stochastic

Newbie
Dec 21, 2019
58
93
It's simply a fact of life that most projects (~99%?) will not go past the idea or maybe basic alpha stage. I work as a programmer, and this game, to me, looks very easily replicated in a few months' work at worst from a coding perspective, and you can write the prose as you go along. Technically, it's not too hard and not that much of a time-sink. If you have intermediate coding skills (this game only uses the basic Java window and GUI library, some YAML parsing, and OOP and imperative fundamentals, nothing very specialised!), you can clone this game in little time

The problem is motivation, game design, persistence, decision anxiety, etc. all psychological factors. How do you convince yourself to just do it? How do you figure out the game you want to make, and start making it, and then push it "to market"?

This game has been moving along glacially, sure, but it's moving along. That speaks a bit to the developer's persistence, if nothing else.
Pretty sure I've seen a version of this post every six months for the last 4-5 years: "I'm a 1337 hax0r with mad skillz and this whole game could be recreated in a couple of months, no problem. Also, writing is super easy and quick, and definitely not most of the time and effort involved."

Every person that's posted that has either done nothing or started and then dropped it because it turned out to be too much work, so I'm gonna go ahead and call bullshit on "The problem is motivation, game design, persistence, decision anxiety, etc. all psychological factors." Just because you don't have to have mastered everything in Knuth to make the game doesn't mean it's "not too hard and not that much of a time-sink."
 

irresponsible

New Member
Jan 11, 2019
11
31
Pretty sure I've seen a version of this post every six months for the last 4-5 years: "I'm a 1337 hax0r with mad skillz and this whole game could be recreated in a couple of months, no problem. Also, writing is super easy and quick, and definitely not most of the time and effort involved."

Every person that's posted that has either done nothing or started and then dropped it because it turned out to be too much work, so I'm gonna go ahead and call bullshit on "The problem is motivation, game design, persistence, decision anxiety, etc. all psychological factors." Just because you don't have to have mastered everything in Knuth to make the game doesn't mean it's "not too hard and not that much of a time-sink."
Well, I will certainly do nothing, nor was I planning to.

I agree that writing and planning are the major time-sinks here (I even say that the technical aspect is the part that isn't the major time-sink (quoting: "technically, it's not too hard"), in case that was not clear), and I was mostly talking about cloning the game ("very easily replicated"), not developing a new one from scratch. Anything other than that would be misrepresentation of what I said or meant to say.

If you want to claim that technical factors are the actual bottle-neck here, be my guest, I would be glad to discuss the technical aspects of it with you, but it just does not look like it from my point of view.
 

stochastic

Newbie
Dec 21, 2019
58
93
Well, I will certainly do nothing, nor was I planning to.

I agree that writing and planning are the major time-sinks here (I even say that the technical aspect is the part that isn't the major time-sink (quoting: "technically, it's not too hard"), in case that was not clear), and I was mostly talking about cloning the game ("very easily replicated"), not developing a new one from scratch. Anything other than that would be misrepresentation of what I said or meant to say.

If you want to claim that technical factors are the actual bottle-neck here, be my guest, I would be glad to discuss the technical aspects of it with you, but it just does not look like it from my point of view.
I'm definitely not suggesting that it's technically difficult to replicate the engine; it's not very complicated at all. But, and maybe this was a comprehension issue on my end, it sounded like you meant that replicating the game just wouldn't be all that time-consuming and that's the idea that I'm pushing back against--it's been expressed here over and over that since it's not "hard" like writing an FPS from scratch, a modern OS kernel, or a fast RDBMS, then it must be both quick and easy to knock out.
 

irresponsible

New Member
Jan 11, 2019
11
31
I'm definitely not suggesting that it's technically difficult to replicate the engine; it's not very complicated at all. But, and maybe this was a comprehension issue on my end, it sounded like you meant that replicating the game just wouldn't be all that time-consuming and that's the idea that I'm pushing back against--it's been expressed here over and over that since it's not "hard" like writing an FPS from scratch, a modern OS kernel, or a fast RDBMS, then it must be both quick and easy to knock out.
I guess it boils down to how much our ideas of time-consuming and easy would differ?

I feel that a few months (maybe 3–6?) of part-time but consistent work on the code base would produce something very closely resembling the original. Certainly not a few weeks' job, but also not a seven years' job, either. The text can be scraped out of the JAR, which cuts down on the main time-sink, and the design is already there, so you wouldn't have to really reinvent the wheel or write a lot of text.

As for the easiness, the game doesn't feel particularly sophisticated code-wise (not that it has to be); it doesn't seem like it would need much more than normal Java constructs (that is, not much beyond OOP, control flow) and a small amount of external libraries (the interface is almost certainly made with Swing, and the game has a YAML parser, and probably a serialiser for saving and restoring state). I feel that the ingenuity of this game is in the design rather than its implementation, and when you're cloning an already existing product, the design is already figured out for you.
 

stochastic

Newbie
Dec 21, 2019
58
93
I guess it boils down to how much our ideas of time-consuming and easy would differ?

I feel that a few months (maybe 3–6?) of part-time but consistent work on the code base would produce something very closely resembling the original. Certainly not a few weeks' job, but also not a seven years' job, either. The text can be scraped out of the JAR, which cuts down on the main time-sink, and the design is already there, so you wouldn't have to really reinvent the wheel or write a lot of text.

As for the easiness, the game doesn't feel particularly sophisticated code-wise (not that it has to be); it doesn't seem like it would need much more than normal Java constructs (that is, not much beyond OOP, control flow) and a small amount of external libraries (the interface is almost certainly made with Swing, and the game has a YAML parser, and probably a serialiser for saving and restoring state). I feel that the ingenuity of this game is in the design rather than its implementation, and when you're cloning an already existing product, the design is already figured out for you.
Now I understand what you're aiming for: A more-or-less exact clone, as close as identical as possible, that you have the source code to (where the last bit is the entire point). Most of the people that have talked about "cloning" or "replicating" the game really mean some combination of the following:
  1. Roughly the same game design but implemented on a different platform/engine
  2. A similar game design but with different content or different/new mechanics
  3. A more-or-less clean room rewrite of the game from scratch, but change X, Y, or Z features
All three of those options are, I think, dramatically more time-consuming than what you're describing. In addition to the YAML parser the game also uses Velocity for the custom scene format, without which you'd have to give up a whole lot of content (or rewrite all the scenes in the additional_scenes/official_content folder), and I don't think it would be fun to try to get Velocity working and stable in something other than Java (I think there's an incomplete implementation of Velocity out there for Python but I don't know if it works well).

In general, I can't imagine putting in the time and effort necessary to clone Newlife but not changing significant parts of it to suit my tastes and interests, and frankly I dislike having most of the scenes written in Java instead of something easily editable at runtime, so I'd want to change all that too. So I'm not disagreeing with you on the amount of time and effort it would take to clone Newlife, but I don't think many people would want to perfectly clone Newlife anyway.
 
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irresponsible

New Member
Jan 11, 2019
11
31
Glad that we cleared that up! Yeah, I don't see a point to it other than perhaps enabling the community to contribute to it and develop it rather than depending on one author on updates and being at their mercy if they decide to drop development. Perhaps, when the developer decides he's had enough, he could open-source it and we could bypass the folly of carbon-copying the game. It's all wishful thinking and armchair programming, in any case.
 
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ObeX

Newbie
Jun 13, 2019
94
99
how to trigger the scenes with the landlord?
when im short on money it just says "youre late on rent" with no option in the week planner or events before/after the rent

with enough money in the bank the game just tells me that i paid it off
 

Otacotora

Newbie
Dec 6, 2016
85
72
how to trigger the scenes with the landlord?
when im short on money it just says "youre late on rent" with no option in the week planner or events before/after the rent

with enough money in the bank the game just tells me that i paid it off
So, if I always have the money to pay rent, the landlord scenes will never show up?
 

ObeX

Newbie
Jun 13, 2019
94
99
So, if I always have the money to pay rent, the landlord scenes will never show up?
seems like it
i played some weeks fast forward without doing anything to see if they would trigger but when there is enough money the game just tells me that it has been paid off

then i tried spending all my money the week before and just got the "youre late on rent" message once
 

vitamin433

Active Member
May 11, 2018
933
928
If you choose the male start: Like 3 minutes, depending on your reading speed. No time at all if you have the intro skip option checked :ROFLMAO:
I knooooow! That's exactly the point here!
The main game-play is all about fem MC. Even if MC was male, SHE will never reflect that.
 
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3.40 star(s) 35 Votes