- May 5, 2019
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- 1,413
In game, get a boyfriend to love you and they should have a chance to fire a special date each week. There are some traits that prevent this (IIRC it's just misanthrope on the guy or aromantic on you, been a while since i looked at the full list of traits). To get the boyfriend, get a guy to visit your apartment enough and they have a chance to ask you, exchanging numbers helps a lot with that.
After the proposal the weekend option comes up to buy a dress, you can discuss vows when in your apartment with the fiance, and then another weekend option for the actual wedding ceremony.
In real life the steps are fairly similar, get a significant other, get to the point in your relationship where proposal is a good idea, plan the wedding. That's a very abridged version of it at least.
Funnily enough, an NPC being a Cold Hearted Misanthrope, and your PC being Aromantic at the same time does not prevent Marriage proposals.
Doesn't happen as often (a loving BF can at some points propose marriage week after week), but it can happen.
Don't ask me what the exact conditions are, I guess marriages of convenience happen in the world of NewLife
- Jun 27, 2017
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"Content". You make it sound like there is more than one or two short scenes
And yet they are still above-average in length and quality to the usual New Life update."Content". You make it sound like there is more than one or two short scenes
- Jan 20, 2019
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There is an active community on Discord with multiple NC scenes. There already is one NC iteration of the hypnosis scene, but they're working on making one that is not mediocre.
It's a branching scene with multiple variations... I haven't played it yet, but by looking at the code, there are about 7 or so variations and about two to three different branches. So it's a bit more than "one or two short scenes"."Content". You make it sound like there is more than one or two short scenes
- Nov 17, 2018
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I am on the discord and watching for it. I am a fan of modding the included game scenes because I don't want to have to force a NC Scene I want to play the game and have the events happen.
Most accurate and compact review of the game or its updates I've seen yet."Content". You make it sound like there is more than one or two short scenes
I want to know how the game can take so long or the developer spend so much time on adding clothing and hair styles for years on end...to a text based game you can't even see them in.
- Jan 20, 2019
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It's true that development is slow, but the developer never promised it to be fast... Why should he if people continue paying?
Also, there is one important thing to understand, that NewLife is a sandbox game. While visual novels are mostly paragraphs of text, a sandbox game is mostly code/logic.
Adding a paragraph to VN is pretty much a case of clicking Ctrl+V, while a sandbox game requires numerous lines of code laced through "content", possibly a rework/edit of an older codebase surrounding the new mechanic too...
I don't have personal experience writing stories (VNs) or games (like NL), but if you spend some time to learn a bit about it, sandbox is around 10x harder to develop than a VN.
Cheers.
Also, there is one important thing to understand, that NewLife is a sandbox game. While visual novels are mostly paragraphs of text, a sandbox game is mostly code/logic.
Adding a paragraph to VN is pretty much a case of clicking Ctrl+V, while a sandbox game requires numerous lines of code laced through "content", possibly a rework/edit of an older codebase surrounding the new mechanic too...
I don't have personal experience writing stories (VNs) or games (like NL), but if you spend some time to learn a bit about it, sandbox is around 10x harder to develop than a VN.
Cheers.
True.. there has not been much promises in the sense of timely updates or when X feature might get in really.. but.. in the past 2yrs of updates.. that have been done.. it seems most of the problem is in how the game was coded/made and the language its in (java).. its more than likely probable.. that in 2yrs it could have been refactored into something easier to code with (either another language or just the entire game structure rebuilt) in that period of time and after 2yrs we would have received more expansive or more impactful updates.
As it is now.. were getting drip fed little doses here and there.. and ok fine.. to bring in completely new things I get take time.. but for what appears to be simple shit.. like.. oh i dont know.. more clothing stores, themed stores, maybe even the ability to pick our own clothing attributes (rather than trying to hack the save file like i do all the time, and get clothes that the engine accepts and works with, that the game itself wont even auto generate)... More job backgrounds that are worth something and mean something.
More jobs even.. just even copy/paste some of the current jobs and then with very little text edits required, or very little new text made, just to give a slightly new job theme.. would be enough to flesh out what already exists in the game.
So.. yea.. no timeframe promises really made long term .. sure.. but very little progress when it comes to total overall, and total unique content. That is what NewLife gets knocked for every time.
As it is now.. were getting drip fed little doses here and there.. and ok fine.. to bring in completely new things I get take time.. but for what appears to be simple shit.. like.. oh i dont know.. more clothing stores, themed stores, maybe even the ability to pick our own clothing attributes (rather than trying to hack the save file like i do all the time, and get clothes that the engine accepts and works with, that the game itself wont even auto generate)... More job backgrounds that are worth something and mean something.
More jobs even.. just even copy/paste some of the current jobs and then with very little text edits required, or very little new text made, just to give a slightly new job theme.. would be enough to flesh out what already exists in the game.
So.. yea.. no timeframe promises really made long term .. sure.. but very little progress when it comes to total overall, and total unique content. That is what NewLife gets knocked for every time.
The files are json text files. Notepad++ or similar should include a JSON Format function.. that will make it human readable rather than one gigantic line. Mostly... its probably not worth it.. i do it for theme and flavor, but in the end it probably doesnt change much other than make it easier or harder to hit certain criteria in the game for events, like things based on score (cute vs elegant vs slutty vs casual) and the occasional content triggers on certain flags. The harder part sometimes is knowing what triggered on what.
But let say you wanted an entirely sheer dress.. you can do that and set that flag and the game will spit out appropriate text for it in clothing descriptions and scene descriptions, etc.. does it actually affect anything?.. i have no idea.. but its anything to enhance the overall BLAH from everything else.
I have posts way back from a few versions ago with some tips and an example of what things look like. They dont include some of the newer character flags, but not much has changed.
The other thing thats really nice about the file editing though.. is you can read thru and figure out alot of stuff.
Ever blaze thru a scene and accidently say yes to recording?.. you can go find the "vid" and "clips" sections and tags and variables and zero those out (or "null" in some cases).
So .. worth it?.. thats up to you... you can min max things if you please.. recode entire NPCs, undo things, force things (if you know what to look for change).
I keep a text snip of the entire wardrobe the way I like it.. cause.. really.. at a certain point the clothes in the game mean nothing really.. they are just a stat or a flag for events.. I have sets where at least on random it can at least generate some scene variation.
link to post of posts.
https://f95zone.to/threads/newlife-v0-7-7c-patreon-splendid-ostrich.293/post-7278186
But let say you wanted an entirely sheer dress.. you can do that and set that flag and the game will spit out appropriate text for it in clothing descriptions and scene descriptions, etc.. does it actually affect anything?.. i have no idea.. but its anything to enhance the overall BLAH from everything else.
I have posts way back from a few versions ago with some tips and an example of what things look like. They dont include some of the newer character flags, but not much has changed.
The other thing thats really nice about the file editing though.. is you can read thru and figure out alot of stuff.
Ever blaze thru a scene and accidently say yes to recording?.. you can go find the "vid" and "clips" sections and tags and variables and zero those out (or "null" in some cases).
So .. worth it?.. thats up to you... you can min max things if you please.. recode entire NPCs, undo things, force things (if you know what to look for change).
I keep a text snip of the entire wardrobe the way I like it.. cause.. really.. at a certain point the clothes in the game mean nothing really.. they are just a stat or a flag for events.. I have sets where at least on random it can at least generate some scene variation.
link to post of posts.
https://f95zone.to/threads/newlife-v0-7-7c-patreon-splendid-ostrich.293/post-7278186
I'm not going to make any judgment calls regarding Newlife's internal architecture because I haven't looked at it, but I don't think using Java is a problem. Sure, it's not what is usually used for Adult Games, but Java is a tried and tested programming language with some of the of the best development tools in the industry. I mean, for example basically all Android apps were written in Java until Google promoted Kotlin to a first-class programming language in 2017 and there are a lot of Android apps that are more challenging than Newlife from a coding point-of-view.
And I don't think rewriting the whole game in a different language would have been that well received, considering that that would have meant a couple months of no updates and then chasing down bugs that slipped in with the rewrite for a couple more months afterwards at the very least. There is a reason why the general software development recommendation is to not throw out battle tested code unless there is no other way. If the internal architecture is shitty, you'd be better off slowly refactoring one part after another during normal development, as you mentioned.
Regarding the speed of development, I'm not going to lie and say that I wouldn't like bigger more meaty updates. But on the other hand, I think that creating a sort of dynamic sandbox game like this is much harder than it looks on the surface. The damning evidence in that regard being basically any other game that tries to do similar things as Newlife either falling flat on its face in the prototype stage or going into a similar type of development hell as Newlife is in if it does manage to get into something resembling a playable state.
The problem is it is a very shallow and repetitive sandbox, very superficial, so may as well just be an interactive novel as you will come across the same sequences and descriptions over and over again even in one playthrough. Feels something of a grind. When you add "skip sex scenes" to your porn game as a feature because they are too boring for the players then you've admitted failing its main purpose. If someone can't do it after several years and other devs can churn out several IFs or VNs in that time with far more novel content then what's the point of the project? Reading the same lines over and over isn't much of a sandbox more than playing the same VN is. And yes, your first line in that post sums up the problem with this game and all the patreon pay pig systems with poor work ethic or project problems - why should they work hard (or at all?) when the money flows in from horny customers hoping they'll get some scraps eventually? It's basically welfare from horny people. We see even cancelled and abandoned projects keep their patreons up to keep the money in even years later. Morally it is cynical at best and bankrupt at worst way to approach things but if all you care about is taking someone's money any way you can then whatever. The developer did have a different approach and output early on, with more rapid updates, more signficant updates back then and the regular update schedule that appeared to promise good things. It's obviously become a struggle for whatever reason for SO. I think the problem is not that the developer approached this with any kind of "scam" in mind at all but rather that they stumbled into relative success but lack the ability and discipline in coding to fully adapt to it and keep it going and is probably a mental drain to boot at this point.
What happens is typically an overambitious project, a "my first project" terrible spaghetti code foundations laid down that becomes the backbone and then they want to add content WHILE trying to build the skeleton of it at the same time, to keep the subscribers and interest from watchers coming in, even if it is clearly a terrible way to code a software project. Even worse if you're basically learning how to code at the same time. Eventually you're years into a project that's now your only thing (possibly you've even made yourself dependant upon it financially too so you're scared to do anything to upset this apple cart) that's now a wobbling disaster and ever more difficult to update and fix. You're terrified of starting over or gutting it and rebuilding as that will mean a real normal dev cycle of nothing to show the public for months or longer and then a bare bone skeleton after, even if the structure for coding and future updates would be far better and the whole thing better for the customers in every way. It's doomed to fail in a long slow misrable dwindling mess both code and financially if the developer doesn't have the backbone to say "hell with it" and either start over with something new with all the lessons learned from the project (even as a side project to start with and migrate people...) or a rebuild while they still have an audience and some goodwill to tap into.
There's a lot of good crowdfunding usage and people who are very open about what they do and their tip jars and funding systems too. The problems lie with the customers and their naive behavior mostly, much like many of the kickstarter disasters that get featured in news from time to time.
The only ways I can see NL end is with a tragic long whimper or being taken around the back fo the woodshed by the devs and dealt with ol yeller style to be replaced with a much better new project (even if it is just NL 2.0). The latter would be best and would be best done before desperation and letting NL dwindle to life support status, with a handful of people still delusionally making more excuses for it getting slower and more bogged down in problems, probably due to sunk cost fallacies in action. It would be mentally better and good for morale. I bet SO at times probably dreads the monthly deadlines and having to juggle things to keep it going while struggling with code.
A more experienced coder would not have approached things as SO did, nor would they have had the same issues and performance. Perhaps with SO being more experienced now in the pitfalls a fresh start would be ideal. Think of the waste of time and talent having SO struggle for more years to....what? Another few text descriptions of outfits that make no difference to gameplay? A minimal scene that takes less than thirty seconds to play through and requires a billion special conditons and good luck to fire? When instead solid progress could be made with the right planning and tools on something else instead and let vision and experience shine not weighted down by spaghetti code chains.
Lillith's Throne suffered similar problems with the foundation of it (notorious performance issues even on good PCs, for instance), probably Girl's Life did too (both better and bigger in their own way than this game, tbh). There's a few that did sandbox in various ways better with more content already and lessons can be learned from many projects to make something new and better.
I haven't read this but I can already tell it has more words in it then the last 5 updates put together.
Now now, we have to be fair: it doesn't have a series of text buttons that allow us to move between the sentences.
Also it doesn't repeat itself like 50 times in 5 minutes.
I've made this point before, but I'd like to reiterate that from what I've seen SO publishes the same amount of content now as previously. I've got quite a few criticisms of the game design of Newlife, but in this area I think he's consistent.
I saw an interesting talk a while back, though unfortunately I can't find the link now. It was regarding a different target audience (I think the company made narrative mobile games for teenagers) but they'd put a lot of telemetry on their games and were talking about their analysis of the results.
Their take was that the data showed that their titles with significant narrative branching (decisions sending the narrative [the story] in a completely different direction) weren't replayed much more than linear games (where the game's narrative effectively ignored the player's choices). However, titles where the game's NPCs seemed to note and react in small ways to the player's choices were replayed heavily, even if they had virtually no narrative branching.
Again, different subject matter, different target audience, and arguably a different game style altogether if you consider Newlife to be more of a roguelike than a work of highly branching interactive fiction. But it suggests that if your aim is for people to feel immersed enough to repeatedly play through your text game, the significant amount of extra time required to create content with technical depth may simply not pay off compared to content with shallow but responsive detail.
I saw an interesting talk a while back, though unfortunately I can't find the link now. It was regarding a different target audience (I think the company made narrative mobile games for teenagers) but they'd put a lot of telemetry on their games and were talking about their analysis of the results.
Their take was that the data showed that their titles with significant narrative branching (decisions sending the narrative [the story] in a completely different direction) weren't replayed much more than linear games (where the game's narrative effectively ignored the player's choices). However, titles where the game's NPCs seemed to note and react in small ways to the player's choices were replayed heavily, even if they had virtually no narrative branching.
Again, different subject matter, different target audience, and arguably a different game style altogether if you consider Newlife to be more of a roguelike than a work of highly branching interactive fiction. But it suggests that if your aim is for people to feel immersed enough to repeatedly play through your text game, the significant amount of extra time required to create content with technical depth may simply not pay off compared to content with shallow but responsive detail.
Well tetell games did that, it worked for a while and then they went under. So, nope.
The aim is to satisfy people's lusts, really. No one is playing Newlife to get deep and profound philosophical insights, nor are they playing it for the quality of the gameplay, which is bare bones basic and repetitive. This is why content is king and having to resort to skipping sex scenes says it's on a bad path. The only worthrhile updates are actual new scenes and variety to them. Maybe he needs to learn how to touch type or something or just declare open season and let the mod scene do all the heavy lifting if they are willing?