- Jun 21, 2022
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- Thread starter Domiek
- Start date
- Nov 21, 2022
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- Mar 10, 2020
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Can't imagine people will be too happy when they realize the game isn't really complete. Routes that end halfway through, no tying of events, no resolution. This game is complete only in name.
Look, I'm not trying to hate on the author but unless he finishes the routes and ties everything together he's going to get a negative perception over at steam, atleast in my opinion.
His newer game looks better, and will hopefully have an actual end. It'd be a far better decision to release that in early access or in parts on steam than this clearly unfinished product.
Edit: Just saw that the game is being remade and finished for it's steam release, makes sense now. Still, seems like a big fuck you to patrons that supported this game, but who am I to complain, I didn't pour money into it
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- Nov 20, 2018
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Anyone got a walkthrough for sophie? i seem to have missed the very first scenes and can't do the "bowling" part?
- Nov 20, 2018
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Did you follow the hint system in the game? I don't remember ever needing a walkthrough, but it's been quite some time now. It's always possible there was something unclear early on that I'm not thinking of.
Did you follow the hint system in the game? I don't remember ever needing a walkthrough, but it's been quite some time now. It's always possible there was something unclear early on that I'm not thinking of.
Just says no hints avaialble to this time, i have all scenes with everyone minus sophie where i have none
- Oct 31, 2018
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- Feb 15, 2021
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completed the game and it was great especially the romantic routes
but i absolutely hate this
what about the whole i will get every girl pregnent route?
but i absolutely hate this
what about the whole i will get every girl pregnent route?
- Mar 10, 2020
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Just an observation really. Can't imagine supporting a game for a while just for the dev to say he doesn't care for it anymore and it's all you'll get, then years later an actual release drops. Might be exciting to some, but that's why I don't support people's patreons unless I get something that's finished. I have and would spend money contributing to someone like JulioNIB or Qwardnaffle (GTA 5 and FO4 mod authors in that ordera) simply because I have access to a bunch of finished and infinitely replayable mods rather than a dev who I'm not sure will ever drop a completed game.
I'd even be willing to support a dev who has a history of completing high quality games, but not an up and coming dev or one who has prior abandoned/unfinished games. Simply put, I don't like to gamble.
Back to the point, I like Personal Trainer, and when it was still in development I was actually going to sub to Domiek. I guess I'm a little bitter with how it turned out, but again, I'm not going to start ranting about how the devs a piece of shit or something (Because that'd be untrue). He didn't have it in him to finish the game at the time (Probably burnout), and I can understand that. I like his games and if he actually does good on his promise to actually finish this one I'd consider sending some money his way.
This post got too long and ranty for my tastes, but have a good one
- Jun 21, 2022
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Another super productive period. I've finished writing, rendering and coding all of the endings as well as most of the events. There's just a handful of story events left to render and a lot of optional short environment renders, which I'll explain later. I've also finished the Character Index UI, which replaces the former Character Hint, Schedule and Replay Galley.
UI CHARACTER INDEX:
One of the problems with free-roam or sandbox games is the sheer number of clicking and guessing to try and figure out how to advance the story. I tried to solve this in the old version of Personal Trainer, but I had no idea what I was doing both code and UI wise, and it ended up a bit of a mess.
The hint system required the player to first encounter the character doing an activity, then this activity day, time and location was recorded on a tracker. The character then had to open the hint window, select the character AND THEN select a day on the schedule just to see where the character was located. It
(Convoluted & unintuitive mess)
The Memories (replay) Gallery was a separate window. I didn't know how to properly set one up in Ren'Py at the time so I ended up manually entering every line of text and code associated with each replay. Actually all of these UI elements, hints and schedules were manually entered by me. There were duplications of code with slight alterations all over the place and I'm shocked the game ran even relatively stable. It was embarrassingly bad and pretty much every element of the game featured such terrible and time consuming code.
9200+ lines of manually entering each calendar event, for each character, for each day, for each time slot. If only there were some sort of way to loop this coding for each statement... could call it a for loop!
PT RE Solution:
I knew that I wanted all of this info in one easily accessible window for the player. I also knew I wanted to avoid as much manual work as possible and instead design modular components for the core functions of the game. This required a full rewrite of the code (and why old save files won't work). There was no saving the old spaghetti code, it had to be burned with fire.
Now there is a Character Index window, which presents all of the girls in a single 3x3 grid. Selecting a girls portrait reveals the current in game hint and a scrollable replay gallery. At the bottom is the "Ending" section which unlocks once the selected characters storyline is completed. The player can then view the ending for that character and then resume playing the game at their own leisure.
THE MAP:
The original PT map left a lot to be desired. It took a lot of space but didn't really offer any useful information at a glance, it was solely a way of navigation.
(Six tiny labelless dots on a giant canvas... good work, Dom!)
One major complaint about sandbox games is the very tedious gameplay loop that looks something like this:
- Advance time
- Click every location known to mankind in hopes of seeing new content
- Repeat
I've addressed this by implementing live character tracking on both the map as well as sublocations. This solves the annoying classic sandbox gameplay loop while also being an excellent schedule tracker replacement of the previous version. Now you will always have immediate feedback on where the main characters are.
The new map is functionally complete, but the UI graphics are a placeholder. I will work on matching it to the look of the Character Index window later.
Optional Short Environment Renders:
As mentioned earlier, almost all of the content has been completed, aside for this smaller optional stuff. Although these renders don't contribute directly to the story, they're nice to have for the overall atmosphere of the game. These are the minor characters with 3-5 render length interactions. I've also wanted to add non-interacting background chars that create the atmosphere of a busy world.
Since I ended up cramming a 24 hour day into 8, there is a lot of existing content that's fighting for a time slot. I've addressed this by semi-randomizing their triggers. For each location and time slot there is a list of possible events that can play, selected at random. There's some logic in place that limits each unique event to trigger only once per day and tackles the unlikely event of the same event triggering every single time.
The biggest benefit of these environmental characters is the visual feedback of your story progress. For those who played PT before, you know that by the end of the game everyone was basically running around nude and having sex in public without issue. I now have the opportunity to code in logic which limits which random interactions occur depending on your progress in the game. So earlier on you will have more modest interactions with minor characters and as the main characters become more corrupted through the main story progress, the random interactions will reflect that. As it stands, although the MC joins a women's gym under the pretense of being gay, all of the random minor characters pounce on him immediately while the main characters take some time to corrupt. It's not a show stopper but it's a bit jarring.
This type of content is small enough where it's very quick to produce but there's a high enough quantity of it which makes it a non-trivial amount of time invested. This is why I'm saving it for last as a maybe if the rest of development goes smoothly and I still have plenty of time left. Although I'm not announcing a release date yet, I've officially entered the "Crunch Time" portion of development. I can't wait to get back to working on In a Scent, to my beloved Gary.
Cheers,
Dom
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- Jun 21, 2022
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This development cycle had a bit of everything. PT RE, in its current form, is fully playable and largely free of bugs, covering all the existing content of Personal Trainer. I've methodically implemented each event one by one, conducting initial testing and editing with every addition.
On the technical side, there were some coding changes in the backend. These adjustments have made the various modular components of the new system operate more smoothly. While there's still some room for improvement, most of these enhancements can be part of the major polishing phase of development. This will commence after the beta build of PT RE is released on Patreon.
A fresh map and new icons have been integrated, offering a more visually appealing experience compared to the previous bland Open Street Map screenshot. However, the character icons are somewhat hard to distinguish on the map. I plan to explore solutions for this during the polishing stage. I don't have any experience or background in design or UIX at all, but overall I'm mostly satisfied that the UI is uniform and coherent.
Two new locations have been added to the map: Jenna's place and the Park. Jenna's place is a definite keeper, already featuring a couple of repeatable events. The Park's inclusion is still under consideration - if time permits, I will add new repeatable events there; if not, it may be removed.
The primary focus for the next development cycle is on integrating and coding all the new PT RE content, including all the official endings. Each character has at least one epilogue-style ending. I anticipate that most, if not all, of the new content will be implemented in this cycle. What remains afterward is the creation of smaller, repeatable content and general testing before the beta release.
This project is taking longer than originally anticipated, but I'm feeling excited and rejuvenated as we approach the finish line.
Cheers,
Dom
- May 17, 2020
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It is a kind of rework for the steam edition, with additional content. So it will be a more completed edition
Ah, I hope the steam version will be available at other places too cause german steam for some reason just does not have porn games in it, and vpns don't work on steam for that
- May 17, 2020
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How do you get the last character? I tried every place at every hour and still nothing. The in game hint system is great but only starts to work once you find the character at the right time
Edit: Found her myself, idk why but the game did not let me enter the dorm but after I restarted it it worked.
Edit: Found her myself, idk why but the game did not let me enter the dorm but after I restarted it it worked.
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- Jun 21, 2022
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- Jun 21, 2022
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Another great dev period – all of the character endings have been coded and thoroughly tested. Now, instead of the placeholder "You've completed all the events... SpoOoKy!" message, players will see an "ENDING" button activated for each character they complete. (Yes, I realize the SpoOoKy message is visible in the image above, I kept it in for this dev talk as a reminder). The PT RE refresh is now essentially playable and has entered the alpha phase. There's just one more story event for Mamma Maria needed to render in order to wrap up the core game. My focus for the next two weeks will be:
- Finalizing the last event for Maria.
- Adding small, repeatable interactions and short sequences that enhance the game's atmosphere.
- Resolving a medium-sized backend coding issue related to random events. (I had an idea on how to make the random events also have a sense of natural progression which I think will be a vast improvement on the current state and worth looking into)
- Conducting general testing.
Thank you to everyone that's been sticking with me thus far,
Dom
- Aug 26, 2020
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Its a shame that its so rare to see a transparent dev that updates his supporters on a regular basis like this.
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