trapmint
Thanks very much for letting me know! I'm on it! Might take a day or so for me to work out the fix, but you should be able to move forward with your existing playtest at that point, so just roll back and save for now...
OK, so first off, I really do appreciate you taking the time to give this feedback! I'll try to address your points in order.
I want to apologize for 'throwing you into the fire' r.e. learning the interface, that's a 'known issue' that I plan to address in future builds. My goal so far has been to make a stable and more streamlined interface, and that's been my main focus up to this point. Hence why this is a 'Proof of Concept Demo' and not a 'Full Game' right now. I'll get back to this in a bit.
Let's talk about 'vision' first. SU ReImagined and SU Rebuilt have a slightly complicated backstory. I did indeed help
xMendoza a bit with his new Rebuilt effort back in October-December of 2022, and simply put, we want different things out of our respective efforts. We still correspond via DM and try to help each other out (
xMendoza is newer to Ren'Py than I am, so I'm happy to give suggestions if asked), and others are helping out both efforts to varying degrees.
In any case, I also wanted MY work on this to be a more 'public' effort, which is why this thread now exists and why there are now two Ren'py efforts going on simultaneously, and why as the OP I do try to showcase SU Rebuilt builds when
xMendoza drops them. But simply put, Rebuilt and ReImagined now have different, albiet fairly similar goals.
The 'more public face' of ReImagined is also why I've been resisting doing the Discord thing. ReImagined is first and foremost for the F95Zone community, and also for SU fans in general. Just wanted to note this...
Rebuilt is intended to be a 'more faithful' redesign and Ren'Py port, although with some changes here and there of course! ReImagined, simply put, is re-imagining the whole gameplay experience a bit, from the interface design to backstory, etc..
One of our hopes was that GS Games might contact one or both of us r.e. our efforts, but so far no effort has been made to reach out to me here at least. I can't speak for xMendoza, but last I heard it was the same on his end. Smokeshank has a real chip on his shoulder when it comes to F95Zone, so I'm not really surprised, but you'd think that at least they would have acknowledged the kickass SU Sprite ReMix/Fanart thread by now, other than perhaps in their Discord, where they can control the narrative.
In any case, I've elaborated on this stuff before, so I'm mainly just giving clarification again.
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But back to your thoughts!
ReImagined, by design, is set up so that people can add their own content via various methods. The biggest one is 'girlpacks' as I refer to them.
Essentially, each character has it's own folder with it's own .rpy file, which contains as much of their 'part' of the story as possible. Interface elements are almost there right now, except for a few Legion Hideout related things that are more 'general' in nature, although I may 're-target' the remaining sprites to direct to the respective guys/girls folder, but I digress.
But back on topic. Since each girlpack/guypack is more or less almost completely 'self contained', this opens up the door to add a lot of new backstory, sideplots, or whatever that involve that character specifically. This has always been a goal of SU ReImagined. The thought here that other people that are passionate about whichever character could develop their own versions of each girlpack.
Note that as we don't have enough people contributing right now for girl packs in the first place, we have a few and their efforts are VERY much appreciated, but there are a number of neglected existing characters right now...
In this respect, I think this is where some of your 'direction seems to be missing' sentiment may stem from. That doesn't lessen the point you are making, but just be aware that the idea here is to encourage new content creation for existing as well as new characters.
An example of someone that's been slavishly working on a particular girlpack is
Perniciousducks . I've pretty much let him do his own thing with Stargirl, and after giving him a few pointers r.e. what the rest of the interface is looking for and the methodologies I've set up at least, and shared a few modified sprites with him, he's been doing his own thing. This is how it's supposed to work after all, I can't do everything at once, and I want to encourage others to bring something new to the mix if they have a passion for it.
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So I probably should loop this around to my current goals.
So right now, ReImagined is finally to a point where I feel fairly comfortable with others adding their own content.
Yes I need to get the Meta Bordello working next, I'm just looking for feedback on the Glamour Slam screen first before I tackle the Meta Bordello, so that any suggested changes can be implemented beforehand...
If for example, they wanted to take things in a different direction, say put Savage in charge instead of Lex or whatever, that IS possible at this point. It might require a lot of re-jiggering of the dialogue, and perhaps some artwork changes (i.e. changing Lexcorp to something else), but yeah...
MY current goal, though, is to have a more convincing alternate backstory, that ties in to 'end game' goals that Lex seeks to achieve. I won't elaborate more on that currently, but the short form is that the clock is ticking, and Lex needs to make a few things happen...
I'll be setting up my 'alternate backstory' using the methodology that I've set up with the 'Extended Intro'. The Extended Intro is actually a placeholder of sorts, and is also there to let people know that they can create their own intros if they want! Again, part of the reason that ReImagined exists is to allow people to create their own stories!
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As for Mysterious Shadow Gal (which y'all probably recognize is Harley #2), her main role is actually for tutorial purposes, and also to set up a way to bypass the intro so that people can just skip the intro and get on with the game if they've seen the intro enough times for their liking. Tutorials are very much on the 'to do' list, stabilizing the interface and arriving at a unified methodology of sorts has been my driving goal up to this point. Having a strong gameplay backbone is essential after all!
But of course, in the meantime, I've been assuming that most people have been following, or have taken the time to read through this thread...
So little things like '3 days between device upgrades', which have been discussed a few times in this thread, at this point are easily missed as there are now well over 30 pages of discussion. So in a way that's my bad, and I will try to put a few more hints in place for the next update. I'm doing this now with the 'first time hire' dialogues for henchmen, so that people may better understand what this whole 'retainer' thing is all about.
Also, a few of these ideas, like the 3 day device cooldown thing between upgrades, are sorta kinda intended to be optional rules at some point, but yeah the whole 'choose optional rules' thing, that is supposed to have it's own screen where you check off boxes, yeah that's still down the road a bit... more important things to focus on first!
But absolutely, I've tweaked enough things under the hood a lot, so while I've been transparent about such changes in this thread, not everyone is going to read every single wall of text post that I make to see what's up. I try to include a lot of stuff in the changelog, but I'm probably long overdue r.e. updating the changelog on Page 1 of this thread.
So my bad! I can only do so many things at once, but still..
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So yeah, I wanted the gameplay backbone to be more robust and interesting, and hopefully I've achieved that to some degree. But I want to talk about 'game balance' next.
I DO want ReImagined to be a bit more of an intellectual challenge than SU Unity in a few ways, which is why there are more levers and buttons to be mindful of. For example, what's going on with the Glamour Slam now is, well, more interesting? A girl's Lexcon Device Level is now a lot more flexible, if the Glamour Slam 'license' has been upgraded to allow Stripping and Eroplay. Those activities are no longer tied to specific slots.
I think that this is a good change that makes more sense and makes things more interesting, but of course it's what everyone else thinks that is important.
I've tried to keep the income generation a bit tighter in SU ReImagined, again to make it a bit more of a challenge in the early game. I do throw the players a bone with more starting income, so that you may attempt to capture your second gal on Saturday if you wish (actual gameplay starts on Thursday), but yeah there are a few different strategies that can be employed in the early game, and to be honest I don't know which one is best right now. But that's for others to figure out and perhaps write a strategy guide or whatever...
But if the income curve is too tight... which is why your feedback here is valuable, and why I've been asking others for more feedback on this!
I can easily increase the amount of income the girls generate each night, and indeed there's the 'income' difficulty modifier that can help with this. One of my goals with having these difficulty sliders is to allow people to experiment with different difficulties for different tasks to find a 'better balance' if that makes sense.
Myself, I'm of a mixed mind r.e. the current income stream and how Threat Level ties into that. Threat Level is there to make things more challenging in the early/mid game, and also the late game when I get that far, but I'm trying to achieve a balance here. I want the game to be more challenging, but without 'excessive' grind.
So this continues to evolve based on feedback, which is why I LOVE detailed reports of playthroughs so that I can get a better 'feel' for what other people are thinking and their associated impressions.
The lack of sexy fun time content in the early game in ReImagined is currently a big issue. In SU Unity, we have Mercy, Lois and Harley, and perhaps a few henchwomen, to keep Lex/the player entertained and tittilated until such time as the 'regular heroines' start showing up in the Lexcorp cells. But again, until such Mercy/Lois/Harley content is added to their cell interactions...
There's not much I can do about that as I can only do so many things at once, and have been 90% focused on interface design up to this point, and I DO have my own goals as well here with my 'alternate backstory' which I'm starting to tackle now...
The idea about others working on Girlpacks (and Guypacks and Eventpacks) is to 'share the load' so to speak, and also so that people don't burn out on this, as it'll take years unless the Girl/Guy/Event pack content is split among multiple contributors.
Income generation along with sexy fun time content gameplay balance for the early game is hence a priority, so it's harder to judge if it's taking too long, if the other sexy funtime content with Roulette, Tala, Mercy, Lois, Harley and Audrey isn't in place yet... but increasing income slightly can
So yeah, more sexy fun time content for the early game is higher up on my priority list now, which is why I'll probably do a bit of work on one of the other gals for the next update (0.28). Maybe Raven to get the Summoning tree started, maybe someone else, depends on where my muse takes me!
BTW, the reason for the 'end of night' routine is to set up a framework to report everything that can happen while Lex is asleep.
So that you are aware:
- Girls that are working gain fatigue, resting lowers fatigue, and fatigue is used to calculate nightly income (SU Unity has a linear progression for this, SU ReImagined uses a 'squared' curve for this).
- Heist and capture reports happen as needed (same as in SU Unity, but i unified these onto a single screen as they are related). The 'retainer' thing is new and needs to be handled somewhere.
- If the threat level is above 525, there's a chance that the GS or MB may have to close for the evening. Which of course the player needs to know about...
- Some Herioines may be involved in scuffles while fighting baddies, and I like to report these so that players are aware that they may want to check the managment scheduler r.e. these gals...
- Reporting when Roulette/Tala and eventually Catwoman may have info on new potential targets is again a courtesy, to let players know that they may want to talk to Roulette or Tala today...
- Then comes the 'beginning of evening' report, which again is intended to let the player know if any upgrades have been completed, and what Lex's current 'focus and item settings' are.
Note that while I could move the 'change Lex's focus options' to the next menu, this decision needs to be made at the start of the evening, which is why I'm calling attention to it. This is a 'game balance' mechanic, so that only one 'bonus' is in play each night. I could perhaps make this an 'optional rule' thing, i.e. player chooses whether to see the 'change focus options' menu each night OR have the option added to the next menu...
Anyways, my point is that a LOT of stuff happens under the hood in SU ReImagined during the 'end of night' routines, and I like for the players to be aware when a girl is too tired to work, is involved in a scuffle, etc... which adds a bit more 'flavor' to the game IMHO.
I will admit that I've been skipping the 'talk to Roulette and/or Catwoman' routines in my playtesting. I've been wanting to go back and add 'watch girls perform' to those routines but more important stuff needs to get done first. I want to rework these routines a bit, and in fact have made some small changes to these already...
In short though, a LOT of stuff is happening during the 'end of day/start of next day', a lot of which isn't happening in SU Unity... I do ponder if there are ways to streamline this a bit, and in fact I've done a bit of streamlining already, but at this point that would require a bit of redesign. I'm already considering doing a bit of redesign here, but that's more of a 'down the road after more important things are taken care of' sort of thing.
Right now I'm pondering a 'front page of newspaper' sort of screen layout to convey some of this info together on the same screen, but the way the info is generated is a bit complex so this will require a bit of effort on my part when I'm ready to tackle it...
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And now, on to your final point. I'll summarize this as 'fleshing out existing content and adding new content'. I'm laying some groundwork for a 'sideplot' involving one of Lex's henchmen currently (just waiting on some artwork), and the plan is to give each henchperson their own side plot that ties in to the main story in some minor way. What that main story is evolves as more stuff is developed storywise, but it all will be working to the 'end game goal' that I've mentioned before.
The reason I'm starting to tackle this NOW is because before now I was focused on interface design (note that I'm not quite done with that yet, I want to 'unify' the style a bit more and such), but now I want to move forward with storytelling.
Absolutely I want to spend more time with each of the existing characters, as well as introduce new ones, but MY goal with the alternate backstory is to have the story 'go somewhere'. Sure, it may seem that things will go off on tangents, and perhaps some stories will just be interesting mini-stories with not a lot of stakes as it relates to the main story. But to that Villainess or Heroine or whomever, it may be quite important.
I don't want to fall into the 'complete quest' trope too much, but yeah at the end of the day I'd LOVE to see each character's own story fleshed out a bit more in ReImagined, and if it ties in to the 'alternate backstory', so much the better. But I also want said 'side stories' to be able to stand alone on their own, should someone want to create their own 'major plotline' and tell a different story than what I want to do...
That's kind of a big ask (mini-stories that can be 'connected' to the overall story but that can also stand on their own), but yeah...
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In any case, on to the last thing you brought up, 'What Can I Do To Help?'
ABSOLUTELY I want people to start writing more stuff! Simply 're-telling' what is happening in SU Unity is redundant, and people can play SU Unity for that, and not have to wait years for various contributors/team members to catch up with adding all of the existing content to ReImagined and Rebuilt...
And, while this isn't a requirement, you actually could be helpful in transcribing existing content. Setting up scenes (after the girlpack framework is set up, you'll see more of this with Power Girl in the next update) in Ren'Py is actually fairly easy. Sure, animating sprites is cooler, but that stuff can wait until later, right now we just need to 'link up' the dialogue with the sprites and backgrounds, which is fairly easy to do...
BTW, what we have going on with Power Girl and Faora ties in with my 'alternate backstory' idea but that'd be spoilers so yeah...
But I also want to encourage people to start adding new stories as well, to existing characters as well as new characters. So absolutely I'd love to discuss this with you! I'd probably prefer doing it via DM though, as having it be 'new content to explore' for new players/playtesters is preferable, to make their playtesting experience more enjoyable!
Hey look! Another one of my infamous walls of text!
BTW, while I use the term 'I' a lot here, there's actually others that are helping as well. Mainly since I'm kind of spearheading this thing, think of it as a royal 'I' with myself as spokeperson... Although there is no I in Team, this is very much a community team effort! Thanks Sinner87 , Perniciousducks , Jimwalrus , Senchest , Macfinn99 etc!.
Appreciate the feedback! If you want to help with some of the backstory or other stuff
Straze let me/us know!
