HTML Shadows Over Solomon Falls [v0.4] [Wendythered]

[WendyTheRed]

Maybe I misremembered what the characters looked like in the older versions. I admit my memory isn't the best on the planet.

As I said, Silent Hill, not Resident Evil. Here is a Silent Hill character from the PS1 rendered on the PS1: View attachment 1809223
Though even Resident Evil has decent renders on the PS1:

Spoiler

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That's the same vibe I get from your renders.

Those are better than in-game graphics on the PS1. Those must be from cutscenes. Regardless, you can look at the pictures I posted and see mine are higher rez with better shaders and, honestly, lighting though how good lighting is is more subjective. My renders are done usually in 1920x1080 though I sometimes go a bit higher. You can tell just by looking that my renders have far more detail than either the RE2 or Silent Hill videos do. For example, look at the skin of the woman in the Silent Hill clip you posted. It's sort of "flat" with very little sheen or variation in skin texture. The hair is a bit better surprisingly for the era but still not to the level of my renders.

Honestly, the only reason I'm pushing back here is because I find it offensive to be compared to PS1 level graphics and it is a false comparison. You may not like the new lighting and/or shaders and I don't mind that. A lot of people like Honey Select games but I find most of them very hard to look at. What people like and enjoy is personal but please don't be offensive and compare my renders to something from 25 years ago. I work hard on them and as I said, it is demonstrably false. You only have to look at the two side by side to see that my renders are much, much better than PS1 level graphics. I'm not claiming I can compete with, say, a cutscene from a modern Final Fantasy game or something but I don't think anyone can without tons of skill and money.

I want to be clear. If you don't like the updated renders, I get it. I'm a bit bummed because I worked hard on them but tastes differ and I'm not perfect. I think I am still improving but I've got a ways to go. There are others that are better than me though others who aren't as good (in my opinion!) I only take offense at the comparison to PS1 level graphics. I mean, back in the day those were awesome but that day was the 1990s.

 

[WendyTheRed]

As I understand this, gameplay style is quite sandbox like as i experienced it. But the main story with dreams and stuff will progress every night regardless of what you did during day time? If its like that (and this just from my honest opinion. I dont know how hard it is to dev.) i would considering to tie story progression to certain task and milestones and missions. As when certain conditions are met, story would progress at night trough dreams and such, this is considering the game is sandbox style forced main story with this rapid pacing is kinda off setting imho. And if the jobs and relationships will just work as kinda like sandbox route checkers that will provide different kind of settings to wolrd, people, lore to main story(more or less hints to investegation) and they work outside of the story, you know as like you go to work do stuff things happen (lewd) maybe with skills and such, gain some hints to investigation. And the as a separate event would make story to progress.

Interestingly I personally feel like the main story doesn't advance very much in the first week. The real true first advance for the main story, from my perspective, happens in the next update. I viewed that first week as mostly the character getting immersed into the town and meeting people and picking up bits of information for the investigation.

Some of what you are talking about is the pitfalls of trying to do a sandbox. My next game will probably be more focused with branching paths but not nearly as much sandbox stuff. Sandbox makes it really hard to predict what players will do and focus the story.

Im not sure if the game is just supposed to end after friday waterfall scene with amber or not but i felt like it cut bit weird? Prob going to make another run for it but im just wondering is the story forcing going on itself every night even if you dont visit any places that raven and other people mentions? Also to jobs and working in general, going to work as Mayors PA at the start feels bit off because dialog and those things happening around the office lean on quite heavily on stuff that has happened around town. Like if i didnt go to diner at all from the start even to visit and mc seems to know who Lou even tho i havent met the man in person and so on.

Hmmm...I better look into what you mentioned about Lou. I must have assumed the player got the information somewhere and they didn't. I usually "gate" that kind of thing behind variables. (If player met Lou = true then have player mention Lou.) Do you remember roughly where in the PA story it came up? I need to fix that.

Essentially the game "ends" at night when you go to sleep if it is on the last day of content whether that is because you chose to or because the game forced you to go home. After the date with Amber you probably have enough time to go back to town and talk to people if they're still around before bedtime.

I think it helps to think of the game as somewhat having two parts. There are your daily activities where you're working, doing lewd stuff and learning secrets about the town. And then there's the overall story which advances slowly over time. The dreams are basically guidance the player is getting from a spirit that may or may not be friendly though he tends to be vague. Honestly, in the first few days the story has barely moved at all and Friday is really when you get your first hint that you'll have a chance to truly advance your investigation though I will say two of the jobs also drop big hints about following in Lisa's footsteps.

 

[Hurtti]

Hmmm...I better look into what you mentioned about Lou. I must have assumed the player got the information somewhere and they didn't. I usually "gate" that kind of thing behind variables. (If player met Lou = true then have player mention Lou.) Do you remember roughly where in the PA story it came up? I need to fix that.

Damn this is hard, i would need to play again from the start to replicate my steps. What i can say I picked TG mc start and first day i only visited, sheriff, clothing store, probs after that went to get the job from job from mayor, after that i visited the diner. So that Lou thing came up probs on first actual work day because i remember i had seen van horn, but nothing much about Lou. But as i remember it mc was thinking in her head something about Lou after mayor or his father said something, like she had met him. Fuck now this is bothering me and I need to make a re-run tomorrow If i had to make educated guess it was on scene after you went to pick up new office clothes and came back, i also eavsdropped them.

 

[Ranma]

Maybe I misremembered what the characters looked like in the older versions. I admit my memory isn't the best on the planet.

As I said, Silent Hill, not Resident Evil. Here is a Silent Hill character from the PS1 rendered on the PS1: View attachment 1809223
Though even Resident Evil has decent renders on the PS1:

Spoiler

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That's the same vibe I get from your renders.

Just a FYI, those are not images rendered in-real-time by the PS1, those are part of what was called FMV (Full Motion Video) back then, basically a video of really high-quality CGI (for the time period, of course) that were pre-rendered on a bunch of the best computers of the time since it was very demanding process for the hardware (it could take days or even weeks just to render some of these), after that they just put the video files in the game's Compact Disc (CD) for replaying in-game, but none of it was being rendered by the console's hardware after that, the console would only play back the video as it was rendered previously by the super computers.

Actual scenes/models rendered in-real-time by the PS1 looked like these:

Spoiler: Metal Gear Solid (1998)

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Spoiler: Final Fantasy VII (1997)

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Spoiler: Resident Evil (1996)

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Yep, this is how games looked back in the original PlayStation, many of these games have had re-releases to the PC and new consoles over the years, which often times bring with them higher resolutions, anti-aliasing (smoothing of those jagged lines on the low-poly models), better lighting, better shadows, better shaders and so on. But these 3 example images are a better representation of what playing those games on their original hardware actually looked like.

Oh, and you can disregard the backgrounds of the Resident Evil (1996) image there, the backgrounds for the game were (like many others games of that time were) actually pre-rendered images that were used to make more realistic environments for games without the necessity to have the console's hardware (it was downright impossible for the hardware of the era) actually render these highly detailed (again, for the time) scenes, it's kinda like a neat way to cheat the system and a clever way to work around the hardware limitations they faced.
So, since the hard work of rendering them could be done by these highly powerful computers and then compressed into a much smaller image file to put into the game's CD, then they just had to put the game's models on top of the pre-rendered images and make them move accordingly to each image's layout, making it all seems virtually seamless during gameplay, this is also why these games had to have fixed camera angles with absolutely no way to control the camera, because the backgrounds were literally a picture that the models were walking on, lol.

The picture of Resident Evil that WendyTheRed used as an example earlier was actually from the re-released version of the Remake of Resident Evil (originally for the GameCube) that has the "classic models" setting turned on, but those low-poly models are still way cleaner and smother than their original counterparts on the PlayStation, and that's also why the backgrounds look so much better than the models in that picture.
If it was taken from the GameCube version with the default models it would have looked like this:

Spoiler: Resident Evil Remake (2002)

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[Melmoth99]

I reported it for a game update yesterday but I don't think it ever updated. I'm starting to wonder if I didn't actually submit the report but I'm too paranoid to redo it because I don't want the admins to think I'm hassling them.

The included HTML should fix the issue with him licking your breasts. It was a silly issue on my end and me assuming things would happen in a certain order. As for the doctor, I'm not sure how that happened but if I figure it out I'll fix it.

Edit: Fixed the doctor too.

I tried it again and I have the same problem on Friday in the Dark Ally. He lick the breasts but, there is nothing to click on so, you can't get out without using the Back button

 

[cell943]

Just a FYI, those are not images rendered in-real-time by the PS1

People are wildly misinterpreting what I said. I said I got the same vibe (the exact word I used) as those characters that I explicitly posted (directly in contrast to the in-game models they posted). I didn't say they looked identical, nor did I say they looked like the models used in game.
I am well aware of what things looked like in different generations and the different methods of rendering them. I've been playing games since Atari 2600. If I say the backgrounds are reminiscent of those in Donkey Kong Country or Final Fantasy 7, I can't make the comparison without saying they look like something from that generation, despite those simply being predrawn backgrounds instead of rendered environments, like those seen in Crash Bandicoot, for one example. PS1 has a distinct style even in prerendered cutscenes. It's evident in Silent Hill just as much as it is in Tekken 2, and the renders in SOSF have the same vibe as that style, regardless of poly count, subsurface scattering, or any other modern advancement in modeling. The comparison I make between SOSF and PS1 era characters is the same one I could make between real life people or clay statues or anything else and PS1 characters.

 

[WendyTheRed]

I tried it again and I have the same problem on Friday in the Dark Ally. He lick the breasts but, there is nothing to click on so, you can't get out without using the Back button

This HTML file should fix that issue. Sorry.

 

[WendyTheRed]

People are wildly misinterpreting what I said. I said I got the same vibe (the exact word I used) as those characters that I explicitly posted (directly in contrast to the in-game models they posted). I didn't say they looked identical, nor did I say they looked like the models used in game.

Well SoSF is a horror mystery game so I can see stylistic similarities sort of like how you'd see similar styles in movies with the same themes and such sometimes. Haunted House movies, for example, tend to have similar styles of filming sometimes. However, your wording seemed to be a more direct comparison:

Some look good, but for the most part they look more like late-generation PS1 actors. Almost exactly like those in Silent Hill 1.

This doesn't sound like you're saying I have a similar style or vibe at all but is rather a very direct comparison.

 

[Zuul]

~snip~

You uhh... really homed in on the word "render" huh?

~snip~

It's not a misinterpretation, it's a literal interpretation.

Don't be surprised that people are misled by your writing, you keep misusing words (even in the quoted post) while still keeping them grammatically correct and the written context is completely different from the intended. You're quite literally writing one thing while meaning another, it takes outside context and at least one reread to piece together what you're trying to convey.

 

[Melmoth99]

This HTML file should fix that issue. Sorry.

I thank you for the effort of posting 2 brand new html files but the scene in the Dark Ally it still does not work right after Thursday. You get the page but, no where to click so you have to use the Back button.

I replay the game and had the same problem but, if you go there before Thursday it does work

 

[Ranma]

You uhh... really homed in on the word "render" huh?

Well, hopefully I didn't render anyone crazy after reading through all of that.

 

[Dyhart]

Q: Can the main character turn back to a man if I play that route?
A: Not during normal gameplay but it is a possible ending.

So a trans that decides that it's not for them and wants it reversed? Can't say that's been an option before. Interesting.

 

[WendyTheRed]

I thank you for the effort of posting 2 brand new html files but the scene in the Dark Ally it still does not work right after Thursday. You get the page but, no where to click so you have to use the Back button.

I replay the game and had the same problem but, if you go there before Thursday it does work

Odd. Try this one. As far as I can tell it should work. I know what the problem was but I thought I had fixed it. If it still doesn't work do you think you could post a save file for me to look at? All you have to do is when you go into the save screen click to save to disk then grab that file and post it here. Thank you!

And if it works, let me know and I'll link to this post from the front page once I figure out how to link posts.

 

[WendyTheRed]

Q: Can the main character turn back to a man if I play that route?
A: Not during normal gameplay but it is a possible ending.

So a trans that decides that it's not for them and wants it reversed? Can't say that's been an option before. Interesting.

The transformation is forced onto the main character. Wanting to reverse it is a reasonable reaction.

 

[WendyTheRed]

Damn this is hard, i would need to play again from the start to replicate my steps. What i can say I picked TG mc start and first day i only visited, sheriff, clothing store, probs after that went to get the job from job from mayor, after that i visited the diner. So that Lou thing came up probs on first actual work day because i remember i had seen van horn, but nothing much about Lou. But as i remember it mc was thinking in her head something about Lou after mayor or his father said something, like she had met him. Fuck now this is bothering me and I need to make a re-run tomorrow If i had to make educated guess it was on scene after you went to pick up new office clothes and came back, i also eavsdropped them.

That helps a lot. I'll look through it tomorrow and fix it, I'm exhausted and heading to bed now.

Edit: I did take a look at the scene you describe. They don't talk about Lou. They talk about Karl Van Horn. Is that who you meant? Regardless, that conversation does not depend on you meeting Van Horn at the diner. if you notice, from the moment you meet him at the Diner he essentially asks you to visit his manor. Spoiler that explains this plot point follows.

Spoiler

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[Dyhart]

The transformation is forced onto the main character. Wanting to reverse it is a reasonable reaction.

ahhh ok hence the transformation tag. I understand now.

 

[Melmoth99]

Odd. Try this one. As far as I can tell it should work. I know what the problem was but I thought I had fixed it. If it still doesn't work do you think you could post a save file for me to look at? All you have to do is when you go into the save screen click to save to disk then grab that file and post it here. Thank you!

And if it works, let me know and I'll link to this post from the front page once I figure out how to link posts.

It didn't work. The save was at the B and B but, I moved it to town for you. Just go to Dark Ally let him lick and you should see the problem.

If I post the TXT file F95 turns into a save file so, I zipped it

 

[menatv]

Yeah, I also still had the problem of not being able to do anything else in the Dark Alley.

But other than that, I really liked how this is shaping up! Also liked the revised start of it as well. You are lead to talk to whom you need to talk to get the clues to get going. A little less sandboxy perhaps, but I think does immerse you into the story a bit quicker.

And lastly, darnitall, that Amber is a cutey. Really liked her content as well.

 

[VB5505]

how do you get Amber's scene?

 

[WendyTheRed]

It didn't work. The save was at the B and B but, I moved it to town for you. Just go to Dark Ally let him lick and you should see the problem.

If I post the TXT file F95 turns into a save file so, I zipped it

I found the problem and I'm a silly person. It's 100% fixed now. I tested it with your save and it works!

Yeah, I also still had the problem of not being able to do anything else in the Dark Alley.

But other than that, I really liked how this is shaping up! Also liked the revised start of it as well. You are lead to talk to whom you need to talk to get the clues to get going. A little less sandboxy perhaps, but I think does immerse you into the story a bit quicker.

And lastly, darnitall, that Amber is a cutey. Really liked her content as well.

It's 100% fixed now with the HTML on this post.