VN Ren'Py Summer Heat [v0.5.1] [Naughty Fox Games]

[NebulousShooter]

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Hello, everyone!
This week we carried on with the edits and render changes we decided on previously. Some dialogue was cut, a few renders removed, and a couple of re-renders added to the queue. There was also some crashing during rendering this week. The source behind these crashes remains to be discovered, but they luckily didn't affect anything except mental stability. Just one of those perks of working with 3D sometimes.

There was a surprising amount of fixes required for the new renders this week. That's something we'll look into in the future as the issues stemmed from the scenes themselves, but for the time being they're easily fixed in the post-processing stage.

Work on animations continued, as well as new renders. We spent some extra time focusing on a few scenes that will likely be the favorites of many in the upcoming update. There are still a couple more improvements we'd like to make on those scenes, but we'll see after we get some impressions from the beta version.

The updated script also meant that we had to rewrite some of the code. A couple of bugs also showed up on Ember after thorough playtesting, but we promptly escorted them out of the game. Ember is essentially done at this point, except for a few missing renders. They are low priority, however.

While editing this week, we were wondering how the players feel about the POV perspective we generally stick to in Summer Heat. We've been more liberal with angles and showing the main character in CH05 because some scenes are very limited by POV.

How do you feel about seeing more of the main character? Is strict POV important to you?

Other news

Earlier this week we posted the special render for August, featuring Eve. This special was a fun one to work on! They're all fun to create of course, since they're a little bit extra and different from our usual game renders. In case you missed out on Eve,

You must be registered to see the links

Cheers,

Robison & Npx

As long as you are not making a VR game, 3rd person MC all the way, full POV MC should stay in 2017. Kissing and other lewd stuff are so uncanny in POV and the 'creative' ways to hide MC's face make me cringe.

POV for dialogue works, anything with characters interacting kissing, hugging, fucking looks horrible.

 

[NebulousShooter]

Do not show MC face, body is ok.

Why? Walk me through the logic, I guess it has something to do with self inserting and immersion. Do you have same built as the MC? Tattoos where applicable? Same skin tone? Do you have a footlong for a dick? How is only the face the deal breaker for self inserting when you look nothing like the MC of a certain game?

 

[SerHawkes]

Why? Walk me through the logic, I guess it has something to do with self inserting and immersion. Do you have same built as the MC? Tattoos where applicable? Same skin tone? Do you have a footlong for a dick? How is only the face the deal breaker for self inserting when you look nothing like the MC of a certain game?

Because some like having a face to put onto the MC. Like games of Projekt Passion, BaDiK, Eternum, etc. It's nice to have a frame of preverbal reference instead of either a First Person View or, in WVMs case-Black Box of a head.

 

[NebulousShooter]

Because some like having a face to put onto the MC. Like games of Projekt Passion, BaDiK, Eternum, etc. It's nice to have a frame of preverbal reference instead of either a First Person View or, in WVMs case-Black Box of a head.

But thats what I want, 3rd person for most of the game, POV for when it makes sense. What I asked is why people are ok with MC's body being shown, but not the face, because it makes no goddamn sense to me.


Magnumhawaii, use your words, I want to hear one logical explanation.

 

[Kassandara]

But thats what I want, 3rd person for most of the game, POV for when it makes sense. What I asked is why people are ok with MC's body being shown, but not the face, because it makes no goddamn sense to me.
View attachment 2898758
View attachment 2898760
Magnumhawaii, use your words, I want to hear one logical explanation.

Bold of you to assume they have logical explanation, just look at their latest activity

 

[hu lover]

I guess it's settled and It's time to see what the main character looks like.

View attachment 2899093

That appearance is actually quite accurate.

 

[Kellermann]

I tend to get nervous when devs start asking the people for advice on how to proceed with things especially when it comes to artistic style. I always say, save the polling for basic items such as outfits, hairstyles, and the like.

Never a good sign for dev to ask direction on things like production release periods (as we previously saw with this very game), camera placement, kinks, new characters or design features, etc. That only starts more fan conflicts and gives the perception that the ship is rudderless. Have a clear vision and artistic style for the game and stick with it. Deviating from your charted course based upon the blowing winds of fan input is often precarious.

This game has a very good thing going. It is one of the best on F95. Don't get in the van now. There is no candy and puppies in there, only a not so fun game of hide the weasel. Just keep up the excellent work by following your own creative instincts, which have been great overall.

 

[hu lover]

I tend to get nervous when devs start asking the people for advice on how to proceed with things especially when it comes to artistic style. I always say, save the polling for basic items such as outfits, hairstyles, and the like.

Never a good sign for dev to ask direction on things like production release periods (as we previously saw with this very game), camera placement, kinks, new characters or design features, etc. That only starts more fan conflicts and gives the perception that the ship is rudderless. Have a clear vision and artistic style for the game and stick with it. Deviating from your charted course based upon the blowing winds of fan input is often precarious.

This game has a very good thing going. It is one of the best on F95. Don't get in the van now. There is no candy and puppies in there, only a not so fun game of hide the weasel. Just keep up the excellent work by following your own creative instincts, which have been great overall.

I agree with this guy completely. This game is terrific. Not only this game has great in depth story, but also the character renders are immaculate in every detail. Kellermann, its good to know that you like this game and support the game's development.

 

[NebulousShooter]

I tend to get nervous when devs start asking the people for advice on how to proceed with things especially when it comes to artistic style. I always say, save the polling for basic items such as outfits, hairstyles, and the like.

Never a good sign for dev to ask direction on things like production release periods (as we previously saw with this very game), camera placement, kinks, new characters or design features, etc. That only starts more fan conflicts and gives the perception that the ship is rudderless. Have a clear vision and artistic style for the game and stick with it. Deviating from your charted course based upon the blowing winds of fan input is often precarious.

This game has a very good thing going. It is one of the best on F95. Don't get in the van now. There is no candy and puppies in there, only a not so fun game of hide the weasel. Just keep up the excellent work by following your own creative instincts, which have been great overall.

That doesn't change the fact that keeping to 1st person only is them limiting themselves in terms of art especially when we will get to more sex scenes, the same carefully placed camera angles will get old really fast, while the only positives of keeping the VN like that are 'some people like it that way'.
Keep in mind that the devs themselves brought this topic up, it wasn't people complaining, or anything

Sidenote,do you remember that there was a poll for Sage's default hair color between the one in the game and the one we see in the flashback with Chad?

 

[hu lover]

That doesn't change the fact that keeping to 1st person only is them limiting themselves in terms of art especially when we will get to more sex scenes, the same carefully placed camera angles will get old really fast, while the only positives of keeping the VN like that are 'some people like it that way'.
Keep in mind that the devs themselves brought this topic up, it wasn't people complaining, or anything

Sidenote,do you remember that there was a poll for Sage's default hair color between the one in the game and the one we see in the flashback with Chad?

I agree. Good point of view.

 

[flarigand]

You must be registered to see the links

Hello, everyone!
This week we carried on with the edits and render changes we decided on previously. Some dialogue was cut, a few renders removed, and a couple of re-renders added to the queue. There was also some crashing during rendering this week. The source behind these crashes remains to be discovered, but they luckily didn't affect anything except mental stability. Just one of those perks of working with 3D sometimes.

There was a surprising amount of fixes required for the new renders this week. That's something we'll look into in the future as the issues stemmed from the scenes themselves, but for the time being they're easily fixed in the post-processing stage.

Work on animations continued, as well as new renders. We spent some extra time focusing on a few scenes that will likely be the favorites of many in the upcoming update. There are still a couple more improvements we'd like to make on those scenes, but we'll see after we get some impressions from the beta version.

The updated script also meant that we had to rewrite some of the code. A couple of bugs also showed up on Ember after thorough playtesting, but we promptly escorted them out of the game. Ember is essentially done at this point, except for a few missing renders. They are low priority, however.

While editing this week, we were wondering how the players feel about the POV perspective we generally stick to in Summer Heat. We've been more liberal with angles and showing the main character in CH05 because some scenes are very limited by POV.

How do you feel about seeing more of the main character? Is strict POV important to you?

Other news

Earlier this week we posted the special render for August, featuring Eve. This special was a fun one to work on! They're all fun to create of course, since they're a little bit extra and different from our usual game renders. In case you missed out on Eve,

You must be registered to see the links

Cheers,

Robison & Npx

Basically, are you going to release an annual chapter?, that is why I personally prefer simpler but constant projects, this VN is spectacular visually and technically, and the story, the little that has progressed looks interesting, but a chapter aka update every 10-12 months is ridiculous, you should simplify the project more, I know that everyone hates Being a Dik, but it is the perfect example of how to advance projects a fairly long chapter every 3 to 4 months (the firts two seasons), with a prologue and a cliffhanger each chapter, I really think that you who are behind this VN have an incredible talent, but delivering an update every so often is simply not going to give you all the impact and relevance you deserve.

Chapter 5 with a lot of luck will be ready when, December?

 

[NeroZee]

But thats what I want, 3rd person for most of the game, POV for when it makes sense. What I asked is why people are ok with MC's body being shown, but not the face, because it makes no goddamn sense to me.
View attachment 2898758
View attachment 2898760
Magnumhawaii, use your words, I want to hear one logical explanation.

Cant speak for everyone but the face personalizes the character, its a piece of detail that is much harder to get over than the characters body or whether he has tattoos or is hairy, etc...
Cause once you give him a face thats when he becomes another person to me. Again it all depends on case by case, take the MC from Artemis for instance, he isn't far off from what i look, he looks like a decent guy, well built, isnt short, has a great and funny personality. So i can live with that. Take the protagonist from Gunpowder Cocktail he is short, scrawny, has a dumb face with blonde hair, etc... It completely loses me. So again it all depends from person to person.

Anyway i think we beat this topic to death already and pretty much everyone agrees that a mix of POV and non-POV shots is the way to go, basically default to what the devs think is the best choice.

As for the MC's face I'd rather not see it or see it as little as possible, but if they decide we have to see him a lot i hope to god he looks "normal" and isn't like the ones OceanLab makes that seem to range from emo to roided bodybuilder.

 

[BTWZ1]

I forgot that the summer ends in north america, unlike in rest of the world, at the end of September. So if they release upd before end of september it will be still technically considered summer

 

[Kellermann]

That doesn't change the fact that keeping to 1st person only is them limiting themselves in terms of art especially when we will get to more sex scenes, the same carefully placed camera angles will get old really fast, while the only positives of keeping the VN like that are 'some people like it that way'.
Keep in mind that the devs themselves brought this topic up, it wasn't people complaining, or anything

Sidenote,do you remember that there was a poll for Sage's default hair color between the one in the game and the one we see in the flashback with Chad?

I don't care either way about the POV debate other than I want the devs to stay true to their creative vision. And about the devs themselves bringing the topic up...that was my entire point: it is a bad idea to ask fans to determine the direction of your game. It may start small, but it is a slippery slope indeed. First it was production times (and now here we sit at 10 months as a result), then it is POV camera angles. Where does it lead?

Be careful what you wish for. I think we can all envision a topic we don't want the clodhoppers voting on (a hated kink perhaps?). One of a developer's worst possible decisions is allowing fans to take over the controls, even briefly. I have seen many a game left in ruins by such things.

All I say now is, don't wreck a good thing. When the Summer Heat devs make their own decisions they have been spot on. When they let the fapping horde lead the charge, then not so much.

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[imagica]

Chapter 5 with a lot of luck will be ready when, December?

More like "Chapter 5 with a lot of fuck will be ready when, December?"

 

[drisarter]

I don't care either way about the POV debate other than I want the devs to stay true to their creative vision. And about the devs themselves bringing the topic up...that was my entire point: it is a bad idea to ask fans to determine the direction of your game. It may start small, but it is a slippery slope indeed. First it was production times (and now here we sit at 10 months as a result), then it is POV camera angles. Where does it lead?

Be careful what you wish for. I think we can all envision a topic we don't want the clodhoppers voting on (a hated kink perhaps?). One of a developer's worst possible decisions is allowing fans to take over the controls, even briefly. I have seen many a game left in ruins by such things.

All I say now is, don't wreck a good thing. When the Summer Heat devs make their own decisions they have been spot on. When they let the fapping horde lead the charge, then not so much.

I agree with you that games are their best when developers follow their own judgement, and that the judgement of Northpx in the design of Summer Heat so far has been great. To be fair though, I don't take this to be "Dear patrons, how do you feel about POV? We will adjust the game to meet the preferences you vote on" so much as just the developers saying that in chapter 5 they have been composing frames differently and asking for feedback about it. They might take that feedback into account and they also might not. It feels natural (and actually inevitable) that in the process of developing a game you'd want feedback every now and again and there's nothing (at least in my reading) to suggest that the developers are going to mindlessly follow the whims of the people who comment.

 

[Kellermann]

I agree with you that games are their best when developers follow their own judgement, and that the judgement of Northpx in the design of Summer Heat so far has been great. To be fair though, I don't take this to be "Dear patrons, how do you feel about POV? We will adjust the game to meet the preferences you vote on" so much as just the developers saying that in chapter 5 they have been composing frames differently and asking for feedback about it. They might take that feedback into account and they also might not. It feels natural (and actually inevitable) that in the process of developing a game you'd want feedback every now and again and there's nothing (at least in my reading) to suggest that the developers are going to mindlessly follow the whims of the people who comment.

True, but it is often a red flag for the future. One that I have seen far too often to feel comfortable with when I see it begin to rear its ugly head with a game that I really like.

If a dev creates storyline X and then looks in on Patreon, discord, and even F95 and the resounding sentiment is that storyline X is terrible and universally despised then dev would be a fool not to take note of it and at least consider a change. They are after all trying to make something pleasing to customers. But that is different from actively soliciting opinions on creative or production decisions. That immediately says to me, this dev has hit a block. Maybe this truly just is a minor checking in with fans as you say (although a face reveal seems rather important), but after the release times debacle (that was at least partially based on fan input), I worry that a pattern is emerging.

 

[Kirel]

I forgot that the summer ends in north america, unlike in rest of the world, at the end of September. So if they release upd before end of september it will be still technically considered summer

By US reckoning:
1. Meteorological summer ended on August 31.
2. Astronomical summer will end with the equinox on September 23.
3. The devs are based in Finland, so what we do here in the US is irrelevant.

 

[armond]

By US reckoning:
1. Meteorological summer ended on August 31.
2. Astronomical summer will end with the equinox on September 23.
3. The devs are based in Finland, so what we do here in the US is irrelevant.

Unless mercury is in retrograde, in which case all bets are off

 

[flarigand]

More like "Chapter 5 with a lot of fuck will be ready when, December?"

Well this VN have a lot of babe's, "a lot of fuck", sound promising and better.