[Ren'Py] SU Re-Imagined, an UNOFFICIAL Proof of Concept Ren'Py Demo - Community Development Thread

[OhWee]

So, what I would like to tackle as a mod, once the basic functionality (mainly management bit) is done, is make the leash scenes a little more exciting. To me, they´re a bit pointless in the current state... second, I would like a surveillance system at Lexcorp, and maybe Lex expanding into the "cosplay" webcam business

Anyone else have any good ideas?

So, of course, I have a few ideas...

In my mind, the reason Lex is taking the ladies for walks out in the street and to the Glamour Slam is (besides the erotic angle) because he has automated hidden cameras hidden on that street. When he talks to the ladies about the footage showing up on the net the next day, it's because he's the one that's streaming the (original) footage, for the streaming income. It's not a lot probably, but every little bit adds up.

And Villain(ess) types that are 'on duty' at Lexcorp, well their income bonus would affect this income stream of course. They are helping to promote the stream when not watching security monitors and such.

As for the strolls through the Glamour Slam, this is generating more customer interest, so more Glamour Slam income.

Of course, I have ideas to offset that extra income, like weekly retainers for the Villain(ess) types.

Right now, Threat Level is barely implemented. Other than Lois Lane sniffing a story when you perform the first big (non cash grab) heist, I think that's the trigger that gets Lois on your trail, well not much else is going on.

So my idea on this is that there's a general 'crime level', as well as a 'Lex illicit activity' level. The former goes up a bit each night, but is offset by Heroines that are 'fighting crime'. Sure, Batman, etc. are fighting crime too, but they could use the help, so when a bunch of heroines go missing each night, yeah Batman and the boys can't be everywhere at once.

As to how this affects the game, it affect GS/MB/LC income, with higher crime levels lowering said income. If people don't feel safe in town, they won't go to the GS or MB 'cuz they don't want to be jacked outside of the club...

The Lex illicit activity level thing is what gets Batman and the boy's attention. If this second number gets too high, well the Glamour Slam and Meta Bordello may need to shut down for a few days until the heat is off. Maybe not completely, but no Heroines on duty during that time, until the boys lose interest...

Heists would obviously bump up the Lex activiites level. Also, if a lot of girls are at the GS/MB/Lexcorp at the same time, this could also raise the level.

To lower general crime levels, Lex can tell girls to 'go fight crime' to make the city safer on a given night. The more girls fighting crime, the larger the decrease.

ALSO, along these line, there may be nights where girls are injured and such from fighting crime, or from dealing with some world level threat or something. This basically translates to random increases in fatigue every so often (so maybe a 10-20% chance of a fatigue increase or something). You'd get a message about this in your nightly news feed (end of day messages), to let you know that you should check in on one or more of the girls to see how their fatigue is going, and possibly give them the night off if needed. Probably multiple heroines would be involved in these 'world level threat battles', so as you capture more of the girls, the odds are higher that one or more of your girls will be caught up in these events.

Also, certain villains that aren't available for hire (Joker, Penguin, Kiteman, etc.) could be behind some of these activities. This is mainly only relevant for 'composing' the random event description text.

This is where cloning more of the girls could be very helpful. I.E. replace the original girl with a clone to take her place fighting crime, while you incorporate the original girl into your harem. There would of course be a chance that said clones might be detected, i.e. the memory or some conversation(s) being missing might tip off Batman and the boys, so if too many clones are in play, there might be a tipping point that disrupts Lex's harem building activities...

Kind of like the '12 nukes ends the game/global winter' rule from Supremacy... probably nobody here ever played that game though...

Back to the crime fighting thing. Superwoman, Galatea, etc. could also be assigned to 'fighting crime' maybe, but of course their methods would be less desirable, and may generate some bad press...

Most of this stuff would be mostly 'background filler' to add flavor to the game though. The main effect would be random increases to fatigue here and there, which the player would need to keep an eye on. Also, this goes back to my 'lets add in some more heroines' idea, if fanart types would be willing to put together some sprites for other gals.

I talked about my idea of having living quarters upgrades before. These are mainly to give Lex more things to spend money on in the late game. The gym is an example of one such upgrade, as would a 'wardrobe robo-tailor' that makes slutty costumes available to your harem, an orgy suite to have fun with multiple girls in at Lexcorp, other upgrades.

Then there's the 'mind control' thing where Lex 'convinces' certain rich men to spend some time in the VIP suites in the Meta Bordello. Like that famous billionaire Bruce Wayne...

It's all about adding flavor to the game, and finding ways to incorporate more of the sprite fanart here and there.

 

[OhWee]

Any full save gallery unlocked ?

This is very much a 'proof of concept' demo at this point, not a full game yet. So things like save galleries aren't going to happen for a while...

Helpful types will need to rebuild a LOT of scenes first, and re-assembling all of those sprites takes a lot of time. There are over 11,000 sprites in the SU Unity game. My focus is mainly on getting the interface working, so that others can easily step in and focus on building the various scenes if they are so inclined.

 

[Morkar]

all great ideas in fact im imagining a big event involving joker or some other super villain (darkseid) capturing and taking advantage of some superhero assigned to fight crime or even sui her whore level is high enough to defeat him using some ruse sexual so that he lowers his guard or something like that

 

[betazu]

So, of course, I have a few ideas...

In my mind, the reason Lex is taking the ladies for walks out in the street and to the Glamour Slam is (besides the erotic angle) because he has automated hidden cameras hidden on that street. When he talks to the ladies about the footage showing up on the net the next day, it's because he's the one that's streaming the (original) footage, for the streaming income. It's not a lot probably, but every little bit adds up.

And Villain(ess) types that are 'on duty' at Lexcorp, well their income bonus would affect this income stream of course. They are helping to promote the stream when not watching security monitors and such.

As for the strolls through the Glamour Slam, this is generating more customer interest, so more Glamour Slam income.

Of course, I have ideas to offset that extra income, like weekly retainers for the Villain(ess) types.

Right now, Threat Level is barely implemented. Other than Lois Lane sniffing a story when you perform the first big (non cash grab) heist, I think that's the trigger that gets Lois on your trail, well not much else is going on.

So my idea on this is that there's a general 'crime level', as well as a 'Lex illicit activity' level. The former goes up a bit each night, but is offset by Heroines that are 'fighting crime'. Sure, Batman, etc. are fighting crime too, but they could use the help, so when a bunch of heroines go missing each night, yeah Batman and the boys can't be everywhere at once.

As to how this affects the game, it affect GS/MB/LC income, with higher crime levels lowering said income. If people don't feel safe in town, they won't go to the GS or MB 'cuz they don't want to be jacked outside of the club...

The Lex illicit activity level thing is what gets Batman and the boy's attention. If this second number gets too high, well the Glamour Slam and Meta Bordello may need to shut down for a few days until the heat is off. Maybe not completely, but no Heroines on duty during that time, until the boys lose interest...

Heists would obviously bump up the Lex activiites level. Also, if a lot of girls are at the GS/MB/Lexcorp at the same time, this could also raise the level.

To lower general crime levels, Lex can tell girls to 'go fight crime' to make the city safer on a given night. The more girls fighting crime, the larger the decrease.

ALSO, along these line, there may be nights where girls are injured and such from fighting crime, or from dealing with some world level threat or something. This basically translates to random increases in fatigue every so often (so maybe a 10-20% chance of a fatigue increase or something). You'd get a message about this in your nightly news feed (end of day messages), to let you know that you should check in on one or more of the girls to see how their fatigue is going, and possibly give them the night off if needed. Probably multiple heroines would be involved in these 'world level threat battles', so as you capture more of the girls, the odds are higher that one or more of your girls will be caught up in these events.

Also, certain villains that aren't available for hire (Joker, Penguin, Kiteman, etc.) could be behind some of these activities. This is mainly only relevant for 'composing' the random event description text.

This is where cloning more of the girls could be very helpful. I.E. replace the original girl with a clone to take her place fighting crime, while you incorporate the original girl into your harem. There would of course be a chance that said clones might be detected, i.e. the memory or some conversation(s) being missing might tip off Batman and the boys, so if too many clones are in play, there might be a tipping point that disrupts Lex's harem building activities...

Kind of like the '12 nukes ends the game/global winter' rule from Supremacy... probably nobody here ever played that game though...

Back to the crime fighting thing. Superwoman, Galatea, etc. could also be assigned to 'fighting crime' maybe, but of course their methods would be less desirable, and may generate some bad press...

Most of this stuff would be mostly 'background filler' to add flavor to the game though. The main effect would be random increases to fatigue here and there, which the player would need to keep an eye on. Also, this goes back to my 'lets add in some more heroines' idea, if fanart types would be willing to put together some sprites for other gals.

I talked about my idea of having living quarters upgrades before. These are mainly to give Lex more things to spend money on in the late game. The gym is an example of one such upgrade, as would a 'wardrobe robo-tailor' that makes slutty costumes available to your harem, an orgy suite to have fun with multiple girls in at Lexcorp, other upgrades.

Then there's the 'mind control' thing where Lex 'convinces' certain rich men to spend some time in the VIP suites in the Meta Bordello. Like that famous billionaire Bruce Wayne...

It's all about adding flavor to the game, and finding ways to incorporate more of the sprite fanart here and there.

Regarding this, i've been thinking for a long time of Lex cloning tech.

Isn't it better for Lex to clone all superheroines that he mind controlled (like he did with Supergirl to make Galatea) to put them all working in GS and MB while keeping the original for his private collection/harem? In that way, it will put less heat on him and mind-controlling superheroines scheme as the original heroines can still do their crime fighting tasks on regular basis without the need to "reporting in" to GS and MB every nights

For his own harem, he can simply call whoever heroines he want without the need to keep them in his prison every night. Less heat on him too

 

[Deepsea]

Regarding this, i've been thinking for a long time of Lex cloning tech.

Isn't it better for Lex to clone all superheroines that he mind controlled (like he did with Supergirl to make Galatea) to put them all working in GS and MB while keeping the original for his private collection/harem? In that way, it will put less heat on him and mind-controlling superheroines scheme as the original heroines can still do their crime fighting tasks on regular basis without the need to "reporting in" to GS and MB every nights

For his own harem, he can simply call whoever heroines he want without the need to keep them in his prison every night. Less heat on him too

This.

People who want whoring get it while people who don't get to keep a harem of the originals. It's win win.

 

[OhWee]

So, I'm setting up the Eroplay pics at the moment.

For some reason, I'm only seeing one 'special' sprite for Black Canary, while the other girls that I've done so far have two. So I made a lame ass attempt at a second one...

 

[Devil1661]

This is very much a 'proof of concept' demo at this point, not a full game yet. So things like save galleries aren't going to happen for a while...

Helpful types will need to rebuild a LOT of scenes first, and re-assembling all of those sprites takes a lot of time. There are over 11,000 sprites in the SU Unity game. My focus is mainly on getting the interface working, so that others can easily step in and focus on building the various scenes if they are so inclined.

Can you animate the scenes like star fire tit job ?

 

[OhWee]

Can you animate the scenes like star fire tit job ?

Drawing is a skill that I sadly do not have. My expertise is more along the lines of coding, such as it is. While I can half ass things with Daz Studio, well that doesn't really apply to SU...

If there is an existing animation, there are ways to port those animations over, but if the animation doesn't exist already, yeah others will have to figure that out, or convince SR7 to make said animations from his art.

Apologies!

 

[LostBR]

Very interesting take on SU, im really interested in your project, i wish you all the luck

 

[OhWee]

OK, I should post a quick update.

I've been bouncing back and forth between a few things. In the meantime, Cult of Ape has been hammering away at several of the cell scenes. I need to transfer over a few scenes for Supergirl and Batgirl into my build.

There's some sort of weird text encoding bug that pops up when I try to do the copy-paste thing every so often, plus I of course have a better feel for Ren'Py having worked with it for several years now, so I have been re-typing the scenes and doing a few adjustments to sprite placement and such. I type at a reasonable speed so this doesn't take all that long, my 'usual' Ren'Py mistakes aside (forgetting " marks, those sort of things), but thankfully I can spot these pretty quickly with the auto-reload error reporting thing.

I took a look at the SR7 art packs to see if there were any 'ready to go' characters that could be transferred over. About the best option is Korra, who of course is now incorporated into the Themyscira arc. Themyscira is something that will take a LONG time to get to, and of course this is more of a demo than a a separate game at this point, so if such things interest you, well you are probably playing SU Unity already, that's your best bet if the story interests you.

Which brings me to a few clarifications.

So, to be clear, I am making no money on this community demo thing. I wouldn't feel right about making money off of someone else's artwork, unless we are collaborating (i.e. my relationships with RustyV and Big Rooster on one of my other projects). And even then, I'm still not making money on those projects.

I've been really gunshy about monetizing my own projects, because I'm a creature of whims. When I have them, I have to chase them, otherwise, I forget them and feel bad about that cool idea that I didn't follow up on and forgot what it was... This means that other projects end up getting put on the backburner as I chase other whims...

So back on topic. While I do hope that we are able to build a strong enough foundation here for a community mod environment for SU, my personal goal has never been to transcribe the entire game over. Rather, my goal here has always been to show off a few other approaches to the SU gameplay, and also to learn how to do some things for my own projects down the road. I've been talking about doing my own brothel management game for a while, so my big challenge there will be to make it it's own thing once I feel good about where things are here.

On a related note, I lent a hand with Brothel King for a bit several years back to help streamline that interface, and it was nice to see my efforts put to good use.

BUT, back to SU, we DO need to have enough content here to show off various new ideas, so while I personally am not looking to recreate EVERY cell scene and such from SU, if I do my job, it will be very easy for others to run with that idea if they want to put in the work.

Again, I'm doing this in my spare time, for free, and have no wish to monetize this effort. As to what others may end up doing, that's up to them. It would be nice if the GS games team ran with a few of these ideas, and seriously considered a Ren'Py port to foster a 'community mod' environment that we see with a number of other games around here, and if asked I'd probably be willing to help. I've worked for other developers before, but prefer to focus on chasing my whims. So I'm not holding my breath and have no such expectations.

Anyways, I just wanted to make my own intentions and goals clear, again, for the record.

Right now I'm working on setting up the Eroplay scenes. A lot of the girls only have one sprite for this, but some have two or more, so I've been looking for opportunities to add a second sprite easily. Unfortunately, most of the sprites in SU are missing the lower legs/feet which rules them out for this particular instance...

I'm adjusting every Eroplay sprite for proper alignment when invoked and also resizing them to take advantage of the 1920 x 1080 window, which is tedious work. Not hard, just tedious...

So, in short:

This is a 'in my spare time as time and creative energy allows' project for me, so it will continue to be slow going, but I want to see this through, so slow and steady in the meantime!

 

[Elefy]

I'm adjusting every Eroplay sprite for proper alignment when invoked and also resizing them to take advantage of the 1920 x 1080 window, which is tedious work. Not hard, just tedious...

I can try to give you a hand

 

[OhWee]

I can try to give you a hand

I just now have sent you a PM about this...

 

[OhWee]

So someone just asked me in a .pm about using .webp instead of .png.

I've personally been sticking with .png and .jpg as that's what my 'usual' photo editor was designed with. I do have a .webp plugin, but I've had crashes trying to use it. Plus a number of viewers don't support webp, and since the extracted sprites are .pngs, it just made sense to me to stick with .png.

Lossless webp does seem to save a bit more compactly than .png (I just resaved a 265kb png as a 178 webp) but not all that much, unless you start pushing the 'lossy' settings. This is also true of .png of course.

I'm using .jpgs for backgrounds, but saving them at maximum settings. They are often MUCH smaller than .png or .webp (a 363kb .jpg vs. 1.18 .webp when I resaved the .jpg as .webp). I didn't notice any appreciable loss of quality, and a lot of the backgrounds are being upsized from 512 x 1024 to 2160 x 1080. I'm keeping the 'extra' width (1920 vs 2160) for left to right panning options later maybe...

Anyways, so yeah I have my opinions on this, but what does everyone else think? This is a community effort, so this is one of those 'group decision' kind of things...

 

[OhWee]

Quick progress report.

Cult of Ape has been passing along more cell scenes stuff to add to the build. Mainly, it's just Supergirl, Batgirl, and Lois Lane at this point.

I added another variable that will detect if a girl currently has any cell scenes content. If she does not, this will be indicated at the point when you would otherwise be able to upgrade/unlock her device above Level 6, and you will not get the option to upgrade at that time.

No sense allowing upgrades if there is no content, that would just be a big tease...

But at least there will be Batgirl, Supergirl, Lois Lane and maybe Mercy content for now.

Cult of Ape has reached the 'menu' part of Kara's cell interactions, so maybe you'll get to see her dance in her cell and such soon.

I have the pics ready to go for Eroplay scenes, I just need to add the routines which show these to the glamourslam.rpy file. I'll probably post another 'proof of concept' update soon.

Which brings me to an interesting question:

Currently only Starfire can do 'double duty' when her device is Level 7/unlocked, i.e. doing stuff in her cell while also working at the GS/MB.

A few people have expressed interest in allowing more girls to do this (double duty) once they've been fully 'sluttified'. Myself, I was thinking that you could upgrade a girl's device to Level 8 to get her to do double duty, for some dollar amount for the upgrade. I was also thinking that a 'split the profits' arrangement could be a suitable enticement to get a girl to agree to this.

Perhaps some girls wouldn't go for this arrangment, but others might (thinking Huntress here, also maybe MissMartian with an oreos enticement, you get the idea).

What are y'all's thoughts on this?

 

[Perniciousducks]

There are certainly many girls that would be up for doing double duty after being fully trained.

 

[Cult of Ape]

I wish I had more time to delve into ren´py coding, but graciously OhWee is giving me pointers to follow. As long as the scenes aren´t too advanced I should be able to get them set up (strip scenes are basically the same code as intro scenes, so pretty much copynpaste)

Note, if you want to help out, but not interested in the (understandably tedious) process of transcribing dialogue, you could help out with preparing dialogue images. For some girls, there are good sets in the asset packs that just need background knocked out, and replaced with alpha. For others you might need to combine assets (like body+hair+face), notably Lois, whom I only have the first set of clothes for as of yet.

Regardless, I will contine helping out as much as I can, but time is scarce here at the moment, and I´m doing this in my spare time.

 

[OhWee]

OK, so I figured out how to do this...



This is an assembled sprite for Kara (using the Layered Image functionality in Ren'Py), consisting of three pieces (back of hair, body, head). Kara has 16 different head variations (hairband True/False, eyeshadow True/False, each with happy/angry/worried/sullen mouth expressions).

Kara also currently has six different costumes (actually 7 if you count the Sailor Moon costume) plus nekkid of course, and two different poses in each outfit for her body (arms crossed or back)

In any case, so yeah I set up the layered image declarations and switches that will access all of that:
Supergirl_hairband: True or False
Supergirl_eyeshadow: True or False
Supergirl_naked: True or False
Supergirl_current_outfit: 0-5 (possibly 0-6 if I were to attempt to modify the Sailor moon outfit to work in this context).

Anyways, the point is that all this will essentially allow people to just type:
show Supergirl happy
And she'll show up in whatever the current outfit is, with or without her hairband, with or without eyeshadow, and if she's currently naked she'll be naked instead.

Switching outfits is easy peasy when coding:

$Supergirl_current_outfit = 5
would 'invoke' the Slut outfit, as it's the 'fifth' outfit in the outfit progression currently (actually sixth since you also need to count the 'default' outfit, which is outfit 0)

$Supergirl_naked = False
and she puts her clothes back on.

show Supergirl crossed
will cross her arms, and
show Supergirl -crossed or show Supergirl back
puts her arms behind her back/leg.

You can get fancy and type:
show Supergirl angry crossed
and that'll do the arms and expression simultaneously.

You get the idea here. This is 'standard' Ren'Py functionality which is probably quite familiar to some of the coder types around here, the point is that I have it working in my current test build, which I'll share soon.

You could also do all of this in the Renpy console of course (shift + o) if you were bored, say if you are talking to Kara and decide that during Kara's initial conversation with you, she should be wearing the Slut outfit instead...

The tricky part is making sure that all of the body poses are accounted for r.e. alignment. I took the 'easy' way out and just set up two canvases (one for body, and one for head), lining them up via Photoshop layers and made sure that all variations would 'fit' inside of each canvas. So there are probably a few wasted pixels here and there, but not too bad overall.

Note that I've been scaling most of the character conversation sprites at 105% (1024 vs 1080 'default' screen height), so I need to take the sprites into Photoshop anyways.

The main reason this is important is so that others will have a coding example to work off of as a starting point when working on cell scenes and such for other girls.

Most of you are probably not going to read this wall of text, and will just admire nekkid Kara though...


Just thought I'd share!


Edit: Current status of my Legion Interface screen:



There's still a fair amount of coding that needs to happen here, but this is an 'ingame' shot showing where I'm going with this.

 

[xMendoza]

Well first I want to say sorry that I took me so long to bring a new update, i can work on this game only after work and during weekends. Well i added legion hideout. Pls test the new legion hideout and tell me what you guys think. Thx for you patience.

You must be registered to see the links

 

[OhWee]

Just a couple of quick notes.

I have looked over xMendoza's latest SU Rebuilt build, which he shared in the post above this one. We have different approaches to the same problem of course, r.e. the Legion Hideout screens.

I would encourage people to check out xMendoza 's build of course, to see what they think. There is some code there that I can put to use in SU ReImagined (mainly the dialogues), although as I noted our approaches are completely different. xMendoza pays a closer homage to the original SU, while my approach, well it's different.

It'll be a bit before I'll have my take on those screens far enough along to share anything meaningful. I've also been addressing other things...



The first screen has a fair amount of 'back end' in place, but there's not much to see yet. I still need to make profile pics, create .rpy files for each villain, etc.

Right now you can essentially pick one of the 'henchman currently available for hire' to one of the three people currently shown as 'available for hire', and said individuals are randomly picked from each tier pool, but that's about it. The 'picker' at the right will show whom is currently on your payroll, and let you view their bonuses for various things when I get that far. As I said, I have a ways to go to get this screen to where I want it.

The screen at the right essentially shows that Terra's device can't be unlocked (Level 7) because of lack of cell content. I initially had this screen set up to 'not allow the upgrade' when you open up the device upgrade screen, but that's essentially a big tease to say you can upgrade, and then say you can't, so I moved the 'switch' to the Profile screen with an appropriate note below the current device level thumbnail.

All heroines have been set up this way for now. When (any) cell content has been added for each Heroine, then the appropriate variable (girl_quarterscontent) will be changed from False to True. Dunno if/when such content for all of the girls will be added, but this will give other contributors something to shoot for I suppose...

I think I've worked out the 'math' for heists. Essentially, this is what I've gleaned so far in testing SU Unity:

Small cash heist : 20% base chance
Large cash heist: 10% base chance
Tech heist: 10% base chance
Other heists: unknown base chance at present (will check at some point).

Henchman heist bonuses (cumulative):
Mercy: None (baseline)
Tala: + 10%
Tier 1 Henchman: + 30%
Tier 2 Henchman: + 50%
Tier 3 Henchman: + 60%
Lex's Lucky Talisman (whatever it's called): + 10%

So, say a tech heist with Giganta (Tier 1) and Star Sapphire (Tier2) has a 90% chance of success (10% + 30% + 50%). If others want to take the time to test other heists to help figure out their 'base' chance, that'd be awesome as I have a bajillion other things for SU ReImagined that I'm trying to tackle atm. Also capture percentages...

Anyways...

The main areas that need work right now are the Meta Bordello (setting up the monitoring room, Catwoman dialogues, and such) and other things like talking to Lois at the Daily Planet. And more cell/quarters content of course! That's where I'd suggest any contributors to this effort to concentrate on, while I slowly plug away at the Villain Interface screen.

I will also need to create variations on the Profile screen for Villains and Guests respectively, but my take on the Villain/Henchman Interface Screeen is the most important thing IMHO right now on my end.

In any case, as usual, feedback (on both versions, SU Re-Imagined and SU Re-Built) is always appreciated!

As soon as I have the Villain/Henchman Interface a bit farther along, I'll share my latest build so that others can see the Layered Image code that I figured out for Supergirl, and various other things that I've been tweaking in the last couple of weeks...

Back to work!

 

[Legal1709]

Only thing I can say is good job man and keep going! You are doing us all a favor, hope to see it completed one day, good luck!