandbox than alot of other games on this site. Even Minecraft has linear story: start in overworld - get to nether - conquer stronghold - open portal to the end - kill the dragon.

As for HH, it already has features, that define sandbox for me.
- you decide when to progress the story further
- you have no time restrictions
- you are free to unlock and repeatedly experience new content, not related to the main story.
- you can customize your game experience to your liking (change outfits, ignore secondary girls storylines)
- you have more than one way of achieving the same goal. (earn money by hotel upgrades\deliveries\selling nudes etc)

The main difference between HH and other sandbox games is that HH story progress is not defined by your stats.
While in minecraft you have to craft good armor and potions to kill the dragon and there is a great chance of failed attempt, in HH you just have to keep talking to your girls. But in both games the end result is predetermined.

Yes, I'm not saying HH doesn't have sandbox elements in it. I'm saying it's not PURELY sandbox, which is what you mentioned in the review. It also does have time restrictions, all the sandbox elements are only for the side content and choosing when the story starts. The main purpose of the game is the story, not the side content. I don't think this is an issue that needs to be repeated at all, but that's what I'm talking about. It is certainly fine to see the sandbox elements in the game, but that is not all the game is, nor is it the primary purpose. That's all I'm trying to say in this regard. Opinions aside, this is how Harem Hotel is developed. It is not created as a pure sandbox, but as a visual novel.

Harem Hotel and Minecraft could not be further genres from each other. Minecraft has more in common with call of duty. Comparing Minecraft to HH is so strange to me. Harem Hotel is closer to Persona 5, which is also a visual novel with sandbox elements and JRPG combat.

Regardless though, my main gripe is leaving readers of your review with the impression that this game is a pure sandbox, which is not what I intend to develop. Story is the main aspect of Harem Hotel, and is what gets the most attention. Sorry if this isn't a conversation you want to have, you don't have to change it if you don't want to. I just thought I would share.

A new review just showed up calling HH a sandbox, which I see no issue with. Because in many regards it is both a sandbox and a visual novel. But I don't want players to expect a sandbox, because I mainly develop HH as a visual novel. That's where most of the content is, so that's what people should expect.

 

[NeonSelf]

Harem Hotel and Minecraft could no be further genres from each other. Comparing them is so strange. Harem Hotel is closer to Persona 5, which is also a visual novel with sandbox elements.

I've changed review to "Almost sandbox", hope you like it.

Honestly, almost every game I've played has a linear story. They are designed with end goal in mind. HH just happens to have more dialogs. I've never played Persona games, sorry. But you can take a look at any other game to see the picture: FarCry games have linear story but free world to explore, Starcraft has linear story but sandbox gameplay, GTA has main storyline, Need For Speed has linear story but you can finish it with any car...

Ofcourse there are some exceptions, where you have to choose one possible ending, like in Fallout or DeusEx. But those games are so few that I consider them minority.

 

[Runey]

I've changed review to "Almost sandbox", hope you like it.

Honestly, almost every game I've played has a linear story. They are designed with end goal in mind. HH just happens to have more dialogs. I've never played Persona games, sorry. But you can take a look at any other game to see the picture: FarCry games have linear story but free world to explore, Starcraft has linear story but sandbox gameplay, GTA has main storyline, Need For Speed has linear story but you can finish it with any car...

Ofcourse there are some exceptions, where you have to choose one possible ending, like in Fallout or DeusEx. But those games are so few that I consider them minority.

It's a small thing, but I appreciate that!

Yeah, genres have no real set definitions I think. It's all a blurry line and it often crosses with other genres. Like a "Dramedy" (Drama Comedy) which can be really hard to pull off. But it all helps with expectations. (you may also want to update the money making section? There's deliveries, and the bar gives you a ton of income, with more on the way!)

 

[NeonSelf]

(you may also want to update the money making section? There's deliveries, and the bar gives you a ton of income, with more on the way!)

Considering the price of building and fully upgrading the bar... It gives like $500-600 a week, which is close to $80 a day. While I can have a photoshoot with F&E for $100-125 per session and it costs basically nothing?

I wouldnt even consider grinding money in the first place, if I knew beforehand that I will get 10000 from Kali's father. But it was my experience in this version, when I needed sanctuary and elves, because some online guide said that I can get Maria back this way. The total cost of sanctuary+3 elves is 13000, it takes 160 days to earn them with fully upgraded bar, without selling nude pictures. Thats a very long time. And I didn have a fully upgraded bar at that moment, its pretty expensive and takes time to buy all upgrades.

I dont think its fair to say there is no money grind. Or there is some smart way to avoid my "mistake" of prefering to progress with different girl than Kali. While writing "Progress with Kali to build sanctuary" in review seems like a major spoiler.

 

[shadowtempered]

Runey the last 3-4 pages are discussion on NeonSelf 's post, others chiming in and making suggestions. Not sure how far you've gotten but there might be something useful in the suggestions.

One suggestion was gatekeeping Sanctuary. I know you've commented on not having players grind and in Neon's specific instance, he did (as he mentioned above) mostly because he wasn't interested in Kali (heathen! /s). It's a legit gripe from a new player perspective. Another was adjusting the front page description to match the ITCH.io description. It calls the game a VN, but here it does not.

I'm not sure if you've had time to dig through the recent history or not, but there are some comments from newer players and older alike trying to come up with a bit of a "middle" ground.

 

[c3p0]

Considering the price of building and fully upgrading the bar... It gives like $500-600 a week, which is close to $80 a day. While I can have a photoshoot with F&E for $100-125 per session and it costs basically nothing?

Don't have the precisice number around, but the bar generate a lot of income and that fully passive. The whole comercials gives you usually 100-200$ alone (well I will make notes and update this post).
But the baseline is, the bar is, at the moment, the only thing you need to buy once and then it generate money. So that means, you can fully update the bar (including sport and training) and then have photoshoots the whole day.
Also the photoshoots doesn't cost nothing, it cost time.

E/
So, progress report of a fully upgraded bar:
390 + 250 + 100 + 75 + 10 - 20 = 805

Spoiler: Pics

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[Uthuriel]

Question which of the two routes of the elves is better?

Depends on what you want.
I'd say story wise the love path makes more sense than the slave path.

So ask yourself. Do you want to be mean to your elves or do you want to love them?

 

[Runey]

Runey the last 3-4 pages are discussion on NeonSelf 's post, others chiming in and making suggestions. Not sure how far you've gotten but there might be something useful in the suggestions.

One suggestion was gatekeeping Sanctuary. I know you've commented on not having players grind and in Neon's specific instance, he did (as he mentioned above) mostly because he wasn't interested in Kali (heathen! /s). It's a legit gripe from a new player perspective. Another was adjusting the front page description to match the ITCH.io description. It calls the game a VN, but here it does not.

I'm not sure if you've had time to dig through the recent history or not, but there are some comments from newer players and older alike trying to come up with a bit of a "middle" ground.

Oh I'm sorry, I guess I missed all of that!

 

[Craigdon97]

how do i order supplies for nia?

 

[torresm]

how do i order supplies for nia?

Your PC on your room, same menu you used to order a new hard drive for Kali once.

 

[Hentai1987]

Oh I'm sorry, I guess I missed all of that!

I had that strange situation where I wanted to continue the story of character A (i think i was Lin) but for that, i needed to have enough friendship with character B (i think it was the Android) but to have enough friendship with character B i needed enough friendship with character C. That can be a little bit annoying. My suggestion would be that you can buy every week a gift for a character and increase the friendship that way

 

[Craigdon97]

Your PC on your room, same menu you used to order a new hard drive for Kali once.

ah thanks

 

[torresm]

Don't have the precisice number around, but the bar generate a lot of income and that fully passive. The whole comercials gives you usually 100-200$ alone (well I will make notes and update this post).
But the baseline is, the bar is, at the moment, the only thing you need to buy once and then it generate money. So that means, you can fully update the bar (including sport and training) and then have photoshoots the whole day.
Also the photoshoots doesn't cost nothing, it cost time.

E/
So, progress report of a fully upgraded bar:
390 + 250 + 100 + 75 + 10 - 20 = 805

Spoiler: Pics

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I like your choice of background image.

 

[NeonSelf]

I had that strange situation where I wanted to continue the story of character A (i think i was Lin) but for that, i needed to have enough friendship with character B (i think it was the Android) but to have enough friendship with character B i needed enough friendship with character C. That can be a little bit annoying. My suggestion would be that you can buy every week a gift for a character and increase the friendship that way

Friendship means relationship level, not affection. You have to go through a storyline with that character.

 

[Hentai1987]

Friendship means relationship level, not affection. You have to go through a storyline with that character.

Then it must have been the affection. I could not continue the story of the character Lin because of reasons obove. I think it happend before Lin wanted to visit the High Elf Queen

 

[DigDug69]

I had that strange situation where I wanted to continue the story of character A (i think i was Lin) but for that, i needed to have enough friendship with character B (i think it was the Android) but to have enough friendship with character B i needed enough friendship with character C. That can be a little bit annoying. My suggestion would be that you can buy every week a gift for a character and increase the friendship that way

Not sure how that would work out, because you sometimes learn important things about other characters during events.
So, it pays in the long run to spend time with the others too, because they help you trigger other events that you might be interested in.
I'm not into Ellen, but I still make a point of spending some time with her, at least once a week, just to cover my bases.

 

[Runey]

I had that strange situation where I wanted to continue the story of character A (i think i was Lin) but for that, i needed to have enough friendship with character B (i think it was the Android) but to have enough friendship with character B i needed enough friendship with character C. That can be a little bit annoying. My suggestion would be that you can buy every week a gift for a character and increase the friendship that way

Relationship points (Friendship) is the counter of story events, so that wouldn't work at all.

The solution I came up with are Objectives, which are goals to reach every week. Doing so may unlock extra content. This isn't a requirement, but if you're playing correctly, you will finish the objects each week naturally. This will be stuff like "Get Kali to Relationship X" "Get Lin to Relationship X" It sort of guides you in a way that should prevent issues like that from occurring. But it does require that you play in the way I intend for the player to play, which may not be how you want to play. I can understand wanting to focus on a character, it's something I want to let players do, but in the end, I think every main character should be progressed together as much as possible.

But I am also considering adding a skip button to every story event.

 

[Vignari]

But I am also considering adding a skip button to every story event.

That's a feature I personally wouldn't want to use. But I am always in favor of giving players more options when possible, and I've seen plenty of people who seem like they do just want to skip some character's events, so that might be an alright way to let them kind of 'ignore' a character they're not interested in. Only problem I see then is that you might get some people complaining about story elements not making sense without paying attention to the fact that they've been skipping half of the cast's events.

 

[DigDug69]

Only problem I see then is that you might get some people complaining about story elements not making sense without paying attention to the fact that they've been skipping half of the cast's events.

That is true, there will more than likely be people who complain about not knowing details that were in events that they chose to skip.
Which would lead many of them back here to complain about it, as if it were a problem with the game.

It's really a no win situation, because even if you added a pop up screen warning them that they will be missing, possibly important events or information, they will still do it, and complain about it later.

 

[NeonSelf]

But I am also considering adding a skip button to every story event.

It will make a mess in the program and gameplay. Some events have important decisions in them like starting a new storyline with a side girl, spending or receiving money, increasing or decreasing affection levels. And if someone wants just repeatable sex events - its easier to get a save game where everything is unlocked and upgraded.