Ren'Py The Null Hypothesis [v0.8c] [Ron Chon]

[Takkatakka]

I don't think any generalised drop in the quality of scripts and writing in media can be attributed simply to the writers.

I would even deny that this general drop even exist. There might've been a high in TV writing like 10 years ago, but before that most TV shows weren't exactly well written either and generally hit the reset button at the end of every episode.

Most games didn't even have a "writer", instead the producer outlined a few story beats during lunch break on a napkin and that would later become the "story" of the game. That's why stuff like the Sopranos for TV or something like Deus Ex for games was so groundbreaking back in the days.

It is the same for comics. There always be some shining beacons, but a lot of stuff for example during the early 90s was just...terrible. But of course as a human being we all have a tendency to forget about all the mediocre boring stuff and only remember what really flashed us and over time it feels like almost everything back then was great, because almost all the stuff we remember was great.

 

[armond]

you like to sound smart but you are missing the point. I was merely pointing out how slow development of this game is. Which is quite ironic considering this game was initially born out of frustration with Oni's slow progress.

Progress is an illusion my child, such a thing is ment to distract form the present. Also indi game devs seem to loose inspiration and passion the more successful they become.

 

[arkopand]

No don't mention pregnant women. You're going to summon... the fetishists.

nevr forget

ez

 

[red1988]

creation game need time here

 

[-Wastrel]

I would argue that the content is already richer and more in depth than RLE - though they are different styles of game so it's not a straight comparison. Oni has more quantity of content, but a lot of that is the same content with different girls - which is perfect for his pure-sandbox style of game since a lot of that is coming down to "I want to do X with my favourite girl". This has more story-based content and character depth, and a generally different art style with a more fully-fledged outfit system (though not yet in sex scenes, though planned once enough is in the art budget). RLE is also more directly in the porn-parody, where this is trying to be more porn-but-in-character. Different things, and I love RLE - but it's a shallow sandbox, this is definitely deeper even in early stages.

My main issue is with the structured story getting new girls introduced and to the point where the players can interact with them is going to be a slog unless there is a jump ahead button which lets you pick things leading up to the next chapter. For instance Storm will not be romanceable until the next chapter if I remember correctly, and with all the story events and work to get through the seasons, even if they introduce 3 girls a chapter it isgoing to span in game years and raises questions like "Where the fuck were you for this entire time?"

Oni with his more limited story by basically saying fuck you I am here now, and a healthy dose of hand waving that I honestly cannot be arsed to care about gets around this easily. When Oni sees a road bump he just drivess over it and keeps on drawing porn.

This game however is way too story driven for that in my opinion, it is a great, but they will have to do something about the progression if they do stick to the year=chapter format.

 

[Shintomi]

I'm looking at this game in a similar way to Lessons in Love. They're creating a visual novel with sandbox elements and repeatable events to raise stats for the characters. With this, there's a much stronger focus on the story than on the Oni style sex sandbox. Jumping ahead from chapter to chapter just so you can sleep with a specific character quicker kinda spits in the face of the devs and the story they are trying to tell here. It's like watching a TV series and jumping ahead to season 4 because that's when an actress you like shows up.

As for the slow dev time; y'all need to learn to be patient. From what I've seen so far, a lot of resources have been put into building the foundation for this game, making it far easier and quicker to add additional content down the road. Definitely a huge improvement on Oni's spaghetti code. Quality takes time, and I love that they've been paying a talented artist rather than using the scum that is AI generation for their artwork.

All in, this is a high quality project that deserves the time and effort that is being put into it. I'm patiently waiting for more updates, and hope you'll all do the same.

 

[harem.king]

My main issue is with the structured story getting new girls introduced and to the point where the players can interact with them is going to be a slog unless there is a jump ahead button which lets you pick things leading up to the next chapter. For instance Storm will not be romanceable until the next chapter if I remember correctly, and with all the story events and work to get through the seasons, even if they introduce 3 girls a chapter it isgoing to span in game years and raises questions like "Where the fuck were you for this entire time?"

Oni with his more limited story by basically saying fuck you I am here now, and a healthy dose of hand waving that I honestly cannot be arsed to care about gets around this easily. When Oni sees a road bump he just drivess over it and keeps on drawing porn.

This game however is way too story driven for that in my opinion, it is a great, but they will have to do something about the progression if they do stick to the year=chapter format.

This game having an actual story is a good thing.
It is what makes it better than rogue-like evolution. which is just porn without a story.

 

[sleepingkirby]

Put it this way: One pregnant woman gives birth to one baby in nine months. You can't just get another 8 women and then get the birth to happen within one month because you've now more resources allocated. This is so self-evidence yet managers will decide that throwing more programmers at a software project (or artists, or money) can half how long it takes and that's been proven decade after decade to be a fallacy.

A little off topic but in my opinion, that's a result of managers not knowing how things, particularly reality (which is why it's important to not just understand the theory of something, but also understand it in practice), works with seeing other people as tools to make number go up. When you get use to a certain amount of abstraction, you tend to reflexively think that everything is a supply and demand problem. I think my favorite example of this was a MIT coursework I was watching on minimax and alpha beta pruning where the professor did some quick math. To brute force all the possible combinations on a chess board, it would take the processing power of the same number of computers as all of the atoms that physicists can calculate in the universe, running 24/7 since around the time of the actual big bang.

But back to mbRjpZLD's complaint, that's just the way it goes. Sometimes, to get things to move faster later on, you need to spend more time in the beginning. Sometimes, you think "I can do something better/faster than that X" and then try it for yourself and find out "Well, no, no I can't. Maybe X was right in how they're doing things." Even if someone else comes along and tries to reproduce that someone has done, the reproduction would be faster initially because you're looking to reproduce the solution that has already dealt with/handled problems that may not be obvious. But as time goes on and the copy is trying to go in its own path, it'll run into other problems that the original won't.

All this is to say that even if one of the original reasons for this game to exist is Oni's speed in releases, given that the game now has a completely different goal and completely different style, its unreasonable to expect updates faster than original because it's pretty much comparing apples and oranges. With that said, I'm not 100% sure if speed of was one of the reasons that this game was started. Maybe ShinyBoots1993 can answer on that. I was always under the impression that one of the original frustrations with RLE to cause the creation of this game was the inability to mod RLE without it breaking on every new iteration due to the constantly changing code and/or bad code. Everyone wants things to be faster, especially the creators/makers of something because working on the same thing day-in and day-out can be exhaust even if you do enjoy it. But it helps no one, and more often than not, hurts progress to complain about speed as that urges shortcuts that, while faster in the short term, will cause problems outweighing the speed advantage in the long time. Which is one of the reasons why triple A games are so bad these days. Wanting things faster has been dubbed many things, crunch, bioware magic, etc. And more often than not, it ends in horrible results. Quality takes time and it's never guaranteed. Thinking otherwise is putting your own selfish desires (which we all have) above reality. And that never ends well for anyone.

 

[ShinyBoots1993]

My main issue is with the structured story getting new girls introduced and to the point where the players can interact with them is going to be a slog unless there is a jump ahead button which lets you pick things leading up to the next chapter.

If you dislike narrative that progresses linearly then this isn't the game for you.

"Where the fuck were you for this entire time?"

Not part of the X-Men yet.

When Oni sees a road bump he just drivess over it and keeps on drawing porn.

The dude is making an entirely different kind of game with a different design philosophy with a different set of things needing to be done.

We haven't hit a roadbump. We're not only on schedule, we've managed to include multiple things in our updates that wouldn't be there if we stook to the road map completely.

This game however is way too story driven for that in my opinion, it is a great, but they will have to do something about the progression if they do stick to the year=chapter format.

Again this is simply not a game you will enjoy if you take issue with our focus on a narrative.

If you want a game where you go to Xavier's school with the sole objective of sleeping with female students then play RLE. It's a good game. We highly recommend it.

As for the slow dev time

Okay allow me to go on a tangent here.

Spoiler: Longish Rant

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I was always under the impression that one of the original frustrations with RLE to cause the creation of this game was the inability to mod RLE without it breaking on every new iteration due to the constantly changing code and/or bad code.

This is true.

However our primary driving goal is wanting to tell a GOOD story and make it sexy.

 

[sleepingkirby]

I genuinely want to know where the hell this idea of "slow dev time" comes from? What is the measure we are using? What game are we comparing to? RLE?

I think some people just expects things to be monthly just because they're use to things being monthly. Subscriptions, bills, paycheck, etc.

 

[darkstel]

It's just that people are used to the fact that many developers postponed the technical part for later so that their project would gain popularity and therefore earn money at an early stage, but such things sooner or later bite in the ass, which has been proven more than once in a number of my favorite games. I dare say in the same RLE focused on the simple collection of a harem, it took years to implement the first three girls. Immediately we have a project that started from the start with the technical part of the implementation, while being played as a full-fledged game. Based on other games, I myself do not really believe in roadmaps, but as a person of logic, I will not indicate "I told you so" before the first of October, this is a banal truism....not that I will be happy with this result, of course, although even so, expanding the initial plans to 0.6 would justify it.

 

[sleepingkirby]

Based on other games, I myself do not really believe in roadmaps, but as a person of logic, I will not indicate "I told you so" before the first of October, this is a banal truism....not that I will be happy with this result, of course, although even so, expanding the initial plans to 0.6 would justify it.

Not sure what a roadmap, which is essentially a time table/schedule, has anything to do with belief or being a person of logic. They get followed or they don't. It's someone tell you their intentions. If a bus is late for its stop, you don't also stop believing all train, plane, appointment, payment, etc. schedules. To do so is pretty illogical.

 

[darkstel]

Not sure what a roadmap, which is essentially a time table/schedule, has anything to do with belief or being a person of logic. They get followed or they don't. It's someone tell you their intentions. If a bus is late for its stop, you don't also stop believing all train, plane, appointment, payment, etc. schedules. To do so is pretty illogical.

I don't need to show my teeth, I didn't mean it as aggression, plus I noted it as an opportunity, not a permanence, so don't make it up for yourself.

 

[sleepingkirby]

I don't need to show my teeth, I didn't mean it as aggression, plus I noted it as an opportunity, not a permanence, so don't make it up for yourself.

I didn't take it as aggression. I'm simply pointing out the illogic in the disbelief of the idea of schedules as a whole. They have a schedule. It'll get followed or it won't. If you don't trust that a *team* will/can follow the time table, that's one thing and that's your freedom.

 

[Zone Peterson]

Complaints per usual. A rant perhaps needed, but bear in mind, no great game has no opposition remarks.

A delicious meal requires time. Those who are impatient can just have a hot pocket

 

[darkstel]

I didn't take it as aggression. I'm simply pointing out the illogic in the disbelief of the idea of schedules as a whole. They have a schedule. It'll get followed or it won't. If you don't trust that a *team* will/can follow the time table, that's one thing and that's your freedom.

You've made a fuss out of nothing, but I won't raise a controversy out of it.

 

[sleepingkirby]

You've made a fuss out of nothing, but I won't raise a controversy out of it.

Not raising a fuss. Just pointing out the obvious. Not believing in schedules as a thing is illogical. You either believe in the team or you don't. It's that simple.

 

[Shintomi]

Those are the people we're making the game for. Not the 3 or 4 people who come in here complaining about dev time when we are perfectly on schedule.

I apologise for opening up the door for your rant; my intent with the slow dev time comment was to address others saying that it's been slow. I personally think you're going at a fine pace, and look forward to each update.

 

[drifter139]

I genuinely want to know where the hell this idea of "slow dev time" comes from?

some people are just impatient and want instant gratification and rewards. I think around 98% of people here are happy waiting for a polished update where things work as intended and the art measures up to what we've been seeing since the start. regardless of what people say, I'm going to wait for next update where I sit at my laptop and am giddy with excitement. give my best regards to the whole team and to you as well for doing such good PR

 

[-Wastrel]

If you dislike narrative that progresses linearly then this isn't the game for you.


Not part of the X-Men yet.


The dude is making an entirely different kind of game with a different design philosophy with a different set of things needing to be done.

We haven't hit a roadbump. We're not only on schedule, we've managed to include multiple things in our updates that wouldn't be there if we stook to the road map completely.


Again this is simply not a game you will enjoy if you take issue with our focus on a narrative.

If you want a game where you go to Xavier's school with the sole objective of sleeping with female students then play RLE. It's a good game. We highly recommend it.


Okay allow me to go on a tangent here.

Spoiler: Longish Rant

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

This is true.

However our primary driving goal is wanting to tell a GOOD story and make it sexy.

Didn't X-23 come in way later than Kitty Pryde in the comics? She didn't even exist before X-men Evolution why is she there? What comic lines are you working off of? Originally Kitty was taken in at 13/14 back in the original 80's run that saw her first appearance, knowing what universe you are working from would help.

If you aren't going with the 80's entry I cannot blame you tbh especially with that freaky shit with 13-14 year old Kitty and adult 19-20 year old Colossus if my memory is right.


Also I am usually rather cordial but with all due respect (if there is any due) I will play whatever the fuck I want thanks.

I'm looking at this game in a similar way to Lessons in Love. They're creating a visual novel with sandbox elements and repeatable events to raise stats for the characters. With this, there's a much stronger focus on the story than on the Oni style sex sandbox. Jumping ahead from chapter to chapter just so you can sleep with a specific character quicker kinda spits in the face of the devs and the story they are trying to tell here. It's like watching a TV series and jumping ahead to season 4 because that's when an actress you like shows up.

As for the slow dev time; y'all need to learn to be patient. From what I've seen so far, a lot of resources have been put into building the foundation for this game, making it far easier and quicker to add additional content down the road. Definitely a huge improvement on Oni's spaghetti code. Quality takes time, and I love that they've been paying a talented artist rather than using the scum that is AI generation for their artwork.

All in, this is a high quality project that deserves the time and effort that is being put into it. I'm patiently waiting for more updates, and hope you'll all do the same.

First, lessons in love well simply put the main character in it deserves to be ripped apart by dogs. I do not think I have ever been forced into the headspace of a worse human being than that freak.

Second, what if you literally are only interested in one character and you have to go through hours of content to even get to them? With the length of what is here currently do you expect someone who wants one or two characters to linger around for hours? The game lets you pursue monogamy... Is it also insulting when I do not romance a certain character because they wrote content for that?

Third, what if you played through the game before and then your old saves don't work? What if you literally don't want to go through the story for the third or fourth time but still want to make some different decisions to see what would change later? How is that insulting?

Fourth, Most Renpy games that are long and have choices already allow you to skip to new content after choosing some decisions, in part because in mitigates a lot of the pain for when saves are invalidated, or you played through them and want to do something different.