Ren'Py The Headmaster [v0.16.4.3] [Altos and Herdone]

[Cartageno]

Another patreon poll driven game. Once the Whales get ahold of the "epic new artful story!!!" they'll get bored and move on to wanting more and more and more new stuff. Several faculty and students haven't been updated in years. Maxine is literally the least interesting character, and certainly not in the top most attractive, and such a late addition it's pretty silly to solely focus on her, but that's where the money talks i guess.

Of course the money talks, but I wonder more about you calling Maxine a "late addition" - she was there from the beginning and had a bit of storyline as well already at the start (student council president, weekend rally) so that she would get more content sooner or later shouldn't be surprising. In fact I'd say she was one of the "several (...) students haven't been updated in years" herself, even if it wasn't that intentional she would get a focus now.

As for "least interesting" I strongly disagree, I would put that (as of now, can always change with more story) to Alice, but tastes differ.

I am not too big a fan of patreon polls myself and prefer that devs just "do their thing", but again, Maxine's story wasn't so much a patreon thing but more of a dev thing.

 

[TheDevian]

Of course the money talks, but I wonder more about you calling Maxine a "late addition" - she was there from the beginning and had a bit of storyline as well already at the start (student council president, weekend rally) so that she would get more content sooner or later shouldn't be surprising. In fact I'd say she was one of the "several (...) students haven't been updated in years" herself, even if it wasn't that intentional she would get a focus now.

As for "least interesting" I strongly disagree, I would put that (as of now, can always change with more story) to Alice, but tastes differ.

I am not too big a fan of patreon polls myself and prefer that devs just "do their thing", but again, Maxine's story wasn't so much a patreon thing but more of a dev thing.

Even if I didn't like Maxine, this story arc sounds amazing, so I can't wait for it...

 

[ccxvidonaferens]

As for "least interesting" I strongly disagree, I would put that (as of now, can always change with more story) to Alice, but tastes differ.

I agree with you. To my mind it seem's when people complain about characters being 'the least interesting', not just in this game but other titles here plus some tv, books and movies it usually correlates with directly to characters that have had no focus/development. Maxine, Alice or maybe one or two others at the moment may be in the running for 'least interesting' but that is solely because we know next to sod all about them or what makes them tick.

 

[Xantoser]

Another patreon poll driven game. Once the Whales get ahold of the "epic new artful story!!!" they'll get bored and move on to wanting more and more and more new stuff.

I am not too big a fan of patreon polls myself and prefer that devs just "do their thing"

I don't understand this model. Developer starts developing a game from scratch, having zero patreons. After some time he gains patreons and he gains them because he makes good content without good advises from anyone. Suddenly, at some point, he starts asking patreons about opinions because he is afraid that otherwise patreons would stop subscribing? Even if they started subscribing at a point of time, when the game didn't have any content based on their opinions? It's illogical.
These polls really annoy me, especially when I am patreon myself. I am backing someone because I want to see creator's work and not others patreons' ideas. Not to mention that very often these ideas force creator to make things on the fly, breaking story's pacing and coherence.

 

[pothb]

I understand it. Playing to your audience is a good thing. People support your work, and you want to pay extra attention to those that do. Just because they are willing to add things their supporter also want, doesn't mean that they'll kill their own vision. It can, but the 2 are not equivalent.

 

[Gato21]

I understand it. Playing to your audience is a good thing. People support your work, and you want to pay extra attention to those that do. Just because they are willing to add things their supporter also want, doesn't mean that they'll kill their own vision. It can, but the 2 are not equivalent.

True, but it does have a tendency to turn out that way. I'd much prefer if it was custom renders or something like that, versus a version dictated by the crowd.

 

[Cartageno]

I don't understand this model. Developer starts developing a game from scratch, having zero patreons. After some time he gains patreons and he gains them because he makes good content without good advises from anyone. Suddenly, at some point, he starts asking patreons about opinions because he is afraid that otherwise patreons would stop subscribing? Even if they started subscribing at a point of time, when the game didn't have any content based on their opinions? It's illogical.
These polls really annoy me, especially when I am patreon myself. I am backing someone because I want to see creator's work and not others patreons' ideas. Not to mention that very often these ideas force creator to make things on the fly, breaking story's pacing and coherence.

I understand it. Playing to your audience is a good thing. People support your work, and you want to pay extra attention to those that do. Just because they are willing to add things their supporter also want, doesn't mean that they'll kill their own vision. It can, but the 2 are not equivalent.

I think it may depend on the type of polling. Some polls are more or less inconsequential for the game ("Which hairstyle should I use for this model?", "Should the character be named Anna or Emma?", "Should I first create storyline A and then storyline B or the other way round" - the latter in some sandbox game where both storylines will come and play out the same in the finished game). Those I generally mind less. I may have preferences on names and looks or similar, and thus even feel involved - though usually I will lose those polls.

And then there are very major storyline decisions. "Should a harem be possible?", "Should there be NTR?", "Do you want a futa character?". These I dislike as well, and "dislike" is only the polite term for "hate". These are things the dev has to decide: what story do they want to tell, and even if they don't know yet for sure, what would gel better with the overall idea. There's a reason why successful movies don't poll on "Who should be the killer?", successful singers don't ask "Should I write a song about New York or about Los Angeles?" - you're relegating yourself to a service provider for a fickle majority of random people.

I intentionally chose extreme examples because I don't want to think about where the dividing line lies - but better err on the side of caution and just go with the shorter haircut. If your game is good enough, people/patreons won't drop like flies.

 

[Dragon59]

I don't understand this model. Developer starts developing a game from scratch, having zero patreons. After some time he gains patreons and he gains them because he makes good content without good advises from anyone. Suddenly, at some point, he starts asking patreons about opinions because he is afraid that otherwise patreons would stop subscribing? Even if they started subscribing at a point of time, when the game didn't have any content based on their opinions? It's illogical.
These polls really annoy me, especially when I am patreon myself. I am backing someone because I want to see creator's work and not others patreons' ideas. Not to mention that very often these ideas force creator to make things on the fly, breaking story's pacing and coherence.

I have an alternative scenario.
In my contemporary polyamorous story, I have all the main arcs and sub-arcs planned out. I would not be as likely to poll patrons. The same would probably hold for Pilgrimage to Earth. Since the science fiction story is based upon classic literature, I will probably follow the events in the inspiration.

My steampunk story is a different case. The initial mission is critical to start the protagonist's major arc. Other than that, there are a number of mission/adventure/exploration scenarios. In such cases, I might poll patrons to see which of my planned scenarios to do next.

So yes, there are times when a developer may poll supporters without giving up the power to them. That said, I would agree that too many developers rely upon polling when they are losing their their own vision (whether from a lack of inspiration or trying to maximize support).

 

[hampsure]

Spoiler: Maxine being told she's uninteresting...

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Even if I didn't like Maxine, this story arc sounds amazing, so I can't wait for it...

Maxine is one of the characters I do have interest in getting more content for even if she's not at the top of my list. Still, while it may be some of the most interesting stuff I've heard about in a while, I think you may be overselling it a bit. To me, the update does sound interesting but there's also a lot that just doesn't sound as exciting as I think it's meant to... then again, I need to keep in mind just how good of a knack these devs have had for making things sexy. We'll see, but I do hope you're right.

Regarding a separtate part of the update...

I'm glad to hear that there's a realization of the issues with over-ambitiousness and scope creep (which have been issues for a lot longer than this new update) and that lessons were learned, but I know all too well these are can be quite difficult tendencies to reign in especially when it's on an individual to make that change themselves and there aren't enough other people involved to help plan and keep that stuff in check (which also creates overhead in and of itself when it does exist). I certainly appreciate the passion and the level of quality aspired to but combined with the sheer scope and number of characters/storylines the over-ambition could easily continue to be one of the main pain points in this game's progress. As long as the devs can stay dedicated to seeing it through I'll continue to try to remain hopeful about the future of it though. I am really looking forward to revisiting the game at some point with somewhat fresh eyes and getting to enjoy it all (again).

To my mind it seem's when people complain about characters being 'the least interesting', not just in this game but other titles here plus some tv, books and movies it usually correlates with directly to characters that have had no focus/development.

Largely agreed on this though some characters can also be extremely uninteresting even when we do know stuff about them (and may wish we didn't). A lot of modern media is filled with uninteresting characters these days. In some things I often find side characters more interesting than the main characters. In this game I've come to find certain characters less interesting personally despite a couple of them having a lot more content than other characters that I do find more interesting, which is the point where it really comes down to taste. Admittedly there are some with extremely thin characterization though to your original point. Harriet, for example... has she gotten any development beyond her connection to business and her friends? (genuine question as I haven't played in a good while) Maxine I'd put somewhere in the lower portion of the middle of the pack in terms of development but at least we know a good bit about the type of person she tries to be.

 

[TheDevian]

Maxine is one of the characters I do have interest in getting more content for even if she's not at the top of my list. Still, while it may be some of the most interesting stuff I've heard about in a while, I think you may be overselling it a bit. To me, the update does sound interesting but there's also a lot that just doesn't sound as exciting as I think it's meant to... then again, I need to keep in mind just how good of a knack these devs have had for making things sexy. We'll see, but I do hope you're right.

It depends on what you like, you know? Everyone has different kinks, and mine tend to get either ignored in most games, or they get paired with things I don't like, so to have most of this arc focused on it, sounds great to me. Only better, would be to do Liz's arc.

 

[hampsure]

So yes, there are times when a developer may poll supporters without giving up the power to them. That said, I would agree that too many developers rely upon polling when they are losing their their own vision (whether from a lack of inspiration or trying to maximize support).

I also think there's a difference when it comes to what type of community is built from those funding the game, what type of engagement there is, and what the expectations become. Cultivating a type of engagement with the community that funds the games that the author feels a high level of responsibility towards keeping happy and engaged (despite how it may or may not affect the game) can become an issue of it's own depending on how they're catered to. Once expectations are set it's hard to start taking things away without people being unhappy.

Everyone has different kinks, and mine tend to get either ignored in most games, or they get paired with things I don't like, so to have most of this arc focused on it, sounds great to me.

For sure! Didn't mean to diminish yours or your excitement. By all means, enjoy! There are definitely parts the of Maxine arc that should appeal to a couple of my favorites as well.

 

[Dragon59]

I also think there's a difference when it comes to what type of community is built from those funding the game, what type of engagement there is, and what the expectations become. Cultivating a type of engagement with the community that funds the games that the author feels a high level of responsibility towards keeping happy and engaged (despite how it may or may not affect the game) can become an issue of it's own depending on how they're catered to. Once expectations are set it's hard to start taking things away without people being unhappy.

Agreed. One particular case I remember are developers who give the power of deciding the course of the story to the top donors, those who have paid extra to include content that the vast majority of players are not in favor of. This seems like chasing the $100+ donors while pissing off all the rest of the donors. I can't see this as a viable long-term plan. It smells like a short=term scheme to maximize profits before the whole structure collapses.

It depends on what you like, you know? Everyone has different kinks, and mine tend to get either ignored in most games, or they get paired with things I don't like, so to have most of this arc focused on it, sounds great to me. Only better, would be to do Liz's arc.

For sure! Didn't mean to diminish yours or your excitement. By all means, enjoy! There are definitely parts the of Maxine arc that should appeal to a couple of my favorites as well.

Some of my projects (like "Enchanted Night in France" and "Dirty Snowball") will be short stories focused on one particular kink or event. That way I'm not trying to accommodate all kinks and all vanilla in the same VN.

 

[raven54]

As a writer and artist, I have to follow my creative instincts, wherever they lead me. Meaning the final release is sometimes quite different from what I envisioned at the start. That has never been more true than with version 0.14.

I called this.

For the time being I'm not sure I trust any roadmap. Even roadmaps announced by Altos himself could be subject to change, particularly if the announcement is old and there have been time to rethink ideas. In fact I would prefer an altered roadmap if it turns out to provide a better result.

The thing is, game development is somewhat fluid in the sense that once you work and shape your goals, you end up looking into details nobody considered during planning. Sometimes this makes you go with the flow and see where it will take you. This is presumably particularly true for story writing. Feeling too much of an obligation to a roadmap will prevent going with the flow when a better outcome presents itself along the way.

Panic set in a little bit at this point as things were starting to spiral and I realised this was going to take me a lot longer than expected. However, I’d already invested quite a bit of time in it

The focus on spent time is an odd one. Say a company spends $5 million building their own solution to something and it doesn't work. They will need at least $30 million more. They can scrap it all and buy a commercial solution for $20 million and the commercial solution is better than anything they can make themselves. A surprisingly high amount of people will stick to the homemade solution because otherwise the $5 million would be wasted.

Time spent on Maxine is of little concern in the long run. What matters is the quality of the story. Decisions on how to proceed should be based on the end result and how much effort it takes to go from the current position to the end result. If say there is a chapter where aliens shows up and starts abducting the girls, then it would have to go. It doesn't matter how long it took to write it because what matters is that it would destroy the story since it doesn't fit in.

Having said that, the decision to move on with the fundraiser story despite it being longer than planned seems to be based on story quality. It wasn't my first choice for a story update as I'm not a fan of Maxine, but that just mean it will take less to make me pleasantly surprised.

Not to get off on a complete tangent, but this reminded me I recently saw something on how the first Elder Scrolls game (Arena - which I had a physical copy of back in the day but never got that into) came to be and how much (and many times) it changed during development. It's interesting stuff to learn about and often explains a lot about why things turn out the way they do.

Last post about this because it's off topic. If you are interested in stories like this, then look into Game Developers Conference (GDC). They have plenty of videos on youtube with game developers hosting lectures about development of their own games.

 

[Cartageno]

Spoiler: Maxine being told she's uninteresting...

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In some things I often find side characters more interesting than the main characters.

I agree, and would have done so 30 years ago with some TV series I watched back then. My reasoning always was that too much spotlight takes out the mystery while you can project all kind of interesting stuff on side characters of whom you know just enough to get started. (Well, and who are at least somewhat interesting to begin with.)

The focus on spent time is an odd one. Say a company spends $5 million building their own solution to something and it doesn't work. They will need at least $30 million more. They can scrap it all and buy a commercial solution for $20 million and the commercial solution is better than anything they can make themselves. A surprisingly high amount of people will stick to the homemade solution because otherwise the $5 million would be wasted.

The so called "sunk costs fallacy", info available on the webs. Although private people are prone to it at some level too. Bought a ticket for an event of any kind but know you won't enjoy it because something happened? Don't go, the money is gone anyway. Many people will feel obliged to go though.

 

[anybodyhi55]

Cheers!
Haven't had that event yet.



Ruth is still being a bitch, yes. lol

You just have to find the computer and look into the secret folder of the old headmaster and find the secret file there to blackmail Ruth she'll stop bitching and you'll be able to pass the rule
Idk how it's triggered as the other person said above maybe Mycock will come and then the scene starts ?i used the journal to figure out almost everything but as the part 1 comes to an end i found it difficult to shift to part 2 that's all

 

[ElAguila]

You just have to find the computer and look into the secret folder of the old headmaster and find the secret file there to blackmail Ruth she'll stop bitching and you'll be able to pass the rule
Idk how it's triggered as the other person said above maybe Mycock will come and then the scene starts ?i used the journal to figure out almost everything but as the part 1 comes to an end i found it difficult to shift to part 2 that's all

Yep, the safe and the secret computer files solved everything. Just had the board meeting that subsequently starts chapter 2 as I understand it.
Thanks for the help!

 

[CuteLilNori]

Oh boi! I can imagine how difficult it used to be for the HM to keep the sleepy Rachel stay awake to focus on the lesson, back then the "remove skirt during puniment" rule hadn't been passed and he wasn't allowed to spank the girls himself. And even the little spanking from Ms. Newman wouldn't be enough to keep her awake, I can bet that after the spanking she'll be fallen asleep back again when she went back to seat

 

[Boblet]

Really interesting discussion above on project direction. I guess where I come out on the Maxine thing is that I am intrigued, but I am not 8 months worth intrigued, and I am also trepidatious that it is going to be a somewhat bloated insert that detracts from the more natural development of characters and plots. We will all get to make our own judgments, but for sure the developer has oodles of credit in the bank. And I will be delighted to be (not for the first time) proven wrong.

Another thing not mentioned that can impact development is team expansion. I am not saying this is the case here, but without a strong lead, team expansions can actually reduce quality and output. How can that be Boblet? Well, for example:

1. Cascading missed deadlines. Deadlines become interdependent and there are more chances of them being missed now.
2. Revision delay. The product is not what the lead wanted, or of the quality they wanted, and needs to be revised.
3. Multiplied vicissitudes of life. Project delayed because "my animator was sick" or "my artist got sick".
4. Project lead's time is not in fact saved, it is transferred to team management. The lead does not have time to do more work at all. They are, in fact, doing less artistic work.
5. Too many cooks. Everyone has ideas, but they are not the lead's vision. Human nature makes it hard to say no. Strong leads are needed to reject "this could be neat" time sinks that don't fit the vision. Related to this--a sudden desire to get team approval that was never needed before.
6. The inclusion sink--all that time getting everyone on the same page and communicating; aka herding sheep.
7. The team member whose work is just not that good. We see this when games with great art, suddenly start having less great art.

The bigger teams become, the worse all of these risks become. Of course, targeted team additions under a strong lead can greatly enhance a product. The animator who adds a skill the lead just does not have, for example. Fresh ideas when the lead is going a bit stale. New enthusiasm when the lead is flagging. Or that diamond who really does have the same vision and skill as the lead.

 

[hampsure]

detracts from the more natural development of characters and plots

I did wonder about that as it's less of character quests and punishments and more something described as on rails. On the bright side, for those not interested it'll likely be easier to get through than having a large string of interconnected little quests you have to trigger individually which is usually the case to progress things. Now that I say it, it also sounds pretty good to me that way and I am interested, lol. Also, I'm not sure how much development is baked into this one week long event but it seems like it could be fairly significant even if it's not explicitly split into individual events. That said, I do hope most future events are generally of smaller scale though with the occasional grand one here or there.

Another thing not mentioned that can impact development is team expansion

It wasn't mentioned in the update or messages since, but It was mentioned in a broader context here:

Honestly, if he wants to realeasse as much content with a bigger team for the first time and also "work under the hood" it will take more time, at least for the first and maybe secound releasse after the decision was made. Then the releasses will go up either on scale, quality or speed. It is just a basic principle of product manufacturing observed on all production lines over the world. Nothing new, nothing alarming, nothing worrying.

I can also confirm that it's true in software development. It's just a fact of life that adding people to a dev team comes at the cost of slowing things down initially to hopefully increase capacity/output of the team longer term (assuming those people are a good fit and work out on the team).

I am not saying this is the case here, but without a strong lead, team expansions can actually reduce quality and output

In principle (not for this game specifically) I likely agree (as I've seen variations of most of those problems in my own jobs). If there's nobody properly steering the ship it's always going to be a problem (or if there aren't people in a position to let them know when they're veering too far off course).

When it comes to this game, I wasn't under the impression that this team had expanded drastically enough or have enough overlapping roles/duties for most of the issues you brought up to be likely for them though. Issue #4 could be the most valid to the extent that there will be more management involved which comes with overhead but should get easier over time and there are now people to delegate to that can hopefully handle some of the things that were taking up time previously (including non-dev work). There are always going to be pitfalls regardless of size of a team/organization (they just change). As to if existing issues (like the ones mentioned by the author for the last update) are helped or exacerbated I think only time will tell but I wouldn't expect a huge shift in either direction.

 

[Xantoser]

I am also trepidatious that it is going to be a somewhat bloated insert that detracts from the more natural development of characters and plots.

This. I didn't want to judge before I see this new content but after seeing screens I have concerns about it. I see nudity in school won't be an issue anymore, because it's everywhere. How it will fit to other scenarios and stories? We still don't have strip naked rule during punishments. We still don't have access to showers. We still don't have even lingerie medical checkup (not to mention naked). We still don't have strip naked search. All tension and feeling of achievement from these scenarios will be destroyed if everyone has seen everyone naked already.
Yes, I know - order of development doesn't mean that in final version events will have the same order, but still...