Ren'Py Lessons in Love [v0.48.0] [Selebus]

[Detective Dc345]

Spoiler: 0.45 Preview

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[Moonflare]

Spoiler: 0.45 Preview

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Holy shit. Could it be? Are we finally getting it? Details of the room where it happened? the room where it happened?

Or is it another fakeout like when she was sent back to this room during the reset?

Edit: Also, maybe it's 0.45 because it's after the reset is done, and he's calling 0.44 the parts that are still during it?

 

[Rakushun]

Hello, all. I have a nonfictional story to tell about an event in my life that has nothing to do with the ongoing discussions in this thread.

I went to an art exhibition and it turned out to be transgressive performance art, my favorite! With my consent, I was held down while an obese man heavily dosed with laxatives shit directly into my mouth for what felt like hours. I felt extremely violated and it was by far the most unpleasant experience of my entire life, which is why I loved it so much, because that was the author's intent and I really experienced his artistic vision.

Afterward, as I sat to the side really marinating in the wonderful experience I'd just had, at least until I was rushed to the hospital, I observed some dirty philistines refusing to take part in the exhibition. They said some nonsense about not being "into that shit" and I could see on the obese man's face that his feelings were hurt by their rejection. I ended up chasing them away, screaming that they didn't even try to engage with the art and they weren't proper art critics.

 

[FireCazador]

skwada Fire Lord Zuko
Im thankful for the help but idk if i did it wrong or if it didnt work (i tried to delete them and put only the 0.42 rpyc and also keep the old ones and replace them with the ones from 0.42) And the old saves didnt let me skip the text already seen (it could be another problem or something happened when i export it in a fresh folder) I will just replay the game replacing the saves and pray to not get any error like this.

Im sorry for all the troubles i may have done and couldnt fix it after all

animexmangafan
Thx for the save, it works fine and i have been able to play the happy event ^^

Did you add the care packages?

Yes i have the care packages, but i didnt have any problem like this ever, i always do the steps to clean the drm and also i made that the folder cant access internet

 

[fdsasdf_p]

Holy shit. Could it be? Are we finally getting it? Details of the room where it happened? the room where it happened?

No one really knows how they fuck like crazed ~ ♫
the art of laid ~ ♫
How his sausage inflates ~ ♫
We just assume that it happens
But we're gonna be in the room where it happens ~ ♪♪♪

Anyway despite how the last update ended, this particular frame alone feels like a genuine reminiscence of the past, otherwise Maya should've looked more shocked or confused instead of simply blushed if she really gets sent further back.

also if I misunderstood and you don't actually get the reference I'm gonna go die of embarrassment in that corner over there

 

[Aegirine]

these are all fair points, I just wonder if you played it without the mod or puzzle answers/urm, and if so, why?

Started the game without any outside info because I thought it's normal to experience any media like the author intended to, then started opening the wiki/guide mod late CH2 because I came to the conclusion that the optimal way to play the game is without missing any event, and there was simply not enough clues in the game itself to make sure of that.
Then got URM to go past the 0.28 requirement because I was not willing to go back 5 patches earlier to fix it.
Didn't look at any puzzles clues until puzzle 6, the one where's you're stuck in a small apartment. I actually enjoyed the earlier puzzles somewhat, because even if it was a pain, it was at least rewarding when the answers depended on how much you paid attention to the dialogue.

All your points are valid and also reflect the general consensus in this thread (with a few exceptions, as you mentioned, which are in the vast minority, I would say).

The conclusion is basically as follows:
Selebus (the dev) is a bit of a dick and also high on his own farts and doesn't mind that the players need to suffer through his dog shit idea of gameplay. In his mind, I guess, the "difficulty" of traversing through the gameplay loop is meant to mirror the struggle Akira is having traversing through life with his self-loathing and depressive approach, making the player identify with him when having to click through repetitive dialogue and guess what to do next.
Obviously, as you mentioned, this does not work. But Sel also admitted that he is a shit programmer and basically most aspects of the game besides the writing and rendering (to an extent, he has become pretty lazy about animations for example) are done in a rather sloppy way. But I suppose from his view the end justifies the means.

Looking at the reviews on this site, many players get thrown off the game because of these arbitrary design decisions, which is a shame. But as I mentioned earlier, Sel seems himself as a form of GOD god and anyone who does not appreciate his decisions is simply unworthy and should not play his game then.
We learned to live with it. At the end of the day, the writing is so good that it makes it worthwhile to suffer through the "gameplay" loops for new snippets of juicy lore and plot developments.

It's less about programming skills and more about design choices imo. Some of the examples I cited come down to choosing a bad constant for your event trigger conditions. Adding a choice that if taken, locks people of a part of the game (as of right now, permanently) isn't bad programming, it's a choice made explicitly by the dev. Basically punishing people for no good reason, and not giving a lot of importance to user experience.

But I agree that he can get away with it because of the quality of the story, I would still recommend the game despite all this bs. I just feel it's sad that the ones who are experiencing those issues are the ones that still stick to him to the end, not the people who quit after the first happy scene.

From thoughts on grinding, event triggers, sensei quest etc...

Selebus knows everyone, who went beyond room with clocks are just using wiki, guide, urm to bypass the grind. So about making player feel the uncomfortable loneliness sensei feels, i don't think sel was going for that.

Sel is a "Turkish Ice Cream Man". You pay for ice cream and he gives you the ice cream. But it's not so easy because he uses different tricks to confuse you so you can't just grab it. You have to work for it. It is part of the experience.

And Sel is an amazing ice cream maker, but the problem is he is talentless on all the other aspects. he doesn't have the sleight of hands to to make confusing tricks that outsmart you so that you can't grab the ice cream. So what does he do? He just put the ice cream on the stick and put it on the air where you cant reach it and swinging it. Sure you can't grab it just like the other Turkish Ice Cream vendors but it just isn't the same. You just wait there checking your phone while waiting for selebus arms to tire out and had to put it down.(This is the metaphor for urm, guide etc...)

Sure there was an attempt but neither side was involved in this experience.

He knows how off putting it all is, but still does it. And he can partly get away with it because he knows his turkish ice cream is much better than those italian ice cream or brand cornettos. Sure his product have terrible wrappers, soft and wet cones, his vendor smells like shit. But he has the best ice cream around here. And he enjoys this.



TLDR:
He is the kid who proudly says "i didn't study at all but still got the A- on math test." But he is trying to be a mechanical engineer.
Or Sel is a talented writer but a talentless artist, because his art is a sandbox game not a book or visual novel.

Honestly if he is taking into account that people are using third party tools anyway, I think it would make it worse. In that case, you would be punishing people who do not know that: missing events, mindless clicking to trigger events, spamming ctrl, etc. The Guide mod is also not available on day 1 of the patch, so your subscribers who have the patch early are even more punished (I don't know how fast the wiki is updated).
You also would be acknowledging that there's a clarity issue, so you might as well make the guide mod part of the game if it's necessary to your ideal gameplay experience. Convenience should not be a luxury.
Your complicated puzzle that you poured your heart in making ? Done and dusted in 10 minutes with URM. I don't think that's the intended experience, some evidence that might suggest this is some dialog that occurs if you challenge the bosses again after losing. You wouldn't bother with such details if most people would be bypassing it.

Anyway, the most confusing part of this is that there's a none-zero amount of people that were fed up with this and probably not supporting the game anymore because of it. It's a financially viable decision to make your game smoother to play. But hey who I am to say that if I overlooked those issues myself anyway. When this game is done years in the future, there will probably be some kind of third party mod to fix the gameplay loop, because it's still an amazing story that's worth experiencing properly without arbitrarily made hurdles.

 

[Deleted member 4389531]

Hello, all. I have a nonfictional story to tell about an event in my life that has nothing to do with the ongoing discussions in this thread.

I went to an art exhibition and it turned out to be transgressive performance art, my favorite! With my consent, I was held down while an obese man heavily dosed with laxatives shit directly into my mouth for what felt like hours. I felt extremely violated and it was by far the most unpleasant experience of my entire life, which is why I loved it so much, because that was the author's intent and I really experienced his artistic vision.

Afterward, as I sat to the side really marinating in the wonderful experience I'd just had, at least until I was rushed to the hospital, I observed some dirty philistines refusing to take part in the exhibition. They said some nonsense about not being "into that shit" and I could see on the obese man's face that his feelings were hurt by their rejection. I ended up chasing them away, screaming that they didn't even try to engage with the art and they weren't proper art critics.

Wtf, did you just strawman me? I'm literally going to piss and shit myself in anger. I can't believe this. What the fuck

But yeah, unironically, don't go to the "Get Shit In Your Mouth - Cameo by Tubgirl" exhibit then critique it for being a scatalogical exhibit. The obese man will be more confused than anything I assure you.

Also (and perhaps being so sincere is too much) it can actually be pretty invigorating to go outside of your comfort zone like that. Eating literal shit is a bit of an ad absurdum but there are many cases where one can be enriched by experiences which feel negative at the time.

> There is a kind of peace here in the desert. A perfect silence. This is a dead place, more dead than almost anywhere else on Earth. If the ground could have a personality, it would be malevolent. But, as I said before, all this in some sense does not exist at all. It does not hate us; it is simply the opposite of everything that life requires. When you sit in the dunes and you hear only the wind, and nothing else at all, and all the complexities of civilization fade away, you truly understand that spiritual peace is a great evil, a kind of shallow banality that we must always strive against. It is spiritual excitement and enthusiasm which sustain our humanity; spiritual peace is a vile and cowardly surrender to oblivion.

 

[Rakushun]

I don't know what you mean. And yes, anyone who dares criticize Biglax Scatman's numinous oeuvre will have to answer to me.

 

[NULLWIZARD]

There is a kind of peace here in the desert. A perfect silence. This is a dead place, more dead than almost anywhere else on Earth. If the ground could have a personality, it would be malevolent. But, as I said before, all this in some sense does not exist at all. It does not hate us; it is simply the opposite of everything that life requires. When you sit in the dunes and you hear only the wind, and nothing else at all, and all the complexities of civilization fade away, you truly understand that spiritual peace is a great evil, a kind of shallow banality that we must always strive against. It is spiritual excitement and enthusiasm which sustain our humanity; spiritual peace is a vile and cowardly surrender to oblivion.

where's this from?

 

[Deleted member 4389531]

where's this from?

Talos Principle 2, spoken by Lifthrasir. Not a great puzzle game by my book but it has some pretty intriguing writing.

 

[Pedro4545454]

Spoiler: 0.45 Preview

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Could this be one of the moments that Maya said that Akira, even in the past, had heard divinities and lost control of his own body with her?

 

[GSwole]

All your points are valid and also reflect the general consensus in this thread (with a few exceptions, as you mentioned, which are in the vast minority, I would say).

The conclusion is basically as follows:
Selebus (the dev) is a bit of a dick and also high on his own farts and doesn't mind that the players need to suffer through his dog shit idea of gameplay. In his mind, I guess, the "difficulty" of traversing through the gameplay loop is meant to mirror the struggle Akira is having traversing through life with his self-loathing and depressive approach, making the player identify with him when having to click through repetitive dialogue and guess what to do next.
Obviously, as you mentioned, this does not work. But Sel also admitted that he is a shit programmer and basically most aspects of the game besides the writing and rendering (to an extent, he has become pretty lazy about animations for example) are done in a rather sloppy way. But I suppose from his view the end justifies the means.

Looking at the reviews on this site, many players get thrown off the game because of these arbitrary design decisions, which is a shame. But as I mentioned earlier, Sel seems himself as a form of GOD god and anyone who does not appreciate his decisions is simply unworthy and should not play his game then.
We learned to live with it. At the end of the day, the writing is so good that it makes it worthwhile to suffer through the "gameplay" loops for new snippets of juicy lore and plot developments.

I'm not a bit of a dick. I am the whole cock.

 

[Landuard]

Can someone please help me? I understand that to unlock the Lust events I need lust points but how the hell am I going to get the lust points if the only way to get them is through lust events, did I miss something?
I got like over 60 affection with Makoto but I just can't find a single way to gain lust

 

[Yarazin]

Can someone please help me? I understand that to unlock the Lust events I need lust points but how the hell am I going to get the lust points if the only way to get them is through lust events, did I miss something?
I got like over 60 affection with Makoto but I just can't find a single way to gain lust

Have to visit dorms or do invite over events. Can get affection or lust from those.

 

[GSwole]

Talos Principle 2, spoken by Lifthrasir. Not a great puzzle game by my book but it has some pretty intriguing writing.

I remember you now after you've brought it up. You're Quof, that kino spam person. Even have the same manner of typing all your text.

 

[Bingoogus]

I remember you now after you've brought it up. You're Quof, that kino spam person. Even have the same manner of typing all your text.

Is this on the Discord?

 

[dathk321]

My broader point (not meeting the art at its level, using fallacious reasoning to justify one's dislike) applies to all of it. I bring up the individual points only in reference. No strawmanning needed.

Wasting time - indeed, the game is trying to waste your time. It therefore makes no sense to critique it for wasting your time. This is like critiquing a silent film for not having spoken dialogue. Of course, you can say "I do not like having my time wasted," that's fair, but this does not translate to an active or meaningful critique of the work. Indeed, you can say my broader point is that failing to distinguish personal dislike with meaningful critique is the problem here. It is not the case that just because someone dislikes something that whatever reasoning they come up for justifying that dislike is meaningful. Meaningful critique requires meeting the work at its level and suggesting improvements within its intended vector, which is by and large not happening here. (That said, to be clear, this is not something unique to F95 users; people in general have, as is such a meme, low media literacy, and in general respond to unhappy feelings by trying to attack the source of said feelings. Measured critique is rare.)

Sandbox gameplay - it is, to my understanding, completely purposeful that as the game goes on progression gets increasingly obtuse and annoying. The purpose is not to be intuitive and provide a clear method of progression at all times. Any meaningful critique of the Sandbox gameplay will have to first begin on this level. What are better ways the game could be obtuse and time-wasting while still being obtuse and time-wasting? That's a pretty complex subject, isn't it? It would be interesting to see what people could come up with. Instead, we get very meaningless statements like "it is not intuitive." Does one imagine Selebus necessitates an arbitrary phone call to an arbitrary person at an arbitrary time slot and thinks "Yep, this is intuitive, all according to plan?" No. Do people think that Selebus has no awareness it's annoying to grind Wakana or Chinami affection or whatever with limited weekend slots? Hopefully not. Therefore, how the fuck is one supposed to respond to observations like "Sir, this is not intuitive!" I'm sorry to say there is no response except to grimace a bit. You've not met the game with that level of critique. You have to think: "Okay, this is not intuitive, how to we present this in a way players will agree with instead of get upset about?" And once you have an answer, present your critique like that. As an example: "I would feel better about the arbitrary way in which we have to guess when to call people if the story better emphasized that Sensei himself was randomly calling and that it was frustrating for him too when nobody answered, because then it would feel like the developer is self-aware at least." (This, of course, is up for debate itself, but at least it's working within the intended context of the game.) In short, It would be beneficial to think a bit more about these matters. If you want to critique the sandbox, it needs to be more internal to the game. And to be clear, I think the sandbox is not very creative or well-made in particular. But the question of how to maintain this obtuse, intentionally abrasive / unintuitive progression while improving it is actually a very difficult one. So I don't go about posting lazy "critiques" which in reality mean and say nothing. I'm still thinking about how it could be done better within this context.

You can think of this in relation to deaf players complaining about the audio cues BTW. It is literally impossible for them to progress on their own. That can't be a pleasant feeling. But it clearly makes no sense to critique the game for using audio to convey important information. If the game didn't do that it wouldn't be Lessons in Love anymore. That is a "critique from the angle of accessibility" (external) vs "a critique for the ideal form of a game as intended" (internal). And I think in general we should want creators resilient to a storm of meaningless external critique since that's how you end up with generic slurry. It's to some degree ironic that LiL has attracted so many with its boldness, yet as soon as that boldness is unpleasant in any way the player turns their back and starts complaining. I think that an interesting thing to think about here may be the bugs. I know someone deathly afraid of bugs who quit LiL immediately because it has a lot of bugs. However, it's unlikely f95 bros are in particular upset about bugs. That's 50% because the average person is not so afraid of bugs and 50% because it's clearly part of the artistic purpose to have so many bugs. This is to say, people UNDERSTAND the bugs as internal to the work and would no more say to remove them as they would say to make every heroine an adult. It's only when things get more nuanced and abstract like game design that people start failing to understand, then add on personal displeasure and it's a recipe for disaster. It's just a bit too hard to understand something being unpleasant and unintuitive and so on can be on purpose. The user I responded to suggested awareness of this, but then immediately indicated that it would be acceptable only if, for example, it had skill expression. We can see the absurdity here. Imagine the bug-hater suggesting that bugs are only okay in specific contexts like the bugs are mostly out of frame, or if there's an option in the menu to turn bugs off... Who respects the artistic integrity of World of Warcraft including an option to make all the spiders lobsters in their spider expansion?

Affection/Lust: "used to be ok but is now very grindy": Yeah, this is yet another case that is the above 1:1. That is indeed the purpose. It is no secret that Selebus does not look fondly on western eroge gamifying lust and designing their games around you like fucking heroines silly. There is heavy nuance in the lust scenes within LiL that you are seeing the consequences of sex addiction - the consequences of taking girls and fucking them way too much (like Ayane getting so coomer brained she banged Sensei in a dangerous position and got caught by Kirin). This is to say that there is an intention that grinding lust is NOT a good thing. It is NOT a pleasant activity. It does NOT have pleasant consequences. Therefore: if one is to want to critique lust, you have to engage at this level. This sucks - okay, yes, so what? Lessons in Love will NEVER make it fun to grind lust. The activity will never be fun and encouraging. It wants you to fucking stop, if I'm being honest. So you need to suggest ways in which to make grinding lust suck but in a way which feels superior to the current execution. Off the top of my head, something I may say is that each point of lust should have its own scene, and the scenes could be really unpleasant, like Sensei is really blunt and you feel the damage he is causing in that moment blah blah. Envision him telling the heroine to shut up or whatever so it's mostly a silent and unpleasant affair. This would maintain most unpleasant aspects of the system while not feeling like a low-effort grind. However, I'm not fully sure on that, since there may be a purpose specifically to the repetition that I'm missing. All of this is to say that there is indeed likely room for improvement here, but the improvement will never and should never come in the form of making it not feel like a horrible and unpleasant time. (And therefore the post was total hogwash with zero substance.)

What the hell?

 

[GSwole]

Is this on the Discord?

Yeah they were a real oddball about being super clinical with their manner of text/tone. Surprising lack of kino spam here so maybe I'm mistaken? But I'm a God so that's not possible. They left me a very nice review on VNDB. But no one else for almost 3 years has ever mentioned the Talos Principle 2 there so it bothered me. Irrelevant as they played to current patch then dipped.

 

[Noob Gamer Loves Everyone]

When you sit in the dunes and you hear only the wind, and nothing else at all, and all the complexities of civilization fade away, you truly understand that spiritual peace is a great evil, a kind of shallow banality that we must always strive against. It is spiritual excitement and enthusiasm which sustain our humanity; spiritual peace is a vile and cowardly surrender to oblivion.

Bro, I think you have your career set for you in wattpad. Go forth and become another "deep" edgy fanfic writer, that is your calling.

 

[Deleted member 4389531]

Bro, I think you have your career set for you in wattpad. Go forth and become another "deep" edgy fanfic writer, that is your calling.

I shall call it... Lessons in Media Literacy. Thank you, I have found my calling.