VN Ren'Py Supermodel: Defenders of Desire [v1.2.0] [Belle]

[Belle]

The cards that says "cannot be attacked" should say "cannot be attacked directly", unless being able to damage it with the "All CC take x damage" cards are a bug.

The language is very precise in this game. The word "attack" is only ever used to refer to dragging a card directly on top of a challenge card in the Challenge Phase to damage it. This is the only type of attack you can do. Dealing damage to a challenge card doesn't mean you're making an attack unless specifically spelled out.

Scale on the left is (at least at lower levels) easily overcapped then it'll say 75 or whatever above it and I presume that's the total heat and not an indication of the useable heat. It also seems somewhat unnecessary compared to just displaying those 2 numbers.

This will likely get tweaked a little over time. The point is to make it instantly recognizeable at a glance how you are doing and roughly how many resources you have at your disposal.

Sometimes when throwing a card in the middle to use it thinks you're trying to upgrade one and won't play, not a big deal but not completely smooth.

This is something I put a lot of effort into when designing the game engine. Dragging cards must feel natural and intuitive for the game to be fun. If you find it to be unintuitive, I would appreciate specific feedback about what is causing you trouble so that I can look into making adjustments.

Currently, the dragging is balanced toward making plays directly to the table. Playing cards on top of other cards is meant to be a little more exact. The math behind it is calculating area for the two cards and what percentage of their areas overlap, with anything above a set percentage counting as a "hit". I can easily adjust that percentage value as needed and have done so before.

Likewise it got a bit annoying flashing up on the screen +1 heat, +3 useable heat, etc. in a sequence when doing stuff so its "working"... I just want to play my next card / do my next thing without having to wait around. Those bits seem pointless and get in the way, I know what was going to happen I read the card and can see the changes.

I have tried to make these "popups" show up as briefly as possible while still being legible. This is a balancing act between informing the player about what is going on (which can otherwise be confusing at times) while not taking up too much of their time. I feel like the current balance is roughly where it needs to be without becoming overly annoying, but again, adjustments are always possible.

Early development versions of the game did not have these popups. This resulted in matches being extremely difficult to follow, even for experienced players. This information may feel superfluous, but it definitely isn't. I've seen what the game would be like without it.

The Flame Beckons is super annoying.

It's meant to be. All the pink model cards are meant to add complications to your decks. You will get to upgrade them in the future to make them less annoying and more useful, but not just yet.

Game doesn't have the AI tag, and I'm not someone super hung up on stuff like that... but some of the cards definitely have that vibe and the style of them doesn't fit the other ones that actually feature the game's characters. I presume this'll be revisited, but if that's not the intention it should probably be reconsidered.

I'm not sure where I will end up on this. Creating illustrations for potentially hundreds of cards is extremely difficult, especially when some of the concepts are so abstract. Using AI for some of them was a way for me to get past this. Whether or not this AI art will survive to the final versions is something I'm undecided on. Honestly, it might depend a lot on how jurisdiction in this field develops over the coming months and years. If AI art continues to exist in a grey zone like today, I might just bite the bullet and commission art from real artists, but it's not exactly like I'm swimming in money with how my Patreon/SubscribeStar has dropped after LLtP was finished.

 

[Spyderwraith]

You should see if there is a way to link the game rules to the actual battle screen.. I play MTG and Gwent so I'd like to think my ability to learn card game mechanics aren't that horrible, but I often find myself questioning the different phases in the moment when i try to do a thing that doesn't work.

Also see if you can enable a "give up" button for instances where you just want to start over or if you're halfway through with only 2 usable heat because you can't play cards

 

[Belle]

You should see if there is a way to link the game rules to the actual battle screen.. I play MTG and Gwent so I'd like to think my ability to learn card game mechanics aren't that horrible, but I often find myself questioning the different phases in the moment when i try to do a thing that doesn't work.

I would like to add a glossary at some point, but it's not high on my list right now. Most of the rules are covered by simply double-clicking the cards anyway, but some of the big ones (like phases) aren't adequately covered that way.

I'd also like to do a similar "glossary" with characters, terminology, and so on for the VN. Alas, I only have so much time.

Also see if you can enable a "give up" button for instances where you just want to start over or if you're halfway through with only 2 usable heat because you can't play cards

This is on my list of features I want to implement.

 

[J_M]

Belle, I love both reading and playing games but I hate playing a reading game. VNs are a no go for me, sorry, but I consider the genre boring no matter how talented the developer is. In my mind a game should involve my brain in one way or the other, a story is just that... read a few paragraphs and click... what the hell is that???? In my opinion you are wasting your enormous potential and I am truly sorry about it, I know there a loads of people who actually like to click on... I suppose you thought they are a bit more numerous than the rest... I think they are just louder...

 

[Belle]

Belle, I love both reading and playing games but I hate playing a reading game. VNs are a no go for me, sorry, but I consider the genre boring no matter how talented the developer is. In my mind a game should involve my brain in one way or the other, a story is just that... read a few paragraphs and click... what the hell is that???? In my opinion you are wasting your enormous potential and I am truly sorry about it, I know there a loads of people who actually like to click on... I suppose you thought they are a bit more numerous than the rest... I think they are just louder...

Thank you for the feedback, but to be perfectly blunt with you, I don't care. I develop what I want to develop, money be damned. If you ever looked at me as a trend chaser, then I'm sorry. That's just not the way I operate. If I get inspired and have a burning desire to make something, that's what I make.

 

[J_M]

Thank you for the feedback, but to be perfectly blunt with you, I don't care. I develop what I want to develop, money be damned. If you ever looked at me as a trend chaser, then I'm sorry. That's just not the way I operate. If I get inspired and have a burning desire to make something, that's what I make.

Fair enough. Looking forward to your next project and of course, good luck with this one.

 

[TheMidnightRook]

Clicking the picture icon on Michael's Card Tutorial or the girl's Bonus Matches runs into an error.

Spoiler: Michael's Card Tutorial error code

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Spoiler: Ida's Bonus Match error code

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Spoiler: Seraphina's Bonus Match error code

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[Belle]

Clicking the picture icon on Michael's Card Tutorial or the girl's Bonus Matches runs into an error.

There are no unique pictures to see on those matches, so yeah. The buttons on the problematic matches were removed in Update 3.

 

[dlombu]

If you're wondering what the keywords on a card are, double click on the card and it'll bring up a long explanation.

 

[cxx]

Edit two: there is actually no secondary save system oh boy

nor rollback.

 

[longjohngold]

The language is very precise in this game. The word "attack" is only ever used to refer to dragging a card directly on top of a challenge card in the Challenge Phase to damage it. This is the only type of attack you can do. Dealing damage to a challenge card doesn't mean you're making an attack unless specifically spelled out.

Maybe put something in the tutorial that specifically covers still damaging unattackable cards. I'm just letting you know as someone that played the game for the first time it's wasn't initially clear until I tried it out of curiosity.

This is something I put a lot of effort into when designing the game engine. Dragging cards must feel natural and intuitive for the game to be fun. If you find it to be unintuitive, I would appreciate specific feedback about what is causing you trouble so that I can look into making adjustments.

There's just not the space for it once you've got 5 engines down, all the immediate space in front is crammed full and there's just a little sliver of space between the engines. But I do get that if you were able to drag cards more over the engines to play them then upgrading might be a pain. It's a problem because the engine space and play space are the same. I don't know what could resolve this, as even if you uncentered the engines area and had a dedicated play spot off to the side it'd feel odd not being able to play cards directly forward. But all I can say is it felt like there wasn't enough room.

Though thinking about it, why aren't they exclusive. You can never play an upgrade card, and never upgrade with a play card (if you get what I mean). If I try to play a card (that's not an upgrade) even if it's directly on top of an engine why doesn't it just play it anyway.

I have tried to make these "popups" show up as briefly as possible while still being legible. This is a balancing act between informing the player about what is going on (which can otherwise be confusing at times) while not taking up too much of their time. I feel like the current balance is roughly where it needs to be without becoming overly annoying, but again, adjustments are always possible.

At the very least display them at once, there's no need to tell me sequentially that I gained +1 heat and +1 useable heat, pop them both up and off. Or put them off to the side and have it not be "working" so you can look at them or just carry on playing.

 

[Belle]

Maybe put something in the tutorial that specifically covers still damaging unattackable cards. I'm just letting you know as someone that played the game for the first time it's wasn't initially clear until I tried it out of curiosity.

I might put a note about the wording in the card info screen.

There's just not the space for it once you've got 5 engines down

There is plenty of space. It was much trickier in the first release of Snapshot, but now that the overlaps are adjusted, you need to be almost entirely overlapping another card to interact with it instead of playing to the table. But if it's still tricky for you, just drag the card off to one of the sides of the screen. Any card that is played to the top 2/3 of the screen without overlapping another card by more than 75% or so is considered played to the table, so don't feel like you need to hit the shaded area. I used to do this routinely before I readjusted the overlap function. Nowadays, I just drag straight up and pretty much never feel like I risk hitting an Engine/Upgrade.

I mean, just look at this:



These two cards are not overlapping enough for Deep Breath to be considered to be played on top of the other card, which says a lot about how poorly you have dragged a card for it to not hit the table.

Though thinking about it, why aren't they exclusive.

Because some cards can have multiple functions. For example, the Visor card (an Engine) can be played either to the table like a normal Engine or on top of an existing Engine/Upgrade to discard that one and take its place. There will be more cards with multiple abilities like that in the future.

At the very least display them at once, there's no need to tell me sequentially that I gained +1 heat and +1 useable heat, pop them both up and off. Or put them off to the side and have it not be "working" so you can look at them or just carry on playing.

It's trickier than it might sound. Doing what you describe would require a whole new set of effects (and a surprising amount of code) due to how Ren'py works. That's why I try to keep these popups somewhat generic so that they can be reused.

 

[wastrel]

"Her clitoris is so sensitive today that it only requires a fraction of her superstrength to achieve the desired effect."

Please tell me this game has a scene in which her clitoris is not sensitive and she has to give it her all.

 

[Belle]

"Her clitoris is so sensitive today that it only requires a fraction of her superstrength to achieve the desired effect."

Please tell me this game has a scene in which her clitoris is not sensitive and she has to give it her all.

There is a reason it was phrased like that. The story will get into the details later.