puddingontheritz

New Member
Mar 20, 2024
7
88
I love the DarkCookie defenders being like "its really hard to make a game, it's hard to do code"

Not in Renpy. NOT in Renpy. Especially with the content in front of us. There is nothing complicated in this game. It's a point and click game with a few minor timing puzzles. DC is not writing code from scratch. He is not pioneering new game mechanics. There aren't complex dialouge trees. There aren't complex stat progressions. There's no combat to balance. There isn't even a basic crafting system. There aren't complex branching storylines. The games industry was making games more complex than this in the 1980s, around 40 years ago. Renpy itself is a tool suite specifically created to streamline visual novel games exactly like Summertime Saga. The most complex work he has to do is sorting out his triggers for events. if X stat >3, then event = true. That sorta shit. In two years, Dark Cookie could have got an associates degree in actual programming.

I picked up Game Maker and in an afternoon I was making stuff more complicated than this game. Not because I'm good at programming, but because a visual novel with light timing puzzles is not complicated. I don't care what he claimed, there's nothing crazy under the hood of this game that takes 2 years to clean up. With a little effort, this simple little game could have been recoded from the ground up in a month by a halfway competent Renpy author, especially for $30k/month. Give them a script and some assets and it should just be fucking done already.

I'm glad DC is gonna suffer for this. Dude is a scammer and a fraud.
 

Bir2

Newbie
Aug 3, 2021
55
47
My god, why did DarkCookie do this? 2 years without an update and now there is no new content, only content temporarily removed to ''redo'' what was already perfectly done.
 
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capicoli

Member
Mar 8, 2018
230
158
I can't believe It, I swear to god I haven't checked this game since the pizza guy's wife was added and haven't played since Eve. Are they really starting over from the bottom? How Jenny's story being improved this time? Last time it was taking out all the scenes where the MC sticks it in when Jenny tried to blue ball him.
 

Blumph

Member
Sep 4, 2019
360
314
My god, why did DarkCookie do this? 2 years without an update and now there is no new content, only content temporarily removed to ''redo'' what was already perfectly done.
Because it's easier to push the same script through a new engine every couple of years than to come up with a satisfying end to one game and then worry about SS2 or something not pulling the same numbers..
 

anminter17

Newbie
Sep 8, 2017
55
107
Patreons are happy. You're happy. Why are we having this conversation in the first place?

DC is just a reflection of the industry as a whole. He's a full-time developer, top 1 adult game developer on Patreon who doesn't deliver at all. It's just nonsense to defend him.
What you're saying is just a monetization model. It's only free because supporters pay for it. Do you think this game would be the same with 0 supporters? Do you think this game would exist without support?
No, i don't think that game will exist without support ofc, but that's the point. Dev makes money if supporters pay -> If supporters get angry/tired about the development dev will lose his money flow -> Dev should care about supporters.

In this case supporters still pay him after years of no updates. What should we understand from that? People evidently still believe the dev and wants to support him. It's ok? It's not? I'm not the right person to ask that because i don't support the dev and i never did. Subscribe a patreon isn't for the life, you should pay month by month and until people pay it means that for them it's ok to do so. I wouldn't do that but i'm not doing it in the first place so it doesn't matter. What matters for me is if the game is alive and worthly to play. The game definitely got an update so is alive (kinda) and that's good, it was a bad update anyway so i don't even bother do download and play it. I will just wait future releases and see if it will become again worthly of my time.

Why do you still think that i'm defending the dev in any way? I'm not happy with this update as anybody else but it could be a new rebirth for the game after a long hiatus. Or not ofc, that's why i'll wait and i think that's the correct approach to this situation especially for people that not supports the dev with money. If you feel like to burn the world thinking that your enrage will alter the outcome of this in any way you are free to do so. I'm just writing up my opinion about this matter, not defending anyone but also not crucifying the devs before watching what future releases will be like.

To summarize a bit: You are right writing that supporters should consider again if keep supporting the dev in the meaningwhile but i'm not one of them so why should i bother? It's their choice and they renew their choice monthly so it's all up to them.
 
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MonsterV

Member
Jun 23, 2019
139
179
I can't believe It, I swear to god I haven't checked this game since the pizza guy's wife was added and haven't played since Eve. Are they really starting over from the bottom? How Jenny's story being improved this time? Last time it was taking out all the scenes where the MC sticks it in when Jenny tried to blue ball him.
i think jenny´s is just the same, but some scenes removed or reworked like the sleep molestation? gone
 

KullisUrus

Newbie
Mar 18, 2018
48
86
Oh man, i was replaying it just these days and scared the shit out of me when i read "old saves are no compatible"

So from what i understand reading the changelog, they are moving engines and rebuilding the entire game?

My honest reaction is "ok? so why don't just say it and share the game when all the content is already moved?", i don't see much of a need to "replay" from zero in a new engine to not reach even a quarter of the content of the old one.

And even if it was the same game fully moved into another engine, i don't know the reason why they are moving it to another, it's suspicious enough (knowing similar games living out of a game with minor updates just squeeshing till the last coin).

Idk but this is pretty sus :unsure:
 
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Maxwell404

New Member
Mar 10, 2018
13
25
I love the DarkCookie defenders being like "its really hard to make a game, it's hard to do code"

Not in Renpy. NOT in Renpy. Especially with the content in front of us. There is nothing complicated in this game. It's a point and click game with a few minor timing puzzles. DC is not writing code from scratch. He is not pioneering new game mechanics. There aren't complex dialouge trees. There aren't complex stat progressions. There's no combat to balance. There isn't even a basic crafting system. There aren't complex branching storylines. The games industry was making games more complex than this in the 1980s, around 40 years ago. Renpy itself is a tool suite specifically created to streamline visual novel games exactly like Summertime Saga. The most complex work he has to do is sorting out his triggers for events. if X stat >3, then event = true. That sorta shit. In two years, Dark Cookie could have got an associates degree in actual programming.

I picked up Game Maker and in an afternoon I was making stuff more complicated than this game. Not because I'm good at programming, but because a visual novel with light timing puzzles is not complicated. I don't care what he claimed, there's nothing crazy under the hood of this game that takes 2 years to clean up. With a little effort, this simple little game could have been recoded from the ground up in a month by a halfway competent Renpy author, especially for $30k/month. Give them a script and some assets and it should just be fucking done already.

I'm glad DC is gonna suffer for this. Dude is a scammer and a fraud.
The fundamental issue is that he has bought cars, and a house and is raising a kid on the money he makes from this game. If he were to finish it, it would mean that he would no longer have an income. At least that's his assumption lmao; but he spends more time streaming himself drawing so at this point he's more of an art streamer than a game developer.
 

Hatrask

New Member
Sep 14, 2020
4
5
I mean, I do appreciate how well the game is running now. Nearly instant boot, smooth text boxes, no lag spikes while interacting with the custom UI (phone, bag, NPCs), animated scenes... you know the deal. What I don't understand is how he managed to make the old code base run like absolute fucking dog crap when both games still share the same engine.

I've been around following this game for long enough to still remember that the Tech Update was supposed to come out in phases, alongside the new content, instead of being a complete rewrite of the whole damn thing. Remember when the Rhonda update was supposed to be out in a few months? Yeah... Also, considering that this whole deal started because people kept complaining about save file compatibility between versions, seeing that the new build of the game still will struggle with the same issue (note the option "recap" when you click new game) makes me lose it completely lmao.

All in all, if DC maintain the game running this well and somehow manages to bring back all the content in a reasonable time frame, I'd say that we're eating good. Who knows, maybe he's entering his redemption arc now? (lol, alright). I don't think I'll play this ever again because his art style doesn't really turn me on anymore, but it's always fun to follow this thread.

Summertime Saga's patreons don't really deserve anything better than this.
 

puddingontheritz

New Member
Mar 20, 2024
7
88
Well hey man in conclusion

there's AI trained on the artstyle out there, it wouldn't be hard to grab it and then make your own story lines or rewrite what was already there, hell you might even earn just as much money as DC does
Those don't show up when I search for them what gives
 

AlfredBundy4

Member
Feb 12, 2021
441
1,288
I love the DarkCookie defenders being like "its really hard to make a game, it's hard to do code"

Not in Renpy. NOT in Renpy. Especially with the content in front of us. There is nothing complicated in this game. It's a point and click game with a few minor timing puzzles. DC is not writing code from scratch. He is not pioneering new game mechanics. There aren't complex dialouge trees. There aren't complex stat progressions. There's no combat to balance. There isn't even a basic crafting system. There aren't complex branching storylines. The games industry was making games more complex than this in the 1980s, around 40 years ago. Renpy itself is a tool suite specifically created to streamline visual novel games exactly like Summertime Saga. The most complex work he has to do is sorting out his triggers for events. if X stat >3, then event = true. That sorta shit. In two years, Dark Cookie could have got an associates degree in actual programming.

I picked up Game Maker and in an afternoon I was making stuff more complicated than this game. Not because I'm good at programming, but because a visual novel with light timing puzzles is not complicated. I don't care what he claimed, there's nothing crazy under the hood of this game that takes 2 years to clean up. With a little effort, this simple little game could have been recoded from the ground up in a month by a halfway competent Renpy author, especially for $30k/month. Give them a script and some assets and it should just be fucking done already.

I'm glad DC is gonna suffer for this. Dude is a scammer and a fraud.
Never cared one way or the other for this title but Python/Renpy in general is beyond easy to code with.
If building to or from Python, any half-decent code could build a porting app that would do about 90% of the work for them in about a month. Python to C variants or C variants to Python, it wouldn't take years lmao.
Then you finish the rest by hand and you're done.

Any length beyond about 6 months is insane. If you paid someome to do it for you and they claimed to need two years to do it you'd immediately fire them.

Unless you have other motives and make your money from a system that rewards being slow.
 
4.00 star(s) 365 Votes