Ren'Py Lessons in Love [v0.47.0] [Selebus]

[fdsasdf_p]

our true bro Pareidolia

Spoiler: v0.44 our bro mister P

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[Deleted member 4389531]

No, I think LiL is concerned with making money, banning people from discord and making alt accounts to talk to us.

Edit: also with ranting about Lost in You, can't forget that one.

I think reality speaks to the fact that LiL's primary purpose is not to make money, and that the game is not designed around either this or making it as pleasant as possible for readers. It is obvious on the face of it that Selebus is not just accidentally ~poorly designing~ puzzles then accidentally losing a lot of money without realizing it. You can now work backwards from here. Also I'm not Selebus.

 

[Moonflare]

Also I'm not Selebus.

Indeed, for I have been Selebus all along. Only on rainy tuesdays though, that was the covenant.

 

[worthlesspeon]

The moment you start thinking about "proper game design," "immersion," etc you've already lost because you're on the completely wrong track. It is blindingly obvious that the purpose of the puzzles is not to provide a fun and engaging experience. They reflect that fact that the further one goes into Lessons in Love, the more the world rejects the player (this goes for both the literal player and Sensei). It becomes increasingly hard to progress, increasingly unfun, increasingly grindy - it would be reductive to state there is only one ludonarrative purpose for this, but that is the design. The artistic purpose. It is an experience the developer is attempting to convey through mechanic. It is axiomatic to say that "video games should be fun," "puzzles should test innovative thinking," etc, which is to say that they are not fundamental truths - they are platitudes liable to become thought-terminating cliches. Looking at systems clearly designed to reject the player and make their life difficult then complaining about how they aren't fun enough is so foolish I balk that one so invested in the story and theory-crafting would be so blind to this point. Let us examine once again Moby Dick.

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In chapter 32 there is a lengthy chapter devoted to the physiology of whales. This is a highly dull chapter to read and a well-known roadblock for prospective readers of the work (yet I must explain it in detail here because it is dubious whether any poster in this thread has ready even such a fundamental cornerstone a literature such as Moby Dick). However, in this context of literature removed from "a porn game that should be fun and get my pee pee hard," we see immediately how foolish it would be to critique it from a lens as those critiquing SENSEI QUEST and other resets are. Can you imagine going to Melville and saying, good sir, it is all well and good that you wish your novel to be a testimony to every aspect of whales from the physical aspects of their being to the mythological image they come to represent, but this chapter was quite dull! Could you not make it a bit more fun and exciting? In fact, quite a few of your chapters could be shaved down, let's have more action scenes and whale hunting, you would really get more readers that way! It is rather obnoxious that you should even think to force me to read some boring chapter on whales when I can in fact simply flip the pages! Do you not know I will just flip the pages? You are not listening to me sir, I am telling you to make your novel more fun for me!

It really is just that simple: think, for one moment, the purpose. Now, it is entirely fair if you look at Lessons in Love rejecting the player and making it increasingly hard/unpleasant to make progress as a foolish thing. Some people think whales are dumb. However, this is not what is happening. The angle of attack is so completely off base it's like one is seeing reality on an entirely different level. Like one's mind is so boxed in by platitudes that any time something isn't fun and satisfying their every urge for what they want it to be that the entire world starts to seem wrong. How can one profess themselves to be a deep thinker, a lover of thought and figuring things out, so proud of each theory and confirmed idea, if such basic mental walls blind them so deeply? Such that they look upon a rock and see a mountain, or they look upon a mountain and see a rock? You really think for one fucking second the puzzles are meant to be fun tests of knowledge? You really think they contain anything but spite and hostility? You really think this is supposed to be a good time? You really think that 'all media must be fun' is a God-like axiom that subsumes all other purposes one may have? What? WHAT???????????? The populace is rendered infants before the most basic and blunt artistic purpose which itself is literally stated directly over and over. Shocking! Nothing really is beautiful!

Just because there's an artistic vision doesn't mean the vision isn't shit

 

[Bingus Bongus]

It is blindingly obvious that the purpose of the puzzles is not to provide a fun and engaging experience. They reflect that fact that the further one goes into Lessons in Love, the more the world rejects the player (this goes for both the literal player and Sensei). It becomes increasingly hard to progress, increasingly unfun, increasingly grindy - it would be reductive to state there is only one ludonarrative purpose for this, but that is the design. The artistic purpose. It is an experience the developer is attempting to convey through mechanic.

Maybe my brain isn't wrinkly enough to understand, but I fail to see how a deliberately poor user experience makes for effective storytelling. If a game (LiL in this case) doesn't want people to play it and makes the experience a drag, then the logical result is... that the player base drops it and spends their gaming time on something else. I suppose if the end goal is to curate a tiny audience of masochists then its fine, but if the creator actually wants people to see and appreciate their work, I can't imagine a more counterproductive angle to take. Surely there's a better way to use game mechanics to convey a world that hates Akira.

 

[vehemental]

It's just strange how the most basic of artistic intentions are lost even upon those who have spent hundreds of hours in a game. I'm imagining someone watching Nostalghia by Tarkvosky and holding fast forward whenever they get bored by an extended metaphorical sequence. I'm imagining someone reading Moby Dick and skipping all the cetology chapters while complaining about how boring whales are. I'm imagining someone listening to an ambient music album and complaining that there isn't a strong enough melody. It just comes off as absurd on the face of it because it reflects engagement on the level of a child playing with toys, one who's entire motive and goal is to temporarily entertain oneself, and one who's method of judgement is how much fun they are feeling in the moment. In a sense it is not wrong to have such a child-like view but I would expect an adult to hold it more quietly and with shame, not proudly proclaiming it for all to see with the arrogance of a teen confidence they understand philosophy on a level deeper than any scholar. I mean, fucking ELDEN RING? What the hell are you talking about? Are you 12 and taking a break from watching your favorite Twitch streamer to post here? Are you going to be halfway through a Dostoevsky then murmur "Eeeh you know what it's actually rather tedious how many pages are dedicated to boring stuff. I could be playing Elden Ring! That would be WAAAY more fun!" Like, what? Do you actually need colorful blocks to absentmindedly stack with one hand the moment any piece of art demands something from you? You approached SENSEI QUEST in particular with a brand of ridiculous thoughtlessness because you had not engaged whatsoever; you acted like it was an impossible problem of math when in reality you can pass it with ease using basic save/load functions any player would be familiar with. Then when this was identified - your post being worthy of no serious response since it came from one who had, functionally, skipped half the pages in a book then complained about how fragmented the plot was - you retreat to something as absurd 'Why do something not fun when you could do something fun?" I mean, that's PRECISELY THE HEDONISM THE ENTIRE GAME IS CRITICIZING? Have you been paying attention for any of the last 300 hours? Are you a fucking utility zombie sucking up pleasure from Lessons in Love while groaning in displeasure and discomfort any time there is a rock in your cum soup? What the hell, man? What the fuck is even going on? That is precisely why the point is... TO GROW! You really gotta grow outta this. And never make a post this ridiculous again.

- Lessons in Love isn't Moby Dick, man. It's not Nostalghia, it's not Dostoevsky, it's not even Breaking Bad. Perhaps it comes closest to these in the context of western adult visual novels (something LiL tries not to be), but these are even more outrageously absurd comparisons than Dragon Quest. LiL has an interesting amount of depth, a huge amount of potential, and can be charming in its own way, but for as long as the developer decides to keep showing his ass by doing shit like self-inserting his own petty grievances - not around things like "boy the lines at the DMV sure are long," but literally things like "I treated this one specific person at Patreon like a fucking idiot and they banned me for it, how unfair" - it can never be taken even remotely seriously. The developer's antagonism towards his audience, resentment of the business model in the industry he exists in, and his own personal dissatisfaction with his income are all completely unmasked and spoken verbatim by his characters. The funny thing is is that you can actually do those kinds of things in a work like this that's intended to be meta and surrealist, but Selly goes so overboard with it that it only serves to directly paint him as a childish narcissist megalomaniac and is only worthy of an eyeroll. The reason why so few people on the outside knew that James Corden, Oprah, or Ellen Degeneres are such assholes is because they maintained professional distance. There's very little here.

- You have never played Elden Ring and are not familiar with it at all, especially if you think that's what 12 year olds are watching on Twitch. Your original argument hinged upon the completion of ostensibly arduous tasks in a "simple RPG" in order to gain some reward at the end. Soulslike action RPGs, which Elden Ring is the pinnacle of, are the standout examples of this exact philosophy in video gaming. They're not the dopamine firehoses most people would rather play than do homework or read a book unless those people are absolute chads. They're games that you need to lock into and settle down for a long haul of frustration and adversity, and only give you delayed gratification after mastering the extremely complex skillsets they require. Elden Ring and Bloodborne especially reward this earned mastery with incredibly rich lore and storylines. George RR Martin worked on Elden Ring for fuck's sake.

- The "artistic intention" you're clinging onto in this instance is save-scumming to accomplish a task as deep and as nuanced as a game of sudoku. I don't find that installing URM and using it to breeze through arbitrary time-sucks to be that far removed from needing to save-scum, both are cheesy workarounds for poor game design, and I don't give a shit what the developer's intention is, because he's proved he can be a fucking idiot in equal measures to his genius. The mere fact that I'm spending this long to address your points one by one is prima facie evidence that I'm not the quivering, dopamine-insufficient, TikTok-brained "child playing with toys" you'd like to uncharitably paint me as, and I would argue that the mere act of slogging through the immense length of this game and posting in this thread at all was enough to defeat that standard.

The fact is that the developer of this game is always trying to extend its playtime as much as possible in ways that are meaningless, likely because he thinks it will make him more money, and I choose not to engage with these efforts because I've determined they're a waste of my time, just like continuing to engage with you is, because I don't believe that any combination of words that come out of my keyboard, no matter how well-reasoned, will ever change your mind on any topic.

 

[Deleted member 4389531]

Maybe my brain isn't wrinkly enough to understand, but I fail to see how a deliberately poor user experience makes for effective storytelling. If a game (LiL in this case) doesn't want people to play it and makes the experience a drag, then the logical result is... that the player base drops it and spends their gaming time on something else. I suppose if the end goal is to curate a tiny audience of masochists then its fine, but if the creator actually wants people to see and appreciate their work, I can't imagine a more counterproductive angle to take. Surely there's a better way to use game mechanics to convey a world that hates Akira.

THE
GAME
FLASHES
THE
TEXT
"STOP PLAYING LESSONS IN LOVE"
CONSTANTLY

 

[Bingus Bongus]

THE
GAME
FLASHES
THE
TEXT
"STOP PLAYING LESSONS IN LOVE"
CONSTANTLY

Why are you creating a game you don't want anyone to play?

 

[Detective Dc345]

Spoiler: 0.45 Previews

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[Nadekai]

Is it only me, or does it take longer and longer to load into game with each update?

 

[TBone9]

If you sleep, the chance of you being eaten by a clown is low, but not zero.

Higher than you might think:

 

[Izzard]

Is it only me, or does it take longer and longer to load into game with each update?

Yep, game is getting very unstable. I had one or two crashes from Ren'py apparently running out of memory. Game is getting rather unwieldy and there might be a memory leak or two in there. It's probably not helped by keeping so many saves

 

[JelF547]

I am a bit bored of questions, so I made full chapter 4 walkthrough (0.44). I promise to keep this post updated at least until chapter ends

Spoiler: PNG

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See attachments for SVG (unlimited scaling), DOT (graphviz source) and uncroped PNG

UPD: 0.44

Updated. Nothing changed in the old content, new event chain is easy to start

 

[bobloblawwwwwww]

Quick question, I didn't view Happy Event: Amy before moving into chapter 4. Do things open back up to where I can go back to the mall on the weekend? Or should I load an old save so that I can view it? I haven't gotten to the sport/dorm war thing yet.

 

[Detective Dc345]

Pareidolia: "Her spider tattoo is covering up something special"
*Unravel starts playing*
Sekaori Ghoul

 

[Vizer007]

Well, many things were answered in this update (and many more questions appeared).
The most pressing one is new music Saudade.mp3. Did I missed something or it was just not used anywhere?

Also, guys, keep in mind the values for buying "sex", since I am sure it will either bite us later (I mean, is there really anyone who not just +100500 their money?) or...not bite and Sel was actually intended it this way. (if he is not - he is delusional. Who in their right mind would play with no "cheating" and waste away 10 hours on boring and tedious task?)

 

[Nadekai]

Yep, game is getting very unstable. I had one or two crashes from Ren'py apparently running out of memory. Game is getting rather unwieldy and there might be a memory leak or two in there. It's probably not helped by keeping so many saves

... Sel should divide the game into 2 ...
... Make LiL part 1 being chapter 1-3, and part 2, 3-6 ...

 

[vehemental]

The moment you start thinking about "proper game design," "immersion," etc you've already lost because you're on the completely wrong track. It is blindingly obvious that the purpose of the puzzles is not to provide a fun and engaging experience. They reflect that fact that the further one goes into Lessons in Love, the more the world rejects the player (this goes for both the literal player and Sensei). It becomes increasingly hard to progress, increasingly unfun, increasingly grindy - it would be reductive to state there is only one ludonarrative purpose for this, but that is the design. The artistic purpose. It is an experience the developer is attempting to convey through mechanic. It is axiomatic to say that "video games should be fun," "puzzles should test innovative thinking," etc, which is to say that they are not fundamental truths - they are platitudes liable to become thought-terminating cliches. Looking at systems clearly designed to reject the player and make their life difficult then complaining about how they aren't fun enough is so foolish I balk that one so invested in the story and theory-crafting would be so blind to this point. Let us examine once again Moby Dick.

You must be registered to see the links

In chapter 32 there is a lengthy chapter devoted to the physiology of whales. This is a highly dull chapter to read and a well-known roadblock for prospective readers of the work (yet I must explain it in detail here because it is dubious whether any poster in this thread has ready even such a fundamental cornerstone a literature such as Moby Dick). However, in this context of literature removed from "a porn game that should be fun and get my pee pee hard," we see immediately how foolish it would be to critique it from a lens as those critiquing SENSEI QUEST and other resets are. Can you imagine going to Melville and saying, good sir, it is all well and good that you wish your novel to be a testimony to every aspect of whales from the physical aspects of their being to the mythological image they come to represent, but this chapter was quite dull! Could you not make it a bit more fun and exciting? In fact, quite a few of your chapters could be shaved down, let's have more action scenes and whale hunting, you would really get more readers that way! It is rather obnoxious that you should even think to force me to read some boring chapter on whales when I can in fact simply flip the pages! Do you not know I will just flip the pages? You are not listening to me sir, I am telling you to make your novel more fun for me!

It really is just that simple: think, for one moment, the purpose. Now, it is entirely fair if you look at Lessons in Love rejecting the player and making it increasingly hard/unpleasant to make progress as a foolish thing. Some people think whales are dumb. However, this is not what is happening. The angle of attack is so completely off base it's like one is seeing reality on an entirely different level. Like one's mind is so boxed in by platitudes that any time something isn't fun and satisfying their every urge for what they want it to be that the entire world starts to seem wrong. How can one profess themselves to be a deep thinker, a lover of thought and figuring things out, so proud of each theory and confirmed idea, if such basic mental walls blind them so deeply? Such that they look upon a rock and see a mountain, or they look upon a mountain and see a rock? You really think for one fucking second the puzzles are meant to be fun tests of knowledge? You really think they contain anything but spite and hostility? You really think this is supposed to be a good time? You really think that 'all media must be fun' is a God-like axiom that subsumes all other purposes one may have? What? WHAT???????????? The populace is rendered infants before the most basic and blunt artistic purpose which itself is literally stated directly over and over. Shocking! Nothing really is beautiful!

Moby Dick was an intricate work of years, each chapter, even the boring ones, fulfilling a well-rounded purpose. LiL reset puzzles are works of a week, hastily cobbled together and by your own admission, only serving one singular-dimensional purpose. You are comparing Starry Night to the wallpaper behind it.

You read a chapter in Moby Dick about the science of whales and come out the other side knowing more about whales, having been given a pleasant intermission and a palate cleanser from the chapters previous, and a sort of tongue-in-cheek rational, scientific contrast from the rest of the book's thematic elements. What do you come out the other side of a LiL reset having gained, other than a redundant reinforcement of the previously-well-established knowledge that the game is hostile to you? Is understanding that to an even further degree worth the time it takes to accomplish resets unaided? If there's some grander design, and anywhere near the nuance of Melville that you've somehow neglected mentioning so far, feel free to chime in with it.

You keep uncharitably shadowboxing, so arguing with you is largely pointless - no one is either saying or implicitly expecting that "video games should be fun" or "puzzles should test innovative thinking" in this context, people just want the barest experience of having the time they put into a "literary" work be respected. Melville put a huge amount of research, love, and care into the "dull" chapters of Moby Dick you love so much, which means that yes, people skipping those parts is unreasonable.

But again... the comparisons you're making are fundamentally outrageous. Works like Moby Dick are so great and near perfection of their craft that the reader has no reasonable choice except to have the book dictate a change in their first impression of something, like the viability of purely scientific-oriented chapters in a work of fiction. I'm not extending that same charity to the developer of a game who demonstrably can't keep his mood on a particular day out of the story he's writing, in the naive hope that this attempt is materially different than his prior attempts.

And I can only speak for myself, but this game has never once served as porn for me or made my pee pee hard. I find it to be almost astoundingly unerotic, even with the non-taboo characters. (0.44)Kaori is one of my favorite characters, and the fact that her sexual awakening came in the form of "a god inhabited my body and put me on his dick and I really liked it"... yeah man, peak erotic fiction right there. It uses sex as a horror element instead, like the works that inspired it.

Given you see us all as childish, porn-addled degenerates who can't appreciate good literature, normally I wouldn't know why you would keep wasting your time interacting with us, but every one of us in this thread enjoys wasting our time on hopeless endeavors - that's why we play this game at all. Most of us just maintain some degree of healthy, informed boundaries with the content we consume.

 

[vehemental]

I think reality speaks to the fact that LiL's primary purpose is not to make money, and that the game is not designed around either this or making it as pleasant as possible for readers. It is obvious on the face of it that Selebus is not just accidentally ~poorly designing~ puzzles then accidentally losing a lot of money without realizing it. You can now work backwards from here. Also I'm not Selebus.

 

[matt_riochka]

Quick question, I didn't view Happy Event: Amy before moving into chapter 4. Do things open back up to where I can go back to the mall on the weekend? Or should I load an old save so that I can view it? I haven't gotten to the sport/dorm war thing yet.

same thing happened to me, not sure if in the future you'll be able to but as of now you can't, so you need to reload an old save