Ren'Py Making a Mark [v0.18.00] [Fasder]

[Fasder]

So basicly, i need to restart.

I think you're missing the dildo, if you bought it but it was never delivered things might be bugged.

Is there any walkthrough ?

There is a walkthrough available for my patrons, but the stuff you're working on should still be included in the walkthrough in OP.

Btw idk the word but this game is exelent, keep up...

Thank you.

 

[Trasher2018]

Any news on the next update for this game?

 

[Fasder]

Any news on the next update for this game?

Almost burnt myself out completely while doing the last update so I'm taking things slowly, next one is in the works though.

 

[Hermit76]

Last one was very nice, especially the sequence at the end. But I still hope that the mother will be included in the action, too.

 

[Ennoch]

Almost burnt myself out completely while doing the last update so I'm taking things slowly

"Eagerness must tempered by caution or else disaster is inevitable..!"

Yes, mommy fans are lurking in the shadows still, dear Fasder, even if your plans doesn't include her as much, don't forget, we are still there in the shadows around every corner! :relievedface:

 

[Fasder]

"Eagerness must tempered by caution or else disaster is inevitable..!"

Swap out eagerness with stress and it's pretty spot on.

even if your plans doesn't include her as much

But I still hope that the mother will be included in the action

There will be some stuff, no M/S content planned though.

 

[Pattitto00]

Estimated date for next update?

 

[Fasder]

Estimated date for next update?

When it's done.

 

[Pattitto00]

When it's done.

Ty!

 

[Dragonflight]

Finally got around to catch up on some games here and of course want to leave a little feedback on Life as well
And apologies for the wot in advance.


For the most part I can echo what Retro said already:

- Pretty, and well done renders for backgrounds and characters. Well a few look a little wonky but they are in the early
parts of the game and showcase how much progress you have made since the beginning.

- The boobs look artificial but if I got you right that's part of the aesthetic and I don't really mind. Besides,
some of the renders look really awesome regardless by any measure. The... stuffing of items, for lack of a better term,
is not my thing either, but to each their own and it's not exactly a challenge to skip forward

- The dialogs and text are readable, not only in that they're not a grammatical nightmare, most of it sounds like actual
dialogs people could have. That's missing in a lot of games, so big thumbs up. Another thumb up for the network stuff,
made me smirk since I have a background in that. And sometimes shake my head as well; like for the dumpster diving
since I wouldn't define it this way but it's not a big deal. Might even has been from an official source and those tend to
be... special.

- The story: Well, it's an incest game and thanks to the dialogues it's way ahead of most games from what I can tell. I'm
by no means an expert tho, so I don't know if that counts for much.

- The grind/repetition: I don't mind grind as long as it makes sense and there is a fitting payoff.
You already addressed that you wanted this story to take place over several month, so maybe just a transition screen,
saying another week has passed when a certain stage is reached could help?

The unfortunate side effects (imo) for grinding periods are
a) it can obviously be incredibly boring to go through day after day where nothing happens and if an invisible timer is
set, one can just leave the game thinking he/she has reached the end of the current iteration; the encounter
indicator helps, but ??? is a little vague especially once u figure out that some stuff seems optional

b) all the writing is automatically inflated because you see it quite a few times till you're sure that this scene has
run its course; which coincidentally can lead to you not re-visiting scenes as you believe smt else will trigger with
a timer, leading back to a)


I mean re-playing it will probably be a lot faster and feedback for the final release will be different, but this is the current release, so sorry for repeating a lot of stuff that people have said before.


I got Heather to 56, the twins to 37 and Helen to 31, and with only missing the last two twin encounters I thought that that was pretty much it for this update since nothing seem to move anymore. Then I stumbled over Heather playing with herself in the shower... From reading up a little on here it seems I have missed somehow that I need to buy 5 bottles of wine too, weird. I didn't ctlr through much of the text but after being at it for a while I guess I got a little tired and distracted, so that got buried there.
Right now I'm undecided if I want to grind on or wait for another update. Not that that is significant for the further development of your game, I'm just trying to provide one more person's perspective that started from scratch and where it can go from there.
Up to this point I was able to connect the dots and work things out without the walkthrough and some patience tho, so I guess that's a compliment to you and me both, lol.

Anyhow, fingers still crossed things go well in and out of game. Very good job for a first attempt (!) and from what you wrote it'll probably only get better And on a side note: I didn't run into any bugs or glitches with this version, so your bugfixing is not for naught either.


ps: I love your choice for the menu music, and another thumbs up for providing all the credits.

 

[Fasder]

- Pretty, and well done renders for backgrounds and characters. Well a few look a little wonky but they are in the early
parts of the game and showcase how much progress you have made since the beginning.

There are a lot of render I'd like to throw out and re-do, as I have a couple of times. It has just come to a point where there are simply too many of them for it to be worth putting any time into.

if I got you right that's part of the aesthetic

That is indeed the case.

The... stuffing of items, for lack of a better term,
is not my thing either, but to each their own and it's not exactly a challenge to skip forward

I'm trying to make those types of things optional, it's not always doable though as sometimes they end up being part of the story. Going forward I'd like to make at least butt stuff optional.

most of it sounds like actual
dialogs people could have.

Thanks, I like writing the dialogue.

And sometimes shake my head as well; like for the dumpster diving
since I wouldn't define it this way but it's not a big deal.

So I'm not completely sure what you're referring to here but if you have anything to enlighten me with then I shall listen.

- The story: Well, it's an incest game and thanks to the dialogues it's way ahead of most games from what I can tell. I'm
by no means an expert tho, so I don't know if that counts for much.

There have been a good chunk of people calling it a realistic story. I wouldn't call it very realistic, in fact I'd say it's pretty unrealistic. What I would say, however, is that it's pretty plausible and it doesn't have a huge amount of suspense of disbelief, or at least not as much as most other games out there.

- The grind/repetition: I don't mind grind as long as it makes sense and there is a fitting payoff.
You already addressed that you wanted this story to take place over several month, so maybe just a transition screen,
saying another week has passed when a certain stage is reached could help?

You know, I had another reason in the back of my head a few days ago, but all things fade with time.
What you're suggesting would have a lot of "a few days later", "a week later", etc. It's just becomes too much at a certain point.
What I failed to mention in that post was that it's a reward system, as well as for pacing.
You do scene x, y amount of time and you get scene b as a reward, in the meantime you're also grinding scene z which will trigger scene a. So once you're halfway to b scene a will trigger, which automatically will make it feel like less of a grind. I think... I'm kind of tried.

and if an invisible timer is
set

All stats are shown, you can see them all. What you don't see are the actual variables which I use for gating and verification of any given scene. These are used in the achievements menu, so you really do have about 90% of everything available.

the encounter
indicator helps, but ??? is a little vague

Yes, I can see how it may be a little vague, but once the game is done I plan on packaging the walkthrough with the game, so if you're stuck then you can simply take a look in the walkthrough.
There is an inherent value in making the player do things, not just what they expect or want to, but doing what needs to be done, even if the road is a little bumpy. I realize that it's a bit of a controversial thing seeing as "people play games to escape real life, not get more of it", but it's always been those types of games I enjoy, don't ask me why.

especially once u figure out that some stuff seems optional

Some stuff is optional, yes, anything behind the bathroom door is optional and basically the whole Helen story line is optional, that's about it.

which coincidentally can lead to you not re-visiting scenes as you believe smt else will trigger with
a timer, leading back to

Yes... that's a bit of a problem. I've noticed this with the last part of Helen's storyline.
Some have suggested an alert system, but I honestly don't know how I would make one (and integrate it with my current system).
There is also the fact that from the beginning of the game scenes have changed after a bigger scene been triggered, though, it might not be as clear as I'd like it to be. But I don't think it's unreasonable to expect people to start exploring, trying "old" scenes to see if they're changed, if they're stuck.

I mean re-playing it will probably be a lot faster and feedback for the final release will be different, but this is the current release, so sorry for repeating a lot of stuff that people have said before.

Don't worry about it.

I got Heather to 56

Seeing as there is no Heather in my game and the only character who can get to 56 is Sarah, I will assume that Heather == Sarah.

the twins to 37 and Helen to 31, and with only missing the last two twin encounters I thought that that was pretty much it for this update since nothing seem to move anymore.

Spoiler

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Then I stumbled over Heather playing with herself in the shower...

That's a pretty old scene, and an optional one too.

From reading up a little on here it seems I have missed somehow that I need to buy 5 bottles of wine too, weird. I didn't ctlr through much of the text but after being at it for a while I guess I got a little tired and distracted, so that got buried there.

If the stats you gave me are your current ones then you are yet to be informed about the wine.

Right now I'm undecided if I want to grind on or wait for another update. Not that that is significant for the further development of your game, I'm just trying to provide one more person's perspective that started from scratch and where it can go from there.

Normally I would agree, but you're missing basically everything from 0.08.04 still which was a big god damned update, with a lot of stuff in it. So I'd recommend going the extra mile to see what's on the other side.

Up to this point I was able to connect the dots and work things out without the walkthrough and some patience tho, so I guess that's a compliment to you and me both, lol.

That's great to hear! I guess I don't suck complete ass at this thing.

Anyhow, fingers still crossed things go well in and out of game. Very good job for a first attempt (!) and from what you wrote it'll probably only get better And on a side note: I didn't run into any bugs or glitches with this version, so your bugfixing is not for naught either.

Thank you!

P.S.
I remember your initial comments in this thread from like 10 months ago, I'm glad you finally got around to playing/giving feedback, I've been looking forward to it. You seem to get what I'm doing/going for so if you have anything else to comment on then, like I said last time, feel free to send me a PM.

 

[Dragonflight]

I think... I'm kind of tried.

I need to get some sleep pronto myself, as evidenced by this:

Seeing as there is no Heather in my game and the only character who can get to 56 is Sarah, I will assume that Heather == Sarah.

*facepalm*...Yes, of course.

Therefore I'll wish you a good night/day for now and reply after some zzz...

 

[Dragonflight]

I was thinking about moving it to a PM but posting here can save you answering more of the same questions again, and even one less repeat post can be a blessing sometimes ... I know I do like to read parts of threads sometimes and it saved me a lot of posts on top of stumbling on some amusing convos too. But to not turn this into a one page - post, I'll put stuff into spoilers.

I'm trying to make those types of things optional, it's not always doable though as sometimes they end up being part of the story. Going forward I'd like to make at least butt stuff optional.

I assume like the gym-scene, since the repeatable scene with Helen has a choice? I like regular anal in games since it can be more than a little hassle IRL. At least if it isn't you that has to do renders for games as well ^^

So I'm not completely sure what you're referring to here but if you have anything to enlighten me with then I shall listen.

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What I failed to mention in that post was that it's a reward system, as well as for pacing.
You do scene x, y amount of time and you get scene b as a reward, in the meantime you're also grinding scene z which will trigger scene a. So once you're halfway to b scene a will trigger, which automatically will make it feel like less of a grind.

It was just a thing that came to mind when I wrote the reply and with no timed triggers it's much less useful. Especially considering that the initial implementation and then moving forward from there is more work and more variables, prolly not worth the trouble. As for the reward and pacing: Conceptually it sounds great and I'm sure some people jived with it immediately straight up to the end, but with the amount of people commenting on it, I'd say the sweet spot hasn't been hit yet.
I still enjoy playing rogue-likes, adventure games and old-school rpgs, so I don't need instant gratification and can appreciate a slow build up. But I know that I did a lot of unnecessary clicking in trying to advance the plot, and I can understand why the 'advance time' - button is such a popular feature. Even only an hour would halve the amount of clicking for the player to test things.
Tv = 2 clicks + moving to avoid interacting with Sarah, so you can be sure there was nothing missed somewhere else while watching TV with her.
1 hour button = 1 click. Wouldn't even make the TV pointless since there are still events taking place.
It does make it a clickfest tho and I don't see you liking going down that road. Both ways aren't too great, but the second one is more convenient and less ambiguous to the player.
Personally, I had some events trigger very smoothly. Which made it so much more of a slog when I worked the wrong angle, not knowing what's next. The encounter-log was what told me that there was still a road ahead.

All stats are shown, you can see them all. What you don't see are the actual variables which I use for gating and verification of any given scene. These are used in the achievements menu, so you really do have about 90% of everything available.

Thanks! For the clarification and providing the info ingame, very much appreciated.

Yes, I can see how it may be a little vague, but once the game is done I plan on packaging the walkthrough with the game, so if you're stuck then you can simply take a look in the walkthrough.
There is an inherent value in making the player do things, not just what they expect or want to, but doing what needs to be done, even if the road is a little bumpy. I realize that it's a bit of a controversial thing seeing as "people play games to escape real life, not get more of it", but it's always been those types of games I enjoy, don't ask me why.

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Some stuff is optional, yes, anything behind the bathroom door is optional and basically the whole Helen story line is optional, that's about it.

Isn't Helen's story line essential to make your exams? I'm probably confusing something here. The bathroom door was my clue to that there is more yet, beyond the missing watersports, and I should consider reading up if I get stuck again.

There is also the fact that from the beginning of the game scenes have changed after a bigger scene been triggered, though, it might not be as clear as I'd like it to be. But I don't think it's unreasonable to expect people to start exploring, trying "old" scenes to see if they're changed, if they're stuck.

Naah, it's not unreasonable. I remembered her saying to meet after hours and the message about the working hours was enough. But if had to stop playing for say, a week, and came back to it, it might have come down to a coin toss if I would have remembered what to do exactly. That's kind of a problem for *all* games that demand remembering things and makes a lot of letsplays unwatchable ^^ The best solution to that so far is usually a hint system but you have the achievement/encounter scroll already. Reworking that, knowing that there won't be a perfect solution might be a way? As painful as it probably sounds... Generally, it really isn't that bad in its current state, but I imagine your view as the dev is a little skewed cause you have all the info to begin with. And people usually start posting when they're irritated by something, which makes it look more and more questionable; and with rude posts one can become annoyed and defensive and less inclined to make a change. For a new dev going public for the first time, my impressions are that you are handling it rather well tho.

If the stats you gave me are your current ones then you are yet to be informed about the wine.

Awesome, those were my current stats.

Normally I would agree, but you're missing basically everything from 0.08.04 still which was a big god damned update, with a lot of stuff in it. So I'd recommend going the extra mile to see what's on the other side.

Haha, that's what I figured after I looked through the last pages. Here's how things went down after:

Spoiler

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I guess I don't suck complete ass at this thing.

Lol, no. It's normal that things need a lot of fine tuning when you start out - and feedback can be a bitch...
There is always a fierce competition on the adult market, but you are spoiling your game with some things that are not very common, much less so from beginners. Like animations (was happy to see you didn't neglect those ), background noise for the environments, a pleasant title song to welcome new players, a rather clean interface; just to mention what comes to mind spontaneously. Is it still rough around the edges? Yeah, but after all it's still in development.

And yeah, we can move that to PM if you want. Doing this manually and rarely; the thought that if I missed one slash or smt. in the formatting in this post, oyoyoy... lol.

 

[Fasder]

Spoiler: Long-ass post

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[Dragonflight]

Long-ass post

You can't do good conversations in twitter only format ^^

Spoiler: PM

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Alright, lets consolidate this bit so it's not all over the place and a pain to format
This is what I thought I knew when I got back from skimming this thread, my stats were from playing the week before:

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Yes, the gym scene, Jenny's two scenes in the store and with Helen in her office. All of which I would've like to be optional but ended up not being optional. (I guess the scene with Helen is sort of optional in a way)

I wouldn't worry too much about it. The vast majority playing are prolly male and appreciate any kind of penetration if it's not in your face all the time, except if it's the protagonist's noodle. Now, if you had animals or futa, especially untagged, that would be a whole different matter.

The art of finding discarded information on networks in the garbage is referred to as 'dumpster diving'.
I guess I could omit the "on networks" part, otherwise it seems pretty clear cut to me.

Mhm. It makes for a no-brainer question now but giving the player a freebee never hurt anyone. Oh, and lol on the single point of failure ^^

I can change things and make it "easier", I'm just not sure if I want to.
But if you're legitimately stuck, that's where the walkthrough would come in pretty handy, no?

You want a game, not a VN, or at least smt that doesn't feel and play like a VN. That's at least how it feels to me and I'm with you on that. But you do want people to play it and not just have it sit somewhere on your harddrive. Boils down to how much stubbornness/patience does your player have to bring to the table. Yeah, we are running circles but I think there's still some breathing room left ^^

On the other hand that can lead to another 30 mins of clicking at the wrong tree and sheer boredom
That's pretty much what I've been going for all along, I feel like it's a small price to pay.

I think that might be where we disagree because those 30 mins add up, and it's hours of my life I could have done other things or played other games. I'm willing to sit down and play and grind for hours and hours, but if I have 30 minutes enjoyable time of a game, in about... 6 hours, that's a bad ratio to me. If I come back and invest another 4 hours for 10 minutes, that's just don't seem worth it. It's not about the fappable part either: I can easily extract the images but for me that would do your game injustice. I'd rather see it become a more intuitive game.

Honestly, that sort of what I was going for, the game with a handbook.
The game is linear in a sense, it's just non-linear for when thing happen, sort of.

So it will be the best of both worlds - someday A hint book for a linear section of a game with a very limited scope of characters is tricky. And can't be perfect cause it has to be a little vague and ambiguous, otherwise it's a to-do list.
Let's see... I got stuck on the twins, a hint could be.. double the training, double the fun? Meh, that's kinda terrible but that just came from the top of my head. Quite a bit of extra work with the 5-point affection steps but I'm sure it can be done in a good enough way.

Essentially I would integrate the walkthrough into the game. You'd have an objectives tab or something where it says what to do E.G. "Meet up with Sarah at 22:00" or "Get 35 affection with Helen" or "Buy the dildo".
But it would really make the game less of a game and more of a "ride" if you get what I mean. You're not actually doing anything, just following instructions.

Sounds less fun to me as well. Hints for curious people and the WT for the less inclined. Would also satisfy the people who get the final version hoping for a "click here to progress" - kind of thing.

I like the idea of making people keep track of things manually, but I see your point.

Sadist Joking aside, I liked what a few games do in that they just give you a section to scribble your own notes on. The last time I drew a map for a game was in the 90's, but I played 'Shadows over Riva' and parts of 'Shannara' not long ago and wrote some things down there, which was surprisingly fun.

The best things for last:

Yeah, I'm not sure if that's good or bad, but I like making it, so what the hell.

Best sentence I've heard from a dev in a long time. Works great even without context ^_^
Frame it and put it on a wall somewhere

 

[Fasder]

Spoiler: Another long post

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[Dragonflight]

@Fasder Dang it, I just logged out when I saw your post on the front page. I'll just upload my last save, gonna be back later. And yup, the strapon is in my inventory, checked that one too cause I looked at *everything*.
- But the clock, lol.

 

[Fasder]

@Fasder Dang it, I just logged out when I saw your post on the front page. I'll just upload my last save, gonna be back later. And yup, the strapon is in my inventory, checked that one too cause I looked at *everything*.
- But the clock, lol.

Good news, it's not a bug.

Spoiler: Check here if you want to know what you did wrong

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[Dragonflight]

Yes, but if I can make it optional, I will. That's basically what I'm trying to say.

You know what my favorite word in adult games is? Optional

Well, I'm pretty stubborn, maybe I'm more stubborn than the average person.
It's pretty much about how willing you are to sacrifice some time to see it to the end, so it's an objective thing. If you hate the story, then you're probably not going to finish the game.
We'll see how it goes, I'm not set on any huge changes.

I don't think it needs huge changes, and with everybody unanimously agreeing on the cabine scene (that should be interesting ) being amazing, it's a solid WIP.

if intuitive == False:
$intuitive = True

If not intuitive, set it to intuitive? I'm not a coder. I like what you can do with it but haven't found a project and programing language that wasn't just kinda yuk to work with to me. Not that I've been on the lookout.

Jokes aside, it's pretty difficult to make it into an intuitive experience, a lot of stuff that have been very obvious and easy for some players have been really difficult for some. If you're going to make a game that's catering to everyone it's likely going to be very simplistic in nature. Not that simplistic is bad, it's just that I don't enjoy that part very much.
Needless to say, I know there are issues, most of them are things I can't do too much about without making really big changes.

I'm aware, so: Amen.

Something like:
- Raise Sarah's affection level to x
Could possibly work, it's still not clear when or where you can raise the affection level.

Dunno. At some point I noticed that affection didn't go up while spending time with people, so that was never a roadblock to me. Likewise, not being able to buy the dildo implied that that was due for a later time. Finding Helen in the night was more of a task and a nice surprise. I was wondering the streets before even while the twins were out but gave up at some point. Trying random combinations is not the worst thing ever, but I dare say it's not a good design philosophy in my book. Maybe a sentence in the tutorial would suffice already to prime people on affection issues, but hey; you're the dev and you have the feedback, I could be the odd one out here with the wrong suggestion.

I kind of like both...

if (options > 1)
{ player = happy
I know it's wrong even for pseudo code but you get the idea ^^

 

[Dragonflight]

If this is what you suspected, why didn't you say so in the first place? Gotcha and thanks! That explains it and I'm happy to hear it's not a bug. Of course, if you want to work out with the twins, the gym is off limits, duh...
Mark skipped training once or twice but must have went to work late morning those days. I guess the moral of this is that work is bad for your health or smt, *g*
Gimme a sec... Yup, it works! I'll enjoy going through it over the weekend and get back to you. Have fun!