Ren'Py The Headmaster [Mykock's Manor Ch.3] [Altos and Herdone]

[Unregustered]

However, my run of bad luck finally seems to be over

The rate at which devs experience bad luck is higher than any other field in the world.

It would be so much better if they just admitted it takes longer than they ever think and then we could all have more realistic expectations about releases.

Halfway done for the next update - sad news; the last update was very minor, as were the two before that. If there had been more realistic expectations set I think it wouldn't matter but now I can't help but feel stupid for not unsubbing sooner.

 

[OldPringles]

View attachment 2355117

Its funny, but until you posted this picture, I never really paid attention to the couch in the Headmaster's Office, even in the scenes that had the MC or an NPC sitting on or interacting with it.

Man alive, that thing looks like it is right out of Half-Life (1998). Obviously your attention is supposed to be on the naked, cowering woman about to get dicked down - in what is easily the best scene in the game so far - but that couch model has what, a grand total of a dozen polygons? They didn't even bother giving the poor thing legs!

Some people play this game for the scenes, some for the plot - but it seems that I have started to play this game for the interior design. I really ought to get out more. Failing that, we better the update soon, before I completely lose the plot!

 

[TheDevian]

Its funny, but until you posted this picture, I never really paid attention to the couch in the Headmaster's Office, even in the scenes that had the MC or an NPC sitting on or interacting with it.

Man alive, that thing looks like it is right out of Half-Life (1998). Obviously your attention is supposed to be on the naked, cowering woman about to get dicked down - in what is easily the best scene in the game so far - but that couch model has what, a grand total of a dozen polygons? They didn't even bother giving the poor thing legs!

Some people play this game for the scenes, some for the plot - but it seems that I have started to play this game for the interior design. I really ought to get out more. Failing that, we better the update soon, before I completely lose the plot!

Illusion graphics, most of the mods tend to focus on the women... lol

 

[Rycharde's Realm]

Its funny, but until you posted this picture, I never really paid attention to the couch in the Headmaster's Office, even in the scenes that had the MC or an NPC sitting on or interacting with it.

Man alive, that thing looks like it is right out of Half-Life (1998). Obviously your attention is supposed to be on the naked, cowering woman about to get dicked down - in what is easily the best scene in the game so far - but that couch model has what, a grand total of a dozen polygons? They didn't even bother giving the poor thing legs!

Some people play this game for the scenes, some for the plot - but it seems that I have started to play this game for the interior design. I really ought to get out more. Failing that, we better the update soon, before I completely lose the plot!

Till now, I never noticed this as well.

 

[SporadicallySarah]

Illusion graphics, most of the mods tend to focus on the women... lol

Apparently it worked, because I missed it too.

 

[SporadicallySarah]

However, my run of bad luck finally seems to be over and for the last few weeks I've been firing on all cylinders.

Glad to hear it. Looking forward to the next update.

 

[PervyParadox]

However, my run of bad luck finally seems to be over

The rate at which devs experience bad luck is higher than any other field in the world.

It would be so much better if they just admitted it takes longer than they ever think and then we could all have more realistic expectations about releases.

Halfway done for the next update - sad news; the last update was very minor, as were the two before that. If there had been more realistic expectations set I think it wouldn't matter but now I can't help but feel stupid for not unsubbing sooner.

I do think someone somewhere already said that (don't remember which tread or for which dev or game though), but the illusion that the devs experience bad luck more than others probably only comes from their visibility and the "not yet finished" nature of the games they develop. If tomorrow you, I, my neighboor, or a dev of hogwart legacy get sick AF for 2 months straight, no one here on the internet or on F95 will know or care. And even if we yell to people that we're sick, they will forget it fast and not spread the word because we're not close buddy-buddy, nor are we famous or currently in the process of developping games followed by hundreds of people. Meaning either we're not doing something significant enough to be visible, or the field we work at could just move on without us for a few weeks/months because other people are taking care of it.

Anyway, we know more of them because we follow the updates of their unfinished games, but it does not mean people from other field or whatever don't experience bad luck at the same rate, or more.

So yeah, it's a bias. A perception bias to be precise.

 

[Cartageno]

I do think someone somewhere already said that (don't remember which tread or for which dev or game though), but the illusion that the devs experience bad luck more than others probably only comes from their visibility and the "not yet finished" nature of the games they develop. If tomorrow you, I, my neighboor, or a dev of hogwart legacy get sick AF for 2 months straight, no one here on the internet or on F95 will know or care. And even if we yell to people that we're sick, they will forget it fast and not spread the word because we're not close buddy-buddy, nor are we famous or currently in the process of developping games followed by hundreds of people. Meaning either we're not doing something significant enough to be visible, or the field we work at could just move on without us for a few weeks/months because other people are taking care of it.

Anyway, we know more of them because we follow the updates of their unfinished games, but it does not mean people from other field or whatever don't experience bad luck at the same rate, or more.

So yeah, it's a bias. A perception bias to be precise.

This is an interesting aspect. However, I do believe that devs indeed will suffer bad luck more than the average "person on the street" - it is statistically well known for both IT personnel as well as self employed people to have more health issues than comparative (similar age, wage, ...) people in other fields or with other employment status (well, I guess it beats being unemployed) due to more psychological stress.

So we have a trinity of "having bad luck" more twice and it being visible once. Also, there is confirmation bias as a fourth element - once you noticed the trend (or think you did), your brain will notice it whenever it happens, forgetting about all the threads where it doesn't happen (because that's the normal way). So if you follow, say, 20 games, and nothing of this kind is happening in 18 of them, you will only notice the other two and think it is everywhere - and while "2 in 20 are sick" is technically way above the average, at least here, it is not out of the ordinary in such a small sample size to happen.

That being said, I am convinced that it will also be used as an excuse when you couldn't get your work done - just like everywhere else. I guess many of us have this one colleague which is a paragon of health except for early November when the yearly whatever happens which is annoying, suddenly they catch a major cold ...

 

[Xantoser]

This is an interesting aspect. However, I do believe that devs indeed will suffer bad luck more than the average "person on the street" - it is statistically well known for both IT personnel as well as self employed people to have more health issues than comparative (similar age, wage, ...) people in other fields or with other employment status (well, I guess it beats being unemployed) due to more psychological stress.

This is one of the reasons why I am not a great enthusiast of "one developer games". Project shouldn't be stopped because someone gets sick which automatically happens when project has only one person (and I'm not writing here about HM).

I very rarely comment on development process here on the forum, because you can be easily accused of ill will but I am making exception here because I care about HM.

I think the main problem of Headmaster project is that Altos tries bite more than he can chew ie. he constantly expands scope of the game and focuses too much on small details. If you are alone or you have small team, you have to make some big compromises. Finishing Headmaster with basic assumption of making punishment system for Liz, Alice, Twins, Faye (each of them probably requires 2 updates, 1 update per 3 levels), finishing Debbie's, Cassandra's and Amy's story, finishing main plot probably in chapter 3 is a lot of work. In my opinion, still too much for several people. Solution to this problem isn't adding new side attractions like Maxime fundraiser but focusing on the goal, hire new people if you can, and seeking shortcuts which leads to point two:
There is too much focus on the details. Spending lot of time on smoother animations, red butt effect, rendering each scene when it can be replaced by sprites talking to MC in FPP mode, making countless combinations of animations in Punishment System. Yes, all these things are cool but personally I prefer simplier and completed game in 3-4 years than all of above.
I think that Altos needs 20+ (including writers) people if he wants to complete Headmaster according to his vision which is unrealistic at this level of funding. Nevertheless, I wish best of luck to him.

To be honest, the above are the main problems of many games here.

 

[Unknown_Beta]

However, my run of bad luck finally seems to be over

The rate at which devs experience bad luck is higher than any other field in the world.

It would be so much better if they just admitted it takes longer than they ever think and then we could all have more realistic expectations about releases.

Halfway done for the next update - sad news; the last update was very minor, as were the two before that. If there had been more realistic expectations set I think it wouldn't matter but now I can't help but feel stupid for not unsubbing sooner.

Simply stated, it's got to be hard to find motivation to work once those patreon dollars start rolling in regardless of content output. Devs must suffer stress from not wanting to work, but also not wanting to take shit for it. Wrecks their health it would seem, because yes, video game porn development appears to be more dangerous physically than ice road trucking.

 

[Deleted member 2203154]

I very rarely comment on development process here on the forum, because you can be easily accused of ill will but I am making exception here because I care about HM.

I think the main problem of Headmaster project is that Altos tries bite more than he can chew ie. he constantly expands scope of the game and focuses too much on small details. If you are alone or you have small team, you have to make some big compromises. Finishing Headmaster with basic assumption of making punishment system for Liz, Alice, Twins, Faye (each of them probably requires 2 updates, 1 update per 3 levels), finishing Debbie's, Cassandra's and Amy's story, finishing main plot probably in chapter 3 is a lot of work.

There are other plot lines too. The spy. The researcher's story. The new troublemaker. The magazine girls. The whole teacher training thing and now the Maxine fundraiser has derailed the game (just my opinion). The fundraiser in particular sounds cool but also sounds like a tar baby. I doubt we get to Nina and Faye now before late summer, if then. I think that is a shame.

 

[Xantoser]

There are other plot lines too. The spy. The researcher's story. The new troublemaker. The magazine girls. The whole teacher training thing and now the Maxine fundraiser has derailed the game (just my opinion). The fundraiser in particular sounds cool but also sounds like a tar baby. I doubt we get to Nina and Faye now before late summer, if then. I think that is a shame.

Yes, there are too many plot lines for a small team to handle. I don't even remember all of them. I don't even recognize these 2 (or 3?) Amy's friends. This number of plot lines we can see in AAA games.

 

[Cartageno]

This is one of the reasons why I am not a great enthusiast of "one developer games". Project shouldn't be stopped because someone gets sick which automatically happens when project has only one person (and I'm not writing here about HM).

While I see your point to a certain degree, having enough people to go on (almost) undisturbed means you are having redundancies, and even on a larger scale that doesn't always happen, on a small scale it almost certainly cannot happen. My employer has a yearly turnover of around half a billion US dollars, 2500 FTE/3000 people, yet when a key person had an accident a couple of years ago and was out for six weeks or so, those six weeks were to a good part added to a major project because having a full redundancy would have meant to employ somebody "just in case" - nothing really to do without the accident except for being a sparring partner for decisions. Of course the way it worked out was more expensive than this additional person would have been, but if we had another one maybe somebody else would have fallen sick. It is in the end a risk calculation: what are the odds, what would be the damage, what would it cost to prevent the damage?

However, there are other reasons why more than one dev will be a good thing already when things are running smoothly. However, the money to get a second person on board often won't be there (heck, in many games it isn't enough for a single dev).

 

[Xantoser]

While I see your point to a certain degree, having enough people to go on (almost) undisturbed means you are having redundancies, and even on a larger scale that doesn't always happen, on a small scale it almost certainly cannot happen. My employer has a yearly turnover of around half a billion US dollars, 2500 FTE/3000 people, yet when a key person had an accident a couple of years ago and was out for six weeks or so, those six weeks were to a good part added to a major project

Yes, of course, but the more people working on a project, the fewer are chances that if someone gets sick, there would be no replacement for him/her or he/her significantly slows down other people's work. It can happen in bigger companies but it certainly happens in one-person project.

In my projects, when Product Owner got sick, he always had some subordinates with partial knowledge of his field. That allowed other employees to work for some time without him. And of course PO is not necessary every day - usually backlog has many tasks to do, so his short absence doesn't change things too much. I didn't have such extreme situation as you described (someone absence directly slows down progress of entire project) but it depends on a project.

However, there are other reasons why more than one dev will be a good thing already when things are running smoothly.

Yes, there are many reasons, for example:
- less risk that project will be abandoned. If we have one developer, anything can happen to them. They could burn out at one point, they could stop having time because their life situation changes, or they simply can get bored. If one is a part of a team, you just replace that person.
- faster development or more content (or mix of these two)
- one person is very rarely good at everything. One is very good either at coding, writing, graphics, managing or marketing but not at all of above. People in a team naturally complement each other, when one-person project almost always lacks in some fields.

 

[Cartageno]

Yes, there are many reasons, for example:
- less risk that project will be abandoned. If we have one developer, anything can happen to them. They could burn out at one point, they could stop having time because their life situation changes, or they simply can get bored. If one is a part of a team, you just replace that person.
- faster development or more content (or mix of these two)
- one person is very rarely good at everything. One is very good either at coding, writing, graphics, managing or marketing but not at all of above. People in a team naturally complement each other, when one-person project almost always lacks in some fields.

Even more simple: you have somebody you can throw ideas towards who will at least have a point of common ground high enough that you won't have to explain all kinds of context but can just go "so, if Peter owned a horse, how about that?" - and they can reply, and often it is already enough to ask the question to get a better understanding yourself.

This is even more true in projects like this where you may not want to talk to everybody about, so you can also share the little successes better than a one person team. "Finally the boobs jiggle just right and the moaning is in sync" will get you a high five instead of some kind of glare and stare ...

 

[Saber1995]

soo the issue is the dev is sick?

 

[Gato21]

soo the issue is the dev is sick?

A series of unfortunate events.

 

[bhunter10]

i hope their situation will get better.

 

[Gegecucu]

i hope their situation will get better.

As Altos mentionned in his last dev update, he has fully recovered and the team is now fully back on track.

 

[Dragon59]

Even more simple: you have somebody you can throw ideas towards who will at least have a point of common ground high enough that you won't have to explain all kinds of context but can just go "so, if Peter owned a horse, how about that?" - and they can reply, and often it is already enough to ask the question to get a better understanding yourself.

This is even more true in projects like this where you may not want to talk to everybody about, so you can also share the little successes better than a one person team. "Finally the boobs jiggle just right and the moaning is in sync" will get you a high five instead of some kind of glare and stare ...

That's one reason I've enlisted the help of my two adult kids and my ex-wife in that regard.