Ren'Py Shattered Minds [v0.14] [eXtasy Games]

3.80 star(s) 109 Votes
Discussion Reviews (109)
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ghjghjghj

Member
Dec 10, 2018
153
348
Well... I can already see where this one is going. Yet another game I'll have to try to forcibly ignore, and then occasionally I'll give in, only remember - far too many hours later - exactly why I swore it off last time.

More than enough potential to tantalize, with bits and pieces executed well enough to make you *want* to hope that the payoff is just one more scene away... But ultimately it's just so god-forsakenly slow and tedious that it would actually bring more value to my life if it was utter shite. At least that way I wouldn't be tempted by it.

Honestly, dev... The good news is that this is still real early. If you fix it now, you'll have to throw out the least amount of work. Things that need addressed...

  1. Movement. I know it's a fine line between making it take an age and a half to do anything, and smashing any sense of space as the player insta-teleports between random backgrounds. As a sandbox game, this is kind of just an inherent problem with no easy solution... but it doesn't need to be this bad.
    1. You should really ask yourself if all the various little hallways really *need* to be there. If it's not a place that's important to have a spatial sense for, just remove it.
    2. The more common it is you need to go somewhere, or do something, the easier it should be. For example, why doesn't passing time at the end of the day automatically take you back to your room and sleep?
    3. Make it as easy and quick as possible for players to determine where they want to go. Less fruitless wandering means less wasted time moving. And if actually going somewhere always has a payoff, it makes it *so* much easier to deal with. To that end...
  2. Information. It's good that you tried to address this with the quest log and tracker, but... it's not enough, but a long shot. It's not just about the info being available, but being *easily* available. Think how many clicks it takes to actually figure out what to do next. Think about how easy it is to forget just one little thing in the process of gathering the information.
    1. Take everything possible out of a menu and slap it right on the screen. Not everything needs to be just lists either. You can do things like add visual clues to characters on-screen that have new interactions available too. And you can keep the menus too, for completeness, while the main screen just functions as HUD . You can keep clutter down by only showing information that is immediately actionable.
    2. The goal here should be to make it take zero extra time to figure out *something* they can do next. You don't need to achieve this 100% of the time, but it shouldn't be so far away that it sounds impossible either. This isn't that hard either. It's good enough if, at a glance, you can see who you might want to talk to *right now* and where you have to go to do it. The time between dialogue and moving around is more than enough to passively absorb that info.
  3. This is the least important, but I figured I'd throw it out there. Minigames... Again I appreciate your skip (at least for xp), but... If a player doesn't want to play a minigame, do you think they want to have to spend more days grinding?
    1. A setting is your friend here. Let those who aren't interested outright turn the minigames off and get max benefit from it. By throwing it behind a setting, you can sidestep the issue of minigame-enjoyers being slapped in the face with a max-benefit skip.
I really do mean it when I say you're in a great position to fix these things, major as they are. I mean, even if you don't do any of this, your event sequencing/dependency code needs some serious testing/fixing anyway ;). May as well rip the band-aide off and just go for it, since the time lost won't ever be less than now.
 
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Sir Anal

Sir Anal

Member
Aug 19, 2021
275
541
ghjghjghj said:
Movement. I know it's a fine line between making it take an age and a half to do anything, and smashing any sense of space as the player insta-teleports between random backgrounds. As a sandbox game, this is kind of just an inherent problem with no easy solution...
Click to expand...
Was it really necessary to take up so much space to say things already said so many times?
Just think of all the CO2 released to transfer so much useless information!

Do as I say, not as I do... :p
 
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ghjghjghj

Member
Dec 10, 2018
153
348
Sir Anal said:
Was it really necessary to take up so much space to say things already said so many times?
Just think of all the CO2 released to transfer so much useless information!

Do as I say, not as I do... :p
Click to expand...
Yeah... No, no... I definitely, definitely didn't do that... Didn't get carried away at all. Not even a little bit. :whistle:

In all seriousness though, it really isn't exactly the same. It's just a bunch of related issues that cause the same problem, which just feeds itself.

Between the ranting I absolutely didn't do, I very intentionally got down into the weeds a bit to hopefully be a little helpful if the dev wants to pick apart the nitty gritty of how and why those things all suck.

And I just want to reiterate - because it's very, very true - I did not get carried away and rant a small lot of a bit. Did not happen. You can take that to the bank! :cool:
 
C

Clasher1

Newbie
Jul 29, 2021
60
95
The mirror idea has so much potential ! I sense that a lot of good scenes are going to take place there.

Renders are amazing. Not a fan of the mom model, looks too young to me, but loving the sister.

Expecting a lot from this game ! Best wishes to the dev.
 
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MrTM

MrTM

Member
May 6, 2019
140
256
Xypher said:
Nobody knows, the original dev was quite active then just disappeared one day.

I find this game as a potential spiritual successor and can't wait to see the following updates in the future to see this game's content get expanded.
Click to expand...
Me too. Can't wait to see more. To bad about " The Gift ", would have liked to have seen that finished.
 
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lipe2410

lipe2410

Forum Fanatic
Dec 23, 2018
5,139
19,828
I will only get ride of that large shirt from MC. That thing is a fashion terrorism. Just make him use a cool t-shirt.
 
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nobless33

New Member
Jan 1, 2018
9
3
This is a great, great mind control game, and the female characters are so beautiful. I'm looking forward to the new content.

But when I was playing, I did feel uncomfortable about MC giving his sister's underwear to his best friend.And if I had the ability, I certainly wouldn't tell a good friend so quickly. I will try to keep good friends loyal to me.Make sure he's harmless to me.
The other thing is that sandbox games do increase the freedom of the game, but I'm worried that it takes a lot of time and effort for the author to finish the game. I prefer simplified, beautiful girls and rich story or CG erotic games.
 
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HathgarNiche

Active Member
Jul 14, 2017
622
314
i know this is only the start, so im not expecting anything grand, but what is there to actually do so far? Everything is just no available yet. So far, outside of one or two quest scenes, there is nothing to even use the powers on. I assumed you'd be able to use them during regular conversation and stuff to level them up, but there is nothing. Am i missing something?
 
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kokos94

Active Member
Aug 31, 2022
704
1,151
nobless33 said:
This is a great, great mind control game, and the female characters are so beautiful. I'm looking forward to the new content.

But when I was playing, I did feel uncomfortable about MC giving his sister's underwear to his best friend.And if I had the ability, I certainly wouldn't tell a good friend so quickly. I will try to keep good friends loyal to me.Make sure he's harmless to me.
The other thing is that sandbox games do increase the freedom of the game, but I'm worried that it takes a lot of time and effort for the author to finish the game. I prefer simplified, beautiful girls and rich story or CG erotic games.
Click to expand...
yep, i realy waited for this game....but after all we got another college creep who is selling his family underwear and going to whoring his girls on cam....(who know if only on cam....)
 
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fgh24

Active Member
Feb 8, 2019
784
416
could you put in traits and caratics that you can add or remove like lets say that one girl likes music you can make her dislike it instead or add a kink to herand another thing for the quest that arent completeable say not completable cause a few quest cant be done even if they say they can be
 
Last edited:
katmandomo

katmandomo

Active Member
Feb 10, 2018
796
1,706
nobless33 said:
This is a great, great mind control game, and the female characters are so beautiful. I'm looking forward to the new content.

But when I was playing, I did feel uncomfortable about MC giving his sister's underwear to his best friend.And if I had the ability, I certainly wouldn't tell a good friend so quickly. I will try to keep good friends loyal to me.Make sure he's harmless to me.
The other thing is that sandbox games do increase the freedom of the game, but I'm worried that it takes a lot of time and effort for the author to finish the game. I prefer simplified, beautiful girls and rich story or CG erotic games.
Click to expand...
I had the impression that if he didn't tell his friend about the power he would forget he has it entirely. He basically had to be forced into using it twice and even then barely even tried to experiment with it or exercise it.
 
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3.80 star(s) 109 Votes