I'm noping - I make AVN's, and I'm a failure.

peterppp

Active Member
Mar 5, 2020
556
942
Row 3:
BaDIK: Woman sitting on a park bench. Doesn't look like goddamn Haven Park. Alexander Nakarada was here.
NSL: College kids again. Different music.
Conclusion: Not similar at all.
it's hard to see how similar the images are because in both cases A DAMN MUSIC LIST IS BLOCKING THE VIEW :KEK:
 

woody554

Well-Known Member
Jan 20, 2018
1,417
1,771
easy UI fixes:

-lose the faux-3d buttons, they look awful. just use the default renpy text ones. 10x better.

-stop the say-box fading in & out on every click, it's super distracting.

-add a quick fadeout to the whole screen between scenes or something, it feels very confusing when you jump from one event to another with no time to breathe. a 0.5s fadeout or something. something to help the brain register the new thing is separate from the previous thing. now it's like reading a wall of text without paragraphs.

-lose the say-box faux-3d edge graphics, and the rounded edges. in 2020s we only do flat square boxes. rounded is like 1995. use a transparent default renpy say-image for a clean look.

-the navigation arrows? you got it, lose the faux 3d. also lose the curved lines, they have no place outsidef D&D fantasy. use big, boxy square arrows, and make their color unintrusive. like transparent white. they shouldn't draw the eye until you look for them. red is very very bad.

-also everything would work MUCH better if you ditched the faux freeroam, it's super klunky and serves no function. if you wanna make freeroam it needs to be the whole game. - I get it, it's a lot of work. but also it's a big part of what's making your UI so bad, so losing it would make everything flow better just like that.

sometimes simple is better. well almost every time. when you try to get clever things tend to become messy and klunky.
 

Segnbora

Well-Known Member
Aug 30, 2017
1,797
3,200
To be honest, the vast majority of the games that end up here aren't all that good, and the vast majority of those don't get finished. Now and then there's an absolute superstar of a game, and if it actually gets finished we all spend the next however many hopeful-but-blind downloads comparing this game to that game. Which almost always means that this game is found wanting.

Right now, F95 has 554 pages worth of games (this via the "Latest Updates" link) but only 258 pages of completed games, and a large percentage of those are Japanese games that were ported over in completed form. The number of homebrew projects that have been seen through to completion in the full view of Patreon/BMaC/all the pirate fora is astonishingly small, and the number that stick in the collective memory is even smaller. Yet you've finished a game, and if you've the emotional (and financial) stamina you can obviously do it again. That right there is a much bigger achievement than I think you're giving yourself credit for, because most devs can't meet that challenge.

I'm not going to give you specific feedback on your games, because others have done that, but also because I think that the biggest impediment to crafting a memorable game is giving up creative control to others. Take in the advice, for sure, especially when it's about UI or gameplay rather than plot or character. But your work is going to succeed or fail on the strength of your original idea (acknowledging that there are very few original ideas anymore), and your conviction that it's going to find an audience. If you have faith in both, you'll not only be fine, you'll never have a reason to doubt yourself. Because you'll be doing what you wanted to do all along. And that, to me, is success.
 
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Impious Monk

Active Member
Game Developer
Oct 14, 2021
600
2,601
I picked up Alive on Itch shortly after you'd finished it. I enjoyed it--I thought it was a fun, sexy game with an engaging story. I hate to see the creator of that game tag himself with the "F" label.
 

RaBuddy

allegedly
Game Developer
Oct 20, 2020
217
252
This comment went hard. I almost want to read more of the op to figure out how it relates.
 
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RaBuddy

allegedly
Game Developer
Oct 20, 2020
217
252
I haven't responded to anything in this thread because it did what I personally needed it to do - it let me vent. And I probably won't again - but I will respond to this.

Your post tells me one of two things is absolutely true. Either #1 - you didn't play NSL (or you played like 5 minutes and then stopped) - or you are so far from my target audience, it's insane. And that's fine - different things for different people, but still. Either case sort of invalidates your opinion... no. it doesnt really do that, you're absolutely entitled to an opinion, it just invalidates it to me.
Any illusions of you doing this for "sympathy or validation" fucking evaporated.

Glorious! 10/10!
 

TheMagicalGurl

God of Pregnancy
Game Developer
Feb 19, 2023
1,202
2,179
Why not comment this on the dev area where you might find more empathy rather than publicly??

I dont know you enough to perceive your motives, so I will leave it at that.

Only thing I will say is that Projekt Moon's opening launch didnt even contain pics because I wanted to release my game for Nanoreno nearly a year ago and here I am a decent success on Itchio. If an autistic making weapons grade autism in a form of an AVN can do OK, so can you...
 

MalLiz

Member
Jan 26, 2024
120
193
The only true failure is failing to even try. As I see it, you have not really 'failed'.

~Liz.
 
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OkThanksBye

New Member
Aug 8, 2021
4
31
Look, i'm still young so i might be wrong, what i can tell you is

You finished a game and want to finish another one, which is more than what most developers in your situation ever do

You learned to make a whole game all by yourself, nobody made it for you, and not a lot of people are able to do that

The entire project was born from a desire to learn, instead of just trying to make easy money with a cashgrab, which is what some devs do

You did everything by yourself and i assume (based off of what you said) you've never done anything like this before your first game, and even "just" saying "it's okay" is a success, you started from zero, if you were still at zero, it wouldn't be "okay", but trash, which means you improved and learned a lot, so yeah, a success

I worked and worked... Well... You put effort into something you wanted to do... Doesn't sound like failure to me...

That doesn't mean i give up, it doesn't mean i won't try to improve... I'm sorry but i don't understand, you're not done yet, you finished a game, sure, but you're still making one, and who knows if you'll make a third or even more, failure comes when you give up, if you keep trying you're not a failure...

In the search for greatness i failed... Aren't you still looking for it? You're still making a second game right?
If you want to say you failed finding greatness in the first game you ever made, sure, but dude, greatness usually comes after lots of effort, time, work, sacrifices, improvement and LUCK. (Not saying you didn't put in lots of all of those things, it seems like you did, but luck is a core component imo)
I imagine throughout history, most likely there's been a few math prodigies that were too poor to even learn how to read and their talent all went to waste.
Or even if you are an amazing writer, let's say you manage to write the best story ever and you're a random dude, you think you have any chance of it being published? I think it's almost impossible
That to say, even if your product is insanely good, it's still unlikely for it to be a huge success

Regardless, you wanted to make something good, you should probably make something YOU like, everyone has different opinions so you'll never make everyone happy, you'll always have people complaining about something, and you'll go crazy trying to figure out what people want, but the truth is, they most likely don't even know it themselves... Doing something you want to do and having to change it completely to do something someone else wants makes it so that you'll end up making something completely different and not what you like, you'll probably start hating doing it after a while

I personally think that if you do something like this, where you're passionate about it, you have to see it differently
Not like, "this is what i made, do you like this?"
But like "i'm making this, you can enjoy it if you want, if you don't, have a great day"
Do things for yourself, not strangers, otherwise you're doing something for someone else, not yourself, and you have no obligation to...

Of course feedback is important, but you have to learn (even if extremely difficult) to differentiate from objective improvements to personal preferences, which not everyone can do, most people can't, including myself

You can't reach greatness in a single step, to climb a mountain you need to take a lot more
If you truly wish to reach the top, don't get discouraged if you're not already there after a bit, if it was that easy i'm sure lots more people would make money this way (not saying you do it for money, but some people do)
You've already taken lots of steps, keep going, if you stop, all these steps will be meaningless, and in the end, even if you fail, you'll know you did everything you could have done, and you won't have any regrets

That'e just my opinion of course, but i feel like you're being generally way too negative, at least towards yourself, i'm not saying your games are great because i have no clue, but you really tried, and personally i can't say you're a failure if you try

Not a lot of people deserve to be called failures, you're not a failure if you fail once at anything, otherwise we'd all be failures since nobody is perfect, and at that point, if we all are, nobody really is

Hope you'll think about this, have a great day and good luck with your projects! :)
 

♍VoidTraveler

Forum Fanatic
Apr 14, 2021
5,410
13,924
Indeed.
Succeeding at making something that isn't shit doesn't mean you succeeded at creating a legend people will speak of for decades, like Baldur's Gate for example. Well, keep trying. :giggle::coffee:
 

TakMycket

The Spice Pirate Dev
Game Developer
Aug 14, 2023
42
183
Hi Noping - I haven't has the pleasure of playing either of your games yet so I can't really comment on the quality of those. However, I will say this:

I'm releasing my own AVN in a week's time and you are the one who took the time to explain to me some pretty basic Daz stuff. Without you my AVN would definitely be looking worse. You could've easily brushed my questions aside and do your own thing but you didn't - you answered all my questions. So regardless of how great you or other people think your AVNs are, just know that there's someone out there who appreciates you immensely for the help you've given me.

And I'm sure I'm not the only one. You've helped Origami and Howzane as well and though I can't speak for them I would bet money they feel the same way I do.

The way I see it you're definitely not a failure. Just wanted you to know that.

Tak Mycket
 
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Howzan63

Newbie
Jul 4, 2023
51
34
Noping.
Look, maybe you know me, maybe you don't. I am not even sure if you remember me at all.

But one thing you should understand, you're not a failure, not even close to it.
I am a newbie, still nobody, but you never hesitate to help me and guide me through my learning journey. I learned a lot of things from you.

I wish you all the best in life, and hopefully, you can bounce back even stronger than before!
never give up noping!
 
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