VN Ren'Py Summer's Gone [S1 Steam + DLC] [Oceanlab]

[BobTheDuck]

As Ayhsel has pointed out with the Cost & Benefit analysis, there should be a point where he should be saying "it looks good enough" in terms of visuals, and move onto other aspects of the game that really needs more attention - such as speed and more content (for various LIs of the game).
There's also the fact that the this game (and WIAB, given that's going through rework as well) leaves vast majority of other VNs on this site in dust in terms of visuals.
The game already looks gorgeous; just how much more is he willing to push with the new hardware and visuals when resources spent on that could have been actually spent on something else?

So unless he puts his foot down on visuals at some point, he's gonna be in perpetual cycle of the following (please note, I didn't actually make the following diagram, a mutual of mine did);

Spoiler: Ocean's Cycle

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And while I would like to praise Ocean for being a quality focused, the more the above cycle gets repeated, I'd say his state of being a quality junkie becomes more of a detriment than a boon, or as Ayhsel put it more aptly than me, diminishing returns.

This is why I'm excited for the steam release - very hard to go back and change content on a public release - once people own it, I'm sure Steam have rules to prevent reworking content - or making it difficult to quickly change, otherwise people could change the content after approval which would be a nightmare for their legal duties to buyers.

 

[BobTheDuck]

I really liked this message, there are some things I agree with and some things I don't agree with. However, I only respond for one reason, statistically, at least one of those who read your message will not be alive at the end of SG.


I agree more with Pax's initial position, you cannot project on what you do not have. Today, as things stand, I subscribe to the time he indicates. If things change, it will be at that time that it should be corrected, not today.
Because if we stick to the facts, the year 2022 was much more productive for Ocean than 2023. And that's with what he has on hand today, the improvements he has already purchased.

I should clarify: I'm not suggesting that anyone plan a project on uncertain mythical advances. Work should always be scheduled based on what you have, estimates should be on current practices, but the trend is that computers improve far more rapidly than my finances can keep up. It would be foolish to think Ocean will still be on the same CPU in 10 years. In that time, computing will be vastly different to what it is now. I'm currently writing from a 10 year old laptop (it's become my throw around) that cries looking at what my main work machine can do. My current computer is a beast, and I expect to replace it roughly every three years so I have to plan for that financially, mainly because new software runs terribly on old CPU instructions. Cost of computing power is decreasing as a trend. If people work in any computer field and expect their computer to be cutting edge for more than 6 months, they're fooling themselves.

So being aware of tendencies in the industry is just forward thinking - keeping a finger on the pulse of your own specific industries' developments so that you don't waste money trying to stay on the bleeding edge, but you weigh up the positive and negative trends. As a business, I have to think of fall back positions, or the cost of replacement, and half the time replacement will be something new with better technology

The hope thing is simply that people put greater gravity and import on the negative than the positive, looking for problems so as to avoid disappointment. Without hope that the future can be better, why would I bother getting out of bed? Coffee is good but sleep is better if there's nothing but the status quo to grind through. Life is dynamic.

Hope doesn't mean burying my head in the sand either. My day to day life doesn't succeed or fail based on what chapter of SG I can load up at any point in time, so I prefer to rely on coffee Exactly the same as relying on things you don't have, an apocalyptic need for prophesying Ocean's problems is just as irrelevant. His greatest track record is he is persistent, and that's enough for me today.

On not being around to see how the story ends, well, that's the main existential crisis of life (not to diminish it, because it haunts me to often). I drink coffee to keep the void at bay.

 

[yossa999]

I agree with most of what you said.

But, like with everything, there are cost a d benefit analysis.

I want him to do his vision. But he also said at some point he has 5 stories to do. I want them to do those too.

In the end, this is a production exercise. You have input, essentially time and effort. You have a production process, his workflow and his machines. And you have output: writing, scenes, choices, renders.

Say, for example, his vision requires him to put more resources on render quality. In particular time. His budget is 24 hours (cant buy time), less 10 between sleep and eating. So 14. Also, productivity decreases over the day as you get tired, so say effective 10 hours per day. Should he focus on addinf anothe freckle to Nami or should he focus on writing another path?

In the end, you can have a vision but by definition, you can only do what you can do given your resources and production pricess. Better hardware would improve production pricess for same inputs, but better hardware is developed over time. So at some point, you need to say "this render is good enougha" and move on.

Optimizarion exercise. Given his budget on resources (all type of resources) and current and expected production process, he maximizes the output.

I am of the view that rhe quality dimension os already way more than is needed. Extra focus should be directed to increasing quantity, while trying not to lower quality too much.

Oh bro, costs & benefiets, my ass...

There are enough projects on this site with pretty decent graphics, some sort of plot consistent enough to move you between next porn scenes, and a steady and regular release schedule. Updated every few months, with new blows and whistles, kinks and bitches. Since my posts have already been deleted for mentioning other games, there will be no names; those who have been on f95 for a long time enough know them.

I dunno about you bro, but the reason I'm in the SG thread and not these games is because they're boring as hell. All of them. With no exceptions. With all their kinks and bitches and regular updates. Running any of these games seems like a chore to me. I'm not sure how much their devs should pay me to consider playing their games.
Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the work they have done. It's just sad that they don't have a creative consultant to help them create a masterpiece.

But you and I both know that, despite all of Ocean's sins of perfectionism and long waiting time we'll be back here for our next fix as soon as the update notification rings. Because he offers a gaming experience that others cannot offer. So, if Nami should have one more freckle to create this experience, the one more freckle is what Nami will get and you would have to wait another month. Despite all the costs and benefits.

Therefore, the only way I see to speed up development is him to find people who can and will work under his creative supervision. Or upgrade the hardware if it can improve performance. Ocean believes the new hardware could help. Personally, I doubt it, because, as you absolutely correctly noted, there are only 24 hours in a day, and the only limited amount of job he can do even with the help of top notch hardware.

But you are talking about a compromise in favor of the plot development at the expense of things the author considers important. Therefore, he should not strive for perfect graphics, narrow the plot, reduce the number of characters, and so on. Eventually the game will lose its unique features this way.

 

[Meushi]

But you are talking about a compromise in favor of the plot development at the expense of things the author considers important. Therefore, he should not strive for perfect graphics, narrow the plot, reduce the number of characters, and so on. Eventually the game will lose its unique features this way.

That's simply not true? Ocean has already made many compromises around things he thought important over the course of the development of this game. Any game dev has to, otherwise they'd never release anything. The question is what & how far to compromise without hurting the game aesthetically or financially.

What he was initially willing to accept he no longer does with better hardware. Hence reworking large portions of the game to meet his new standard for the Steam release.

Will it actually increase sales enough to justify all the time spent on the reworks? We'll never know, but I don't think the long delays & slow development have helped grow Patreon support.

Though you're right in one sense. There's no use going on about how better project management might improve productivity and reduce dev cycles because Ocean isn't going to do that. If he were capable of it he'd be doing so already.

Instead we just have to accept Ocean's games are going to remain slow output, and amuse ourselves elsewhere between releases.

 

[yossa999]

That's simply not true? Ocean has already made many compromises in the course of the development of this game. Any game dev has to, otherwise they'd never release anything. The question is what & how far to compromise without hurting the game aesthetically or financially.

What he was initially willing to accept he no longer does with better hardware. Hence rerendering large portions of the game to meet his new standard.

Will it actually increase sales enough to justify all the time spent on the reworks? We'll never know, but I don't think the long delays & slow development have helped grow Patreon support.

Though you're right in one sense. There's no use going on about how better project management might improve productivity and reduce dev cycles because Ocean isn't going to do that. If he were capable of it he'd be doing so already.

Instead we just have to accept Ocean's games are going to remain slow output, and amuse ourselves elsewhere between releases.

If that weren't the true, you'd already be able to fuck half the girls in the game, something the crowd has been clamoring for since the first releases. If that weren't the case, you'd have six or seven chapters, with the first two being ugly, instead of five, two of which are the old chapters re-rendered from scratch. He wouldn't have remade WiaB if it wasn't true (he probably put it off after SG). We wouldn't have seen character-heavy scenes like the reworked first day of college or the basketball game in Chapter 4.
Of course, he has to make some compromises because he is not an idiot. But what Aysel proposes is a shift in emphasis from creativity to factory assembly. This would probably bring him more money and subscribers, especially if he added more kinks and fetishes, sex scenes and finally allowed them to fuck Nojiko. But I'm not sure it would still be the game I love.

 

[Garvelt]

Ocean's biggest problem is the fact that he is working on two games instead of one. He explained why he is doing it and I totally get it, but it still feels like it's a mistake on his part. Instead of having one happy fanbase he has two unhappy ones.

Also, all the talk about being a perfectionist is way overblown in my opinion. If you take into consideration the quality and combine the number of renders and animations he makes for both games he is actually one of the most prolific ones on this site. It just doesn't feel like it.

 

[Meushi]

If that weren't the true, you'd already be able to fuck half the girls in the game, something the crowd has been clamoring for since the first releases. If that weren't the case, you'd have six or seven chapters, with the first two being ugly, instead of five, two of which are the old chapters re-rendered from scratch. He wouldn't have remade WiaB if it wasn't true (he probably put it off after SG). We wouldn't have seen character-heavy scenes like the reworked first day of college or the basketball game in Chapter 4.
Of course, he has to make some compromises because he is not an idiot. But what Aysel proposes is a shift in emphasis from creativity to factory assembly. This would probably bring him more money and subscribers, especially if he added more kinks and fetishes, sex scenes and finally allowed them to fuck Nojiko. But I'm not sure it would still be the game I love.

None of that has anything to do with the cost management you were debating?

Neither Ayhsel or I said anything about changing the direction of the game to a fuck-fest or kowtowing to player preferences?

It's about tailoring dev effort to develop the same game in a reasonable time frame. Which Ocean has done at times, like reducing the number of characters in a scene because he couldn't render it, or leaving placeholder galleries etc.

Ocean can compromise, he just doesn't unless he has to. Better hardware is spent reworking scenes that already looked good instead of increasing development speed. They look better with more background characters etc., but is it worth the time spent? If you're interested in the game ever progressing to a conclusion, then the answer is no.

 

[BobTheDuck]

None of that has anything to do with the cost management you were debating?

Neither Ayhsel or I said anything about changing the direction of the game to a fuck-fest or cow-towing to player preferences?

It's about tailoring dev effort to develop the same game in a reasonable time frame. Which Ocean has done at times, like reducing the number of characters in a scene because he couldn't render it, or leaving placeholder galleries etc.

Ocean can compromise, he just doesn't unless he has to. Better hardware is spent reworking scenes that already looked good instead of increasing development speed. They look better with more background characters etc., but is it worth the time spent? If you're interested in the game ever progressing to a conclusion, then the answer is no.

Scenes already looking good is a matter of opinion. The values aren't tangible other than what you're personally willing to wait for. I personally feel that the difference between old and new WiaB is more clear, as essentially it was start from scratch. The change between render styles in the pre remake was jarring. In SG the change is jarring, but there is an interim step with his earliest 'better' style (the Relucia scense with Bella). I can tell the difference, but he's not remaking those, so he's got a compromise to perfection there. I wish he wouldn't compromise on Mila and sort out her model definitively, but he's being pragmatic there as well, not redoing everything of her, just the ones that stick out too far. And by the time she's in the lime light, chances are he'll have just let the past variations go to the keeper (ie Ch1 Mila and Ch4-5 Mila feel pretty different still).

He is making decisions that compromise on his aesthetic, and his goals for reworking are based on his personal rationale of what he can convince himself to compromise and what he can't based on his roadmap. Background characters are telling stories in SG, unlike 90% of AVN's - the detail of the backgrounds give a sense of the world and dramas outside of the dialogue. I think that has been one of the main parts of Ocean's rework style - to have easter eggs for the plot scattered throughout, so things don't appear out of nowhere (for example, the mice early on when Nika talks with Nojiko outside, at first I thought it was strange, but in light of CH5 it makes sense).

The rationale and value is always personal, so it's impossible to make an objective decision about being effective. The game is progressing to a conclusion, much slower than we'd like. I think it's worth seeing how the development changes now that both games are moving into new territory, past the rework limits. In WiaB, it might not have caught up, but as a reinvention of the game and plot to better integrate SG's prestory, it's basically a new game. CH6 onwards is full new material. I bet Ocean is excited to get past the exhausting work. He'll most likely find more energy as editing and going over the same material is mentally draining. Creation happens faster than edits.

 

[yossa999]

None of that has anything to do with the cost management you were debating?

Damn, again a wall of text, so as not to annoy those who are not interested in this debate, I’ll put everything under a spoiler.

Spoiler

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[sorco2003]

The one thing Ayhsel is graciously omited here is the release schedule. This quote impying the dev should deliver updates at reasonable time, otherwise why should the dev need to say at some point "this render is good enougha" and move on? Why not keep playing with this render while it's fun? I guess it's because he need to deliver the updates, right? Right!

You may not know this, but Ocean himself said it a long time ago, when he started his "process" to become more efficient.
It seems to me that you are debating just for the blind need to debate. Starting with reading what you want to read in Ayhsel's post and denying that every productive process (of whatever nature) has to go through the cost-benefit balance.
And even more so when an artistic form becomes commercial (Steam release).
Mixing harem with being efficient is directly ridiculous, and there you dropped the ball.
About the last point, if a background character is important, then that one stays, not the 35 others that make your render only viable with the sum of all your computational power + 3 months solving it. And to this they refer in general, the scene of the cinema in WIAB had to be to full room, it was not possible, plan b, some characters but not all, this affected in something? it does not seem to be, because the same Ocean took that decision, the decision to favor the narrative and the development before a single spectacular scene.
To conclude, none of the opinions will change anything, Ocean will continue to do things as he does, and will mutate as he goes along.
Sometimes to improve times, and sometimes to worsen them (discovering new tools in daz to improve animations when you have blender just around the corner is a concrete example of this, and to make matters worse, his logic was cost-benefit).

 

[Meushi]

Or maybe I really don’t understand what kind of compromise you’re talking about?

This. I'm not sure you understand what cost/benefit/compromise means in the context we've been discussing it.

Spoiler

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[Ayhsel]

yossa999 i think you read too much into what I said.

My point was simply this. Ocean work is already extremely high quality.

You can increase it further with better hardware and more experience, but again dimishing returns.

I would rather have any improvement in development process to be on speed.

As simple as that.

 

[PaxHadrian17]

Several people have touched on this, but I'd like to focus on it first -- compromise.

We can't fully know what compromises Ocean has made in the past or that he is making now.

He's shared a few compromises, like blurring a significant amount of the background of a scene so that he could render it, but I think what he has shared barely scratches the surface of what he feels he has had to compromise to get to where SG/WIAB are today.

I suspect that his vision is Much grander in terms of how he wants Summers Gone to look and feel - from both a visual and audial perspective, and he needs to manage the amount of compromise he makes to keep moving forward and not be paralyzed by taunting himself with 'what could be'.

Think about how good the scenes with great music (like Humble Hey - What My Mama Said) were and that we lost them due to music issues, many beyond Ocean's control. If this was me, this would have taken major wind out of my sails, but Ocean still found a way to set aside the disappointment and more forward.

His comment about the way music is treated, for tax purposes (10-year time horizon to claim the cost of that music as a business expense but he must pay for it up front) was eye opening for me and if I was a creator using music, I think I would have bolo'd that badly.

He is his own business manager; the negotiator for music licenses; production manager; R&D department (per his dev logs - he spends 2 hours a day working on Blender); and more + he still has a life and responsibilities outside developing SG and WIAB.

I believe that there are ways to improve how much time Ocean can give to his creations - like farming out music negotiations to a trusted hire (transitioning certain roles to other capable people will free up time for the creation Ocean is so good at).

Steam success has the potential to give Ocean resourcing to accomplish role transition and much more - and a solid Steam release is predicated on making a Very good first impression - which is where the recent rework of early chapters + improving continuity throughout Season 1 comes in.

I think the future resourcing increases brought about by the Steam release (primary) and new $ supporters (secondary) will ultimately tell us whether or not the rework was worth the time expense to existing development Ocean was willing to pay.

So - for those new to the thread, how can you help:

If you have the $ to spare and you like what you have seen with Summers Gone - consider supporting via SubScribestar or Patreon.

Whether or not you choose to support with $, consider wishlisting Summers Gone on Steam - at no $ cost to you.

If enough of us do this, it will help with Steam metrics in the way Steam shows Summers Gone once Season 1 is available.

Cheers!!

 

[John972]

As Ayhsel has pointed out with the Cost & Benefit analysis, there should be a point where he should be saying "it looks good enough" in terms of visuals, and move onto other aspects of the game that really needs more attention - such as speed and more content (for various LIs of the game).
There's also the fact that the this game (and WIAB, given that's going through rework as well) leaves vast majority of other VNs on this site in dust in terms of visuals.
The game already looks gorgeous; just how much more is he willing to push with the new hardware and visuals when resources spent on that could have been actually spent on something else?

So unless he puts his foot down on visuals at some point, he's gonna be in perpetual cycle of the following (please note, I didn't actually make the following diagram, a mutual of mine did);

Spoiler: Ocean's Cycle

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And while I would like to praise Ocean for being a quality focused, the more the above cycle gets repeated, I'd say his state of being a quality junkie becomes more of a detriment than a boon, or as Ayhsel put it more aptly than me, diminishing returns.

This is why I'm excited for the steam release - very hard to go back and change content on a public release - once people own it, I'm sure Steam have rules to prevent reworking content - or making it difficult to quickly change, otherwise people could change the content after approval which would be a nightmare for their legal duties to buyers.

When I look at the rework, mainly starting with the release of Ch 4, and Ocean's plan to release on Stream, then the rework makes perfect sense. The reworked product is worthy of wider release.

Contrast that with the steaming pile of excrement that was the original SG Chs 1 & 2 - no one in their right mind (outside of a small pull-wings-off-flies brigade who pine the loss of a grossly malignant and psycho MC) would consider it acceptable for Steam release - especially in terms of visual quality.

When I look at the state of SG going into the Ch 5 full release, I think there's even a lot of intermediate quality renders from Ch 3 that could potentially be replaced to preserve a consistent render quality resulting from the rework.

I honestly don't understand people claiming Ocean is stuck in a perpetual rework cycle. Having played SG since Ch 1, for example, I simply see that Ocean has drip-fed a single rework since the release of Ch 3.5 - 4. That rework should finally be complete at the time of Steam release. The same applies to WIAB - the difference there being that Ocean decided to release a reworked WIAB from scratch (currently at Ch 2, pending Ch 3), rather than release a higher quality Ch 7 onward and slowly rework previous chapters 1-6.

* BTW, Ocean being forced to remove music and lewd content because of the machinations of third-party service providers doesn't count as a rework to me.

I wholeheartedly agree with PaxHadrian17's sentiments. I am astounded that Ocean hasn't simply said fuck it! Packed up shop and quit because of third-party providers killing what he's poured his heart and soul into. He's one several Devs I salute 'cause they've persevered despite genuine knockbacks.

 

[Ayhsel]

When I look at the rework, mainly starting with the release of Ch 4, and Ocean's plan to release on Stream, then the rework makes perfect sense. The reworked product is worthy of wider release.

Contrast that with the steaming pile of excrement that was the original SG Chs 1 & 2 - no one in their right mind (outside of a small pull-wings-off-flies brigade who pine the loss of a grossly malignant and psycho MC) would consider it acceptable for Steam release - especially in terms of visual quality.

When I look at the state of SG going into the Ch 5 full release, I think there's even a lot of intermediate quality renders from Ch 3 that could potentially be replaced to preserve a consistent render quality resulting from the rework.

I honestly don't understand people claiming Ocean is stuck in a perpetual rework cycle. Having played SG since Ch 1, for example, I simply see that Ocean has drip-fed a single rework since the release of Ch 3.5 - 4. That rework should finally be complete at the time of Steam release. The same applies to WIAB - the difference there being that Ocean decided to release a reworked WIAB from scratch (currently at Ch 2, pending Ch 3), rather than release a higher quality Ch 7 onward and slowly rework previous chapters 1-6.

I didn't talk about rework. If he believes some things need to be redone, that is totally ok with me.

My point is, again, quality is way more than enough. But I could do with faster releases.

 

[Maviarab]

When I look at the rework, mainly starting with the release of Ch 4, and Ocean's plan to release on Stream, then the rework makes perfect sense. The reworked product is worthy of wider release.

Contrast that with the steaming pile of excrement that was the original SG Chs 1 & 2 - no one in their right mind (outside of a small pull-wings-off-flies brigade who pine the loss of a grossly malignant and psycho MC) would consider it acceptable for Steam release - especially in terms of visual quality.

When I look at the state of SG going into the Ch 5 full release, I think there's even a lot of intermediate quality renders from Ch 3 that could potentially be replaced to preserve a consistent render quality resulting from the rework.

I honestly don't understand people claiming Ocean is stuck in a perpetual rework cycle. Having played SG since Ch 1, for example, I simply see that Ocean has drip-fed a single rework since the release of Ch 3.5 - 4. That rework should finally be complete at the time of Steam release. The same applies to WIAB - the difference there being that Ocean decided to release a reworked WIAB from scratch (currently at Ch 2, pending Ch 3), rather than release a higher quality Ch 7 onward and slowly rework previous chapters 1-6.

Exactly this. And guess what folks...all the reworks are pretty much done.

So why don't we see how things are going forward in 2024 and see if we get regular releases for both....now all of his issues, reworks, hardware etc is finally sorted? Most of the probems have been getting both VN's into line with his vision and a consistent look for both (given they are connected). That is pretty much done and dusted now....so hopefully hings will be a little more plain sailing from now on.

If not...people are welcome to foget both VN's...unsusbscribe, stop wandering by the threads etc etc. Let' see exactly what Ch3 of WIAB brings us and if the next chapter of both afterwards are released on a timely schedule.

 

[yossa999]

I'm out of reactions.

[...] Mixing harem with being efficient is directly ridiculous, and there you dropped the ball.

Okay, I define efficiency as the ability to make more money with the same amount of effort. Creating a harem game in this case is a more efficient than a slow-burn story-based saga. And yeah, this was written just for the sake of argument.

[...] To conclude, none of the opinions will change anything, Ocean will continue to do things as he does, and will mutate as he goes along.

If you promises me that, then I'm happy. Although mutating part sounds scary.

 

[John972]

I didn't talk about rework. If he believes some things need to be redone, that is totally ok with me.

My point is, again, quality is way more than enough. But I could do with faster releases.

I certainly agree faster chapter releases would be nice. Having said that, there's been a trend for a year or more of many quality games taking several months to a year between updates. There was a time here on F95 when 2-3 months was considered normal.

I am hoping that the Steam Season 1 release and Season 2 Chapter 1 release will put all the rework debate to bed once and for all. Then it will come down to how long it will take Ocean to release new content - that we shall see...

 

[Ayhsel]

I certainly agree faster chapter releases would be nice. Having said that, there's been a trend for a year or more of many quality games taking several months to a year between updates. There was a time here on F95 when 2-3 months was considered normal.

I am hoping that the Steam Season 1 release and Season 2 Chapter 1 release will put all the rework debate to bed once and for all. Then it will come down to how long it will take Ocean to release new content - that we shall see...

We can only hope for that.

 

[yossa999]

I'm still out of reactions.

This. I'm not sure you understand what cost/benefit/compromise means in the context we've been discussing it.

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You know I agee with the most of your point actually despite just one thing...
I'm not sure his goal is to become an effecient developer in the sense you mean. I think he's quite happy with his pace, workflow, and work-life balance, and delivers what others can't. So if he completes this project, he'll do it his way. Maybe this is how games like SG are made, I don't know. I don't have a reference to compare to.
Too many “effecient” games have already been abandoned. Let's see what inefficiency brings.