Thanks for all your comments. I just want to address this particular bit, since I know it's going to be controversial. Most people say they don't like time limits, but at the same time, the Persona series is immensely popular despite having almost nothing but time limits the entire time. When I started creating the design document for this game (at least a year ago, if not more), I thought long and hard about the advantages and disadvantages of a time limit. If it is done wrong, you end up with something like the water chip situation in the first Fallout game where you feel like you just wasted a lot of time because you couldn't finish within the limit. But in Persona, the time limit builds excitement and drama, adding weight to your decisions and making every choice feel more personal. Remove the limit from those games and you have a hollow shell of a game that no longer feels special.
I sat down and tried to think about why it works in one situation and doesn't in another, and Long Live the Princess is my attempt to put my thoughts into practice. I believe a lot of the opposition to time limits comes from having played games where the devs implement the feature poorly, which leads to frustration. My intent is to implement the time limit in a way that feels fun and meaningful. We won't really see how well it works until the story has been completed though, so I'm asking for some faith in my ability to craft solid game mechanics for now.
I know that can be a hard sell, and I do listen to feedback about this. Since the time limit doesn't really serve a purpose until more of the game is in place, I've decided to disable it completely for version 0.20. I will reintroduce the time limit at a later point when more content is in place. Hopefully, that should alleviate some of the frustrations.
- Sep 29, 2017
- 7,319
- 15,639
you know what was frustrating? searching for ammo for 3/4 of the game just to power fist the master in 3 hits. That was a waste of time!!!
- May 25, 2017
- 233
- 246
here's what i think about limited time / day like persona game. at the end it only have 1 formula/way/option to play the game to have the full story line or in persona case "True Ending", if the player chose otherwise then they won't have the full experience of the story.. the player have to this and that in certain time and day, if not they fucked up. that i think kill the purpose of free choices. don't get me wrong, i love persona, i've played all persona game including the psp version. but i don't love it because it have a limited days, i love it for the gameplay and story, if there's a choice to remove the limited days in Persona i'll do it in a heartbeat. this is why my fav anime style game is Suikoden, where there's a big war happening between two sides, but i still have time to do stupid thing like doing a cooking show, playing mini games, etc. and get rewarded by doing side quests that sometimes effect the outcome of the main storyline.
thats kind of what i tryed to say (my english is pretty shit)
the fact is, for me, the day pass pretty fast in the game due to the fact you can make action morning - day - evening .
so its kind of limited action you need to choose wich one to make and miss others. its not a big deal as you still can make the action another time. but that make the game days pass pretty fast. and know that , day after day after day, sound like the end come pretty faster too and its kind of frustating.
so my small opinion will be to put a larger delay on the story (end) or allowing a bit more action per day. i m ok that the work should be long and easily count as a big part of the day, but the game should have some small action that can be made quickly, such as the research of evidences, this should take a small quick time and allow player to do something else in the evening too (just as inssurance , for avoid some trouble and get some alibi. ) that can be implented good i think as the game go for possibility to get the girl conscious that something is bad if she wake up naked (as exempl) and she can ask/talk to others about that too. that can allow the player to be safe (if the player dont forget to go somewhere he can be see by someone as witness of his innocence XD
the fact is, for me, the day pass pretty fast in the game due to the fact you can make action morning - day - evening .
so its kind of limited action you need to choose wich one to make and miss others. its not a big deal as you still can make the action another time. but that make the game days pass pretty fast. and know that , day after day after day, sound like the end come pretty faster too and its kind of frustating.
so my small opinion will be to put a larger delay on the story (end) or allowing a bit more action per day. i m ok that the work should be long and easily count as a big part of the day, but the game should have some small action that can be made quickly, such as the research of evidences, this should take a small quick time and allow player to do something else in the evening too (just as inssurance , for avoid some trouble and get some alibi. ) that can be implented good i think as the game go for possibility to get the girl conscious that something is bad if she wake up naked (as exempl) and she can ask/talk to others about that too. that can allow the player to be safe (if the player dont forget to go somewhere he can be see by someone as witness of his innocence XD
The exact time limit hasn't been determined yet because I want to see how the story and actions flow once we have them all put together. I'm currently very vague in the game when talking about the timeline for the Princess' arrival for this reason. The final game should have an exact arrival date for you to refer to, but I'm not going to decide this date until I've seen the bigger picture. I aim to make the limit reasonable enough to not stress out the player, but also strict enough that you can't do everything in one playthrough unless you know what you're doing (and since most girls will have branching stories, you won't see everything in one playthrough anyway). Luckily, doing everything is not a requirement to getting the best ending. This is why, for example, the Crone asks you to cast Invade Mind once before you return to her for more training. She's not telling you specifically to cast it on Evelyn, or Callie, or Primrose. This is to give the player a choice between the girls. You could try to "get them all," but that's not the point of the game. The True Ending is not directly tied to these things beyond how well trained you are in your spellcasting.
This is, honestly, an aspect of the game that I'm not going to change at this juncture. There are certain foundations I have decided on for the total package to work, and this is one of them. Could it change in the future if testing shows the time limit isn't working out at all? Sure. Until then, however, it is here to stay. Judge it based on your actual experiences with it instead of your fears of what it could theoretically end up being. As I said, I know this feature will be controversial, but I'm not one to shy away from controversy. I'd rather forge new paths and do new things instead of repeating what every porn game creator before me has done. That doesn't mean all my crazy ideas are going to work, but I'm going to damn well try.
This is, honestly, an aspect of the game that I'm not going to change at this juncture. There are certain foundations I have decided on for the total package to work, and this is one of them. Could it change in the future if testing shows the time limit isn't working out at all? Sure. Until then, however, it is here to stay. Judge it based on your actual experiences with it instead of your fears of what it could theoretically end up being. As I said, I know this feature will be controversial, but I'm not one to shy away from controversy. I'd rather forge new paths and do new things instead of repeating what every porn game creator before me has done. That doesn't mean all my crazy ideas are going to work, but I'm going to damn well try.
- Sep 29, 2017
- 7,319
- 15,639
wait! since the game ends when the princess arrives does that mean we won't get to f.... know her good?
i m ok if i can enjoy the game at my rythm and explore it (like if doing 1 or 2 day absolutly nothing , after all we play an ultra lazy guy ^^ )
as exempl, i m ok to restart the game again just for progress with Primrose .
but in the same time, i dont know how you are going to do that without making the player to get too much déja vu from the last play.
i just wait and see. its good for now
as exempl, i m ok to restart the game again just for progress with Primrose
.but in the same time, i dont know how you are going to do that without making the player to get too much déja vu from the last play.
i just wait and see. its good for now
its mentionned by the witch herself, and belle and the player and ... well whatever.. yes, you can fuck her for sure, its obvious as you need to be "close" to her and get her some dark secret for cure her (if i understand good the story) , cause you need to cast the spell on her for cure her
For these first few versions, you'll be forced to restart every time I release an update anyway. This is because I keep making both small and big changes to things going on behind the scenes in the early game. Once things stabilize (perhaps with 0.3), I'll try to introduce the loading of saves from earlier versions. As of version 0.20, loading old saves is explicitly disabled since I saw a number of players running into crash bugs because they loaded saves from 0.101.i m ok if i can enjoy the game at my rythm and explore it (like if doing 1 or 2 day absolutly nothing , after all we play an ultra lazy guy ^^ )
as exempl, i m ok to restart the game again just for progress with Primrose
but in the same time, i dont know how you are going to do that without making the player to get too much déja vu from the last play.
i just wait and see. its good for now
I don't want to talk too much about that part of the game yet, but I can say this: The arrival of the princess marks not the end of the game, but the beginning of the end-game. This is where your character has to show what he has learned throughout the game. The end-game will be significant in scope, but nothing like the rest of the game in terms of gameplay. You will be able to learn quite a lot about the Princess before then, even if you don't get to meet her personally until the end-game. In fact, you must learn as much as possible about her if you want to stand any chance of getting a good ending.
- Sep 29, 2017
- 7,319
- 15,639
It's not going to happen. This is a story specifically written for a male protagonist. The entire premise and climax would break apart if I tried to change it, so I couldn't add support for a female protagonist even if I wanted to. Sorry.
- Aug 18, 2017
- 2,329
- 2,446
I learned yesterday about the variable viewer in renpy and was checking things in the game, I discovered a clue about belle not being able to read that I missed the first time I played, that what happens when you don't go with all possibilities thinking you already did the right path
I was checking the variable viewer to see the points you get while interacting with the girls, for example you get perverted points or gentleman points with Primrose depending on what you do. I get that this is not relevant for now at this version, but it will certainly be in the future, so will there be some easy way to see those or will it always be omitted?
I was checking the variable viewer to see the points you get while interacting with the girls, for example you get perverted points or gentleman points with Primrose depending on what you do. I get that this is not relevant for now at this version, but it will certainly be in the future, so will there be some easy way to see those or will it always be omitted?
The clue you mention shows up in a situation where you have two choices. Each choice leads to a different clue but doesn't prevent you from gaining the other clue later. The clue about Belle comes from picking what would typically be a failure path in a regular visual novel and shows one of my design philosophies for this game. Choices should have interesting consequences no matter what you pick. This particular clue will also be possible to gain from other sources in the game, which is something we haven't been able to explore with the current version. Several clues can be obtained in multiple ways. Some clues should also be possible to use in multiple situations.
Don't read too much into the variables just yet. I keep changing them around. The ones you see for Primrose are being changed for 0.20. I would recommend not looking at them at all since they're supposed to be hidden information, but if you enjoy digging through the things going on behind the scenes then I'm not going to stop you. Just be considerate with what could be considered spoilers when talking about it, please.
I've been considering "anonymizing" the clues in the code because of this, but that also makes things harder for me to code. Not by much, but I'll have to look up a reference each time. These names don't just show up when scanning for variables, but also when the game crashes.
I made some small updates to my Patreon page today so that I won't get suspended in the same way Mr. Dots was for his Dating My Daughter game. Luckily, my game isn't built upon the incest concept, so I don't have to refer to it. The mind control aspect is a little trickier though, so I decided to reword references to it to make it appear more benign. Hopefully, that should be enough to keep Patreon's attention off me.
Hey Belle, about to ask you on patreon after saw that patreon gone full retard (ASOIAF can show incest, pillage, rape, child murder, cut someone dick off, etc. but somehow game can not give me a break) and decide better to ask you here.
- For a mind control thing probably need to change (I never like it anyway). You can going like MC know their deepest desire with the help of the spell of course that their try to suppress and MC have to convince them to accept that desire (by word and action) and they can all scream "PERSONA" at the end. :FeelsGoodMan:
- Will you change Evelyn relationship with MC or you are going to use wait and see approach what the big one do (DmD,DOD,BB). I like incest and will sad to see it change but if it need to I understand.
- Empress arcana girls are my favorite (except from 5) so are there any high born lady except the princess to be introduce ?