- Feb 13, 2019
- 293
- 399
Is the discord private or can you give us a link so I can find some player created content? If not, is it possible that you post some? Because I have failed to find any costum characters myself.
Edit: NVM I have become the thing I hate, I completely missed the links being in the OP
Last edited:
- Jun 11, 2017
- 5
- 20
I've been following this game since the begining, both because of the concept and potential was so great but after i noticed that the developer is not putting work to the project(of course it is my opinion), then i kept following just to see how developer and supporters are going to react. After 5-6 years, developer's work is still minimal(maybe he is working hard but even if he does, it means he is not learning anything and still VERY slow) but people's support is really unexpected because it just grow more.
Developer has been making at least 3500$ monthly for about last 3-4 years and what does he do for that? fix bugs, maybe put a new text/check box and write down some other 'minor' changes... He didn't even put an alternative work path(actually there is no path or story line also its probably just full of 'if/else' tho) or add new skill or w/e.. I mean in 5 years of work, come on.. Please do not tell me about 'do you know how many lines of codes you need to write to make it happen' etc. I think i have some idea about it PLUS, if you are not happy about java or any other thing make it harder for you, you could always change it in 5 years. But hey, who needs a change if you are cool with the money coming in right?
Well, if you give 3500$ to freelance developer/company for about 1 year, tell him what you want and he is going to make you like at least 5-10 'text-only' and 'completed' games lol. If you have doubt, let him make the clothing/work/social/core systems and you write the story bla bla.. But this developer? 5 years of work and the last product is like.. No sir, i'm sorry but i think this developer certainly doesn't deserve that. BUT, people keep giving money to him.. Alright, i respect the decision for their money, they can even flush their money into the toilet it's ok but this project earned like 150k usd or so... Do you really think the last product, this '5 years old but still not completed game' worth that? If the answer is 'yes' for you, ok..
Developer has been making at least 3500$ monthly for about last 3-4 years and what does he do for that? fix bugs, maybe put a new text/check box and write down some other 'minor' changes... He didn't even put an alternative work path(actually there is no path or story line also its probably just full of 'if/else' tho) or add new skill or w/e.. I mean in 5 years of work, come on.. Please do not tell me about 'do you know how many lines of codes you need to write to make it happen' etc. I think i have some idea about it PLUS, if you are not happy about java or any other thing make it harder for you, you could always change it in 5 years. But hey, who needs a change if you are cool with the money coming in right?
Well, if you give 3500$ to freelance developer/company for about 1 year, tell him what you want and he is going to make you like at least 5-10 'text-only' and 'completed' games lol. If you have doubt, let him make the clothing/work/social/core systems and you write the story bla bla.. But this developer? 5 years of work and the last product is like.. No sir, i'm sorry but i think this developer certainly doesn't deserve that. BUT, people keep giving money to him.. Alright, i respect the decision for their money, they can even flush their money into the toilet it's ok but this project earned like 150k usd or so... Do you really think the last product, this '5 years old but still not completed game' worth that? If the answer is 'yes' for you, ok..
- Apr 22, 2018
- 373
- 536
I get it, coding can be a massive amount of work for little actual content-adding.
But come one guys. This makes him sth. between 10.000 and 15.000$ per month.
per month!!! and I am guessing low here.
I think its fair to say you could hire one or two coders for that and actually present real progress.
And its not like its just a temporary shortcoming, its constantly just undersized addings. for like forever.
For that amount of money you can, and have to bring more.
I mean, almost any dev out there gets only a fraction of that support and still most of them get to present way more content in way less time.
I mean, they do coding AND provide visuals too (mostly).
Not like they are all millionairs with no troubles and endless time to work on their projects. Still they manage. And they manage way better.
Its out of question, this is a constant let down.
Doesnt happen a lot, once I liked a game. But I dropped this one.
And why wouldnt I, its the same 3 or 4 things to repeat, plus 1 or 2 random events every one or two ingame months. And thats it.
In 10 years I might try again, maybe by then he managed to somehow add another Job. Or anything of substance really...
But come one guys. This makes him sth. between 10.000 and 15.000$ per month.
per month!!! and I am guessing low here.
I think its fair to say you could hire one or two coders for that and actually present real progress.
And its not like its just a temporary shortcoming, its constantly just undersized addings. for like forever.
For that amount of money you can, and have to bring more.
I mean, almost any dev out there gets only a fraction of that support and still most of them get to present way more content in way less time.
I mean, they do coding AND provide visuals too (mostly).
Not like they are all millionairs with no troubles and endless time to work on their projects. Still they manage. And they manage way better.
Its out of question, this is a constant let down.
Doesnt happen a lot, once I liked a game. But I dropped this one.
And why wouldnt I, its the same 3 or 4 things to repeat, plus 1 or 2 random events every one or two ingame months. And thats it.
In 10 years I might try again, maybe by then he managed to somehow add another Job. Or anything of substance really...
You are being extremely generous, believing most of the patrons pay over 12$. Considering the number of patrons and the tiers, it's between 4k to 16k and most likely somewhere closer to the middle, i.e somewhere at the 6k-8k range. Which is still too much for this "game"
still waiting for real lesbian content... waited for like 4 years now....
- Nov 29, 2016
- 642
- 1,845
I fully support new sex content so a make out while sitting (aka sofa) is good but cannot be the entirety of the content here. A new location for sex would be welcomed and he totally should add sex on sofa options. Heck, while he's reviewing some scenes and adding flavor text, add new options to perform while having sex. This should be 25% of his time cycles every month.
I'm absolutely amazed at the people defending ostrich here. The game should not be THAT difficult or time consuming to add content to. I'm certain I could recreate this game and it's current level of content in TWINE, possibly even using Harlowe, from scratch, in the span of a month with proper motivation.
What it is, is that Ostrich is either really lazy and milking, or completely incompetent. Given what I've seen of the code structure, my money is on a combination of the two. The game is structured in a way that makes adding new content excessively tedious. The choice of using Java is inherently detrimental to a game like this, just due to how Java is as a language. It's really quite poorly suited for text games. Using Python would have been far more sensible, as would using something like Twine or as someone else mentioned, something like RAGS or QSP.
For comparison, look at Lilith's throne, also in Java, and see what someone who is actually working on it can put out. Or even look at something like Accidental Woman(I think that's the name of the one I'm thinking of), where even when no content was being added, significant backend work was being done, with noticeable results each update.
If it was just Ostrich being bad at the writing aspect, we should still see a bit of backend improvement, as well as more active calls for community to submit WRITTEN scenes/events/ideas, rather than expecting users to code in their own stuff and then just taking already completed work to call an addition to the game. I'm talking things like asking his discord to write out a date, and then adapting that to code himself. Instead we see a ridiculous lack of progress on both fronts, considering the amount he makes.
What it is, is that Ostrich is either really lazy and milking, or completely incompetent. Given what I've seen of the code structure, my money is on a combination of the two. The game is structured in a way that makes adding new content excessively tedious. The choice of using Java is inherently detrimental to a game like this, just due to how Java is as a language. It's really quite poorly suited for text games. Using Python would have been far more sensible, as would using something like Twine or as someone else mentioned, something like RAGS or QSP.
For comparison, look at Lilith's throne, also in Java, and see what someone who is actually working on it can put out. Or even look at something like Accidental Woman(I think that's the name of the one I'm thinking of), where even when no content was being added, significant backend work was being done, with noticeable results each update.
If it was just Ostrich being bad at the writing aspect, we should still see a bit of backend improvement, as well as more active calls for community to submit WRITTEN scenes/events/ideas, rather than expecting users to code in their own stuff and then just taking already completed work to call an addition to the game. I'm talking things like asking his discord to write out a date, and then adapting that to code himself. Instead we see a ridiculous lack of progress on both fronts, considering the amount he makes.
- Sep 26, 2017
- 29
- 59
- Jul 24, 2018
- 1,009
- 942
I agree with most of what you said but the lilith's throne developer is lazy af too so is not really a fair comparison and most of the in game content on the game has been added some time ago
The people coming in here defending the developer scamming his patrons can't have followed this game for long. It has viritually remained stale for years while ostrich has refused to hire a developer for the ridiculous amount of money he has been raking in.
Instead he has allowed his fans to create content for him for free while he continues to heave in the big bucks. As soon as anybody has gotten anxious about the lack of updates in contrast to his continued $6500 monthly revenue he acts like a martyr and says stuff like "Oh, with all this negativity I don't even know if I'll even be able to do the bug fixing this month"
Make of that what you will
Instead he has allowed his fans to create content for him for free while he continues to heave in the big bucks. As soon as anybody has gotten anxious about the lack of updates in contrast to his continued $6500 monthly revenue he acts like a martyr and says stuff like "Oh, with all this negativity I don't even know if I'll even be able to do the bug fixing this month"
Make of that what you will
I will give NewLife credit in of the fact that it doesn't suffer from incredible scope creep/UI catastrophe like Accidental Woman which is more or less unplayable, or with cheats, a complete chore with some pretty awful writing.
AW is basically someone's attempt to make a cash-grab clone of New Life with a body specification system stolen from the Twine game Free Cities.
Well, sure. If you never build anything you can't have scope creep.
I get what you mean by the developer of AW biting off more than he could chew, but I just think it would have been forgivable if the base game wasn't awful.
Its kind of a weird accusation from a first poster to call AW a "cash grab" considering the amount of hours work put into it is obviously x10000 more than newlife.
I don't enjoy the game but "cash-grab"?
- Jun 1, 2017
- 625
- 1,489
- Jan 28, 2020
- 79
- 58
Years ago I hoped this would revitalize the game, but there has been very little added to the game even with this extra source of content
There is nothing wrong with Java, but JS or Python would be imho better choice for game like this mainly because they support good modern UI frameworks.
The main problem is that no sane person would hardcode actual scenes in Java itself, I would just write framework that handles all data stuff and divide story/scene content into small modules/components that can be reused to build larger scenes. Most of the game content is repetitive and can be easily split into small parts.
You could also integrate Java with LUA/JS/Python interpreter and write content for scenes in it. Programming language is just a tool and I can assure you that Java is perfectly capable of handling simple text game.
Last edited:
- Sep 22, 2016
- 153
- 404
This is exactly how the game was originally written. Supposedly this changed with one of the major releases, but I suspect there's still a healthy amount of hardcoded scenes in place.
I've actually followed this game since it started. Ostrich had no qualms admitting that Newlife was an experiment that he was using to learn Java. The problem with this game is it's being built by an amateur, and this is plainly obvious by looking at the UI and the absolutely bonkers way the "custom scenes" are built.
And honestly it isn't even the amateurish code or the fact that he's supposedly learning as he's going -- there are plenty of first-time devs on this site who manage to make decent first attempts at games -- it's that he has also adamantly refused any outside help and arrogantly shut down anyone who has offered to help refactor some of the code or the UI. It's one thing to want to retain creative control, but when you've got enough backers to hire a small team there's an obligation to put in some actual effort and make progress toward a completed game. "Fixes for minor text issues" is not enough. Getting outside help under an NDA would be the least he could do.
This may be a bit harsh but it irks me when I see devs that milk their patrons and make little to no progress when there are so many others who are putting in a ton of effort to make really good content and they barely get enough support to buy a cup of coffee.