Ren'Py Abandoned The DeLuca Family [Season 1] [HopesGaming]

[JJJ84]

So, he thinks that he wasted a lot of time implementing them, so now wants to remove them.
That seems rather counterproductive.
He's already spent the time, so at least there's something to show for it.
If he removes them, it's gonna take even more time & then leave us with nothing to show for it.

Fucking dumb, if you ask me.

Well, okay the last bit "And from what I can he does think it was too much time committed to the contracts and the gameplay section." bit is my assumption from reading his discord post with "I realized it took too much time away from free roaming events." and his further statement of "I regret not doing more free roam events." in his DMs with me.

Not sure he actually thinks of this as a waste though; perhaps he thinks of it as a learning experience?
Can't really say I fault him for thinking that way if he does (but that's just me. You or others may feel differently about the matter).
And while Contracts were fun while they were present, if he decides to remove them, it would be a shame yes. But I wouldn't consider it being removed as a deal breaker in my enjoyment of the game.

 

[JJJ84]

Again, this does not mean "remove contracts".
It just means stop using that mechanic for main story events, such as Exploring Lucania. This is where the problems arose.
There were absolutely none, that I can think of, with the original 5 (reworked) contracts.
To the best of my memory, all 5 worked absolutely fine, without issue.

When I asked him what the discord announcement means for Wilfred's Contracts, his reply was the following.

"Those are unfortunately part of what will get axed. Unless I think of a workaround."

So I'm guessing that whatever change comes for the story contracts, may also be implemented for Wilfred's contracts (or I could be totally wrong, and that may not be the case lol).

But regardless, let's just wait and see what he announces.
So far, we have no idea what exactly will get axed, and how much will get axed and how this will impact season 2 going forward.

 

[sahadeva]

So my proposal to Hopes (through DM in discord) was the following;

Instead of scrapping the Wilfred's Contracts entirely, just ax the gameplay but keep the Wilfred's contracts going in a "light-novel" kind of way; Contracts will mostly be text, while being supplemented by couple of images or animations.

This will result in zero gameplay (as well as all the issues like bugs which come with it), but still fulfills the intent of why the contracts were created in the first place.
Also, there's the added benefit of the current talent of contract writers keeping their creative juices flowing, and things don't come to a screeching full stop like it will happen if everything Contracts is axed.


So, waiting to see how Hopes replies on that one.

That sounds perfect! I really liked some of the contract stories, but the "gameplay" itself is kinda bland, mostly for the lack of background images than anything else. Especially in large maps, having to traverse every cell where only a handful have any actual content was somewhat annoying (Gracie's mission comes to mind)

Your solution sounds awesome. It would keep all the good stuff while discarding any unnecessary grind.

 

[Cartageno]

So, he thinks that he wasted a lot of time implementing them, so now wants to remove them.
That seems rather counterproductive.
He's already spent the time, at least there's currently something to show for it.
If he removes them, it's gonna take even more time & then leave us with nothing to show for it.

While I also am not happy about the prospect of losing gameplay, as I like some of that to entertain me and I thought it was well made, "He's already spent the time" is a classic case of the sunk cost fallacy dreaded in economics. The time spent on the system will never return whether he keeps the contracts or throws them out. What should count is looking from here on forward. And while putting in work to remove content seems indeed counterintuitive at least, and actually may well be, the question is how much work would be needed to keep the system somewhat coherent and not have an abandoned mechanic half way through (if e.g. he just let them be as is and doesn't add anything more).

The latter also plays into a pet peeve of mine, there are quite a few games I played which had some gameplay elements removed because they were out of scope or dev's ability, not as much fun as hoped and so forth, but had kept all the stuff already in, in the worst case even left the "more to come in the next update" in the finished version.

I am all for keeping the gameplay in, but if that part is to be ended, I am all for taking it out completely, even if that would turn the game into a "VN with room choice". Either way though, the time spent so far is gone and should not be taken into account, only the time needed from now on to keep it up vs its benefit.

Then again, I have not spent a single cent on this game, so I will have to accept whatever happens.

 

[c3p0]

Regarding the contracts, I would try to simplify it.

The first contract system was nothing more than a dice game and add, in my eyes, nothing to the game. The second contract system is more a game in a game and with maps, inventar and all.

The quest itself, their story, in my eyes, is were they are excellence at. As such, I would remove the whole maps and inventar altogether and make them as a game book.

The removing of the contract system as a whole, I would strongly dislike.

 

[HopesGaming]

Just to add.
It's only for season 2 and up that gameplay will be removed. Sorry for the confusion!
The idea of simplifying it sounds great, actually. Need to think about it, of course, but it could be a great idea.
I just want to simply a lot of stuff going forward.
Any further ideas of simplification are welcome. Reading em all.

 

[c3p0]

It's only for season 2 and up that gameplay will be removed. Sorry for the confusion!

Regarding this, as my own two cents, I would try to have the same gameplay for all Delucas games as much as possible.

 

[imadumb]

Just to add.
It's only for season 2 and up that gameplay will be removed. Sorry for the confusion!
The idea of simplifying it sounds great, actually. Need to think about it, of course, but it could be a great idea.
I just want to simply a lot of stuff going forward.
Any further ideas of simplification are welcome. Reading em all.

u mean the sandbox stuff? sorry, ima kinda lost here, too much time without reading the entire thread (by the way, any news about S2?)

 

[HopesGaming]

Regarding this, as my own two cents, I would try to have the same gameplay for all Delucas games as much as possible.

Can always go back and simply the season 1 gameplay as an update. Just not currently as I want to focus on season 2.

u mean the sandbox stuff? sorry, ima kinda lost here, too much time without reading the entire thread (by the way, any news about S2?)

Only the text based adventure part. Rest is as it has always been. No update but steam release will probably be ready before season 2.

 

[JJJ84]

Just to add.
It's only for season 2 and up that gameplay will be removed. Sorry for the confusion!
The idea of simplifying it sounds great, actually. Need to think about it, of course, but it could be a great idea.
I just want to simply a lot of stuff going forward.
Any further ideas of simplification are welcome. Reading em all.

Can always go back and simply the season 1 gameplay as an update. Just not currently as I want to focus on season 2.



Only the text based adventure part. Rest is as it has always been. No update but steam release will probably be ready before season 2.

Given the whole map and the traversal gameplay became quite a bit of issue with the bugs that you and the coder had to quash time and time again, how about simplifying it into something like this instead of the all intricate maps (for season 1 rework and season 2 going forward)?

Following are screenshots I took from Dune: Breeding a Dynasty;

Spoiler: Text based adventure part with choices

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Spoiler: The traversal part

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Instead of an entire map coded out each time, just have one click buttons like above which will immediately move the MC to the destination?

That would entirely remove the whole WSAD or arrows movement, with the contracts but still maintain the text adventure essence of it.

Of course, the shot above with 3 locations (Paul's room, Meeting Hall, Storage. I guess actually 4, since Corridor is current location in that pic) is all put close together cause they're in the same building.
If you have MC and the girls travelling from DeLuca territory to another Family's territory, it would be more plausible to have the 2 separate buttons further apart.

 

[jish55]

Just to add.
It's only for season 2 and up that gameplay will be removed. Sorry for the confusion!
The idea of simplifying it sounds great, actually. Need to think about it, of course, but it could be a great idea.
I just want to simply a lot of stuff going forward.
Any further ideas of simplification are welcome. Reading em all.

Yeah, I feel that removing gameplay will also allow for you to focus much more on the story you want to tell and not have to do all these odds and ends, which honestly, the story IS what makes this game amazing, where I want to see what happens next.

 

[RicksTheBricks]

Whilst I agree with the statement made above with it allowing the developer to focus on the story and that's what makes the game amazing! I feel like the contract system added a lot of replayability to the game and further added to it's immersion of us being in a mob setting. Either way the game is great and I'll be looking forward to further releases.

 

[Jimayo]

Continuing to use the contract mechanic for contracts, where there is zero problem,

If it takes twice as long to make the contracts as it does everything else, that's a problem. You're just not recognizing it as one cause you are weirdly attached from what is essentially a small text adventure game from the 80's and 90's(ie. something not worth hanging on to if it's significantly slowing development). So yes, the sunk cost fallacy applies.

 

[Cartageno]

a small text adventure game from the 80's and 90's(ie. something not worth hanging on to if it's significantly slowing development).

Objection your honor. Text adventure games of the 80s and 90s may be a bit clunky by now, but some of them were way more creative than today's storylines (Infocom vs Bethesda story writing is a no contest) - just not as shiny. And yes, Hopes will never emulate Infocom, and I can see how it may hurt this game, but I had to say it that this genre deserves way more respect.

 

[Moosica]

Too bad there was no language translation done for this update.
In the options my language is still proposed but when I launch the game it is in English.
Another good game that will certainly end up in the trash without translation from my mother tongue.
Well, I'm not sure I want to redo everything by translating the sentences.
Right now I'm too disgusted to play it!

 

[Cartageno]

Too bad there was no language translation done for this update.
In the options my language is still proposed but when I launch the game it is in English.
Another good game that will certainly end up in the trash without translation from my mother tongue.
Well, I'm not sure I want to redo everything by translating the sentences.
Right now I'm too disgusted to play it!

Translations were done by volunteers, not by the dev. And I consider it doubtful that it will be make or break for this game.

 

[Moosica]

Translations were done by volunteers, not by the dev. And I consider it doubtful that it will be make or break for this game.

I never said that the translations were done by the developer.

 

[JJJ84]

Too bad there was no language translation done for this update.
In the options my language is still proposed but when I launch the game it is in English.
Another good game that will certainly end up in the trash without translation from my mother tongue.
Well, I'm not sure I want to redo everything by translating the sentences.
Right now I'm too disgusted to play it!

Given English is my second language as well, I can in a way understand the frustration of not understanding (was a bit of struggle learning it when I was a kid).

But having said that, I'd say that anyone with decent level of English would have no trouble understanding this game's default English text.
So if your English isn't too bad, why don't you just give it a go?

It's either that or getting better at English if you want to avoid putting games in "trash"; and if it's the latter, the struggle will really be worth it and will open doors for you to enjoy whole lot of things, not just limited to what's in your mother tongue.

 

[JJJ84]

The simple & obvious answer is to remove Exploring Lucania, as that's what introduced the game breaking crap.
Just turn that into the 3 scenes with each new person's introduction. Remove the contract mechanic from it, entirely.

The bugs issue is more complex than that though.

v0.07 not only introduced those 5 Wilfred's contracts, but also the Ombra gameplay contract with the main story "What is truly weak is truly strong."
Sure, it wasn't as much as the Exploring Lucania gameplay release but v0.07 was when bug reports started coming in due to gameplay.

And this continued with v0.08 when Hopes released the Gracie missions gameplay. Despite Hopes and his coder doing patches to quash the bugs, they still got occasional bug reports from some people (non-android) not just here, but also in Hopes' discord.

Yes, it really blew up with v0.09.5's Exploring Lucania gameplay, but contracts gameplay (esp. main game) has been a plaguing issue of getting buggy since its inception; so attributing it all to that one Exploring Lucania part, is well..... quite understating the whole issue.


Now, don't get me wrong. I do quite like the current gameplay in contracts myself and I myself never experienced all the bugs etc that I saw other people reporting (nor am I advocating in any way of the gameplay's removal. Having said that, if Hopes wishes to change the gameplay into something much simpler, I'm not against it as long as he keeps consistency of what's in season 1 throughout all 3 seasons of DeLuca).
But even so, when people say game has become quite buggy since the contracts gameplay of v0.07, they're not really wrong in their statement.

Also, not like those 5 Wilfred's contracts are bug-free either; remember those 9999 Fedoras, 888 Bulletproof vests, and 77 trousers?
Iirc, I don't think that bug is fixed yet, among maybe one or two small bugs in those contracts.

 

[Jimayo]

Now, don't get me wrong. I do quite like the current gameplay in contracts myself and I myself never experienced all the bugs etc that I saw other people reporting.

I like them too but if they're doubling or tripling development time it's not worth it.