To be honest I appreciate the attention to details greatly. Especially when it comes to dialogues and replayability.
). Massive respect and support and all the best to this game and the dev.Saving anywhere can be indeed very convenient. I find myself creating multiple saves just because different H-scenes happen on different days, but you have to play the game until that scene occurs - be it before work, at work or after work. It's a good thing you can enter text for the saves so you can keep track as to what that save contains for but saving right before some scene occurs can be so incredibly cool.So this is my very first comment ever on F95, which is kind of alarming given I have played over 100 games. I have quite a bit of experience from the "player's" perspective so I will post my honest opinion on how the game feels to me. So here it is:
Concept of the game
I REALLY love the concept of this game, it's your trusty female protagonist corruption game, but it takes its time and it feels more natural than other games that are too "fake" or too rushed. I love how well the main character is written and how "normal" the thoughts are, which makes it more relatable as a person. I am a dude, but this is the rhythm that I would have liked to have if I had made my own game. So, absolutely love it, keep up the good work and I will always be a player (and soon a guaranteed patron) of this game.
Game mechanics
Once again, I love the side scroller because it does feel good. This game reminds me of the game Insexcity (what a shame) but it's just everything that I wanted the other game to be. The movement is good, the scene reload is good, everything is good. I'm personally not a fan of Unity ONLY because of the fact that I can't scroll up and down to go forward and backwards, as well as skip redundant transitions (which are Ren'py's greatest strengths). These are not problematic, however, it would be cool to have a setting to go back in dialog (including choices preferably) and to skip some transitions (such as the sleeping "ZzZ"). This is me just nitpicking at this point but I will drop them here in case you feel inspired to add those in. I will still play the game regardless. Skipping scenes that have already happened faster would just be a quality of life change, which is very welcome. Finally, MAYBE if the scenes at the restaurant (like opening the fridge and grabbing a drink) could be a tad faster, I think the game would also benefit from that and the mini-game will be that much more enjoyable.
What's missing
Alright, so there are a couple of things that would MASSIVELY improve the game. The FIRST thing that I would implement as soon as possible (personally) is a comprehensive quest log. I like that we can see all the stats and everything, but sometimes I get lost and do not know what to do. I end up figuring it out (for example how to boost a certain stat or how to trigger an event, where to trigger it, etc.) but the quest log would save time and make the gaming more enjoyable. This would also help in reflecting the amount of content that is available in the game. I already see that you had plans to implement one, and I appreciate the incentive!
The second thing is the ability to save anywhere. I think (if possible) this should also be implemented. I say this because if I want to stop playing the game for the day, I will have to finish the day and end up going home to close the game without losing any progress. This isn't a huge issue per say, but it does improve flexibility when playing the game.
Lastly, I don't know if this is just because of the current content available in the game, but there are a lot of locations that are locked and we do not know if they are that way because of the current content or if they just have not been unlocked yet. This would also be fixed with a quest log.
*** I'm not sure about this, but is there a walkthrough or a guide that explains a little more explicitly the current mechanics or the progress of the game? If not, this could also be a massive help. ***
Conclusion
Overall, this game is absolutely amazing, and I think anyone who likes this kind of art (sometimes 3d gets boring and you want some fresh 2d) as well as a female protagonist corruption game, should definitely play this game. All the comments above are purely quality of life changes. The story is well written, the characters (the ones that aren't random NPCs) are incredible as well, and the fluidity of the art is just so satisfying. I think the implementation of the quest log is really the only thing that makes it "grind"-y but there isn't mushc grinding, it's just not knowing which event to prioritize to boost a stat or to trigger an event.
Love the game, will continue playing it until it's done (hopefully we don't get a DarkCookie or an Icstor incident
THANKS FOR READING!
P.S.: If you are interested in translating the game to french, I am fluent and can be of help (I live in Quebec and I have a Master's degree having studied in french my whole life).
P.S.: P.S.: Also, just saw your other game, will definitely download and try! And as per your previous comment, the people who want fast content are not the loyal ones, but the ones who are looking for a quick fap. I think any reasonable update frequency (like 1 to 3 months max) is very understandable. We all appreciate the time and effort you put into this and the last thing that anyone would want would be to rush the game and diminish its quality with half-assed updates. Take your time, make the game like you want to make it and everyone will stand by you. And remember to take some time off for yourself, been seeing a lot of devs burning out (partly the reason I am skeptical these days to become a patron as the devs are just abandoning games). Nothing good comes out of forcing something, sometimes you just need a break.
Cheers!
You had me laughing at JeezusJeezus...!
Okay, I'm in crunch mode right now, so I can't properly read it and reply until I get v0.11 out.
Until then, thank you for your feedback!
The height system for NPCs itself was a lot of hard work and the reason 0.11 is taking so long, among other factors. Abelius had to create a new engine thingamajig and had to manually create those animations. Adding MC height to the equation would mean changing those animations again for every combination of heights for both MC and the NPC.
NPC height is the last thing this game needs, if the developer spends months creating it, it's just insane. Or is that just an excuse slow game development?
He did spend the time making it, and well it's here now. 0.11 will feature different NPC heights while groping the character and the scenes will differ slightly based on it. I don't know if his supporters asked for it or was it always planned but I certainly wouldn't notice if everyone was of the same height, nonetheless it's a good attention to detail.
I don't know if "serious dev mode" is the problem.
It was kind of surprising to me because personally, If the developer took story milestones and narrative content delivery more seriously, this would be an easy game to support on patreon, even just 5 or 10 dollars a release / month. (Although that story content would need to come consistently or I'd probably stop)
Keep doing what you are doing. The results are amazing.I'm walking the last mile of v0.11, so I can't take the time I'd need to reply in detail to you guys. But there are a couple of things I'd prefer to address now so you don't speculate unnecessarily.
Regarding Pizza Cold... that was a long time ago when I was partial to going to Patreon to support the game, but people still asked me to use it, so that's what I did... only under the guise of being another game. In other words: you needed to read between the lines to understand what was about (easy if you're on my server).
I still didn't know then if I'd go with "controversial" content in Pizza Hot, but that's irrelevant because this game is all about dub-con, not non-con. I wouldn't even enjoy that kind of content considering how I write dialogues. It would be heart-wrenching and not enjoyable unless you're a psychopath by the book.
So, I set Pizza Cold to 'On Hold' and it'll be like that for a very long time. I liked the concept of a parody of my own game but maybe it's too early for that? In any case, I want to clarify that I agree it is the time to focus on Pizza Hot and nothing else.
And related to that, the 'features vs. content' dichotomy... Well, first of all, I completely agree this game needs more content to really flourish.
The tech I've designed is waaaaay more complex than most games here. And I think that along with the concept and the execution of the story so far, are what have recruited most of the supporters to the cause.
The phrase I've probably heard the most is "This game has a lot of potential". But, of course, that alone won't keep me paying my bills for long... or maybe it could, who knows! But, regardless of what many will think, I don't see the point of stalling a project in its current state of 'potential', just because the income is already decent.
I very much prefer to see it taking off, gaining altitude, and joining the legends of this trade. Don't you think I'd love earning five times more than I do?
So what has been preventing that? Scope. Plain and simple.
More than two years ago, when Pizza Hot wasn't even an alpha, I asked myself questions like "Do I want characters having variable height?", "Should high heels be a real thing?", among many others... and I answered "yes". Now, in hindsight, I'd probably chosen differently.
That said, let's differentiate between the time invested in new engine features and ongoing development...
Ongoing development is when, as DreamingAway correctly stated, you invest time in things like content proper (events, dialogue, progression, etc.) AND the related tasks associated with making that content, for example, coming up with ideas and game mechanics and actually materializing them in-game, adding the expressions to every single damned dialogue line because you decided your characters need them, testing the shit out of those events so they look polished, solving the bugs players will inevitably find, etc.
Engine features, on the other hand, are one-off time investments that, if aligned properly with your self-agreed scope, will actually save you time for ongoing development. For example, taking the time to make an automated system to deal with layer sorting for your characters made of 40+ renderers, making another automated system to deal with hands being placed in the correct spots, etc. These are necessary "evils" if I'm supposed to keep (in future updates) the level of quality you've already seen, with any hopes of delivering in a reasonable amount of time.
Because, trust me, if I needed to do all that manually, like actually needing to write commands in each dialogue node to put a leg behind an arm, or needing to remember that a secondary animation needs a synchronized reaction animation from the other character... heh... no. This game would be just wishful thinking and nothing more.
In fact, for those who remember the last update from LOK Rebirth, when I was at the helm of that project, it took me three months to make some events that involved characters with a fixed height and appearance... Now I think of that and, man... I was a newb, lol. And still, people had a blast with that game...
So... yes. The irony of unrewarded quality isn't lost on me. I know this game will really see success when I can put out more content than tech.
Let's see if I can do that sooner than later.
That's a pretty bad faith representation of my comments & feedback.
I'm pretty sure S&D wasn't talking specifically about your posts. Especially since he(she?) was replying to Abelius's comment and he is apparently a fellow game dev who has probably had to deal with his fair share of impatient game players.
Some of the "games" here actually do (almost) magically appear. Take all the assets slapped together from UE or Unity "almost" games. Many of them got abandoned before they got anywhere because that's where effort and knowledge came into play. Renpy games are also quite easy to do as long as you have images/renders/videos. I am not an advocate for stolen videos/images and rendering (whether it is DAZ3d or something else) takes time. If you have a good PC the rendering itself is not going to take that long but getting the characters, the clothes, the morphs, the poses/animations, and the lighting just right can take hours for one scene. Depends on the OCD of the creator. I have some images since V3 was the latest model and in total, I don't think I have 50 renders saved, and most of them I keep because I have the storage, not because they're masterpieces, so yeah, I may be quite picky, especially when it's about my work, and I know I can improve it.
It all makes sense, but "The game engine is mature enough so I can do regular updates. Monthly, at present time, as I've decided to focus on content for a good while. Maybe bi-monthly in times when I need to add a complex game mechanic, or an entirely new location" who wrote it? Dev himself on his Subscribestar page.
Back in July, around the time 0.10 had been released. To dev's credit, he wanted to experiment with 0.11 so he had to create the new engine stuff and I guess he didn't expect the amount of work that would go into creating the update.
