"Pleasure thieves" game is almost ready for Patreon! Feedback?

[Honey Tales]

Hi everyone!
My game "Pleasure Thieves" is almost ready! It's the first release I am doing on Patreon, so I am super excited! The only thing left is to fix some bugs, finish tweaking some dialogs, fix some small art details and the first chapter will be ready! I also took your advice and changed the name of one of the characters from Anna Kachi to Erika Summers. I want to share with you a few more screenshots from the game. Any feedback is welcome!
Thanks!

 

[osanaiko]

Feedback.... Well, We only have three screenshots to go from here so:

1. The first background looks very good.
2. The others look like you've photoshopped a few different parts together. This is perfectly acceptable - the interesting part of a Adult VN is always going to mainly be the characters.
3. Using "Tachi-e" (standing pictures) over top of a background like in a Japanese Eroge VN rather than rendering the character into the scene is a good technique to use during the conversation parts of a story. It greatly reduces your scene setup and rendering. Of course a full render for every viewpoint or character change is even better for visual quality and game immersion.
4. The player character in the 3rd screenshot looks like you forgot to enable the correct lighting in the render. Or is that due to a "character currently speaking" overlay/highlight effect you are using?

Anyway, there is only so much we can guess, so i'm sure you'll get feedback once you post your game.

Or invite some beta testers if you want feedback before release to Patreon

 

[Deleted member 167032]

Once we play it we can tell you more and you need Beta testers as Osanaiko suggested.. They will tell you if it's good or not. Ask around on F95 for some helpers...

 

[Winterfire]

The graphics look good but I would consider outlining the names.
Reason:
White on white for player's case and erika's blue name could easily blend in with a blue background, a black outline would fix this easily.

The protagonist's facial expressions remind me of Mass Effect Andromeda.

 

[Honey Tales]

Thanks for all the valuable feedback!

I agree with you, @osanaiko: the second and third image doesn't look as good as the first one, but I had a hard time lighting that scene. I'm still learning Daz3D and lighting is by far the more complex thing to deal with. There are some other scenes I'd like to render again, but I need to finish this or I will be always doing tweaks.

Regarding the characters, the main reason I'm using "Tachi-E" (I didn't know that was the name for it, thanks!) is also that I like to have many reactions during the dialogues, especially for the main character. And yes, in the last screenshot, the character is dimmed because is not talking. I found it easier this way to identify who is talking.

@MrKnobb That's probably the next thing I want to do. Should I look in a particular forum within F95? As soon as I get the copywriter to finish reviewing the text I'll release a beta.

@Winterfire: Great idea and I already implemented. Now you can read the names much better. This was something in my list of things to do, but got lost somehow, so thanks for the tip!

I'm also planning to add some tracking to the game, so I know the players' progression and things like that. Do you guys know if the game has to show some sort of warning for this? I'll probably include it just in case.

Again, thanks for the input!

 

[Winterfire]

A porn game made by an individual with tracking?

I mean, does it sound wrong only to me?

 

[jkkjjkjkjjkkkjjl]

Imagine my disappointment when I scrolled down to the third image and he didn't have the same stupid expression on his face.

Tracking is a terrible idea.

 

[rev2019]

Patreon lol
i think you are on the wrong forum if so

 

[Winterfire]

Patreon lol
i think you are on the wrong forum if so

Why? Most developers have a patreon and release their game there.

 

[Deleted member 167032]

Just ask on here if anyone wants to help out and if they have a good understanding of English...

Thanks for all the valuable feedback!

I agree with you, @osanaiko: the second and third image doesn't look as good as the first one, but I had a hard time lighting that scene. I'm still learning Daz3D and lighting is by far the more complex thing to deal with. There are some other scenes I'd like to render again, but I need to finish this or I will be always doing tweaks.

Regarding the characters, the main reason I'm using "Tachi-E" (I didn't know that was the name for it, thanks!) is also that I like to have many reactions during the dialogues, especially for the main character. And yes, in the last screenshot, the character is dimmed because is not talking. I found it easier this way to identify who is talking.

@MrKnobb That's probably the next thing I want to do. Should I look in a particular forum within F95? As soon as I get the copywriter to finish reviewing the text I'll release a beta.

@Winterfire: Great idea and I already implemented. Now you can read the names much better. This was something in my list of things to do, but got lost somehow, so thanks for the tip!

I'm also planning to add some tracking to the game, so I know the players' progression and things like that. Do you guys know if the game has to show some sort of warning for this? I'll probably include it just in case.

Again, thanks for the input!

 

[Honey Tales]

A porn game made by an individual with tracking?

I mean, does it sound wrong only to me?

Why? Tracking is just a way to see in which point your players stop playing the game. That's the only purpose. I won't track any other information. Anyway, if I add this (which I still don't know) it will be totally optional for players to accept it or reject it.

 

[Winterfire]

Players would have to take your word for it

 

[Honey Tales]

Patreon lol
i think you are on the wrong forum if so

My original idea was to release the first chapter for free as a demo, and then make accessible the following chapters to Patreons.

 

[Avaron1974]

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

What happened to his face?

Is that a cross between surprise, happiness and constipation?

Did someone flash him some tits at the same time someone else jammed live electric cables into his rectum?

 

[Honey Tales]

I'd like to say it's a surprise and happiness face.

 

[redle]

Anything that doesn't come from a highly reputable, well-known source, I never allow to make external connections. Anything with tracking I am personally likely to boycott straight off. On the rare occasion that I don't boycott it, I certainly do not allow the connection.

As others have said though, hard to critique a game based on 3 screenshots, no game type/plot/description of any kind.

Presumably it is a story about an overly-dramatic, sexually inexperienced, horny, male college student. Whether or not there is some special hook or whether this is just a general slice-of-life tale is unclear. No clue if it is a stat grinder, simply a follow along story, or a branching VN.

The text available in the 3 screenshots is overly campy and a bit imprecise. That is not necessarily a bad thing. It can keep things light and entertaining (and a lot of players won't even be consciously aware of it).

Spoiler: The 3 lines of text dissected

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

 

[Honey Tales]

Thanks for that great feedback @redle . I can understand some people won't feel comfortable with any kind of tracking, even if it's only used to get progression information. If I finally implement it, it will be of course optional. I was a bit surprised with the rejection of the idea because is something that today's games do all the time. But I can understand this type of games may be more sensitive on that subject.

About the story of the game, you nailed it. That's the basic backstory of the main character and there is a hook too. The game is a branching VN with exploration. It will be a quite simple exploration for the first chapter and I'll see how the people react.

I appreciate your comments about the dialogues. As you can guess I'm not an English native speaker and that's why I'm still in the process of finding a good copywriter who can polish the dialogues. Your suggestions make total sense.

Thanks again for your comments.

 

[redle]

Thanks for that great feedback @redle . I can understand some people won't feel comfortable with any kind of tracking, even if it's only used to get progression information. If I finally implement it, it will be of course optional. I was a bit surprised with the rejection of the idea because is something that today's games do all the time. But I can understand this type of games may be more sensitive on that subject.

About the story of the game, you nailed it. That's the basic backstory of the main character and there is a hook too. The game is a branching VN with exploration. It will be a quite simple exploration for the first chapter and I'll see how the people react.

I appreciate your comments about the dialogues. As you can guess I'm not an English native speaker and that's why I'm still in the process of finding a good copywriter who can polish the dialogues. Your suggestions make total sense.

Thanks again for your comments.

Yes, many phone apps, games, and other software these days do some degree of tracking. That said, a majority of the apps/games that come from small developers that people use also are run within specific frameworks that control/limit what information can be gathered. Those apps may still have access to information that is more than they need, but it is still limited. Games like yours run outside of such a framework and therefore do not have the same limitations of what can possibly be accessed. Also, just because tracking is common place does not mean any of us actually like it. Most people would turn off most tracking on most things if they were allowed to and could still get the functionality that they wanted.

So, yes, when I can turn tracking off on anything, I do. Not just private developer adult games, but anything. Some things like google and microsoft, while I hate all the tracking they do, they are hard to simply ignore and not use their tools. A single game from an indy developer is something I can live without. (It does not help that adult content sites/porn have some of the worst track records for being virus distribution centers. As well as adult content having a taboo connotation for many people. Both are reasons for tracking from adult content to be even less wanted than tracking from other sources.)

As for the text comments, all of the original text was understandable. Hard to say how enjoyable it would be as 3 sentences really is not enough to give a valid opinion. I do believe that all of my comments were true, but they were also more critical than needs to be done with your full script. With the limited scope of what we had to comment on there was only 2 choices for comment. Option one was to give really generic feedback like, "great to see a new developer, I hope you continue with this," or, "interesting start, looking forward to see where this goes." While it might "feel" good, it is not really useful. So I went with option two which was to over-analyze it.

 

[osanaiko]

I was just thinking the other day about how you might add "anonymous" tracking to a VN game (or any software i guess).

To make sure it is opt-in only, you could make it an option in menu where the player can generate a "status" text, and ask them to support you by making a paste of the text somewhere public, like a pastebin or similar shared anonymous space. (even a specific forum here!)

the "text" could be a clear format so the player could see that it included no identifying information.

then you could collect such text posts and get a feedback that way.

 

[Winterfire]

Most companies track you mainly for ADS or to sell you products, a computer game tracking you is nothing more than shady and unnecessary, it sounds more like something you are trying to add to look more professional because companies also do it but at the end of the day, even if you add it and users would be happy with that, you'd only be wasting your time as that type of data tells you nothing important... You could get a better result by making a pool.