Ren'Py Kaedama [v0.0.5] [Kaeru]

[Giggog406]

I just played the game and I can say that this game has a potential, but I’m a little confused that you decided to hard code all the possible answers. I believe that this takes too much time and effort to implement in a form in which the game will be comfortable to play. Especially when you have to do 17(!) different routes. This is just too ambitious imo. But I'm not trying to tell you how to make your game, I just think that with such goals it's quite easy to burn out and abandon the game, so try not to overestimate yourself.

Also, idk how hard it is to use koikatsu for creating renders, but absence of shadows really catches the eye and I believe it also affects characters faces in some way because some of them look kind of weird?

 

[KaeruVN]

I believe that this takes too much time and effort to implement in a form in which the game will be comfortable to play.

Thank you for trying Kaedama out and yeah, it's quite a bit of work to hard code it, but it's a necessity that I would never want to replace with like say, an AI. Only I can really tell how a character might respond to a certain question and I gotta track important inputs and affection based on the responses a person might put in as well.
I can see it coming off as ambitious and a burn out is something that can happen to the most dedicated developer out there. I've been working on this game with script writing, making bgs and everything for close to 2.5 years now and I feel more passion for it than at the beginning, but who knows what the future holds and if I ever decide to give up or not.

Also, idk how hard it is to use koikatsu for creating renders, but absence of shadows really catches the eye and I believe it also affects characters faces in some way because some of them look kind of weird?

Yeah, Koikatsu has some problems with shadows, some objects don't have innate shadows, so sometimes I have to manually add them in. If you could tell me which scenes, I'll take a look at them and improve where possible.

 

[Shadowen]

I can understand the frustration and I know you already asked the question on Discord, but I'll also answer it here for other people that might get stuck and give a hint.
Ayumi does not know what the correct answer is herself, she's asking for your help.

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Problem is - I haven't done math like that in many, many years... and had to open up a browser and find a site to try and get an answer. I wouldn't be surprised if many ppl who play this game are in a similar situation. It also doesn't help that the writing part doesn't accept numbers... so even with a site's help for the answer, I typed in the full wording for the number without really knowing if it was actually correct or not.

Also, wasn't sure if it was trying to make me solve 4a) or 4b) or both, so that should be clarified as well.

My suggestion - either make the math something obvious (even if it's stupidly easy, which might break ppl's immersion as to why she couldn't answer it), or allow something like "Answer" as a response and the game treats it as if we answered correctly.

My thoughts on the rest (done in spoiler, so as to lot spam thread with long post):

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[Sennistrasz]

Apart from needing way too much user input, these pauses between every screen gets annoying. Can't you make the text show up independent of character movements? Or, I would rather have no animated movements if it means getting the text to be actually instant.

 

[KaeruVN]

Problem is - I haven't done math like that in many, many years... and had to open up a browser and find a site to try and get an answer. I wouldn't be surprised if many ppl who play this game are in a similar situation. It also doesn't help that the writing part doesn't accept numbers... so even with a site's help for the answer, I typed in the full wording for the number without really knowing if it was actually correct or not.

Also, wasn't sure if it was trying to make me solve 4a) or 4b) or both, so that should be clarified as well.

My suggestion - either make the math something obvious (even if it's stupidly easy, which might break ppl's immersion as to why she couldn't answer it), or allow something like "Answer" as a response and the game treats it as if we answered correctly.
[/spoiler]

Thank you for trying it out and the helpful feedback. I'll try to see what I can do to make it all the more easier.

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And maybe I'll figure something out for actual numbers and yeah, it's not the easiest question in the world and I purposely made her write down the wrong answer on the right side with some helpful tips of what she did wrong to make it slightly easier.
And also, it's just you telling a girl who has no clue what she did wrong what the answer is, you're not getting graded and giving her the wrong answer certainly doesn't make her hate you. But I'll definitely fix some things, so it's more obvious what to do.

altho I dread to see the database of things to be remembered if everything gets remembered!

Honestly, it's a crazy amount of variables and causes little issues like Kumi misremembering stuff.
And I'm happy you liked the different outfits. With Koikatsu you can literally make almost any outfit you can dream off and it doesn't make much sense to me for girls to wear the same set of clothes each day they go out, they're usually spending hours of time making sure their outfit doesn't look the same.

Edited to add: Just looked at your Subscribestar... and gotta ask, whatever happened to those lunch / wake up scenes?

Yeah, I did a massive rework, because I wasn't too happy with things in previous versions, so that scene will take some time to come out, especially with all the extra content that's coming before that.

I missed out testing all the possible places to click on the start intro npc, and now it won't give me that part. I wanna poke his eye out some more

You can redo the introduction in the "extras" part, I will make sure to mention that when you first boot the game incase you are looking to bully me a bit more.

Thank you again for giving Kaedama a chance, really ups my spirits seeing such a wall of text.

 

[KaeruVN]

Apart from needing way too much user input, these pauses between every screen gets annoying. Can't you make the text show up independent of character movements? Or, I would rather have no animated movements if it means getting the text to be actually instant.

In the options menu you can change the text speed to maximum so the dialogue appears instantaneously.

 

[Giggog406]

If you could tell me which scenes, I'll take a look at them and improve where possible.

Well.. I can't highlight any specific scenes because, to be honest, almost every scene lacks shadows to varying degrees. But seeing that I'm the only person complaining about this maybe I'm just being too picky

 

[Semorie]

impregnation planned? saw the creampie planned and i personally would like to see it (bookmarking anyways just likes impregnation)

 

[throwawaysponge]

I ran the loading screen/start of game a bunch of times, it's interesting to see the different starts with different students and the variety of choices you can make off those, the yes and no outcomes with kumi alone is wild but I still personally would like some level of introduction or setup overall though? The game evidently can take wild paths just doing yes/no answers from the jump.

I'm gonna take myself to the end of available content eventually and give my opinions after that fact but even playing around and exploring the 'start' is giving me so many avenues to run tests and ideas on. I don't care about the H scenes not being implemented so literally seeing what works and what doesn't is very fun, it's a 0.5 build but it feels like there's so much i can find.

If you give this game the time it clearly deserves it's a 5/5

Towards the dev i hope you don't burn out because what's here is good, but if you're coding X response in everytime you get some feedback even from someone like myself it'll get tedious and feel like a slog inputting 'random user69's spelling mistake and wild opinion as a valid sentence'

Take your time and craft this to what you vision, despite my gripes about the world building this is a banger in progress.

 

[KaeruVN]

impregnation planned? saw the creampie planned and i personally would like to see it (bookmarking anyways just likes impregnation)

I seriously doubt I'll be adding impregnation. It's a difficult fetish to master and it would add such a massive amount of extra work that I'd rather not include it.

 

[KaeruVN]

I ran the loading screen/start of game a bunch of times, it's interesting to see the different starts with different students and the variety of choices you can make off those, the yes and no outcomes with kumi alone is wild but I still personally would like some level of introduction or setup overall though? The game evidently can take wild paths just doing yes/no answers from the jump.

Perhaps I'll make it a little less vague, but I do want to MC to be a mostly blank self-insert. And outside of Kumi, you have no connection to any of the other characters.

I don't care about the H scenes not being implemented so literally seeing what works and what doesn't is very fun, it's a 0.5 build but it feels like there's so much i can find.

Warms my heart to hear that, there is quite a bit of variety and some responses already influence the story quite a bit, so I hope you enjoy finding out all the different scenes.

Towards the dev i hope you don't burn out because what's here is good, but if you're coding X response in everytime you get some feedback even from someone like myself it'll get tedious and feel like a slog inputting 'random user69's spelling mistake and wild opinion as a valid sentence'

Yeah, I'm prepared for the hundreds of different requests people might ask me to include, but luckily, adding some extra inputs does not require too much extra work and I'm more than happy to include whatever random things people ask for.

Take your time and craft this to what you vision, despite my gripes about the world building this is a banger in progress.

That motivates me to work even harder and faster. I'll try my best to improve and work as hard as I can to get the next update out. Thank you again for all the feedback and for enjoying Kaedama even if it's still a little short.

 

[Shadowen]

Thank you for trying it out and the helpful feedback. I'll try to see what I can do to make it all the more easier.

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I didn't even think to try that /facepalm. lol Now I feel a bit silly, well at least for that part.

Honestly, it's a crazy amount of variables and causes little issues like Kumi misremembering stuff.

This is actually something I need to apologize for.... because I'd already forgotten things. I realized this as I was replaying old save games to test some things out (your talk about asking Ayumi inspired me to go check elsewhere)... and what did I find? A scene where Kumi hugs you, even if you hadn't hugged her at the start.

So in the situation I mentioned? She wasn't actually misremembering... that was me misremembering. lol

You can redo the introduction in the "extras" part, I will make sure to mention that when you first boot the game incase you are looking to bully me a bit more.

I just went and saw it. Thanx for adding that in. Was interesting to see what else you'd coded responses for.

Also, filled out your survey, but if you want more ppl to fill it out... maybe have it listed more prominently in places. Even if I would also advise to mainly keep to your vision for the story, events, characters, etc over whatever responses you get in the survey. Not saying don't take thoughts/opinions tho, but IMO they should be secondary to your plans, goals, etc.

Regarding the fetish question - if you do decide to add in any suggested fetish's, you might want to consider working on a way to toggle them on/off, or make them obviously avoidable. I suggest this cuz... everyone is different, and some don't mind things while others are adverse to those same things. Not having toggles / easily avoidable... is just asking for a shitshow. Well, unless they are vanilla'ish fetish's, then that'll prolly cause no issue.

IE Scat / golden showers. I know some ppl are into that, but many are not. Put that in the game? You'll make those who like/love it happy and chase away everyone else unless it's toggle-able off and/or easily avoided (and that is clearly stated in the tags/genre section).

 

[KaeruVN]

I didn't even think to try that /facepalm. lol Now I feel a bit silly, well at least for that part.

lol, no worries. It's definitely not something you'd think of trying to be fair.

So in the situation I mentioned? She wasn't actually misremembering... that was me misremembering. lol

Classic mistake then lol. There probably are a few hiccups here and there, but I'll try my best to release a small hotfix for those mistakes.

Even if I would also advise to mainly keep to your vision for the story, events, characters, etc over whatever responses you get in the survey. Not saying don't take thoughts/opinions tho, but IMO they should be secondary to your plans, goals, etc.

Oh yeah, I'm headstrong when it comes to my characters, story and planned events. It's all written in stone and no amount of criticism will make me change anything about those aspects.
The survey is mostly there, because I love hearing feedback from people and seeing what commonalities there are. I'll most likely won't add all the suggested/requested fetishes.

Not having toggles / easily avoidable... is just asking for a shitshow. Well, unless they are vanilla'ish fetish's, then that'll prolly cause no issue.

No need to worry there. Literally every single fetish tag is optional/avoidable, so you could technically do a SFW playthrough the lewdest thing you do is holding hands if you desired.

Good point on the survey, I'll put it in a more noticeable spot to see what others might think. Let me know if you find any interesting inputs that either don't work or want included.

 

[Shadowen]

No need to worry there. Literally every single fetish tag is optional/avoidable, so you could technically do a SFW playthrough the lewdest thing you do is holding hands if you desired.

You talk about SFW... but then mention the lewdest option possible.

Hand holding.

 

[Aslor]

Draw Sora and Emi feet

 

[Shadowen]

3 things I have found:

1. Saying "Date" to Kumi makes her say "Stop saying that" despite never having saying that previously. Altho what else she says does seem differ depending on where it's said (at least iirc - I'd need to test more. lol):

ie I got Kumi start the tour trip (so no Mana at all) where she ambush's you outside the classroom and she ask's how your day was after class... and if you say "Date", she says "Stop... I dunno why you keep asking..." followed by "Besides... I don't really know". That 2nd part is different to the other time I remember trying out "Date" - and that was on a separate run, so unless variables are carrying over in runs... this was the 1st time to use "Date".

2. Kumi is asking how your day was, but saying "Good" or "It was good", is not recognized, she goes and responds with "Not sure what you mean... but I hope it was good..."

What makes me go d'oh, I just said it was good. lol

She does respond to "Awesome" or "Interesting" tho, along with "Bad" / "Terrible" for negatives.

3. Trolley Problem question of "How about you?" from Tatsuo doesn't recognize "Press the button" or "Press it" as an answer, answers such as "Yes" / "I would" were recognized.

 

[KaeruVN]

3 things I have found:

1. Saying "Date" to Kumi makes her say "Stop saying that" despite never having saying that previously. Altho what else she says does seem differ depending on where it's said (at least iirc - I'd need to test more. lol):

Interesting, do you recall which specific scene she says this line?

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Thank you for telling me about the bugs you've found, I'll try and fix them as soon as possible and release a hotfix so it all works as it should.

 

[Shadowen]

Interesting, do you recall which specific scene she says this line?

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To answer the spoiler - nope I had not asked that previously.

So I decided to replay to test this out, using the same options I did before, and try out "date me" and "I love you" / "ily" in all Kumi prompt's. Here's what I saw (in spoilers due to length)

Note: I save prior to the input option, try option, then reload and use a different answer (ie yes/no for instance). I do this as apparently rollback can have issues.
Note #2: Gotta say, the responses make it seem like the MC was hitting on Kumi prior to the game and there's a history of her rejecting you already. lol

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Bugs and other thoughts:

- When Tatsuo asks what your relationship is, if you answer "Slave'... her response is "You have a strange sense of homour". The correct spelling is either "humor" (US English) or "humour" (UK English).

- I'd also agree with the suggestion of changing the Kirika asking you to race at the park scene to also let players say "maybe later" or "another time" rather than basically yes or no, because ppl might wanna do the race... but obviously right then is a bad time.

- I also hope we get a more natural / fitting time to ask the girls questions about themselves, cuz right now trying to find out details such as their height, weight, class score, family life, etc is weird since we have to interject that into conversations that it would make no sense to ask that kinda stuff in.

 

[KaeruVN]

Note: I save prior to the input option, try option, then reload and use a different answer (ie yes/no for instance). I do this as apparently rollback can have issues.

I'll have to replay myself and do some rollbacking then to see what issues prop up, because it shouldn't really be causing any problems.

If you answer Mana's question about what anime you like with "Hentai" / "don't be stupid", that apparently bugs Kumi's question to repeat.

That is a very interesting bug, so it just went straight to Kumi after you answered with Hentai or did it skip some dialogue?

I personally would have thought the tour by Kumi would be the one that fitted things more naturally, but to get it you have to be a total asshole to another character.

lol yeah, it might be a little unfortunate to be mean to Mana in order to get a private tour with Kumi, but I did feel like it makes the most sense going by how Mana acts around people. She's not the type to hold a grudge or hate you outright if you don't like the things she likes, but if you start telling her to shut up or kill herself, she might reconsider showing you around.

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Luckily the rest of the bugs you reported were a classic issue of variables updating before some dialogue popped up, so should be an easy fix.

- I also hope we get a more natural / fitting time to ask the girls questions about themselves, cuz right now trying to find out details such as their height, weight, class score, family life, etc is weird since we have to interject that into conversations that it would make no sense to ask that kinda stuff in.

Yeah, I feel that as well and I've opted to not let a player ask all the numerous character profile related questions at every single input there is. Like you said, it doesn't make much sense to bring it up in random conversations and it's also quite a bit of extra work that I'd rather put into other aspects of the game.

As for the rest of your feedback, I'll fix those minor bugs straight away and I seriously appreciate you finding every single thing I missed. I've replayed my game hundreds of times and there's always a something I might not notice like an input not working properly or me forgetting a variable/keyword that should make sense given the context.

 

[Shadowen]

I'll have to replay myself and do some rollbacking then to see what issues prop up, because it shouldn't really be causing any problems.

Oh, I wasn't seeing any issue with rollback in this game. I've seen it in other games, and seen other ppl & dev's comment that rolling back can/has caused issues. I usually just rollback myself, unless I notice it causing issues - in this case just to ensure no corruption/issues with what I was doing, I reloaded rather than rolled-back.

That is a very interesting bug, so it just went straight to Kumi after you answered with Hentai or did it skip some dialogue?

No, it played on as normal. So Mana responded to whatever I said, finished up and said bye to the girls there, and then got the Kumi scene where she asks if you'll come with her to visit her mom as hospital with her.

What happens is that scene gets to where she says "But I'll see you tomorrow ok?" and instead of moving on to the 'you get home and go to sleep' scene it instead then cycles back to her starting comment of "Oh hey. What are you doing out here?" and asks you again if you want to go with her, but this time the scene actually ends after she says that she'll see you tomorrow like it should.

lol yeah, it might be a little unfortunate to be mean to Mana in order to get a private tour with Kumi, but I did feel like it makes the most sense going by how Mana acts around people. She's not the type to hold a grudge or hate you outright if you don't like the things she likes, but if you start telling her to shut up or kill herself, she might reconsider showing you around.

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To be honest, in just the little bit we have here, I can see that aspect on Mana, and how she is around ppl. I'm prolly just gonna have to resign myself to getting Mana tours if I ever need to replay, cuz I am generally not a mean nasty person and disliked telling her she was stupid (which is ironic, as she's not even a real person. lol).

And what, characters aren't 1 strike and your dead to them? Pffft... how unrealistic... /s lol

Seriously, I agree with what you said in the spoiler. While some ppl might be unforgiving, most ppl for the most part will let some nonsense go without too much grumbling.

As for the rest of your feedback, I'll fix those minor bugs straight away and I seriously appreciate you finding every single thing I missed. I've replayed my game hundreds of times and there's always a something I might not notice like an input not working properly or me forgetting a variable/keyword that should make sense given the context.

Dunno if I found everything But you're welcome. I'm liking the game so far, and if I do find anything else, I'll post here.