Java Tales of Androgyny [v0.3.49.4] [Majalis]

[Majalis (ToA)]

Version numbers are not a progress bar. There will be no version v0.4. Once we're done with the UI, we'll be moving into beta (v0.3), and then the full release will be the next major milestone (v1.0). The game has also not even been in development for four years... if I look back at old comments, we've apparently been working on the game for over five years for several years now (the first comment we got that said that was in 2018, no joke, I have no idea where people get this idea), but, no, development started in August of 2016 during that year's lewd game jam on itch.io while I was on a week of PTO from work, and we didn't start working on the game full time until 2018, when I left my old job and Alis started working on it full time instead of working on patron-voted non-ToA art as well.

We also got complaints when we first increased the version number from v0.1 to v0.2 because, like, we show progress every week. Of course you're not going to see a sudden discontinuous jump from one version's progress to the next. Although this time, we are actually keeping the bulk of the UI work under wraps for exactly this reason. If it hadn't been for that backlash, we would have incremented to v0.3 when we moved onto content creation for existing characters, to signal that, but we decided against it, since the last time it led to confusion.

For future reference, our versioning system: the first number is the release number. It's 0 right now because the game is in development, it'll be 1 after release and that's it. The second number is the major version. It represents the phase of development - you can think of it like v0.1 being the pre-alpha, v0.2 being the alpha, v0.3 being the beta, and it'll reset to 0 for the v1.0 release, and then that number will go up if we do "expansion" style post-release content. There would have been more major version updates (ie, v0.2.13 would have been v0.3.00, which would mean that we would be in v0.3.10.1 right now) if the previous one had gone differently.

The third number, which, again, is not a progress bar, is the minor version. With our release schedule there's a new one every month. If we worked 170 hour weeks for an entire month, using shadow clones and time turners and all that, that number would increase by 1. Literally, no matter what, that number will increase by 1 per month, unless we're hospitalized or something and have to miss one, which hasn't happened yet. It's two digits, unlike the other numbers, because a development phase will definitely last longer than ten months.

The fourth number is the patch number - how many patches a minor version has received. This increments every time there's a new release, and it helps us keep track of the appearance of bugs and the like. Typically, there's one of these each week for the weekly releases (so 4 or 5 on a given month depending on how many Saturdays there are), but if we discover a crash bug or something like that we'll release a hotfix. The changelog only contains these versions for the current month, which get collapsed into a minor version (monthly) changelog at the end of the month.

There's nothing magical about the version number. The version prior to release will not be v0.99. Spelunky did that, and I thought it was funny, but that is not typically how version numbers work. Different teams use different versioning formats, and the main goal for versions is to establish what version a user is using to isolate bugs and to ensure they've updated properly (if, for instance, they're not seeing some new content or feature), not to "count up" towards some sort of milestone.

 

[Dexter1927]

Version numbers are not a progress bar.

There's nothing magical about the version number.

Funny thing i always saw the version number like that because that's how IT school teach it, but its also sad that i you can simply use common sense to understand it, also can i ask something ? what are you a writer a programmer or you studied all by yourself? xD

 

[Captain NTR]

Version numbers are not a progress bar. There will be no version v0.4. Once we're done with the UI, we'll be moving into beta (v0.3), and then the full release will be the next major milestone (v1.0). The game has also not even been in development for four years... if I look back at old comments, we've apparently been working on the game for over five years for several years now (the first comment we got that said that was in 2018, no joke, I have no idea where people get this idea), but, no, development started in August of 2016 during that year's lewd game jam on itch.io while I was on a week of PTO from work, and we didn't start working on the game full time until 2018, when I left my old job and Alis started working on it full time instead of working on patron-voted non-ToA art as well.

We also got complaints when we first increased the version number from v0.1 to v0.2 because, like, we show progress every week. Of course you're not going to see a sudden discontinuous jump from one version's progress to the next. Although this time, we are actually keeping the bulk of the UI work under wraps for exactly this reason. If it hadn't been for that backlash, we would have incremented to v0.3 when we moved onto content creation for existing characters, to signal that, but we decided against it, since the last time it led to confusion.

For future reference, our versioning system: the first number is the release number. It's 0 right now because the game is in development, it'll be 1 after release and that's it. The second number is the major version. It represents the phase of development - you can think of it like v0.1 being the pre-alpha, v0.2 being the alpha, v0.3 being the beta, and it'll reset to 0 for the v1.0 release, and then that number will go up if we do "expansion" style post-release content. There would have been more major version updates (ie, v0.2.13 would have been v0.3.00, which would mean that we would be in v0.3.10.1 right now) if the previous one had gone differently.

The third number, which, again, is not a progress bar, is the minor version. With our release schedule there's a new one every month. If we worked 170 hour weeks for an entire month, using shadow clones and time turners and all that, that number would increase by 1. Literally, no matter what, that number will increase by 1 per month, unless we're hospitalized or something and have to miss one, which hasn't happened yet. It's two digits, unlike the other numbers, because a development phase will definitely last longer than ten months.

The fourth number is the patch number - how many patches a minor version has received. This increments every time there's a new release, and it helps us keep track of the appearance of bugs and the like. Typically, there's one of these each week for the weekly releases (so 4 or 5 on a given month depending on how many Saturdays there are), but if we discover a crash bug or something like that we'll release a hotfix. The changelog only contains these versions for the current month, which get collapsed into a minor version (monthly) changelog at the end of the month.

There's nothing magical about the version number. The version prior to release will not be v0.99. Spelunky did that, and I thought it was funny, but that is not typically how version numbers work. Different teams use different versioning formats, and the main goal for versions is to establish what version a user is using to isolate bugs and to ensure they've updated properly (if, for instance, they're not seeing some new content or feature), not to "count up" towards some sort of milestone.

Well you gotta realize majority of people arent IT majors or have worked on a closed beta/alpha game. Most when they see a version number instinctively equate it to progress on the overall game. A version 1.0 vs a version 0.2, people are gonna assume the 1.0 has more content and right fully so because playing games we have been led to believe when a game is patched/updated the version is also changed to showcase that. Its more so the DEV side of games that equate version numbers to "builds" rather than progress I would say.

 

[RC-1138 Boss]

From twitter:

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[Dexter1927]

Well you gotta realize majority of people arent IT majors or have worked on a closed beta/alpha game.

You should understand that a game or program is not really something you can have like a """progress bar"" so you use the version to give at least a little bit of understanding on the other side, you don't know when a product is finished , and its like that in EVERY kind of program, so you don't need to study an it major to understand it, look it up its a true fact ,Wikipedia that, np ill do it for you :

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Most when they see a version number instinctively equate it to progress on the overall game.

And thats the thing!
0.2.21.3 = 0(is not FINISHED).2(this game got major changes and i should check the changelog to understand what).21(dayum they did a lot of minor things since this big update,maybe i should check the changelog).3(eh probably fixed a couple of bugs in this version, if they added something should be more stable)

A version 1.0 vs a version 0.2, people are gonna assume the 1.0 has more content and right fully so because playing games we have been led to believe when a game is patched/updated the version is also changed to showcase that.

I assume english is not your first language , not trying to offend(same as me) but i don't understand your point here, of course 1.0 has more content and yes the version changes based on patch/updates soo i don't understand where you are trying to go.

Its more so the DEV side of games that equate version numbers to "builds" rather than progress I would say.

Its choosed by the dev how to number a version based on milestones, but is also a good way to make someone understand the working behind that

From twitter:

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[Majalis (ToA)]

Well you gotta realize majority of people arent IT majors or have worked on a closed beta/alpha game. Most when they see a version number instinctively equate it to progress on the overall game. A version 1.0 vs a version 0.2, people are gonna assume the 1.0 has more content and right fully so because playing games we have been led to believe when a game is patched/updated the version is also changed to showcase that. Its more so the DEV side of games that equate version numbers to "builds" rather than progress I would say.

I understand the layman's understanding of version numbers as probably something they don't think about very much but that generally indicates "progress", but, c'mon, does anyone really think that version .23 of something is "23% done", and that version .24 will come out when it's "24% done"? You can maybe glean some things about a game's progress by its version number (for instance, you can see ours is still in development prior to "release" because it's v0.x, not v1.x), but the point of a version number from a user standpoint is just to confirm whether you need to update or not, not to see, like, percent completion.

 

[taglag]

I would like to see the different clothing item's used more for variations in the event's, And I have been seeing that more, Thank you for that.

I was always thinking that some scene's with the witch might eventually happen. No complaints I have been really enjoying the fact that you have been fluffing out much of the content with not only graphic's but story as well.

I would assume you started with a general conception of the game, and over time much of the story was improved, and been added too, and will need to be carefully tweaked as time goes on.

I can easy see where shoring up the mostly finished story line before moving on would be not only a good Idea, but will make it easier to add additional content latter on. Once you have a solid library of routine's and events to pull from.

I think it is all good stuff.

 

[Captain NTR]

I understand the layman's understanding of version numbers as probably something they don't think about very much but that generally indicates "progress", but, c'mon, does anyone really think that version .23 of something is "23% done", and that version .24 will come out when it's "24% done"? You can maybe glean some things about a game's progress by its version number (for instance, you can see ours is still in development prior to "release" because it's v0.x, not v1.x), but the point of a version number from a user standpoint is just to confirm whether you need to update or not, not to see, like, percent completion.

The comment that sparked all this was a guy saying " after all these years, version 0.2.21.3?", I dont think anyone or atleast on these forums from what I have seen has equated version number to % completed. When you see a game go from 0.8 to 0.9 the first assumption is "what did they add? Wheres the changelog", not so much "the game is now 90% complete". I agree that whoever thinks version numbers indicate total percentage isnt really too bright but for people to assume new version number means bug fixes or new content, I dont think they are necessarily in the wrong for that.

Now outright complaining/whining about a game development cycle/status on a pirate forum, thats just your run of the mill shitposter. So he should just be disregarded for even saying that because no one cares to see him moan.

 

[Majalis (ToA)]

The comment that sparked all this was a guy saying " after all these years, version 0.2.21.3?", I dont think anyone or atleast on these forums from what I have seen has equated version number to % completed. When you see a game go from 0.8 to 0.9 the first assumption is "what did they add? Wheres the changelog", not so much "the game is now 90% complete". I agree that whoever thinks version numbers indicate total percentage isnt really too bright but for people to assume new version number means bug fixes or new content, I dont think they are necessarily in the wrong for that.

Now outright complaining/whining about a game development cycle/status on a pirate forum, thats just your run of the mill shitposter. So he should just be disregarded for even saying that because no one cares to see him moan.

In their next post they say "almost at version 0.23" (actually v0.2.23.1), which is what I was responding to. We could be four days away from release and the version number would still be "only version 0.x" because that's what 0.x means. There's just no other correlation between the version number and completion. There'd be no difference between us being at .23 vs. .46 vs. 89 other than how we were tracking our builds and when we were incrementing major version numbers. So while the alternative doesn't necessarily imply "version # = %complete", it does imply that you can look at the version number and see how close the project is to completion, which isn't true at all. Major version 3 (0.3) isn't less than halfway done - it's the last phase of development before release.

If you're using the version number as just a proxy for "how frequent are updates", updates are literally every week and every month, so from that perspective, it'd be like saying "after twenty years of aging, you're still not even 21 years old?"

I mean, if it makes people happy, I'll make the next monthly build version 0.8; it doesn't matter at all to me either way, and it would still leave room from .8 to .9 for pre-release. Some teams do it that way! But it has no impact on anything else.

 

[dsp0]

But! This game, and a very few like it fill a very or somewhat selective nitch. I am glad that there making it, and I would assume real life probably does slow things down a bit.

Which other "few like it" games do you know? I genuinely would like to know, as I thought this one was quite unique. I played the game in various prior versions and even with the regular updates the replayability is not really there for me. Do you have another game to recommend?

 

[bbob89084]

Yes I know how their development has been going these last 5 years. Active etc. and now almost at version 0.23. I was supporting them till I realized they wouldn't add a female protag.

Every time the same complaint. This game and their early art was mostly about male/trap and futa/trap. There are other games for futa and females. Leave this game alone, they've already done, imo, unnecessary changes to make the game "less gay".

 

[Geralt_of_Trivia]

inb4 next version is v0.2.21.3.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.1

 

[taglag]

Which other "few like it" games do you know? I genuinely would like to know, as I thought this one was quite unique. I played the game in various prior versions and even with the regular updates the replayability is not really there for me. Do you have another game to recommend?

Trapquest is probably the only one that I consider worth playing with a somewhat sort of like TOA game play, and that is actually a good game, ( There are others, but most just don't have the replay-ability In MY Opinion yet! However some are improving ).

Trap quest is a subjective choice as it is similar to, and actually uses the same Engine (compiler) [Inform 7] as the old Infocom games, but has considerable graphic's for immersion as well as hyper link choices, but the text lead's the imagination when playing.
If you can get past that Trapquest is a great game.

 

[RC-1138 Boss]

Every time the same complaint. This game and their early art was mostly about male/trap and futa/trap. There are other games for futa and females. Leave this game alone, they've already done, imo, unnecessary changes to make the game "less gay".

Almost every week this same complaint happens around here. It is like some people don't even bother to read before writting their weird complaints.

 

[Geralt_of_Trivia]

Its the internet, what do you expect people will always demand content to be adapted to them and unfortunately they seem make up the majority on it. Feels like overflow from r/choosingbeggars

 

[Deleted member 2140821]

Is the thread updated to the latest game version?

 

[RC-1138 Boss]

Is the thread updated to the latest game version?

Yes but you need to search for a bit. Check NotAnAlien posts for the latest weekly. There is a link there that he/she keeps updating.

 

[Deleted member 2140821]

Yes but you need to search for a bit. Check NotAnAlien posts for the latest weekly. There is a link there that he/she keeps updating.

Thanks.

 

[broly965]

Really like that new slime art. Not really impressed with the neutral hiro art. What scene is the art from exactly?

 

[Deleted member 44741]

You have these guys here who want in every game where they can dominate women, or when a woman gets dominated. They will say: "Don't you want more options?"

But when I ask them if they can add more femdom or futadom on trap in a game, they want me to go away.

Well GG then.