Ren'Py Heavy Five [Ch.2RS] [Nottravis]

[EmperorGus]

-You receive a briefcase full of gadgets to interact with things,
-You can find and pick up objects,
-There's even a terminal that opens a page in the browser (outside the game)

And none of that does anything!! (as far as I can tell..) Do you see why I feel like missing half of the game?

If you pay attention to the info on your diagnostics tablet, then you know exactly what using the right tool on different objects does.
They advance the engineering mini-game. If you've played BaDIK think if it like the mansion game. At the current progression of the story we can start it, but not finish it.

There are several interactions that add new clues to the tablet.
And I've found 2 that will advance the progress %. Example: The server in the Cistern will advance the software diagnosis to 20%.

And I, mostly, like the addition of 'action points' to the free-roam in the 3rd chapter. Do you want to blow a ton of time on interactions with the characters or do you want do your job (engineer) and solve the power mystery.
My main criticism of the free-roam is that I want a indicator to show how many 'action points' I have before the free-roam ends. It's tricky managing your 'time' properly when you don't have a watch

 

[NeimadFR]

If you pay attention to the info on your diagnostics tablet, then you know exactly what using the right tool on different objects does.
They advance the engineering mini-game. If you've played BaDIK think if it like the mansion game. At the current progression of the story we can start it, but not finish it.

There are several interactions that add new clues to the tablet.
And I've found 2 that will advance the progress %. Example: The server in the Cistern will advance the software diagnosis to 20%.

And I, mostly, like the addition of 'action points' to the free-roam in the 3rd chapter. Do you want to blow a ton of time on interactions with the characters or do you want do your job (engineer) and solve the power mystery.
My main criticism of the free-roam is that I want a indicator to show how many 'action points' I have before the free-roam ends. It's tricky managing your 'time' properly when you don't have a watch

You know it's your last action for the day when the background gets darker (sunset).

 

[aezur]

I was expecting a lot from this game after having played callisto, what's the point of having cool sandbox locations if we don't even get to use them properly and the story is on rails non stop?

 

[Akamari]

I was expecting a lot from this game after having played callisto, what's the point of having cool sandbox locations if we don't even get to use them properly and the story is on rails non stop?

Your question doesn't make sense to me.

This is a story-focused game with choices that have consequences, not a sandbox. It's like if you complained why does the game have guns if it's not a first person shooter. Or why is a complex jungle gym not a shallow sandbox. It's not all sand in the playground, y'know?

 

[aezur]

Your question doesn't make sense to me.

This is a story-focused game with choices that have consequences, not a sandbox. It's like if you complained why does the game have guns if it's not a first person shooter. Or why is a complex jungle gym not a shallow sandbox. It's not all sand in the playground, y'know?

What do you mean by story focused? there's a lot of hidden objects that affect the story, several elements of sandbox and time management games, it's really far from a kinetic VN, and yet has no way to keep track of which path you're on, not even a basic gallery. The game is also not even at 30% of what it is supposed to be, so it's more of a tech demo than a game at this point.

Also sandbox games are shallow? Since when? Try the games on my sig, most are sandbox and really amazing. I'm outta here, ignoring this thread. Last thing I want to do is argue with people who refuse to take constructive criticism.

 

[TheDevian]

What do you mean by story focused? there's a lot of hidden objects that affect the story, several elements of sandbox and time management games, it's really far from a kinetic VN, and yet has no way to keep track of which path you're on, not even a basic gallery. The game is also not even at 30% of what it is supposed to be, so it's more of a tech demo than a game at this point.

First of all, all of that is optional and every single thing you do affects the story, every single choice, and second, no one said anything about a garbage kinetic novel, this has a ton of choice, and all of your choices matter. This is not a sandbox, it is a Choose Your Own Adventure Visual Novel.

Yes, it is almost 30%, it is chapter 3 of 10, so that is it exactly, since each chapter is larger than the last. Personally, I would have liked to see more free in the roam, but since that was never in the original, I will take what I can get. XD

 

[EmperorGus]

I was expecting a lot from this game after having played callisto, what's the point of having cool sandbox locations if we don't even get to use them properly and the story is on rails non stop?

What does Callisto have to do with this game? AFAIK the Dev of this game isn't associated with that one.
This isn't a sandbox. It's a VN with free-roams.

What do you mean by story focused? there's a lot of hidden objects that affect the story, several elements of sandbox and time management games, it's really far from a kinetic VN, and yet has no way to keep track of which path you're on, not even a basic gallery. The game is also not even at 30% of what it is supposed to be, so it's more of a tech demo than a game at this point.

Also sandbox games are shallow? Since when? Try the games on my sig, most are sandbox and really amazing. I'm outta here, ignoring this thread. Last thing I want to do is argue with people who refuse to take constructive criticism.

Hidden objects in a free-roam don't make it a sandbox game.
Based on the ones I'm familiar with, if you think 'most' the games in your sig are sandbox then you don't know what a sandbox game is.
If you want an adult game that is sandbox, check out: LifePlay

 

[reiterhaniwa]

I was expecting a lot from this game after having played callisto, what's the point of having cool sandbox locations if we don't even get to use them properly and the story is on rails non stop?

I don't think you quite understand what "on rails" means.

 

[dhasghdashjdkajs]

any estimate time for next release?

 

[NeimadFR]

any estimate time for next release?

Probably this month or beginning of the next but don't quote me on that, all I know is that she's in the refining and testing phase.

 

[imnotoverhere]

You realize that this is super predictable right? At least change up the fake estimates to keep it somewhat believable. Hell, 1 month ago I wrote a post on how every month the response to the question of release date was "sometime this month or early next month". At least be honest about it, nobody knows when it will be released. It will come out when it comes out.

Here's my quote from that post so that you can see that at least I'm honest in my posts.

Why would you be annoyed by people complaining? You're not the developer. Honestly, it's hard to disagree with Ninjasquirrel's post about this. I remember asking months ago about when the planned release date was. People posted that Notti was aiming for that month or early the next month. This seems to be the common response whenever people ask about the release date and it's hard to take it seriously anymore. "aiming for Feb or early March... aiming for March or early April... aiming for April or early May... etc". I've done development work in the past and it's not easy so I'm not knocking the workload involved, but at a certain point, constantly posting "aiming for this month" is like crying wolf. Just tell people that you're working on it and will get it out as soon as it's ready (whenever that is). You can even post sketches and updates to the progress in order to keep up hype.

 

[NeimadFR]

You realize that this is super predictable right? At least change up the fake estimates to keep it somewhat believable. Hell, 1 month ago I wrote a post on how every month the response to the question of release date was "sometime this month or early next month". At least be honest about it, nobody knows when it will be released. It will come out when it comes out.

This seems like a reasonable timeframe based on the informations I have. I understand that you feel like you've been burnt before and choose not to believe it. Just don't go accusing me of posting fake estimates and being dishonest like I'm in on some big conspiracy or something please.

 

[Avaron1974]

You realize that this is super predictable right? At least change up the fake estimates to keep it somewhat believable. Hell, 1 month ago I wrote a post on how every month the response to the question of release date was "sometime this month or early next month". At least be honest about it, nobody knows when it will be released. It will come out when it comes out.

Here's my quote from that post so that you can see that at least I'm honest in my posts.

People only have so much info to give on here, Notty doesn't post here, she abandoned this place a long time ago. I think it was January the last time she popped her face in and even then she didn't hang around.

Whatever info people have to post here they are trying to patch together from wherever they can get it from.

 

[imnotoverhere]

This seems like a reasonable timeframe based on the informations I have. I understand that you feel like you've been burnt before and choose not to believe it. Just don't go accusing me of posting fake estimates and being dishonest like I'm in on some big conspiracy or something please.

You may not be intentionally lying, but the reality is for months and months the same phrase is used whenever anyone asks about how much longer, "sometime this month or early next month". There are now chats in multiple other threads and people were making jokes about when that line was going to be used this month. The honest truth is that you don't know when it will be complete.

This reminds me of a trick airline pilots used when a flight is delayed after boarding but they don't know for how long. Pilots use the 30m rule. They'll go on the radio and tell passengers that there's a slight delay that will be ~30m. After 30m they'll hop on and tell people the delay is lasting a bit longer than expected, it's looking like it's going to be another 30m. Why do they do this? Simple... their research shows that passengers will stay calm if given a deadline that doesn't seem too far off even if it's inaccurate. People are hopeful so they don't make a problem. After the second or 3rd time of saying that, people start to trick themselves into believing the next time it really is going to be 30m (after all... it's been 1.5 hours... surely it really is only 30m more).

Notti made a post in January saying that February was the target date, after that anytime someone asked about the timeline, someone would respond with either the end of that month, or sometime the next month. I'm starting to think the flight crew isn't sure how long maintenance will take.

 

[moskyx]

You may not be intentionally lying, but the reality is for months and months the same phrase is used whenever anyone asks about how much longer, "sometime this month or early next month". There are now chats in multiple other threads and people were making jokes about when that line was going to be used this month. The honest truth is that you don't know when it will be complete.

This reminds me of a trick airline pilots used when a flight is delayed after boarding but they don't know for how long. Pilots use the 30m rule. They'll go on the radio and tell passengers that there's a slight delay that will be ~30m. After 30m they'll hop on and tell people the delay is lasting a bit longer than expected, it's looking like it's going to be another 30m. Why do they do this? Simple... their research shows that passengers will stay calm if given a deadline that doesn't seem too far off even if it's inaccurate. People are hopeful so they don't make a problem. After the second or 3rd time of saying that, people start to trick themselves into believing the next time it really is going to be 30m (after all... it's been 1.5 hours... surely it really is only 30m more).

Notti made a post in January saying that February was the target date, after that anytime someone asked about the timeline, someone would respond with either the end of that month, or sometime the next month. I'm starting to think the flight crew isn't sure how long maintenance will take.

Your point being...? Just wait, it's not like you're actually paying for it (if you were, I guess you'd be whinning in her patreon and not in a pirate forum). People ask for release date and other people just tell them what they know, there's no reason to be salty about it. It's ready when it's ready.

 

[imnotoverhere]

Your point being...? Just wait, it's not like you're actually paying for it (if you were, I guess you'd be whinning in her patreon and not in a pirate forum). People ask for release date and other people just tell them what they know, there's no reason to be salty about it. It's ready when it's ready.

Yeah, that's my point. It will be ready when it's ready. So stop with the bullshit timelines that nobody believes anymore. I know this is a pirate forum and if you look through my post history I have not once demanded that something be released so I'm not sure why you commented that... unless you thought it was an easy way to discredit my opinion. I know that's an easy thing to say in order to shut down people who criticize a developer for taking a long time, but that's not what I did. I just pointed out that, like clockwork every month certain members, comment that the game will be released this month or the end of next month, and that it's super transparent. Speaking of salty, why are you getting salty when people point out this out to others? You're getting awfully defensive for someone else.

 

[moskyx]

Yeah, that's my point. It will be ready when it's ready. So stop with the bullshit timelines that nobody believes anymore. I know this is a pirate forum and if you look through my post history I have not once demanded that something be released so I'm not sure why you commented that... unless you thought it was an easy way to discredit my opinion. I know that's an easy thing to say in order to shut down people who criticize a developer for taking a long time, but that's not what I did. I just pointed out that, like clockwork every month certain members, comment that the game will be released this month or the end of next month, and that it's super transparent. Speaking of salty, why are you getting salty when people point out this out to others? You're getting awfully defensive for someone else.

OK, whatever

 

[A.C.H.B.]

OK, whatever

There's just no winning with these 'type' of people.

 

[reiterhaniwa]

Here's my quote from that post so that you can see that at least I'm honest in my posts.

Not to unreasonably ignore ninety percent of your posts, but... you do know what "estimate" actually means, yes? I'd assume so, considering your experience with development work, but it can be a little hard to tell.

 

[Loady]

People only have so much info to give on here, Notty doesn't post here, she abandoned this place a long time ago. I think it was January the last time she popped her face in and even then she didn't hang around.

Whatever info people have to post here they are trying to patch together from wherever they can get it from.

This is fair but needs to be better communicated. When someone asks and gets an answer, it's implicit that there's some information behind the estimate, be it from patreon or discord or what have you.

This thread is a lot more mature and patient than most other games' threads. The readers understand that the dev is doing a lot more and working on her own to make something special. It's fine if it takes longer, but putting out optimistic release dates only adds drama when they've historically missed. Especially unnecessary when the missed estimates aren't even the dev's fault but just the result of optimistic fans trying to be helpful.

It's much more helpful to say "we don't know but this is her last report, so we'd like to think it'll take X longer because that's how long similar work has taken her in the past."