Ren'Py Lessons in Love [v0.43.0] [Selebus]

[Rapupu]

For anyone interested, I decided to decode the ciphertext from the new encounter with HOPE, from Makoto's Beach Event, "I'm Not Here".

This time, it's ROT7 instead of ROT19, but still fairly trivial to identify and decode, which is obviously a positive thing since a visual novel is probably better off being possible to, y'know, actually read even without specialized skills. ROTN is casual enough to only add enjoyment instead of also frustration.

Spoiler: Manual Decode

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[Virulenz]

LOL! Until wakana left the room i thought nodokas introduction is the most boring of all time...but then....*laugh*

But one growing aspect is bothering me...the amount of fully useless thoughts. Like you meet one, think half the time about random pointless stuff and only spend the other half with the person you are meeting and thinking about her/the conversation.
I mean, i get it, his insanity deepens, but not mine and too many of this long trains of thoughts grow boring enough to skip them until the true conversation begins. Now we also got nodoka and her crazy way of talking (i dont refer to her breakdown, actually i understood her there much better than normally...good we had some kaori-training before, so its less confusing if she twists simple words in crazy stuff)...the combination could get too much in the long run.

 

[randomguy6516265165]

Yes, your actions and choices have consequences, so be VERY careful how you do things or even when in certain cases.

Then I think Im going to pass this game then thanks for the reply

 

[smnb]

alex2011: I give up... for now. I may try another round in few months. One thing is sure, we have very different approach to games.

Then I think Im going to pass this game then thanks for the reply

You can always cheat a bit and check the guide for requirements and info about missable scenes. It doesn't really spoil anything. You're required to see most things, but it's also not very hard to get stuck, and unless you have endless patience to find some missing event yourself, the guide will be your friend anyway. And the game is really enjoyable for most part, so it's worth a try.

 

[Extraeva]

I think they don't allow fictional characters. I am not certain on canadian law.

 

[randomguy6516265165]

You can always cheat a bit and check the guide for requirements and info about missable scenes. It doesn't really spoil anything. You're required to see most things, but it's also not very hard to get stuck, and unless you have endless patience to find some missing event yourself, the guide will be your friend anyway. And the game is really enjoyable for most part, so it's worth a try.

Ive spent a few hours yesterday playing the game but I like to focus a girl at a time I have like 90 affections points with the cousin and nothing happens the same with the girl that works in the porn shop I call her mother and the game says that she is in the porn shop I go and nothing happens that why I play most of the games with a wt mod but this one doesnt have it and looking at the guide everytime just kills my mood

 

[alutarox]

I like to focus a girl at a time

There's your problem, you need to spread out a bit as many events are dependant on story events which are in turn reliant on events from multiple girls.

 

[smnb]

That's another possibly unexpected thing you're supposed to figure out, you should give attention to all girls, because their events are connected, and it's probably best to spread it evenly. In fact, you eventually have to finish events for all of them to move forward, it's not like many other games, where you can just pick half of NPCs you like and ignore the rest if you don't like them.

I didn't know that, so I then had to spend like a month of in-game time at once exploiting Futaba, and it was almost too much. I'm sorry, I know she is portrayed as this super-nice girl, and I'd be all for Sensei being her supportive friend, I just find fat bodies extremely unappealing and can't get over it.

But still, the game as whole is worth it.

 

[alex2011]

LOL! Until wakana left the room i thought nodokas introduction is the most boring of all time...but then....*laugh*

But one growing aspect is bothering me...the amount of fully useless thoughts. Like you meet one, think half the time about random pointless stuff and only spend the other half with the person you are meeting and thinking about her/the conversation.
I mean, i get it, his insanity deepens, but not mine and too many of this long trains of thoughts grow boring enough to skip them until the true conversation begins. Now we also got nodoka and her crazy way of talking (i dont refer to her breakdown, actually i understood her there much better than normally...good we had some kaori-training before, so its less confusing if she twists simple words in crazy stuff)...the combination could get too much in the long run.

Oh no, Watabe reacting to her alone was worth it and then there's Nodoka's Haikus. Also, you're setting yourself up to miss information that may or may not come up later. There are sometimes puzzles, especially around the time of resets, and they sometimes use information presented in the text. For that reason, skipping is NEVER a good idea.

alex2011: I give up... for now. I may try another round in few months. One thing is sure, we have very different approach to games.


You can always cheat a bit and check the guide for requirements and info about missable scenes. It doesn't really spoil anything. You're required to see most things, but it's also not very hard to get stuck, and unless you have endless patience to find some missing event yourself, the guide will be your friend anyway. And the game is really enjoyable for most part, so it's worth a try.

It's not very hard to get stuck by not paying attention or not raising all girls as evenly as possible, you're right about that. Pay attention to every single detail and you won't get stuck. I'm not stuck right now and I paid attention. In fact, I'm completely caught up with no missed events at all.

Ive spent a few hours yesterday playing the game but I like to focus a girl at a time I have like 90 affections points with the cousin and nothing happens the same with the girl that works in the porn shop I call her mother and the game says that she is in the porn shop I go and nothing happens that why I play most of the games with a wt mod but this one doesnt have it and looking at the guide everytime just kills my mood

That's likely to get you stuck, we are currently on a general route that requires every girl at one point or another to be leveled to a certain extent. Only the purity routes will be suitable for individual girls from what I remember Selebus saying. You likely ran into not having enough affection with a different girl.

That's another possibly unexpected thing you're supposed to figure out, you should give attention to all girls, because their events are connected, and it's probably best to spread it evenly. In fact, you eventually have to finish events for all of them to move forward, it's not like many other games, where you can just pick half of NPCs you like and ignore the rest if you don't like them.

I didn't know that, so I then had to spend like a month of in-game time at once exploiting Futaba, and it was almost too much. I'm sorry, I know she is portrayed as this super-nice girl, and I'd be all for Sensei being her supportive friend, I just find fat bodies extremely unappealing and can't get over it.

But still, the game as whole is worth it.

That's not unexpected, we are on a general route, general routes in VNs focus on the entire cast. Only individual routes focus on individual girls and those would be the purity routes in this case, which we are a ways out from.

 

[Virulenz]

I know alex, thats why i wrote it. I hate to skip unseen text in every game and always make sure its disabled in the settings...but its better then lose the interest to play further. I dont go to visit a girl just to think about the sun or the weather, that kind of useless thoughts sucks the fun out of the game and it becomes more and more.

 

[Lolicon Kami]

LOL! Until wakana left the room i thought nodokas introduction is the most boring of all time...but then....*laugh*

But one growing aspect is bothering me...the amount of fully useless thoughts. Like you meet one, think half the time about random pointless stuff and only spend the other half with the person you are meeting and thinking about her/the conversation.
I mean, i get it, his insanity deepens, but not mine and too many of this long trains of thoughts grow boring enough to skip them until the true conversation begins. Now we also got nodoka and her crazy way of talking (i dont refer to her breakdown, actually i understood her there much better than normally...good we had some kaori-training before, so its less confusing if she twists simple words in crazy stuff)...the combination could get too much in the long run.

Isn't this what we call slice-of-life?

 

[zekemckillip]

When updating to the newest version, am I good to just copy the save folder from one version to the next, or are there other files I need to copy? Can I just paste the new version over the old version and overwrite everything?

 

[Virulenz]

Always only the save folder for renpy games. Outdated leftovers do strange things.

 

[LooLoo Baloo]

It was related to sparrows.

Spoiler: Bird theory

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Spoiler: Objective true theory

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I entirely agree with the objective true theory

 

[Aconitum]

It is NOT poor game design, it is game design you personally don't like, but not poor generally speaking. It is a game specifically being designed to be as realistic as it can be given other elements within that prevent true realism.

Isn't this you? v

The player is expected to look for important information from the first sentence of the game. It actually makes sense that it wouldn't be a one time thing, especially not when dealing with computer info like in the puzzle. There is always a username AND a password to deal with, there is always an IP to deal with once the internet is involved, and the port nummber bears absolutely no excuse thanks to that madness inducing, at least after multiple hours, repetitive voice. If someone is playing without sound, they are already missing a good chunk of the whole experience and that begs the question of why they are playing it in the first place if they aren't going to play it in full. That one is tough luck, they made a choice not to play with sound, they face the consequences, just like in the game. That one has no warning, but there shouldn't need to be as the music is part of the experience and, if they have the music on, they have the voice telling them the port.

Again, completely random things should be throwing giant red flags, only things that make sense to the story at that point should not. There IS a reason all of it should be remembered, because it SHOULD be throwing giant red flags. In ANY game, information that throws a giant red flag should be written down, that's just common sense from way back in the old puzzle games and text adventures.

It is not asking too much for the player to write stuff down when that stuff should be throwing giant red flags. Again, this is all common sense dating back to at least the time of comparatively primitive graphics and a prevalence of actual puzzle games, like Myst, and text adventures. This common sense has been around almost as long as computers in the homes of the general public, in other words.

Seems a bit late to play the "you're being subjective, you can't prove your opinion to be objective". I'd expect it to be obvious that yes, this is my opinion that the game is poorly designed in that aspect, just like it is obvious that it's your opinion that the game is perfectly designed in the aspect of hiding the password in a single line of text. For you , it was obvious, because your mindset was specifically to look for the smallest clue and keep everything at the back of your head in case it comes back. Someone else may play this game without your level of focus, not to say they're skipping literally everything to get to the lust scenes, but that they're slightly less attentive and they miss that part. Your opinion on how it's the player's fault is as subjective as mine is on game design, that's why we're having these discussions without constantly demanding research papers and statistics on the game to back each point up.

What I meant by proceeding too far is doing too many events in the main line before certain events in the character lines. When the in game time frame of the character event passes because you did too many main events, the game marks the character events as missed because it no longer makes chronological sense to allow the player to see them. There doesn't need to be clear communication from the game, the player should have been raising each character as evenly as possible in the first place because some main events require events from certain or even every character, none of which are missable, but that doesn't matter because you should still be able to get the events that are missable this way. I know because I am working off a save that has no missed events that I replayed the game to have, going through every little detail and writing down anything that jumped out in the process.

Again, that's a very poor excuse. If the game cares about "chronological sense" why does it lock main events behind others? For multiple reasons i've already stated. It would be very easy to just add those missable scenes to the list of required scenes for main events, it wouldn't go against some design philosophy of giving the player freedom to miss scenes because they went too far, the game already halts your progress in order to not have that happen. Beyond that point, I'm glad to hear it isn't easy, unless you focus on one character at a time. Does the game ever warn you not to do that?

There actually isn't a lack of choice in what scenes will be played, surpisingly enough for a game with moments where a choice is not yours to make and not even the MC's choice to make, though the surprise is not unwelcome. You can very easily control when events play based around their requirements. With only a few exceptions that require previous events, you can limit the amount of affection you grind and that will slow the progress of the main line of events. This is why it has been suggested on multiple occasions not to get too crazy with grinding the stats, except lust, that one seems to be fair game since it only deals with the lust events. This is also how you avoid running into situations like the one with Rin. As long as you fill the requirement for the one that would have been locked first, you won't get locked out of any events. As there are only lust and character events that get locked, it only requires grinding that character with the rare requirement of another character. Every event is in increments of 5 points per stat, so that tells you what you need to know on that front.

Rin's requirement for not being a bad homie is understandable, it's very clearly communicated to the player what they shouldn't do. My question is the same, does the game tell the player, even through indirect means that they are supposed to limit their grind? As i said before, one issue is that the player can't know who will get locked first (besides Rin's case) in order for them to get the scenes.

The "excuse" you refer to isn't nonsensical, it's how time works. Time waits for no man and that includes in the game, we're lucky the game is basically turn based or that could pose a problem. With every main event, the game progresses further in time, and certain character events happen around certain points in the story. Let's use an example, it would not make sense to allow the player to see an event that takes place during the winter, where we are now with all the snow in game, once it is time for the snow to have melted and the scenery to change as a result. It would be EXTREMELY jarring to see grass, flowers, and trees when in the free roam element of the game only to be met with the town covered in snow in the next event. For that reason, it is locked once the snowy version of the town representing winter is gone and whatever scenery replaces it is active.

This justification is just as nonsensical as the other excuse. Time doesn't work, nor has to work realistically in games as it does in real life. Yes, that's how time works, but does your character in Myst die of dehydration if you let the game run for over 2-3 days? Is it a horrible oversight that he doesn't, since it makes chronological sense? In my main savefile I've gone over 500 days, yet I'm still in winter, is Selebus a bad dev for breaking my chronological immersion by letting me stay in winter or pass the max amount of days winter would last for, which makes no chronological sense and isn't how time works?

Obviously not, because the justification of "it's how time works, it waits for no-one" isn't applicable to video games, which aren't created with the goal of being realistic. Your example is spot on, it would be ridiculous to let the player view a scene that takes place in a summery city while everything is caked in snow. That's why the solution selebus has implemented for this and other reasons, which incidentally completely breaks the justification of "this is how time works", is to halt events until others are completed. It's not an elegant solution, but it sure does it job. Apparently no, time does wait for man, if man hasn't completed certain events, because the developer decided it will. One idea i mentioned wasn't to let the missed scenes be playable at any time, it was to just add them to the best available main event's list of requirements.

There is no freedom to "write your own story" in this game, Selebus is making whatt he wants and we are along for the ride. The ending of chapter 1 required anything and everything that was not missable. An event being missable is a consequence, which is one of the themes in this game, consequences are everywhere, every action has one. There are consequences for every little thing you do whether those consequences have come up yet or not. To make the missable scenes required negates that consequence.

Rin's homie meter is a consequence of your actions, a good example of one that makes sense. Missing a scene because you took another one too far without indication it would be locked isn't a consequence, because you couldn't make a choice without knowing there was a choice in the first place. It's gambling on which scenes will get locked.

There are events that lock because you viewed others, but the only ones that lock based on that have a time limit that, when it expires, they are safe to view. If it wasn't obvious, I meant the Rin thing. The only ways to lock events are 1) Say something to upset a girl beyond any hope of recovering by making the wrong choice, 2) Do a main event that would push the game's timeline too far for a character or lust event to make sense (Ex: can't see the Halloween lust event AFTER the Halloween event), and 3) Do an event that it is required you wait to do until a bit later (Ex: Rin at the beach event).

1) Understandable, not adding it to the list of "bad design"
2) exactly what i'm talking about, just add the missable scenes to the required ones of the event that would push you too far into the timeline
3) same as 1

Actually, not grinding a stat enough is a choice made on the player side. The only thing it is not is a choice made by the characters. Choices have consequences, so it is not poor design because it perfectly fits one of the themes of the game. It isn't difficult to maintain the stats with the number of girls in now, it needs maybe 15 each, which is not that hard, especially on the girls that can be invited over, which will eventually be all of them, and, if you really think it is, I've got news for you. We haven't seen all the characters added yet even now.

You're right, i should have clarified further. You make a good point that the way you choose to engage with the mechanics of a game is a choice unto itself. On the other hand, the game has to indicate how you're meant to engage with them in the first place. In a CRPG, it is crystal clear that you need to drop an enemy's health to 0, and to do so you need to deal the most damage you can to them, so if you choose to ignore that and equip whatever is prettier as a weapon even if it kills your damage output, a consequence of that choice you made will be to die to enemies and not even be able to progress the game probably.

I haven't played the game from the start since the end of chapter 1. That's why I'll ask a third time. Does it indicate anywhere that you should make progress/grind in a specific manner? Is there a throwaway line somewhere to tell you that?

Assuming that there isn't one, then no, not grinding a stat enough or not evenly grinding all girls isn't a choice the player made. Coming back to the CRPG example, it would be like the game permanently taking away your character's ability to use any weapon other than swords 3/4ths into the story, so if you didn't level up that type of weapon proficiency you're screwed. You leveling up axes wasn't a choice you made, or to be more precise, it is a meaningless choice in this scenario since the consequences/rules of the game weren't communicated to you. In the same way, making the choice to max each character's affection/lust first or to evenly spend time with them all is a meaningless choice if the game never told you how it expects you to do it.




I shouldn't have spent the time writing this wall of text, it was pointless. No minds will change, nor is it a big deal since we're not talking about 30% of a game's content we're talking about a couple of lust scenes, and no matter how bad of a design choice it is, it's such a minor issue that can be easily ignored for the bigger picture.

 

[smnb]

Darklord13: You don't get it, there's no need for any hints about anything. The Right Way™ for you as player is to know everything about game's mechanics, it's not important how, you just should. If there's one person who doesn't have any problem with that, it proves there's no reason why anyone else should. I don't mind the game itself as much. Yes, some things may be more or less unexpected, but you'll figure it out pretty quickly, there's guide, wiki, forum, ... no major problem. And things are getting improved. It's the unofficial spokesman with "game is flawless and everything is player's fault" who takes it to another level. No hard feelings, alex2011.

 

[JMccovery]

Darklord13: You don't get it, there's no need for any hints about anything. The Right Way™ for you as player is to know everything about game's mechanics, it's not important how, you just should. If there's one person who doesn't have any problem with that, it proves there's no reason why anyone else should. I don't mind the game itself as much. Yes, some things may be more or less unexpected, but you'll figure it out pretty quickly, there's guide, wiki, forum, ... no major problem. And things are getting improved. It's the unofficial spokesman with "game is flawless and everything is player's fault" who takes it to another level. No hard feelings, alex2011.

You might wanna look back on some of the discussion about the way certain things go in this game, and Selebus' stance on why he did it the way he did it. Basically, it's "deal with it".

I've been using the modified progress tracker with the hints, and I honestly feel like I've gone through the newer content a bit too quickly.

 

[smnb]

I've been using the modified progress tracker with the hints, and I honestly feel like I've gone through the newer content a bit too quickly.

I didn't test it yet, as I didn't play few latest updates (I'm trying to hold out to have more at once, but checking this thread in the meantime doesn't make it easy). Hints where to look may not be ideal, because yes, they can make the game too easy, and as a result you'll go through it too quickly. But it's also true that looking for some missing events is no big fun. The game will feel longer, you'll also get some satisfaction when you finally succeed, but nothing more in terms of content you see. So it's not exactly great either. And something in the middle, perfect balance where you don't need hints, because you don't get stuck, just with the right amount of challenge, that would be nice, but it's probably impossible to make it work for everyone.

 

[alex2011]

I know alex, thats why i wrote it. I hate to skip unseen text in every game and always make sure its disabled in the settings...but its better then lose the interest to play further. I dont go to visit a girl just to think about the sun or the weather, that kind of useless thoughts sucks the fun out of the game and it becomes more and more.

People who get stuck also tend to lose interest, very quickly I might add. What may seem like useless text can very easily be holding important information in this game. Like with the puzzle in "There Is Nothing." As an example, there seems to be a misconception that the comment on Sensei's password by one of the girls earlier in the game is unimportant, but it actually holds one of the answers vital to the puzzle. Without that password, the player gets stuck in the puzzle.

Isn't this what we call slice-of-life?

It is

When updating to the newest version, am I good to just copy the save folder from one version to the next, or are there other files I need to copy? Can I just paste the new version over the old version and overwrite everything?

Just the saves will work with Renpy, but you don't really need anything from your old copy because the game saves to two different locations, in the "game" folder and in the AppData folder under Roaming>Renpy, at least that's the location on Windows. This second location, the AppData one, is read by all copies of the game and you can just hit load in game without even copying anything and continue playing from there.

Isn't this you? v



Seems a bit late to play the "you're being subjective, you can't prove your opinion to be objective". I'd expect it to be obvious that yes, this is my opinion that the game is poorly designed in that aspect, just like it is obvious that it's your opinion that the game is perfectly designed in the aspect of hiding the password in a single line of text. For you , it was obvious, because your mindset was specifically to look for the smallest clue and keep everything at the back of your head in case it comes back. Someone else may play this game without your level of focus, not to say they're skipping literally everything to get to the lust scenes, but that they're slightly less attentive and they miss that part. Your opinion on how it's the player's fault is as subjective as mine is on game design, that's why we're having these discussions without constantly demanding research papers and statistics on the game to back each point up.



Again, that's a very poor excuse. If the game cares about "chronological sense" why does it lock main events behind others? For multiple reasons i've already stated. It would be very easy to just add those missable scenes to the list of required scenes for main events, it wouldn't go against some design philosophy of giving the player freedom to miss scenes because they went too far, the game already halts your progress in order to not have that happen. Beyond that point, I'm glad to hear it isn't easy, unless you focus on one character at a time. Does the game ever warn you not to do that?



Rin's requirement for not being a bad homie is understandable, it's very clearly communicated to the player what they shouldn't do. My question is the same, does the game tell the player, even through indirect means that they are supposed to limit their grind? As i said before, one issue is that the player can't know who will get locked first (besides Rin's case) in order for them to get the scenes.



This justification is just as nonsensical as the other excuse. Time doesn't work, nor has to work realistically in games as it does in real life. Yes, that's how time works, but does your character in Myst die of dehydration if you let the game run for over 2-3 days? Is it a horrible oversight that he doesn't, since it makes chronological sense? In my main savefile I've gone over 500 days, yet I'm still in winter, is Selebus a bad dev for breaking my chronological immersion by letting me stay in winter or pass the max amount of days winter would last for, which makes no chronological sense and isn't how time works?

Obviously not, because the justification of "it's how time works, it waits for no-one" isn't applicable to video games, which aren't created with the goal of being realistic. Your example is spot on, it would be ridiculous to let the player view a scene that takes place in a summery city while everything is caked in snow. That's why the solution selebus has implemented for this and other reasons, which incidentally completely breaks the justification of "this is how time works", is to halt events until others are completed. It's not an elegant solution, but it sure does it job. Apparently no, time does wait for man, if man hasn't completed certain events, because the developer decided it will. One idea i mentioned wasn't to let the missed scenes be playable at any time, it was to just add them to the best available main event's list of requirements.



Rin's homie meter is a consequence of your actions, a good example of one that makes sense. Missing a scene because you took another one too far without indication it would be locked isn't a consequence, because you couldn't make a choice without knowing there was a choice in the first place. It's gambling on which scenes will get locked.



1) Understandable, not adding it to the list of "bad design"
2) exactly what i'm talking about, just add the missable scenes to the required ones of the event that would push you too far into the timeline
3) same as 1



You're right, i should have clarified further. You make a good point that the way you choose to engage with the mechanics of a game is a choice unto itself. On the other hand, the game has to indicate how you're meant to engage with them in the first place. In a CRPG, it is crystal clear that you need to drop an enemy's health to 0, and to do so you need to deal the most damage you can to them, so if you choose to ignore that and equip whatever is prettier as a weapon even if it kills your damage output, a consequence of that choice you made will be to die to enemies and not even be able to progress the game probably.

I haven't played the game from the start since the end of chapter 1. That's why I'll ask a third time. Does it indicate anywhere that you should make progress/grind in a specific manner? Is there a throwaway line somewhere to tell you that?

Assuming that there isn't one, then no, not grinding a stat enough or not evenly grinding all girls isn't a choice the player made. Coming back to the CRPG example, it would be like the game permanently taking away your character's ability to use any weapon other than swords 3/4ths into the story, so if you didn't level up that type of weapon proficiency you're screwed. You leveling up axes wasn't a choice you made, or to be more precise, it is a meaningless choice in this scenario since the consequences/rules of the game weren't communicated to you. In the same way, making the choice to max each character's affection/lust first or to evenly spend time with them all is a meaningless choice if the game never told you how it expects you to do it.




I shouldn't have spent the time writing this wall of text, it was pointless. No minds will change, nor is it a big deal since we're not talking about 30% of a game's content we're talking about a couple of lust scenes, and no matter how bad of a design choice it is, it's such a minor issue that can be easily ignored for the bigger picture.

Spoiler: Way too long, don't want to take up an entire page in one post

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Darklord13: You don't get it, there's no need for any hints about anything. The Right Way™ for you as player is to know everything about game's mechanics, it's not important how, you just should. If there's one person who doesn't have any problem with that, it proves there's no reason why anyone else should. I don't mind the game itself as much. Yes, some things may be more or less unexpected, but you'll figure it out pretty quickly, there's guide, wiki, forum, ... no major problem. And things are getting improved. It's the unofficial spokesman with "game is flawless and everything is player's fault" who takes it to another level. No hard feelings, alex2011.

I don't even know everything about the game's mechanics and I've got 100% completion up to the current patron build of the game. Only one person ever knows everything about a game and that is the developer. Again, flawlessness is not possible in a human creation. I never once said it was perfect and you saying that is putting words in my mouth.

 

[Aconitum]

I'm not sure how, I actually like the game design as it is, so me disliking it is out of the question at this time.


I never said it was perfectly designed, in fact, it is inherently impossible for a human creation to be perfect, imperfection is a human trait. I don't need to be in the mindset of looking for the smallest detail and I wasn't in my first play through, only my second, when I was aware of the puzzle in "There Is Nothing" needing certain things from the text. In both play throughs, I got it just fine. In my first play through, I made the mistake of trying to keep information memorized that I thought might be important, I went back to the old pen and paper, literal pen and paper, the second time through. Some people actually do try to skip to the lust events, usually the ones disappointed in the lack thereof because they hold the misconception that comes with a game being on this site that it is a porn game. This one is an adult game, but not a porn game. My 'opinion' about fault is not an opinion at all, if someone makes a choice to do, or in this case not to do, something, they face the consequences, the consequence being getting stuck in this case. That's just a simple fact, make a choice, face the consequences of that choice whether you're aware of that choice or not. Choosing to ignore information that should be throwing giant red flags because it is oddly specific information to just be part of the story at that moment is a choice bearing the consequence of getting stuck when it comes back up later.


Non-excuses tend to be very poor excuses since they aren't excuses, I could agree with that. The game locking events behind other events is a technical decision, an attempt to get the player to read the information presented in the prerequisite event(s). Just because it does that doesn't mean it makes no chronological sense. Not every main event moves the timeline so far ahead that others wouldn't make sense to allow the player to unlock afterwards. Some main events only move the timeline slightly while others, like the last one in chapter 1, moves the timeline an entire season ahead. That's three months in most climates, which is too long for leaving older events in the timeline unlocked. Example, it would not make sense to allow the player to see the Halloween event after the seasonal change into chapter 2. Once the story moves to a point where the context of another event no longer makes sense, it no longer makes sense to allow it to be seen. Moving the timeline of the main story passed the beach event before events that take place before would also not make sense. Can't have Rin still worrying about being rejected by Chika after she's already been rejected. As I already stated, the game bears the theme that consequences are everywhere. Disallowing the player to make the choice to miss or not miss an event because they did not grind enough, went too far in the main story, or did not pick the right choice is disallowing the consequence of that choice, going against that theme. In that case, the consequence might as well not exist because it would never be encountered. Yeah, that means it DOES go against the design philosophy of allowing the player to experience that consequence. If it doesn't happen, then there is no consequence to experience. The game does not need to warn about not focusing on a single character, this is a general route, which typically means focusing on the entire cast, which means don't focus on one girl. If a player does that in ANY VN on a general route, they get stuck or miss content because either the game requires everyone to be at some point or the player didn't have enough points to get scenes that are missable. This is a VERY common thing in VNs, especially if said VN does not have an ending for not picking a single girl.


Some people don't seem to think so, you're not one of them, but I have had multiple times where people complained about not realizing the bad homie thing was going to happen because they missed what you describe as a very clearly communicated warning. The game doesn't need to tell you to limit the grind, but technically, yes. Rin's warning can only be heeded in one way, don't grind Chika's affection to the required level for the one event that will do things Rin said very clearly not to do. This applies to all girls, not just Chika. Don't grind any girl too far or you WILL run into an event marathon unless you specifically avoid that girl at some point between grinding and another girl talking about the trigger girl for a lockout as Rin did with Chika. It is VERY easy to trigger another bad homie scenario if you don't watch how many affection points you have. I learned this the hard way with Rin in my first play through, when I was a bad homie, though the game had not progressed to the beach event update yet when I had my affection points with Chika too high. At this point, it is fairly easy to make the connection that it wasn't a one time thing. There is no such thing as a one time consequence in this game, only one time for now.


So not nonsense at all since there is no other excuse, got it. Time does not have to work realistically and it doesn't in this game nor did I say it did. Myst isn't meant to be anywhere near realistic, so no. The number of days and the actual chronological timeline of the story are two separate things. As you said, time does not work realistically. Just because you are over 500 days does not mean anything except you've taken over 500 turns in your time in game. The season is based on the chronological timeline of the main story, which is not based on number of turns, it is based on what event you have completed last at any given time.

The quote is applicable to the main story timeline because it progresses with each main event regardless of whether you have an event completed on a certain character with the exception of prerequisite events. If you didn't see the lust event around the time of the Halloween event, you miss it because it ONLY happens around that time in the timeline. If you didn't see any of the lust events in the time around the beach event, you miss them because they ONLY take place around that part of the ttimeline. You can't go into winter on the timeline and expect to be able to see those events, it wouldn't make sense. What, does the beach not get snow? Fun fact, beaches DO get snowed on if they are within a climate that gets snow. What, are the girls supposed to wear swimsuits in the snow? You see what I mean, it makes absolutely no sense to let any of that happen, and no, making a separate version is not an option because that doubles the amount of renders, unless Selebus wants, of course. It takes me several hours to get even one render right with posing by hand, so you do the math for how much time that means for Selebus doing twice the number of renders for one event, which already has potentially hundreds depending on event length. Selebus's solution to halt progress is not applicable to missable events because, when there is a progress halt like that, missable events are exempt. This is the case in "There Is Nothing." When he does a progress halt, the events needed are ones that take place around the time in the timeline the main story is halted at, otherwise they too would be missed events like the ones you are talking about, so yeah, time waits for no man, even if they have events they have not seen. Again, adding the missable events to the required list eliminates the consequence that is missing the event. If the event cannot be missed, there is no consequence. The game is all about consequences, so this does go against its design.


Yes, going too far and missing an event IS a consequence, it's called missing an opportunity. It usually happens to lust events, so that's a missed opportunity to carry out player Sensei's plan with a specific girl and further his overall goal. When it happens to a character event, it is a missed opportunity to get closer to the girl and drop her guard a little more, making her that much easier to coerce into a lust event later. It is not a choice in the same sense as in game, but it IS a choice made by the player outside the game. There IS a choice there, it just happens to be made by the player outside the game instead of inside. EVERY choice is a gamble, like the one with Karin in recent builds. Telling the truth is the right thing to do, but it could upset her now and ruin any possible future involving her, locking events. Lying to her is a terrible choice to make morally, but it could keep her from getting upset now and could mean a future involving her. Then there's a secondary gamble in that specific example if you choose to lie. You gamble on whether she will find out later if you don't tell the truth, which could prove even more devastating to her than telling her up front and lock events. There's even a third gamble assuming she does find out after lying to her, how she'll react to it. She could choose to join in, she could shut you out of her life completely and permanently, locking events, or she could choose to report you as a teacher taking advantage of a student, the third of which is game over for player Sensei completely.


2) Again, adding a missable event to the requirements eliminates the element of consequence from that event. The game is partly themed on having consequences pretty much everywhere, so this does not fit.


It does not make that indication nor does it need to. I mean, it technically does since it is indicated in one speciffic instance that grinding too much is bad, the Rin thing, but at that point you are on your own. As the game typically keeps things like that single use temporarily, adding more instances of usage over time, it does make sense without being stated that it WILL happen again. Example, the Rin thing. We got it on the beach and, while it isn't the exact same, we now have something with Karin that bears the same consequence for the same offense. Choose poorly, get locked out.

I'm not going to respond point by point, it will waste too much time, lead to an even bigger wall of text, and i feel like you shouldn't have wasted your time doing it either. I understand your view, so I'll just try to tackle what i believe to be your main focus.

Is it the player's choice to miss scenes/grind unevenly? Yes, technically speaking it definitely is, but i thought i had made it clear why i called it a non-choice or a meaningless choice.
Is it a consequence to miss the event(s) if you make that choice? Yes, technically speaking it is, it happened because of a choice you made therefore it is a consequence of your choices.

My point that i feel wasn't properly addressed was in the last paragraph. A choice, and the consequences of making that choice are meaningless, and I would even personally call them non-existent (even if they technically aren't) if the player isn't given enough information to understand that the choice they are making will have negative consequences.
Imagine if the game had at one point a choice, between 3 different car brands to pick your favorite. If picking a specific one led to getting locked out of Haru's events later down the line, was that a choice?
Yes. Did it have consequences?
Yes, but even in this game that as you say has a focus on consequences that is just horrible design. Just because it is a choice given to the player and it has consequences it doesn't mean that the whole choice/consequences combo isn't meaningless. The proper way to do it if you had to would be to add a hint, or worst case scenario just plainly tell the player at some point the correct answer. It would ruin the tone of the game but at least it would be a meaningful choice.

The same way as in the example, if the player chooses to grind a character because they like them most there will perhaps be consequences for it. But did the player know that they were making a choice with "severe" consequences? Did they know that it isn't what the game wants them to choose? Again, I'm not speaking about Rin's, or Haru's, or Karin's choices, I'm speaking of any events that you get locked out of without any hints given that they will be locked.