Ren'Py Completed Lust Academy [S4 v4.10.2a DLCs] [Bear in the Night]

[Sancho1969]

SanchoNote

Okay... I concede... maybe.

Folks have been blowing up my damn inbox regarding this VN so I decided to take a look. I haven't played this VN so by default I haven't obviously played S1. With that said I need a bit of help from one of you veterans of this VN, I have two questions at the bottom of this post.

First a few teasers. These are preliminary only. I make no promises or imply anything will reach public release stage at this point (I'm still sorting the UI and haven't even looked at the scripts for a ChoiceGuide)... I'm one busy redneck keeping up with the few public shares I've released from my private catalog.

​

Yes, those are named saves in the fourth teaser. Yes, I know it's currently tiny but the dev team didn't leave me much room to work with, I'll sort that later. TBH I'm truly on the fence with this VN as it's a mixed bag regarding code quality. There's some very respectable Python code in here but there's also a shit-ton of amateur code as well. It's as if chunks were stripped straight from StackOverflow and revised to make mostly functional (I say this since there's tell-tale signs like single code lines with both double-quotes and single-quotes and nobody on Earth types code out that way... ever). Maybe the team has an experienced coder and one still learning the ropes, I dunno, it's not really the point. Regardless it has some extremely frustrating portions that are making me jump through some serious hoops but I might do all of it just for the challenge alone... we'll see. Again, no promises.

Now, the 2 questions I really need resolve on as I just don't have the time to investigate for a few hours right now if I'm going to continue working on this side project plus I have 2 VN updates I'm working on that will drop between now and the first of next week.

• Is it imperative I stop all my work now and playthrough S1 to get a solid grasp of S2 pathings, etc.? Some of y'all know I work on some very complex VN's but I generally always have background before I jump into the deep end of the pool.
• There's a Sandbox and VN mode (this smells eerily familiar)... which one do most folks play? I don't want to code them simultaneously unless I must... it slows things down to a bog even with a multi-monitor setup.

Apologies for the long post and if the post reads snarky. I've been working on VN's non-stop for months straight and get a bit cranky periodically. Thank you in advance for answers to the above. Regards as always.

 

[Solomon Grundy]

• Is it imperative I stop all my work now and playthrough S1 to get a solid grasp of S2 pathings, etc.? Some of y'all know I work on some very complex VN's but I generally always have background before I jump into the deep end of the pool.
• There's a Sandbox and VN mode (this smells eerily familiar)... which one do most folks play? I don't want to code them simultaneously unless I must... it slows things down to a bog even with a multi-monitor setup.

For the first question, I'd say I don't think so. At least not for pathing, which is essentially, "Bang all the girls. And one dude if you're into that sort of thing." There are zero conflicts and none of them are mutually exclusive. Pure Harem Fantasy stuff here.

Almost everyone plays Sandbox, and it's my understanding that is the devs preferred way for people to play.

 

[Nemo56]

The choices are pretty much straight forward. Every scene stands on it's own, there is no 'path' to follow. I think you can even keep a girl in the friend zone the whole time and then bang her on the first opportunity. I never found out, what 'relationships' were carried from S1 to S2, I think it's only player stats and inventory.

 

[Deleted member 5878729]

• Is it imperative I stop all my work now and playthrough S1 to get a solid grasp of S2 pathings, etc.? Some of y'all know I work on some very complex VN's but I generally always have background before I jump into the deep end of the pool.
• There's a Sandbox and VN mode (this smells eerily familiar)... which one do most folks play? I don't want to code them simultaneously unless I must... it slows things down to a bog even with a multi-monitor setup.

1. Not necessary
2. Sandbox

 

[Sancho1969]

The choices are pretty much straight forward. Every scene stands on it's own, there is no 'path' to follow. I think you can even keep a girl in the friend zone the whole time and then bang her on the first opportunity. I never found out, what 'relationships' were carried from S1 to S2, I think it's only player stats and inventory.

Good morning. Now I'm really wondering... it must be folks want a mod for all the other features besides a walkthrough, since it would seem to me from these comments (remember it's me not having played it yet) that, if all paths are accessible, a guide is secondary to some other issue or need. Fine by me, I can release a UI enhancement only mod if that's what the playerbase is looking for. Thoughts?

 

[Nemo56]

You know how people are, before even installing the game they ask for a mod/walkthrough.

For this game in particular (I can only speak for the Sandbox mode) I hardly see any reason to do this.
The game has a ingame walkthrough which consists of two parts:
1. the quest guide. For every girl and the main quest you can see what to do next. In the few cases where that's not enough info there's the
2. scheduler
For each day and each time of the day you see an overview what activities there are available, it even shows if the activity will forward time or not. And if you are lazy enough you can click a activity in the evening and automatically foward time and jump to the according screen.
I have never seen any sandbox game that is as easy to follow as this one.
For each girl you can choose if you want to flirt (or whatever) or not and it's kinda obvious what losens the pants. So far I didn't see any later consequences for choices.

There is a weekly competition for house points which can be earned by going to lessons, performing activities, finding lost books (4 each day, sometimes 3, one location seems to be bugged) or by earning money and also by duelling.
In season 1 this is more important than in season 2, because the reward is a visit to a town on weekends with story components. In season 2 the visit will happen one way or another, but the winner gets a little pocket money.

The duels are a bit of a grind factor, once the max competition level is reached, there is a special enemy which requires very high stats.

The books could be made better visible, maybe also the option to get that flower on tuesday night. That's all I can really think of. There is one secret recipe that can be found at the cauldron including that flower, maybe a hint for that can be included.
I managed to miss the party on Sundays for the winning house, because I kept fast forwarding. Only by playing normally with the scheduled return home the party will take place.
An outrage (This is NTR!!!) was that at the optional spin the bottle game at that party a gay guy could kiss the girls ...
So maybe put a warning there.

 

[CrazyChicken87]

You know how people are, before even installing the game they ask for a mod/walk through.

For this game in particular (I can only speak for the Sandbox mode) I hardly see any reason to do this.
The game has a in game walk through which consists of two parts:
1. the quest guide. For every girl and the main quest you can see what to do next. In the few cases where that's not enough info there's the
2. scheduler
For each day and each time of the day you see an overview what activities there are available, it even shows if the activity will forward time or not. And if you are lazy enough you can click a activity in the evening and automatically forward time and jump to the according screen.
I have never seen any sandbox game that is as easy to follow as this one.
For each girl you can choose if you want to flirt (or whatever) or not and it's kinda obvious what loosens the pants. So far I didn't see any later consequences for choices.

There is a weekly competition for house points which can be earned by going to lessons, performing activities, finding lost books (4 each day, sometimes 3, one location seems to be bugged) or by earning money and also by dueling.
In season 1 this is more important than in season 2, because the reward is a visit to a town on weekends with story components. In season 2 the visit will happen one way or another, but the winner gets a little pocket money.

The duels are a bit of a grind factor, once the max competition level is reached, there is a special enemy which requires very high stats.

The books could be made better visible, maybe also the option to get that flower on Tuesday night. That's all I can really think of. There is one secret recipe that can be found at the cauldron including that flower, maybe a hint for that can be included.
I managed to miss the party on Sundays for the winning house, because I kept fast forwarding. Only by playing normally with the scheduled return home the party will take place.
An outrage (This is NTR!!!) was that at the optional spin the bottle game at that party a gay guy could kiss the girls ...
So maybe put a warning there.

I absolutely agree with you on this completely great minds think alike!

 

[CrazyChicken87]

For the first question, I'd say I don't think so. At least not for pathing, which is essentially, "Bang all the girls. And one dude if you're into that sort of thing." There are zero conflicts and none of them are mutually exclusive. Pure Harem Fantasy stuff here.

Almost everyone plays Sandbox, and it's my understanding that is the devs preferred way for people to play.

I play vn mode because I hate almost anything sandbox besides a few vn's

 

[Bear in the Night]

You know how people are, before even installing the game they ask for a mod/walkthrough.

For this game in particular (I can only speak for the Sandbox mode) I hardly see any reason to do this.
The game has a ingame walkthrough which consists of two parts:
1. the quest guide. For every girl and the main quest you can see what to do next. In the few cases where that's not enough info there's the
2. scheduler
For each day and each time of the day you see an overview what activities there are available, it even shows if the activity will forward time or not. And if you are lazy enough you can click a activity in the evening and automatically foward time and jump to the according screen.
I have never seen any sandbox game that is as easy to follow as this one.
For each girl you can choose if you want to flirt (or whatever) or not and it's kinda obvious what losens the pants. So far I didn't see any later consequences for choices.

There is a weekly competition for house points which can be earned by going to lessons, performing activities, finding lost books (4 each day, sometimes 3, one location seems to be bugged) or by earning money and also by duelling.
In season 1 this is more important than in season 2, because the reward is a visit to a town on weekends with story components. In season 2 the visit will happen one way or another, but the winner gets a little pocket money.

The duels are a bit of a grind factor, once the max competition level is reached, there is a special enemy which requires very high stats.

The books could be made better visible, maybe also the option to get that flower on tuesday night. That's all I can really think of. There is one secret recipe that can be found at the cauldron including that flower, maybe a hint for that can be included.
I managed to miss the party on Sundays for the winning house, because I kept fast forwarding. Only by playing normally with the scheduled return home the party will take place.
An outrage (This is NTR!!!) was that at the optional spin the bottle game at that party a gay guy could kiss the girls ...
So maybe put a warning there.

Btw, Do you really think about the student bottle game as NTR?

 

[Segnbora]

I agree with those who wonder how a walkthrough mod could enhance the gameplay. It's a sandbox that doesn't really advance unless you do the correct things, which the game already tells you exactly how to do.

I love your mods, but i'm not sure this is worth your time.

 

[Badjourasmix]

Btw, Do you really think about the student bottle game as NTR?

Yea some people will consider that NTR. I don't mind that kind of stuff as long as you can avoid it, but some people don't want any interaction between other males and the girls in game.

 

[Nemo56]

Btw, Do you really think about the student bottle game as NTR?

Heck no, but some guys reacted like that. In the worst case it could be called 'sharing' if one considers kissing is a sexual interaction.

 

[Nemo56]

I play vn mode because I hate almost anything sandbox besides a few vn's

That's where great minds differ The more the player has to do, the better. My favourite play style would be something like an point & click adventure game, meaning: A LOT more dialogue than sandbox usually have with NPCs giving hints about what to do next (not directly, but for example talking about the upcoming xy event or missing something). Collect items, combine them, use them with something specific. That's what I love House Party for. Except for the visials and relationship stats, it plays just like a classic adventure game. I also played "Moist" again a few days ago, a adult text adventure. That one is so awesome. Sadly with prerendered images it's impossible to have so many possible actions and variations.

Of course an adventure style game is not easy to do if you release your games in episores and updates, almost impossible. They require a lot more planing and sticking to the story. You have to prevent that a item gets consumed that becomes necessary only very late in the game to prevent dead ends. You need to see the game as a whole and not just add stuff the patreons want. That's why I stick to buying finished games and support games on kickstarter, they usually have an idea of what they want to do.

 

[Solomon Grundy]

You know how people are, before even installing the game they ask for a mod/walkthrough.

And then follow that up by begging for a completed save.

 

[Sancho1969]

Bug Report

Whoever has correspondence with the dev team, bug in the interface when using hotkeys, specifically "p" or "P" for the phone. The code calls for audio file "iphone" but it doesn't exist. The proper audio file name is "snd_iphone". This causes a non-fatal exception error. Can be found in four lines in the below snippet:

        if not renpy.get_screen('lustagram_screen'):
            key "p" action Function(setMusic, music = 'snd_phone_open'), Show('lustagram_screen', transition = Dissolve(.3)), Function(setMusic, music = 'iphone')
            key "P" action Function(setMusic, music = 'snd_phone_open'), Show('lustagram_screen', transition = Dissolve(.3)), Function(setMusic, music = 'iphone')
        else:
            key "p" action Function(setMusic, music = 'snd_phone_open'), Hide('lustagram_screen', transition = Dissolve(.3)), Function(setMusic, music = 'iphone')
            key "P" action Function(setMusic, music = 'snd_phone_open'), Hide('lustagram_screen', transition = Dissolve(.3)), Function(setMusic, music = 'iphone')

There's other bugs I've found but I haven't been logging them down since I'm not updating a mod, I'm writing it.

 

[Solomon Grundy]

Bug Report

Whoever has correspondence with the dev team, bug in the interface when using hotkeys, specifically "p" or "P" for the phone.

Dev team actually follows this thread, so they should see it. Also, you are doing hero's work, my dude.

 

[Sancho1969]

Dev team actually follows this thread, so they should see it. Also, you are doing hero's work, my dude.

Good deal and thank you for the info bud, sincerely. If they see this then I have more than a few items to point out that they really need to stop doing and get orthodox.

An example (I've already changed about a hundred of these) is using:
""

instead of the proper:
pause

A blank dialogue box is not the way to pause the game properly. It's a very poor and sloppy habit if I'm being honest. Whoever on the team is coding the Python should whisper in the ear of whoever is writing the dialogues. Little things like this will make a much more professional, efficient, and proper build. Obviously they don't expect someone like me to write code to modify their baby so they don't notice some of the the old habits that remain in the code, so hopefully me pointing some of these things out will help a few on the team improve their skills or be more noticeable of those things they already should know by now (considering this is the second season of the game).

Trust I'm not wagging my finger, I'm genuinely lending some sound advice to enhance the product, not deprecate it or belittle anyone. Regards, it's going to be a long and busy weekend in the studio.

 

[Bear in the Night]

Good deal and thank you for the info bud, sincerely. If they see this then I have more than a few items to point out that they really need to stop doing and get orthodox.

An example (I've already changed about a hundred of these) is using:
""

instead of the proper:
pause

A blank dialogue box is not the way to pause the game properly. It's a very poor and sloppy habit if I'm being honest. Whoever on the team is coding the Python should whisper in the ear of whoever is writing the dialogues. Little things like this will make a much more professional, efficient, and proper build. Obviously they don't expect someone like me to write code to modify their baby so they don't notice some of the the old habits that remain in the code, so hopefully me pointing some of these things out will help a few on the team improve their skills or be more noticeable of those things they already should know by now (considering this is the second season of the game).

Trust I'm not wagging my finger, I'm genuinely lending some sound advice to enhance the product, not deprecate it or belittle anyone. Regards, it's going to be a long and busy weekend in the studio.

Yup, we are here
So if you found anything else interesting - feel free to leave it here

 

[Sancho1969]

Yup, we are here
So if you found anything else interesting - feel free to leave it here

Good morning. See a bug report here in case you missed it bud. I'll do my best to go back and log the others I found as well. Regards.

 

[SonsOfLiberty]

There's other bugs I've found but I haven't been logging them down since I'm not updating a mod, I'm writing it.

So, guess I can look forward to replaying this one to then with a new mod addition