Ren'Py The Headmaster [v0.16.3] [Altos and Herdone]

[Lurker452]

Picture in High Res:

Ooh, Lucy on the couch in the HM's office...

 

[Cartageno]

Breaking savegames is actually surprisingly easy. All it takes is a typo when setting a flag in a scene. It's easily fixable, but all savegames, which has seen that scene have now failed to set that flag correctly and worst case they are all beyond repair. That is unless you "hack" the game as in using the console to set the flag. Ren'py's savegame system is good for a released game, but maybe not so much for a game, which is updated. Actually that's not really the fault of ren'py, it's more like a general issue with visual novel engines or games in general.

Given how much and how easy things can go wrong, I'm actually more surprised that it doesn't happen more often.

Should be in most cases fixable through the game as well. E. g. when loading, have a check whether "wrongly_spelled_flag" is set then set "correct_spelling" and delete the other. However, that adds some code which will rarely be needed and may cause problems of its own down the way when you forget about it.

 

[Cartageno]

Ooh, Lucy on the couch in the HM's office...

That sounds like some Clue(do) solution. Like "Debbie with the dildo in the hallway"

 

[Lurker452]

That sounds like some Clue(do) solution. Like "Debbie with the dildo in the hallway"

Maxine with the clipboard in the yard.

 

[hoshimota]

That sounds like some Clue(do) solution. Like "Debbie with the dildo in the hallway"

It was Debbie in the library, with the candlestick... which she shoved up Priti's ass while going down on her

 

[raven54]

Should be in most cases fixable through the game as well. E. g. when loading, have a check whether "wrongly_spelled_flag" is set then set "correct_spelling" and delete the other. However, that adds some code which will rarely be needed and may cause problems of its own down the way when you forget about it.

I didn't mention error correcting code as my goal was to give a simple example of how easy it is to break savegames if you aren't careful. It was a response to questioning the risk of savegames being broken in the first place and that risk is indeed real.

The issue can easily be more complex than that. Say flag A failed to increase from 4 to 5. You can't correct it by just looking for A being 4 as that is a valid value. You would have to do something like if A is 4, B greater than 7 and C greater than 3, then set A to 5. That should fix it, but what if the scene setting A to 5 also sets C to 4. Is it possible to save between setting C and setting A? Setting A to 5 when it is 5 should be fine, but what if the code says "A = A + 1". Now A is suddenly 6 when it should be 5. To get around this issue, we can run the correction code on new day event rather than on savegame load. That way we know it's not in the middle of the scene, but then....

My point is that broken savegames can likely be fixed given enough effort, but it requires development time and somebody to think through what can go wrong and counter it. This time is taken from creating new content so it might not be the best use of the time. That is unless somebody will do it and wouldn't do anything else either way.

There is also the risk that something changes and instead of C greater than 3, it should become C greater than 4, but the correction code isn't updated and then A is incorrect again. In this scenario the error correcting code broke an otherwise working savegame. This is a strong argument for not making complex error fixes and just accept that beta releases comes with some risk and players should make savegame backups or accept that they might break their save and have to start over.

It should be added that this is not strictly a beta only issue. It's just more likely with the beta as it's less tested.

 

[Unregustered]

new as of when?

There hasn't really been anything substantially new in a few years now really. The Dev gets kinda stuck in a cycle of overcomplicating things and writing elaborate things that are very hard to execute, then apologising for taking a very long time on patreon.

He kinda needs to stop advancing and focus on catching up at least the core group of characters with small neat updates. That will make the game feel great and allow players to do pathfinding for what/who interests them, whereas currently if you're lucky and like one of the girls or storlyines he has tons of content for you're pleased but if you liked something that was hinted at and is likely to never be completed you'll be dissapointed no matter how far the game advances.

I'm saying this as a former sub and an experienced game developer.

The biggest content updates have been a massively elaborate side quest for the president of the students, and promises of some canteen shenanigans, and some weird side trip to someone who sponsors the school's house.

Imagine instead if the more boring but more important tidying up of stage one-two with each of the characters had been completed?

 

[ccxvidonaferens]

There hasn't really been anything substantially new in a few years now really. The Dev gets kinda stuck in a cycle of overcomplicating things and writing elaborate things that are very hard to execute, then apologising for taking a very long time on patreon.

He kinda needs to stop advancing and focus on catching up at least the core group of characters with small neat updates. That will make the game feel great and allow players to do pathfinding for what/who interests them, whereas currently if you're lucky and like one of the girls or storlyines he has tons of content for you're pleased but if you liked something that was hinted at and is likely to never be completed you'll be dissapointed no matter how far the game advances.

I'm saying this as a former sub and an experienced game developer.

The biggest content updates have been a massively elaborate side quest for the president of the students, and promises of some canteen shenanigans, and some weird side trip to someone who sponsors the school's house.

Imagine instead if the more boring but more important tidying up of stage one-two with each of the characters had been completed?

I think you misunderstood the context of my question. I wasn't asking about new content, I was replying to someone else who had asked if there was any new content and I wanted more context before providing an answer. For example if there had been an update a month ago then the answer is different depending on if you last played last week or a year ago.

 

[tricksterhare]

There hasn't really been anything substantially new in a few years now really. The Dev gets kinda stuck in a cycle of overcomplicating things and writing elaborate things that are very hard to execute, then apologising for taking a very long time on patreon.

He kinda needs to stop advancing and focus on catching up at least the core group of characters with small neat updates. That will make the game feel great and allow players to do pathfinding for what/who interests them, whereas currently if you're lucky and like one of the girls or storlyines he has tons of content for you're pleased but if you liked something that was hinted at and is likely to never be completed you'll be dissapointed no matter how far the game advances.

I'm saying this as a former sub and an experienced game developer.

The biggest content updates have been a massively elaborate side quest for the president of the students, and promises of some canteen shenanigans, and some weird side trip to someone who sponsors the school's house.

Imagine instead if the more boring but more important tidying up of stage one-two with each of the characters had been completed?

I mostly agree with this assessment. I was a Patreon subscriber too for a very long time but couldn't justify the continued expense for what was being produced. It's crazy that there's still girls at very basic levels despite the development time of several years now.

I think he's gotten too invested in the girls as characters rather than as sex objects. Some of the best scenes in the game were made early on in development and required a lot less work on his part to get where they were going. Debbie's early storyline is a good example of this i think.

Now if he sets out to develop a girls storyline the amount of scenes taking place outside of the punishment system is very high. Lots of characters other than the headmaster and the girl and multiple locations are often involved so this just adds more work.

I can't help but defend the Maxine storyline though even though you rightly cite it as a good example of the problem. it was well written and the time taken over it showed in the quality at the end. I do appreciate that quality but he could still do with scaling things back a bit though.

That's not likely to happen however when there's a hardcore group of Patreon subs who will cheer on any decision the dev makes regardless of how much that decision slows down the overall progress of the game even more.

You're always going to be the asshole in the discord if you say "actually i'd prefer it shorter and kept to the original deadline so you can get back to the other 5 things you said you'd do a year ago"

 

[Cartageno]

I mostly agree with this assessment. I was a Patreon subscriber too for a very long time but couldn't justify the continued expense for what was being produced. It's crazy that there's still girls at very basic levels despite the development time of several years now.

I think he's gotten too invested in the girls as characters rather than as sex objects. Some of the best scenes in the game were made early on in development and required a lot less work on his part to get where they were going. Debbie's early storyline is a good example of this i think.

Now if he sets out to develop a girls storyline the amount of scenes taking place outside of the punishment system is very high. Lots of characters other than the headmaster and the girl and multiple locations are often involved so this just adds more work.

I can't help but defend the Maxine storyline though even though you rightly cite it as a good example of the problem. it was well written and the time taken over it showed in the quality at the end. I do appreciate that quality but he could still do with scaling things back a bit though.

That's not likely to happen however when there's a hardcore group of Patreon subs who will cheer on any decision the dev makes regardless of how much that decision slows down the overall progress of the game even more.

You're always going to be the asshole in the discord if you say "actually i'd prefer it shorter and kept to the original deadline so you can get back to the other 5 things you said you'd do a year ago"

I will argue though that the lack of content on some girls is not really avoidable during development. Even only counting the "main" ones and ignoring calls to upgrade some minor characters, they are a lot (probably too many, but I would be hard pressed to nominate more than one, maybe two to be removed) and it will take time - and developing all stories in parallel in small steps is usually less efficient than pushing one story at a time.

Yes, there could be shorter storylines, and the later addition of characters was probably counterproductive in that regard as well (even though HM needs an adversary after losing Ruth, and even though the game would probably feel quite static if the whole cast wouldn't change from beginning to end), but some characters will always be lacking in their storyline during development, at least when compared to others.

None of this shall invalidate your general sentiment of course, I just thought I'd chime in on this one point.

 

[ccxvidonaferens]

I will argue though that the lack of content on some girls is not really avoidable during development. Even only counting the "main" ones and ignoring calls to upgrade some minor characters, they are a lot (probably too many, but I would be hard pressed to nominate more than one, maybe two to be removed) and it will take time - and developing all stories in parallel in small steps is usually less efficient than pushing one story at a time.

Yes, there could be shorter storylines, and the later addition of characters was probably counterproductive in that regard as well (even though HM needs an adversary after losing Ruth, and even though the game would probably feel quite static if the whole cast wouldn't change from beginning to end), but some characters will always be lacking in their storyline during development, at least when compared to others.

None of this shall invalidate your general sentiment of course, I just thought I'd chime in on this one point.

Whilst I agree with you I would just like to add that I think there is probably a bit of a difference in outlook and opinion between those who have been following this game from the beginning and have only played each update linearly one after the other and those of us who found it later and can progress multiple storylines simultaneously. The game and story works better in the latter fashion and gives a, in my opinion, fairly good impression of what the pacing and gameplay balance is going to be like once it's completed.

 

[Cartageno]

Whilst I agree with you I would just like to add that I think there is a bit of a difference in outlook and opinion between those who have been following this game from the beginning and have only played each update linearly one after the other and those of us who found it later and can progress multiple storylines simultaneously. The game and story works better in the latter fashion and gives a, in my opinion, fairly good impression of what the pacing and gameplay balance is going to be like once it's completed.

That certainly will be the case. A sandbox style game and many gameplay oriented games (whether management or RPG-like or side scrollers, though definitely many also not) are vastly different in feel when played as a finished product compared to playing update by update. When playing successively we get Anita's storyline first, play through it, then Betty's, then Carla's and so forth. Since there is not much to do when waiting for next Sunday to get to the church scene, we will earn money and skill up our strength like crazy. There will be little challenges except for overcoming the tedious grind and waiting. When played as a finished product, Anita and Carla will be simultaneous and Betty comes in quite soon as well, so we do all of this in parallel, until we realize we don't have the money or skill so need to turn our attention elsewhere. Very different feel.

This of course is very much unlike VNs, where you mostly get the same experience when playing through development compared to playing the finished game. When Dottie is lacking content for a while at some point, it will be the same in the finished product, except that most likely the wait for her to finally get some screentime will be a dozen or so clicks instead of months until the next update.

 

[Boblet]

There hasn't really been anything substantially new in a few years now really. The Dev gets kinda stuck in a cycle of overcomplicating things and writing elaborate things that are very hard to execute, then apologising for taking a very long time on patreon.

He kinda needs to stop advancing and focus on catching up at least the core group of characters with small neat updates. That will make the game feel great and allow players to do pathfinding for what/who interests them, whereas currently if you're lucky and like one of the girls or storlyines he has tons of content for you're pleased but if you liked something that was hinted at and is likely to never be completed you'll be dissapointed no matter how far the game advances.

That has been my sense, but you should read back a few pages to the developers' own discussion with us on this topic. Devs acknowledged they became bogged down, especially in the mole rat tar baby. As I have said before, devs have credit in the bank but (imo) need to progress the girls through the ranks and progress existing storylines. The updates are bigger and seem to be getting delayed a lot now and for a long time have not been catching up the characters, as you point out. You might be right to suggest shorter/quicker updates. Just from my perspective, for example, I was looking forward to the advancement of the Faye/Nina story and punishments which was originally supposed to be here two years ago. And yet it is still nowhere in sight. Other girls have had just as little attention.

 

[Pedro69]

I mostly agree with this assessment. I was a Patreon subscriber too for a very long time but couldn't justify the continued expense for what was being produced. It's crazy that there's still girls at very basic levels despite the development time of several years now.

I think he's gotten too invested in the girls as characters rather than as sex objects. Some of the best scenes in the game were made early on in development and required a lot less work on his part to get where they were going. Debbie's early storyline is a good example of this i think.

Now if he sets out to develop a girls storyline the amount of scenes taking place outside of the punishment system is very high. Lots of characters other than the headmaster and the girl and multiple locations are often involved so this just adds more work.

I can't help but defend the Maxine storyline though even though you rightly cite it as a good example of the problem. it was well written and the time taken over it showed in the quality at the end. I do appreciate that quality but he could still do with scaling things back a bit though.

That's not likely to happen however when there's a hardcore group of Patreon subs who will cheer on any decision the dev makes regardless of how much that decision slows down the overall progress of the game even more.

You're always going to be the asshole in the discord if you say "actually i'd prefer it shorter and kept to the original deadline so you can get back to the other 5 things you said you'd do a year ago"

There are plenty of non story driven "sex objects" games on here. Some people actually like the story aspect of games like this. It is amazing I know, but not everyone shares the same opinions and goals and those who support do so because they like the story aspect of the game more then "sex objects". If this was only a "sex objects" game people would not be here daily bitching because they want an update.

Also if you have never yourself tried to code a game like this or script and render content like this please I beg you to try to do so and see how long it takes you to get say 60 minutes of play time that all functions properly and also is intriguing enough that people actually want to download your game. Of course if you manage that then you will have hundreds of people who do not like your opinion of how the game should be and complain because it is not how they want the game or you don't include their fetish because how could that ever not be what everyone else wants. You will also never be making the game fast enough and god forbid you open it up to supporters who are never happy with anything and think because they put a little money into it every month they should be able to script the whole thing to what they want and get mad when their favorite character or in your case "sex object" does not get enough screen time.

Everyone on these forums is always like they are milking people. Some do yes. Some just try to make the best game possible which takes time. Personally made games like this years ago in my spare time, along side my real job, and my life, and the time spent and constant bitching from people who had no clue was why games stop being made. Which in turn causes more complaining about a Dev that was just making something fun. If this shit was as easy and fast as you seem to think it is everyone would make their own games and there would never be forums full of people complaining because something they themselves look forward too is not instantly updated.

This is more of a general statement about a lot of people in here but I logged in to see if there was an update on a game by a developer who spends the time to make a game function as much as possible before releasing it and first post I read was yours and I remembered why I avoid this place other then to download certain good games with stories.

Now to disappear from these forums for another few months while you and the people who think like you come up with your snappy come backs.

 

[Creepz]

Ooh, Lucy on the couch in the HM's office...

More Lucy - More Lucy - More Lucy

 

[BabyImHere]

More AMY please

 

[Nice Guy Eddie]

There are plenty of non story driven "sex objects" games on here. Some people actually like the story aspect of games like this. It is amazing I know, but not everyone shares the same opinions and goals and those who support do so because they like the story aspect of the game more then "sex objects". If this was only a "sex objects" game people would not be here daily bitching because they want an update.

Also if you have never yourself tried to code a game like this or script and render content like this please I beg you to try to do so and see how long it takes you to get say 60 minutes of play time that all functions properly and also is intriguing enough that people actually want to download your game. Of course if you manage that then you will have hundreds of people who do not like your opinion of how the game should be and complain because it is not how they want the game or you don't include their fetish because how could that ever not be what everyone else wants. You will also never be making the game fast enough and god forbid you open it up to supporters who are never happy with anything and think because they put a little money into it every month they should be able to script the whole thing to what they want and get mad when their favorite character or in your case "sex object" does not get enough screen time.

Everyone on these forums is always like they are milking people. Some do yes. Some just try to make the best game possible which takes time. Personally made games like this years ago in my spare time, along side my real job, and my life, and the time spent and constant bitching from people who had no clue was why games stop being made. Which in turn causes more complaining about a Dev that was just making something fun. If this shit was as easy and fast as you seem to think it is everyone would make their own games and there would never be forums full of people complaining because something they themselves look forward too is not instantly updated.

This is more of a general statement about a lot of people in here but I logged in to see if there was an update on a game by a developer who spends the time to make a game function as much as possible before releasing it and first post I read was yours and I remembered why I avoid this place other then to download certain good games with stories.

Now to disappear from these forums for another few months while you and the people who think like you come up with your snappy come backs.

And even with 2 updates per year it always delivers. I am on the lowest tier for like 2 years maybe, i ve payed a bit more to vote on important polls and i really don’t feel like i am being milked.
The story progresses, the girls and college regulations do as well.
of cpurse i would like to see more more often but since each update is qualitative and that overall the game is a masterpiece i really don’t feel milked.

 

[ccxvidonaferens]

For making basic search more effective just select preferences from the menu that appears when you click on your username in top right corner and change the search order preferences to most recent as your default. Or if using advanced search, see this post.
https://f95zone.to/threads/lessons-in-love-v0-42-0-selebus.48158/post-14236566

It really is extremely simple and mastering it will enrich everyones experience here. Rather than expecting to be spoon fed everything like an infant and irritating people by asking the same inane questions over and over and over and over and over and over and........*
You get the idea.

Edit:-*which by the way could make it more difficult to find the answer you're looking for. Think how much more on point the search results would be if all the posts from people asking for the things they could find by searching weren't there. Everything would be much more streamlined and efficient.

 

[CJames17]

i played this game about 1.5 years ago and i loved the premise of it, what i didnt like was when the MC always mentions "this punishment is important yada yada yada" every 4th or 5th sentence and i got annoyed so i dropped it.

i would like to ask if it still doing the same today?

 

[boobies!]

The basic premise of the game remains gaining consent from those you punish, and consensus from everyone else. There is now a lot more content than 1.5 years ago, so maybe the gap between yada yadas is more tolerable. However, those the MC converts are also spruiking the yada yada, so it will probably still annoy you. Whether the lewds are enough to compensate, well, I'm not the one annoyed by the basic premise.