That's good to hear. I really like a lot of the ideas that he's had for the game, but its often all over the place with the story and glitchy on a technical level. A soft reboot could be a very good thing. Fingers crossed for more of a sandbox element or at least something that gives the player more agency over the path and pacing.You must be registered to see the links
The Roommate (latterly subtitled "Inheritance") was my first attempt at a visual novel. It was a huge learning experience and there were plenty of mistakes and missteps along the way, necessitating various fixes to avoid breaking saved games. I've also pissed a significant number of people off at times and I've been working to move some of the more contentious content into a free "DLC" that I plan to make available to those that want it.
It's also an ongoing story, and by definition never "complete" so the game inevitably grows with each build. Switching from PNG to WEBP helped but after a lot of thought, I decided to end the current game at the end of the first three months of game time and transition to a sequel or continuation game. Episode 2, if you will.
It gives me a chance at something of a fresh start, incorporating the lessons learned from the first game. I also plan to polish the original with a view to releasing it on Steam and there will be further builds made available as things go forward.
My main focus, however, will be on "Revelations", the next phase of The Roommate saga. There are a number of unresolved plot threads to be further explored and resolved, others that have only been hinted at and a lot more besides.
The primary audience for the game is me - it's a labour of love and I replay it endlessly, often finding myself tweaking dialogue that's been in place for years - I know my ''ongoing improvements" are a thorn in the side of modders, not that I'm losing any sleep over that!
Having said that, it's nice to know that so many of you are passionate about the game and I do listen to and act on feedback, even if it's not always as quickly as I'd like.
So come along for the ride as we press onward, I promise it won't be boring!
jakehunter9
Newbie
- Mar 7, 2018
- 42
- 112
- 201
kevcolqaz
Well-Known Member
- Jan 10, 2019
- 1,084
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He is already having lots of bugs with the normal path and added some useless elements that break the game so much, and you want sandbox too? He can make the paths linear and simplify them to a normal VN game. This game was famous for 2 FMC, the rest are just addons to make it more fun. He has so many paths, which do not move the game forward, and go in all directions. He has too many ideas and too many things are going on, like some Drama, where every scene is like some End of the world scenario
Mii88
Member
- Aug 20, 2024
- 100
- 249
- 97
I think this is the best option. It could really do with a good edit by a third party to sort everything out without changing the look. Keep the good and get rid of the bad and refocus the story back to where it began. It started out fun but is now going a bit weird and extreme storylines never make a good popular VN.You must be registered to see the links
The Roommate (latterly subtitled "Inheritance") was my first attempt at a visual novel. It was a huge learning experience and there were plenty of mistakes and missteps along the way, necessitating various fixes to avoid breaking saved games. I've also pissed a significant number of people off at times and I've been working to move some of the more contentious content into a free "DLC" that I plan to make available to those that want it.
It's also an ongoing story, and by definition never "complete" so the game inevitably grows with each build. Switching from PNG to WEBP helped but after a lot of thought, I decided to end the current game at the end of the first three months of game time and transition to a sequel or continuation game. Episode 2, if you will.
It gives me a chance at something of a fresh start, incorporating the lessons learned from the first game. I also plan to polish the original with a view to releasing it on Steam and there will be further builds made available as things go forward.
My main focus, however, will be on "Revelations", the next phase of The Roommate saga. There are a number of unresolved plot threads to be further explored and resolved, others that have only been hinted at and a lot more besides.
The primary audience for the game is me - it's a labour of love and I replay it endlessly, often finding myself tweaking dialogue that's been in place for years - I know my ''ongoing improvements" are a thorn in the side of modders, not that I'm losing any sleep over that!
Having said that, it's nice to know that so many of you are passionate about the game and I do listen to and act on feedback, even if it's not always as quickly as I'd like.
So come along for the ride as we press onward, I promise it won't be boring!
Ideally the sandbox start should be chapter 1 with a explanation at the start of chapter 2 as to why it was discontinued, a good edit to create chapter 2 out of the current remainder and then a fresh start for chapter 3 from now on so that the errors are not carried forward. Although I think new content for chapter 3 should come first and 1 and 2 sorted as a side project, done slowly over time.
I don't know, I think the game started relatively strong and the renders were pretty good but the updates became smaller and then slower. Also it seemed to loose focus on the point of the game being an adult game and too focused on being like an erotic thriller/mystery and kept introducing new mysteries and twists and new characters all of which seem mostly throw away.
My 2 cents is drop the animations and stick to static renders, the release pace and size fell off a cliff after introducing them. If you want animations, go back later after the game is finished and add them in to the completed game like a remaster. Also the story is too large and unfocused, it is constantly introducing new mysteries and characters and then basically moves on without developing it to a point that people can be invested that is why kari, lois and kiki are the only ones people really care about because they are the only one that feature in most updates, yet almost every updates have several scenes dedicated to just sitting in an office alone doing nothing. I mean the dude finds out there is a secret nudist breeding? cult in the basement dedicated to him and the main character basically stops by once or twice says hi and then bounces to do paperwork and organize bus service for several weeks? wtf. And that is what it is like for almost everything. As far as adult content and fetishes I think it's great and could be expanded on further but every thing was fun and I had no problems with it.
It sounds very negative but I think the Dev has potential because the art is pretty great and has some fun ideas and I really enjoyed when the releases were meaty and frequent but like I said I don't think animations make the game so much better to compensate for the detriment of shorter and less frequent updates. If the dev focuses on the mysteries and characters that are already there and are developed in updates that come out relatively frequently and of a reasonable size to be satisfying to play I think the game will be success if not I don't think it will.
My 2 cents is drop the animations and stick to static renders, the release pace and size fell off a cliff after introducing them. If you want animations, go back later after the game is finished and add them in to the completed game like a remaster. Also the story is too large and unfocused, it is constantly introducing new mysteries and characters and then basically moves on without developing it to a point that people can be invested that is why kari, lois and kiki are the only ones people really care about because they are the only one that feature in most updates, yet almost every updates have several scenes dedicated to just sitting in an office alone doing nothing. I mean the dude finds out there is a secret nudist breeding? cult in the basement dedicated to him and the main character basically stops by once or twice says hi and then bounces to do paperwork and organize bus service for several weeks? wtf. And that is what it is like for almost everything. As far as adult content and fetishes I think it's great and could be expanded on further but every thing was fun and I had no problems with it.
It sounds very negative but I think the Dev has potential because the art is pretty great and has some fun ideas and I really enjoyed when the releases were meaty and frequent but like I said I don't think animations make the game so much better to compensate for the detriment of shorter and less frequent updates. If the dev focuses on the mysteries and characters that are already there and are developed in updates that come out relatively frequently and of a reasonable size to be satisfying to play I think the game will be success if not I don't think it will.
I don't enjoy purely linear VNs. I know a lot do. Even if there are no real choices to be made, I have a much better time when I can tell the character where to go and what to do next, and where you get to the point where repeatable sex scenes are part of that. I think this game could work great as a "mission based" semi-sandbox, where you progress through each day, and there are set story events that happen on set days, but the player has the choice of whether to go to work or somewhere else, who to interact with, who to talk to, etc, and then optional side events as part of that where you can choose that path also or not.
kevcolqaz
Well-Known Member
- Jan 10, 2019
- 1,084
- 1,631
- 371
The only sandbox game out there which work and don't make it a grind to play the game and destroy story telling and having control of the actions of the MC is very limited, like photo hunt and desert-stalker make it work but desert stalker is not exactly a sandbox its also doesn't give that much choices, only photo hunt gives you muliple options and also make the slow corruption and sandbox elements work, the rest of the sandbox games destroy the games. This dev has tried to implement multiple things and has destroyed his game with bugs and not continuing the storyline, and just leaving things halfdone.
This is the dev's first game, he should reduce his bar and just start with Linear paths with multiple paths, like 3 paths for each of the FMC, which has already caused one path to lag behind and slow down the progress. He has gone cult path, which is already semi-abandoned, then he has gone down a pregnancy path with the sisters, then he has gone Eyes wide shut theme, which is also being half done. He used to give like 100 renders per month for one scene per update. How much more can he do and make it look like an update? He is destroying his game's potential by branching out too much with so many problems he has. Too many expectations and too little output are going to destroy the game.
I like Photo Hunt a lot. Its a great game. Started Desert Stalker and bailed early because its so dark and angry, so I can't really speak to that. But I really think that a style set up something like King of Summer, Dark Magic, Come Home, Lunar's Chosen, My New Neighbors, Sol Valley School or others would work great. Don't see why not. The sandbox becomes choosing the person or spot, instead of roaming around and doing tasks like many people dislike. No grind, just choice.
Sandbox is a tag I block. 99.999999% of the time it's "guess which is the correct location to go to advance the story" rather than true open world and often involves grinding. Any grinding whatsoever is completely unacceptable.
Bearclaw01234
Member
- Mar 13, 2018
- 367
- 199
- 184
Ye should add an upload link
A Ren'py Error pops up about a duplication with the walkthrough mod in Line 8 (whatever that means) & makes the game unplayable. I used the walkthrough mod downloaded from the Patreon download link.
- Jul 26, 2023
- 18,217
- 46,439
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You must be registered to see the links
I'm beavering away on the next release and dealing (slowly) with various issues people have raised, and will follow up in greater depth later. If you've messaged me and I haven't got back to you yet, please bear with me!
This new phase of MC's journey is called Revelations with good reason, and there's lots of fun stuff coming. In the meantime, here's a minor detail - the girls working reception now have mini dresses as one of their uniform options.
jakehunter9
Newbie
- Mar 7, 2018
- 42
- 112
- 201
The fact that this game hasn't leaked feels like it's lost a lot of support and interest with the massive delay of updates and the ultra-small updates prior. Starting a second part doesn't feel like the kind of thing that will save this game at this point.
it used to get updated when public release was out, the dev didn't make the last update public yet
- Sep 3, 2022
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It is only $1, that is pretty much most developer's public version nowadays with Patreon not wanting porn in public view. Some developer's follow the guidelines, some don't care.
