VN Ren'Py Completed Rick and Morty: Another Way Home [r4.2.1] [Night Mirror]

[kimlana]

So, my question is: does anyone think this would be a feature you'd like to have?

Yes, plus the following suggestions:

1) It seems more elegant to do this as a horizontal strip at the top of the screen. This would allow you to put Navigation arrows < and > on the left and right to move within the scene list for a day. You'd also have the option to include << and >> arrows to move to the Previous or Next day.

2) Hovering is not mobile friendly, and can be also problematic for people who use windowed instead of fullscreen as mouseover events persist through all Z planes in some situations, and just sometimes buggy in general. I would suggest a toggle, either as an icon/text label added to the existing controls at the bottom of the screen which are already persistent that pops the menu out or retracts it. If you can't modify the default Renpy controls, your new control could be located to the left or right of them.

3) You have such a good focus on keyboard controls, so I would encourage a keybind to popup the scene selector with numbering 1-7 to jump to that scene and maybe 0/8 for back and next scene page.

4) Not entirely related but on the subject of indicators, more than just "does this scene contain a choice" I actually wish you exposed which scenes had has persistent options. Like, anything that touches a variable on the DoOver menu. It would be very useful for dialog testing on later scenes. Off the top of my head, I have no idea which day some of the events on the DoOver screen actually happen, so either adding clickable jumps from DoOver to that specific day/scene or indicators on the day/scene list would be helpful in testing alternate dialog events.

That's all my first impressions, looks like an excellent improvement.

 

[WatsonTouya]

Rather than separating a "Day Selector" and a "Scene Selector" in two different menus, it seems to me like it would be more efficient to make it one system. (Incorporating the Scene Selector into the Day Selector).

I agree.

That was what I started with in the first prototype. Clicking a day popped up a new window to select a scene on that day. Both implementations have up and down sides. At the moment I think I'm going to stick with the in-day scene selector for now. I may explore this more in the future.

While the in-day scene selector is quicker to use than a scene selector within the day selector, that's only if the scene you want to jump to is on the current day, otherwise it's about the same. I also think that the arrow icon is a little distracting, ALWAYS being on screen for a feature that might not be used too often. Of, course, you said that the arrow can be disabled, but then that'll make using the feature take longer than if it was in the day selector instead, if you don't want the arrow to always be on screen. And if a player wants to jump to a specific scene not in Mind Blowers and forgot how to enable scene selector, or forgot the scene selector even exists, they'd probably go to day selector which is always visible in the main menu. So instead of scene selector being part of the "HUD", I think it would be better if it had it's own main menu button, or if it was a "sub" menu within Day Selector, like how you described your first prototype.

Regardless, you said that it'd be a lot of work, grinding your face on your keyboard for a week. After the two behemoths you already did for this update (slicing and do over revamp), I think that what you've done for this update is more than enough, and there's no sweat about adding EVEN MORE. What I'm trying to say is, take yo- tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii~me. And take it easy.


But knowing you, you're still gonna eat your keyboard.
I don't know how to stop you. . .

Again, thank you for your hard work on this game. Hope you have fun, even if it's wrestling your keyboard with your face for a week.

 

[kimlana]

My request would be a general ask for more romantic or lovey stuff. My porn game preferences tend to skew eastern because there are a lot of games that are about developing relationships with the heroines, and I find that that dynamic greatly increases my enjoyment. If it fits within the scope of the project I'd like to see more of a "love" route develop, or at least options that come across more that way.

I would also add my vote for this, because I also found myself much more enthralled by progression of relationship between MC and others. Who knew Tricia Lange would end up being such a sympathetic character! Sometimes all it takes to change a scene from indifferent casual sex to passionate lovemaking is the right dialog, or maybe a single concluding still image created to represent a new "ending".

The real change, from a development side, would be a need to track which NPC the player is currently pursuing. But this is antithetical to NightMirror's premise to strip out most of the content-gating bullshit. I generally agree that the mechanics like needing to earn Dexterity to get strong enough to "earn' an h-scene are completely idiotic. But I think there can be something that tracks an overall net positive/negative of player choices towards NPCs without having to go full-blown corruption/love points.

For example, we have a "First kiss" mechanic that could possibly be expanded on to add addition love/affection/feelings content dialog. Whichever character has "First kiss" maybe it could generate a prompt after h-scenes like "am I falling in love with ___?" and if yes, reveal extra dialog/images with appropriate NPC response (voicing love after a scene on Day 7 might be rejected, but after a scene on day 18 returned, etc).

edit: typos

 

[aaronminus]

Day 2 Spelling and Grammar check. Was a bit more involved this time, but as long as it's helpful to you I'm happy to do it!

 

[Night Mirror]

1) It seems more elegant to do this as a horizontal strip at the top of the screen. This would allow you to put Navigation arrows < and > on the left and right to move within the scene list for a day. You'd also have the option to include << and >> arrows to move to the Previous or Next day.

I'll put together a horizontal mockup and see if I like it any better. The main reason it's not at the top is that it collides with the skipping overlay, but I think I'd have the Scene selector hide when skipping.

The paging between days is an interesting concept, I need to think on it some more.

2) Hovering is not mobile friendly, and can be also problematic for people who use windowed instead of fullscreen as mouseover events persist through all Z planes in some situations, and just sometimes buggy in general. I would suggest a toggle, either as an icon/text label added to the existing controls at the bottom of the screen which are already persistent that pops the menu out or retracts it. If you can't modify the default Renpy controls, your new control could be located to the left or right of them.

I did test it on mobile and it has an alternate behavior, which is press and hold. It works... okay, but not great. Not a big fan of a toggle button but it might be the way I have to go. Sigh... android, why you gotta be so complicated!

3) You have such a good focus on keyboard controls, so I would encourage a keybind to popup the scene selector with numbering 1-7 to jump to that scene and maybe 0/8 for back and next scene page.

There is a bit of an issue here in that the choice menus already use the number keys. I'll have to do some more testing to see what happens.

4) Not entirely related but on the subject of indicators, more than just "does this scene contain a choice" I actually wish you exposed which scenes had has persistent options. Like, anything that touches a variable on the DoOver menu. It would be very useful for dialog testing on later scenes. Off the top of my head, I have no idea which day some of the events on the DoOver screen actually happen, so either adding clickable jumps from DoOver to that specific day/scene or indicators on the day/scene list would be helpful in testing alternate dialog events.

Yeah, that is what I meant by more informational indicators. That is probably too much for this time around. But I'll think on it for the future. Although, using this menu to find scene choice would be a poor experience.

While the in-day scene selector is quicker to use than a scene selector within the day selector, that's only if the scene you want to jump to is on the current day, otherwise it's about the same. I also think that the arrow icon is a little distracting, ALWAYS being on screen for a feature that might not be used too often. Of, course, you said that the arrow can be disabled, but then that'll make using the feature take longer than if it was in the day selector instead, if you don't want the arrow to always be on screen. And if a player wants to jump to a specific scene not in Mind Blowers and forgot how to enable scene selector, or forgot the scene selector even exists, they'd probably go to day selector which is always visible in the main menu. So instead of scene selector being part of the "HUD", I think it would be better if it had it's own main menu button, or if it was a "sub" menu within Day Selector, like how you described your first prototype.

Not having the UI clutter is a good argument to move it onto the day selector menu. And possible issues with android (fucking android)... sigh... Maybe the toggle for the in-game scene selector goes on the Day Selector menu, so players could have it in both locations? That feels like poor design...

I didn't fully toss my code for it, so I'll also put it back on the Day Select menu for now and fuck around with it some more.

The real change, from a development side, would be a need to track which NPC the player is currently pursuing. But this is antithetical to NightMirror's premise to strip out most of the content-gating bullshit. I generally agree that the mechanics like needing to earn Dexterity to get strong enough to "earn' an h-scene are completely idiotic. But I think there can be something that tracks an overall net positive/negative of player choices towards NPCs without having to go full-blown corruption/love points.

As I've sort of said in previous posts, this isn't really a tracking issue, it's a content issue. I'm not the on making content for this game so the options on what I can do is limited. And things like branching paths, or perusing specific characters is just beyond the scope of what this project is.

All the tracking stuff was ever really meant to do was give you little reminders about past actions, not have a great sweeping influence on the game.

Day 2 Spelling and Grammar check. Was a bit more involved this time, but as long as it's helpful to you I'm happy to do it!

Yes, it is very helpful! Having another set of eyes that aren't my own really helps!

 

[kimlana]

All the tracking stuff was ever really meant to do was give you little reminders about past actions, not have a great sweeping influence on the game.

Imo, those "little reminders" could easily be expanded with longer/meaningful dialog because the infrastructure is already present. I agree, nobody is (at the moment) taking on the role of submitting new dialog content, but it could happen, so I just felt like encouraging you to continue to put tracking variables on any player choices that seems potentially consequential (i.e. boundary-crossing or mutually-exclusive) even if you can't come up with a totally killer way to flag on it right when you add the new content.

Just my two cents!

 

[aaronminus]

Imo, those "little reminders" could easily be expanded with longer/meaningful dialog because the infrastructure is already present. I agree, nobody is (at the moment) taking on the role of submitting new dialog content, but it could happen, so I just felt like encouraging you to continue to put tracking variables on any player choices that seems potentially consequential (i.e. boundary-crossing or mutually-exclusive) even if you can't come up with a totally killer way to flag on it right when you add the new content.

Just my two cents!

I would second the sentiment, but with the gentle reminder/caveat that feature creep is real, and this is one of the most content rich WEGs ever made. I think the purpose of this remake has been to strip away a lot of the “gamification” of the original, favoring quality of life and the content itself. Would I love a more in depth relationship system? Yeah, but I’m not expecting one, nor do I think this game necessarily needs one. Two more cents!

 

[Night Mirror]

Imo, those "little reminders" could easily be expanded with longer/meaningful dialog because the infrastructure is already present. I agree, nobody is (at the moment) taking on the role of submitting new dialog content, but it could happen, so I just felt like encouraging you to continue to put tracking variables on any player choices that seems potentially consequential (i.e. boundary-crossing or mutually-exclusive) even if you can't come up with a totally killer way to flag on it right when you add the new content.

At the moment, pretty much every choice (other than skip buttons (which aren't a character choices but a player choice, and don't/can't have a story impact)), has a tracker. In fact, the game is tracking some things that aren't used (yet (possibly ever)). Any time I drop in a choice menu that leads to other scenes (not included in the original) I also track the choice.

I don't think I've missed any choices. Is there one outstanding that you feel should be tracked but isn't? That could just be an oversight.

As to more dialog, that is a bit more tricky. I have added a LOT of extra dialog to this game already (mainly in the form of bumpers between scene to help them flow better into each other). References to past actions are mostly intended to be reminders, not branch points. I never want players to miss or be locked out of content based on a past choice. And (despite all my wordiness to the contrast), I don't want to flood the game (too late) with mountains of text between sex scenes.

At the moment the game only has two scenes that play differently based on a past choice outside of the scene. Summer/Morticia in the shower, which doesn't make sense if you didn't have sex with Morticia (this scene has an option to view anyhow). And the table footjob with Summer, where the intro and some lines are different based on if you did or didn't wear a condom on the zoo planet.

The goal is to keep branches to a minimum. Anything more is just outside the scope of this project.

I think the purpose of this remake has been to strip away a lot of the “gamification” of the original, favoring quality of life and the content itself.

The purpose of this remake is MONEY!!! WOO- wait, what, I'm giving away for free?! DAMN IT!

Anyhow... I am glad so many people have found this game enjoyable. The community interaction alone has been a pretty good reward in all honesty.

 

[Pornwatcher59]

So is it a way to fix it on Android I tried the original version too and it isn't working

 

[Night Mirror]

Alright, well I spent WAY more time on this today than I thought I would (and deleted and re-did a bunch of work...) Anyhow, version 3 of the in-game Scene Selector! (still WIP with several placeholder assets)


So, what's different.

The obvious one out of the way first. I moved it from the side up to the top. Not perfect and still some weird behavior I have to deal with, but getting there.

Additionally, you might notice that this seems to be showing the wrong day, since the line Morty is saying is the first dialog on day 1, but the menu shows day 5 at the top. As suggested in a previous post, pressing the arrows on either side will update the thumbs and title to the next or previous days list of scenes. So now you don't even have to go back to the Day Selector (sort of making it less valuable...), to jump between scenes/days. It also loops end to end (so going left from day 1 takes you to day 37, and visa versa)

Hover (and the arrow) have also been done away with. When not active, the menu is now fully hidden off screen. The Quick Menu now has a button (replacing the move quick menu) to toggle scene selection on and off. It will auto hide under certain conditions (day transitions, the messaging app, skipping, replay) but come back once those conditions end. It can be closed either from the close button at the bottom, or pressing the scene button again.

It is also part of the menu interface, so pressing "h" will hide it along with everything else.

It also no longer supports multiple pages of scenes (capped at 9 per day). With the largest day in the game currently having 8 scenes, this hopefully won't be an issue going forward.

And while not shown here, both the current scene and day will be indicated by a color change similar to how the current Day Selector works.

Anyhow... that's all for me tonight. I only planned to spend an hour or two on this today, and have been working on it for the last 14 hours... so... sleep time...

Thanks for the feedback everyone! Let me know what you think and stay awesome!

 

[aaronminus]

Alright, well I spent WAY more time on this today than I thought I would (and deleted and re-did a bunch of work...) Anyhow, version 3 of the in-game Scene Selector! (still WIP with several placeholder assets)
View attachment 1866130

So, what's different.

The obvious one out of the way first. I moved it from the side up to the top. Not perfect and still some weird behavior I have to deal with, but getting there.

Additionally, you might notice that this seems to be showing the wrong day, since the line Morty is saying is the first dialog on day 1, but the menu shows day 5 at the top. As suggested in a previous post, pressing the arrows on either side will update the thumbs and title to the next or previous days list of scenes. So now you don't even have to go back to the Day Selector (sort of making it less valuable...), to jump between scenes/days. It also loops end to end (so going left from day 1 takes you to day 37, and visa versa)

Hover (and the arrow) have also been done away with. When not active, the menu is now fully hidden off screen. The Quick Menu now has a button (replacing the move quick menu) to toggle scene selection on and off. It will auto hide under certain conditions (day transitions, the messaging app, skipping, replay) but come back once those conditions end. It can be closed either from the close button at the bottom, or pressing the scene button again.

It is also part of the menu interface, so pressing "h" will hide it along with everything else.

It also no longer supports multiple pages of scenes (capped at 9 per day). With the largest day in the game currently having 8 scenes, this hopefully won't be an issue going forward.

And while not shown here, both the current scene and day will be indicated by a color change similar to how the current Day Selector works.

Anyhow... that's all for me tonight. I only planned to spend an hour or two on this today, and have been working on it for the last 14 hours... so... sleep time...

Thanks for the feedback everyone! Let me know what you think and stay awesome!

In short, top > side, incorporating day system > not doing that, no hover > hover, ability to hide > always on.
You did it, great implementation, good job!

 

[WatsonTouya]

Anyhow, version 3 of the in-game Scene Selector! (still WIP with several placeholder assets)

While I still think that it would be a lot more intuitive to have the scene selector integrated inside day selector, this is a lot better than skipping for a minute to get to a scene that's later on in a specific day.

It also no longer supports multiple pages of scenes (capped at 9 per day). With the largest day in the game currently having 8 scenes, this hopefully won't be an issue going forward.

If you're paranoid there might be a day that breaks the 9 scene limit, I think adding a second row just to be safe would be fine, since your focus should be on the scene thumbnails while the menu is open, over the game. And you can just you know, close the menu. At least, that's what I think.

 

[aaronminus]

I’ve thought about my request for an “All Girls” option in “mindblowers”, and I wanted to present my final thoughts on the subject while i’m thinking about it:

First, I want to say that I’m happy with the game ‘as is’ and this feature or lack thereof would not change that.
Second, I don’t know ANYTHING about renpy programming or programming in general, I don’t know if this feature request is as simple as a half hour of BS or a real multi-day pain in the ass.
Third, I believe that the existing implementation caters to the needs of the average player.

That said, here is my (respectful) argument in favor of the feature:
Most people will approach Mindblowers looking to replay their favorite H-scenes, and most people will have a girl in mind. That said, this game is huge and, as you’ve said, contains 200~ scenes of interest. As someone with a very weak short term memory I could probably only name 20-30 of them off the top of my head after playing through the game three times. I can understand your reaction of “Why don’t you just play the game?”, and my perspective is less “An all girls option would incentivize skipping the game” and more “An all girls option would allow returning players to select from the full scope of the game”.

Currently, when i’m using Mindblowers, I jump from girl to girl to remind myself of my favorite scenarios/positions/acts (I like basically all of the girls, so my first selection is somewhat arbitrary to me) and select accordingly. An “All Girls” option can help players decide which act or situation they’re more interested in, rather than coming at it from a “character first” perspective. I believe that the average player will be thinking “character first”, but some (like me) will want to approach the system “scenario first” or “act first”. I’ve thought about what i’d request to make the game better and more than any H-scene request or dialogue change, this would be the one.

I’ve typed this out is because this is the last time i’ll push it. If you find the feature superfluous, or unreasonable to implement, I respect that and will not push for it any more. Thanks for all the effort you put into the game!

 

[bob_bit123]

That's unfortunate to hear. If the quality of the machine learning versions wasn't very good, quality is king. The YouTube video I linked seemed pretty damn passable, although it likely is stacked in favor of demostrating the best case examples. If you know who the streamer Forsen is, he has a guy who makes custom TTS voices that are incredible, very very passable. The day that technology becomes easily accessible as deepfakes technology will be a real watershed moment in gaming.

However, I think that you are missing the point with the other issues you mention:

1) Filesize isn't an issue with text-to-speech because you would only be distributing the TTS engine, which would use the existing dialog text. It could be user's choice whether they wanted to generate all audio on the fly or cache the results as locally-saved audio files.

2) String substitution also wouldn't be a problem since the game knows your preferences and would run the appropriate text through the TTS engine. Yes, things would go wonky if you changed preferences mid-scene but that's already the case because of how often it updates those variables.

3) No additional copyright issues with TTS, since you're only distributing pure text and an executable to turn it into audio. Locally cached audio files would probably not ever be distributed as a mod because of how many variations there would be.

I definitely agree you are right that most of the ideas you mention are clearly beyond the scope of an unofficial fan remake. That's why I was really only specifically asking about TTS with trained voice patterns. I had hoped the technology had matured since I last saw it (which originally was trying to simulate vocal cords and windpipes and all kinds of nonsense) but if you have checked it out and deemed it unsuitable I trust that evaluation.

Also I appreciate that you are very open and not "possessive" (particularly since you owe so much to other content makers anyway) which means that if someday someone does figure out a good audio solution they could likely add it as a mod and let people make their own choice.

One thing I really like about the idea of TTS is that it would solve the problem of fighting with text Auto-Forward time. There are dialogs that are one word, and dialogs that span three lines. Trying to find a balance between them is hard, lol. I wish Renpy could at least read silently to itself and advance to the next dialog with actual awareness of how much people need time to read.

Thanks for your insight on this issue.

I spent quite a long time going down this TTS rabbit hole. (way more time than I should have), i tried a couple of different approaches, and produced a few different samples of half decent audio. At some point the whole thing just went beyond my programming ability, so I gave up on the project. I think it would be possible, the tools exist, but it just requires a familiarity with them and TTS in general that I don't have.

 

[kimlana]

Wow, it looks just like a timeline from a video editing app, perfect implementation imo. One advantage that the Day Selector will continue to have is the plot synopsis in detail, more than can possibly be fit on a video thumbnail. Also, I think using Day Selector to jump from Day 7 to Day 18 will be a lot easier than stepping through them one by one. So, I don't think you've made Day Selector redundant or less valuable with this new feature. I think feature actually fills a major usibility gap that could only be previously filled by holding down the Skip button for like three minutes (because often the "best" scene is the last one of the day!)

It also no longer supports multiple pages of scenes (capped at 9 per day). With the largest day in the game currently having 8 scenes, this hopefully won't be an issue going forward.

In the rare chance that you ever need more than 9, I think easiily solvable by making slot 9 a one-off "More" button that either pops out additional scenes below it or swaps the displayed 1-5 with 6-10 until a selection is made or arrow clicked. I consider it a very future-proof design.

I think it would be possible, the tools exist, but it just requires a familiarity with them and TTS in general that I don't have.

I want to thank you for your efforts. I agree with your sentiment that it is definitely possible but requires likely specialized tools that cost thousands of dollars or enough skill to understand how to clip individual syllables in whatever format TTS uses.

I think I read an article on making custom voice assistants (when Siri first came out, EVERYONE was rushing to add that capability) and IIRC natural-sounding speech can be accomplished with only 51 different syllables. If only we had an infinite money cheat in real life to hire someone to do it!

 

[Night Mirror]

While I still think that it would be a lot more intuitive to have the scene selector integrated inside day selector, this is a lot better than skipping for a minute to get to a scene that's later on in a specific day.

I think putting it in both places is just a bit much, that being said, it is always an option for r3.7. I'll see how this one goes first.

If you're paranoid there might be a day that breaks the 9 scene limit, I think adding a second row just to be safe would be fine, since your focus should be on the scene thumbnails while the menu is open, over the game. And you can just you know, close the menu. At least, that's what I think.

True, I can always modify the box later as needed. I highly doubt I'll ever put 10 scenes on a day (again, the most at the moment is 8, for the screen grab I had to put in an extra).

I’ve thought about my request for an “All Girls” option in “mindblowers”, and I wanted to present my final thoughts on the subject while i’m thinking about it:

First, I want to say that I’m happy with the game ‘as is’ and this feature or lack thereof would not change that.
Second, I don’t know ANYTHING about renpy programming or programming in general, I don’t know if this feature request is as simple as a half hour of BS or a real multi-day pain in the ass.
Third, I believe that the existing implementation caters to the needs of the average player.

That said, here is my (respectful) argument in favor of the feature:
Most people will approach Mindblowers looking to replay their favorite H-scenes, and most people will have a girl in mind. That said, this game is huge and, as you’ve said, contains 200~ scenes of interest. As someone with a very weak short term memory I could probably only name 20-30 of them off the top of my head after playing through the game three times. I can understand your reaction of “Why don’t you just play the game?”, and my perspective is less “An all girls option would incentivize skipping the game” and more “An all girls option would allow returning players to select from the full scope of the game”.

Currently, when i’m using Mindblowers, I jump from girl to girl to remind myself of my favorite scenarios/positions/acts (I like basically all of the girls, so my first selection is somewhat arbitrary to me) and select accordingly. An “All Girls” option can help players decide which act or situation they’re more interested in, rather than coming at it from a “character first” perspective. I believe that the average player will be thinking “character first”, but some (like me) will want to approach the system “scenario first” or “act first”. I’ve thought about what i’d request to make the game better and more than any H-scene request or dialogue change, this would be the one.

I’ve typed this out is because this is the last time i’ll push it. If you find the feature superfluous, or unreasonable to implement, I respect that and will not push for it any more. Thanks for all the effort you put into the game!

I've added it to my request list for a possible future implementation. My general philosophy for this game is let people choose how they want to play it. While an "all girls" gallery isn't something I would use, I can see it as something players might like.

Not to get too wordy or technical, but while I could add it now, there is a lot of code and image duplication I'd have to do to make it happen. And that would make the system more troublesome to maintain as things now have multiple locations for them to go out of whack. I think there is also possibly more I that could be done with it, but I'm focused on other things just now (and we are creeping up on the next release, so I want to start buttoning everything up (not adding even more (like I'm already foolishly doing right now))).

Still, don't abandon all hope, this is something I may come back to in the future.

 

[aaronminus]

Day 3 spelling and grammar check. Onward to Day 4!

 

[kimlana]

Day 3 spelling and grammar check. Onward to Day 4!

You do really comprehensive reviews. I like how you explain your reasoning as well. It's kind of funny how something trivial can sometimes can take people out of the moment.

Like on Day 10 when the dialog was talking about "buttons popping off" and I spent a least a minute thinking I had misread the scene because Unity was able to put her shirt back together perfectly despite buttons popping off, lol. But if the uniform just "unsnaps" or "comes unsnapped" then the scene works as intended. One of the best part of Renpy seems to be that people can basically rewrite anything they want to make it match their own headcanon!

 

[aaronminus]

You do really comprehensive reviews. I like how you explain your reasoning as well. It's kind of funny how something trivial can sometimes can take people out of the moment.

Like on Day 10 when the dialog was talking about "buttons popping off" and I spent a least a minute thinking I had misread the scene because Unity was able to put her shirt back together perfectly despite buttons popping off, lol. But if the uniform just "unsnaps" or "comes unsnapped" then the scene works as intended. One of the best part of Renpy seems to be that people can basically rewrite anything they want to make it match their own headcanon!

I’m glad you think so! My initial fear was that i’d be creating a lot more work and/or crossing a line (Grammar/Prose toes the border of an objective science and an art). My perspective to make sure I don’t go to far and run away with the farm is to try to find the best way for the game to express itself in what’s already there, rather than fiddle around and, as you say, create headcanon. I’ve also tried to give Night Mirror multiple options when appropriate, a lot of this stuff is not “my way or the highway”.

As a reader, i’m actually not that pedantic and it wasn’t like my casual playthroughs of the game made me stop all the time and say “that’s wrong” or anything. I just like the game enough that i’d like to help in the only way my skillset provides. Night Mirror, feedback is appreciated if i’m doing anything that’s explicitly unhelpful with my suggestions. For now i’ll just stay the course

 

[Night Mirror]

You do really comprehensive reviews.

Agreed! aaronminus correction documents have been very helpful (and while more work for them to make) the explanations on many of changes certainly help me make a better decisions. While I don't make every change (or always use exactly what is suggested), it has been great so far! Especially when tracking down small things (like commas, I just, tend, to, sprinkle, them,,,, everywhere and hope for the best...)

My initial fear was that i’d be creating a lot more work and/or crossing a line (Grammar/Prose toes the border of an objective science and an art).

Your work on this has been excellent so far! I would say I end up using almost all of the recommendations.

I also noticed we have the same dislike of repeat phrases (and words). I do try my best not to repeat myself (not to repeat myself) in both code and dialog, but after re-re-re-reading something for the 100th time, it is easy for stuff like this to slip past (that's what she said).

My perspective to make sure I don’t go to far and run away with the farm is to try to find the best way for the game to express itself in what’s already there, rather than fiddle around and, as you say, create headcanon.

While "corrections only" is certainly less work for me, if you do find something that feels out of place, or you think can be improved with some additional line(s), facial expression(s), etc... don't be afraid to let me know. The worst I can say is 'no'.

I very much value community input, and while I can't promise I'll do everything that is suggested/asked for, I will do my best to improve what I can, where I think it feels right.

I’ve also tried to give Night Mirror multiple options when appropriate, a lot of this stuff is not “my way or the highway”.

I very much appreciate the options as they help give a better perspective on the issue.

As a reader, i’m actually not that pedantic and it wasn’t like my casual playthroughs of the game made me stop all the time and say “that’s wrong” or anything.

That was a big problem I ran into in the original where I had to stop and re-read multiple lines. While I have by no means fixed everything from the Unity version (adding in my own mistakes and funky wording along the way), I think overall the game (mostly) flows pretty well. But that doesn't mean it can't be improved!

Night Mirror, feedback is appreciated if i’m doing anything that’s explicitly unhelpful with my suggestions. For now i’ll just stay the course

I can pretty much work with anything you send my way. Overall you're suggestions/corrections have been excellent, and fit with the tone/style I'm work towards. While not an exact fit (because then you would be me), it feels like you understand what I'm going for/trying to do pretty well. So I'd say just keep 'em coming (that's what she said), if you want to keep at it, obviously...

Thank you again for all your help with this!