Ren'Py Tails on the Rocks [v0.6] [ofkeres]

[morty2301]

A minor complaint I have is when you get thrust into events where it takes the entire day or something and sometimes you can't avoid it (like grace was at home and triggered next day immediately and ate the entire day, which is even weirder because I think she was the date I missed which is weird to think about, she's mad I missed the date with her because I spent all day with her) and it causes you to miss the date, so it makes planning dates feel risky at times because your date might be at another event trigger that eats that timeslot so you just get -5/-5 unless you go back enough to not plan the date for then, maybe it could be you text the girl before the event that you had to cancel and you're sorry so it doesn't lose stats?

 

[ofkeres]

A minor complaint I have is when you get thrust into events where it takes the entire day or something and sometimes you can't avoid it (like grace was at home and triggered next day immediately and ate the entire day, which is even weirder because I think she was the date I missed which is weird to think about, she's mad I missed the date with her because I spent all day with her) and it causes you to miss the date, so it makes planning dates feel risky at times because your date might be at another event trigger that eats that timeslot so you just get -5/-5 unless you go back enough to not plan the date for then, maybe it could be you text the girl before the event that you had to cancel and you're sorry so it doesn't lose stats?

Very valid point, I'll look to make sure you don't get punished for missing dates because of events triggering.

 

[Bowlcutcultmember]

Kind of delayed, but I actually got deep into this finally (generally prefer to wait for a game to get a decent amount of content before I play.)
Wow, you did a really great job making all of the characters varied. Species-wise you did use fox twice, but Zoe's character elevates the mind away from that. Generally I would like to see more species-quirks come up naturally in the writing, but you did a decent amount so far, and there is a fine line where it becomes overbearing.
Gameplay-wise (Character Focused) I think certain "Like" generating actions should start giving Love as well after you pass certain events/breakpoints, as it's kind of a game-story disconnect with the characters. Stupid idea, but it came into my head that if you gave a gift that a character hated when they were at max like/love, you'd get a one-off scene where they say what amounts to "well I hate it, but I love you, so I'll let it slide this one time". I also thought Grace "hating" the dress was a little funny given what the player learns about her later. Again though, it's just a disconnect. Ideally it would be something that switches after the player passes a certain milestone.

The actual bar management is a bit light on the management side of things, but I actually appreciated that since I was worried it would be very prone to fail states, which is thankfully not the case. It DOES make me wonder if there's some future plan to have something happen further in that requires the player to buckle down to keep the bar afloat. Probably not, but it'd hit home with future content maybe?

I'm biased, but a shortstack species would definitely be cool if clipping issues didn't make that non-feasible, that or a much taller girl, like a giraffe.

 

[ofkeres]

Kind of delayed, but I actually got deep into this finally (generally prefer to wait for a game to get a decent amount of content before I play.)
Wow, you did a really great job making all of the characters varied. Species-wise you did use fox twice, but Zoe's character elevates the mind away from that. Generally I would like to see more species-quirks come up naturally in the writing, but you did a decent amount so far, and there is a fine line where it becomes overbearing.
Gameplay-wise (Character Focused) I think certain "Like" generating actions should start giving Love as well after you pass certain events/breakpoints, as it's kind of a game-story disconnect with the characters. Stupid idea, but it came into my head that if you gave a gift that a character hated when they were at max like/love, you'd get a one-off scene where they say what amounts to "well I hate it, but I love you, so I'll let it slide this one time". I also thought Grace "hating" the dress was a little funny given what the player learns about her later. Again though, it's just a disconnect. Ideally it would be something that switches after the player passes a certain milestone.

The actual bar management is a bit light on the management side of things, but I actually appreciated that since I was worried it would be very prone to fail states, which is thankfully not the case. It DOES make me wonder if there's some future plan to have something happen further in that requires the player to buckle down to keep the bar afloat. Probably not, but it'd hit home with future content maybe?

I'm biased, but a shortstack species would definitely be cool if clipping issues didn't make that non-feasible, that or a much taller girl, like a giraffe.

Thanks for giving it a try!
I intended writing of dialogue and behaviours to be reasonably grounded, so reflections of their species appearing aren't often and subtle, as you say. There's scope for a little bit more, but I wouldn't anticipate much more.
You're very right about Like/Love interactions and gifting should change over time with relationship. It's on my plan-to-do, along with a few other things to make the relationships more dynamic (girls initiating affections being an existing example).

Admittedly, the management aspect was a complete afterthought. The thought was "this is a game, so the player should be able to do something beyond just chasing scenes". I scrapped the idea of player stats (strength, intelligence, hunger etc) as I felt that wouldn't provide much. As far as keeping it up, money will become more important later as more important scenes / developments for girls will require larger amounts.

As lame as it sounds, I have to be careful with characters. As great as shortstacks are, they cause problems with itch and patreon. I have no more concrete characters locked in at the moment, but I've considered a mouse/rat that would naturally be on the smaller side, and I will definitely do a larger species sometime.

 

[morty2301]

An idea for a bigger species could be a thicc hippo or elephant perhaps, then again, dunno how well chubby girls do in koikatsu's engine

 

[Bowlcutcultmember]

Thanks for giving it a try!
I intended writing of dialogue and behaviours to be reasonably grounded, so reflections of their species appearing aren't often and subtle, as you say. There's scope for a little bit more, but I wouldn't anticipate much more.

Yeah that's fair. World Building was overall well put together and made sense. I do kinda wish some of the secondary NPCs, like the previous owner, Grace's boss, her mother, and the various friends of the girls had sprites, but I figure it's a combo issue of not wanting people to feel tricked by a sprite of a non-romance-able character, not wanting to over-inflate the filesize, wanting to leave them up to the player to imagine, and not wanting to lose focus from the characters.
One-off, random encounters when working at the bar might be an idea. Not sex-focused, but just little interactions and conversations with random bar visitors. Could technically work, even without sprites.
I think the other other thing about the game itself that got into my head was wishing the location CGs changed depending on the time of day. Though KK probably makes it hard to get these to look the right time of day.

Admittedly, the management aspect was a complete afterthought. The thought was "this is a game, so the player should be able to do something beyond just chasing scenes". I scrapped the idea of player stats (strength, intelligence, hunger etc) as I felt that wouldn't provide much. As far as keeping it up, money will become more important later as more important scenes / developments for girls will require larger amounts.

I'm glad you scrapped stats as they basically never justify themselves as anything other than a content gatekeeper. I think they justify themselves better in "combat" VNs, but then you have the problems of Combat in Ren'py, which is... mixed.

As lame as it sounds, I have to be careful with characters. As great as shortstacks are, they cause problems with itch and patreon. I have no more concrete characters locked in at the moment, but I've considered a mouse/rat that would naturally be on the smaller side, and I will definitely do a larger species sometime.

100% understandable with what's happened to the Itch page.

An idea for a bigger species could be a thicc hippo or elephant perhaps, then again, dunno how well chubby girls do in koikatsu's engine

BBW-like models tend to have a TON of clipping issues with KK. It probably IS possible, but requires a lot of custom posing.

 

[DocRipper]

I see that the discussion is about "what kind of extreme could be created with KK"...

I scrapped the idea of player stats (strength, intelligence, hunger etc)

Survival horror, hm?

money will become more important later as more important scenes / developments for girls will require larger amounts.

I kind of expected that.. handholding will probably be pretty expensive.

As lame as it sounds, I have to be careful with characters. As great as shortstacks are, they cause problems with itch and patreon. I have no more concrete characters locked in at the moment, but I've considered a mouse/rat that would naturally be on the smaller side, and I will definitely do a larger species sometime.

Ah..yeah..Collective Shit discriminates ladies with small proportions... hope you can find some compromise that will satisfy the platforms...

One-off, random encounters when working at the bar might be an idea. Not sex-focused, but just little interactions and conversations with random bar visitors. Could technically work, even without sprites.

I like that idea..some small talk, bar flirt.