Others The Ultimate Stripper Club [v1.0.4] [everglow]

[rb813]

As for your *endless journey to see gloryhole contents*, mind that for a girl to perform in a specific location, she needs:
- contents for that location
- performances for that location unlocked (check the girls inspector in the relevant area, train them if still locked)
- no better alternative (in general if you have few girls and the game can allocate those girls to VIP it will do so as you gain more money).

I assume that, if I want to sell condoms, I need to have someone assigned as a maid. But do they have to also meet all the quoted requirements to do sales, or is it enough just to be assigned?

 

[everglow]

I assume that, if I want to sell condoms, I need to have someone assigned as a maid. But do they have to also meet all the quoted requirements to do sales, or is it enough just to be assigned?

No you don't need maids to sell condoms.
Also, mind that without condoms girls can't do sex actions.

 

[rb813]

No you don't need maids to sell condoms.
Also, mind that without condoms girls can't do sex actions.

So is the reason that nobody's buying condoms because none of my girls have enough training to do sex actions yet?

 

[CaptC]

So is the reason that nobody's buying condoms because none of my girls have enough training to do sex actions yet?

Hard to tell for sure, but that would be my guess.

 

[Feyschek]

So is the reason that nobody's buying condoms because none of my girls have enough training to do sex actions yet?

If they don't buy condoms from you, then you don't have any girls who can have sex.

 

[Feyschek]

I assume that, if I want to sell condoms, I need to have someone assigned as a maid. But do they have to also meet all the quoted requirements to do sales, or is it enough just to be assigned?

I may be wrong here because I played the game 100 years ago and I may be wrong, but the bartender is responsible for selling these things at the time of the club's operation.

 

[rb813]

Wrapping all of your messages, it'd be probably "just funnier" for you to skip at the end of the night immediately after opening the club, and just use the CCTV section the morning after.

I've been playing around with that since then, and I do like it better in some ways, but I'm still having a lot of problems with the overall "black box" nature of this game. By which I mean, the game doesn't give information about why things happen or how to make things happen.

For instance, in the last night I just played, I had 4 girls assigned to Stage, 4 to VIP, 2 to Bar and 1 to Bouncer. The night was cut short because of rowdy guests. What do I need to do to prevent that? The blurb about the closing mentions the bouncer not being able to handle it, but that's the only hint I get. Do I need to assign more girls to be bouncer, do I need to assign a bouncer with more training, do I need to improve my character's Strength, do I need to upgrade the Bouncer facility? I don't know, and it doesn't seem possible to know just from the information within the game itself.

Meanwhile, the CCTV for Stage showed five videos, and they were all of the same girl. The other three girls I had assigned to Stage have all shown clips before, so it's not like they aren't trained enough. Is their energy or mood too low, or was the one girl preempting them because her variables were all a bit higher than theirs, or was it just dumb luck? I have no earthly idea, based on the information the game provides.

And the crazy thing is, that's all kind of irrelevant as far as the challenge of the game we were discussing earlier. As a test, I ran another night where I assigned all the girls to either Bar, Bouncer, or Rest (none of the dispositions that show clips), and I still made plenty of revenue from Tickets/Drinks/Cigars/Drugs (over 100k, even with the club being closed early, and it might have been more if I hadn't forgotten to restock supplies). You said you weren't intrigued by TUSC being basically a video player, because "a game should be a game," but it seems to me that the sexy video clips are already not salient to the business management part of the game in any meaningful sense.

Sorry about all this venting over the perceived flaws in a free game. As someone who's dabbled in coding myself, I know it ain't easy, and I appreciate how much of a thankless task this can be. I'm not trying to knock your skills as a developer, or even your personal tastes in what the game should be like, I just get frustrated by things I don't understand.

I use VC as a "semi-random porn clip viewer," and I thought TUSC could have value as an alternate way of doing that. I like that VC lets you watch up to six clips at once, because a lot of the girlpacks I download have angles or poses that don't appeal to me (let's just say I'm not a butt guy), so if one of the clips is not to my tastes, I can just look at one of the others that are also on the screen. Since TUSC automatically and exclusively zooms in on one video, I thought it might be nice to have a few of my most polished or personalized packs (11 at the moment), mostly purged of clips I don't like, and enjoy the "quality over quantity." At first, I really liked how I could assign some girls to the stage and not know which one's clip was gonna be coming up next. Eventually I started to have problems with "batching" like what I described above. And if I want to see anything more hardcore than Pose, I have to go to VIP, but I also have to pick which Slot I want to view, which kinda feels like it's going back to the same old VC thing of picking a girl and then watching one of their videos. There's too many cases where things only work in a certain way or under certain conditions.

 

[rb813]

...I wouldn't be derailing this thread with a long rant about how the game doesn't fit my own personal subjective tastes, if there were any other activity here at all. But since it seems like people here don't have much to talk about, let me go ahead and offer my wishlist for what would suit my personal subjective tastes in a v2 of this game, or if someone else ever made a separate game along similar lines.

• More satisfying randomness: I would like to watch a series of clips that have all available scene types in one place. I want to be able to control which girls are active for that series of clips, but I don't want any girl to show noticeably more clips than any other girl, unless that's the result of some kind of rating system (like, I can rate girls from 1 to 5 stars, and girls with higher ratings show up more often). Same is true for the types of clips. I don't want a noticeable majority of clips to be one category of sex act, unless it was the result of me setting some sliders or tuning some dials to tilt the balance in favor of the categories I like best. And yes, I do understand that sometimes pure randomness results in repetitive clusters like that. I'm saying my personal preference is for the script to actively impose an artificial balance on top of the randomness. Like, if two clips have played of one girl, then the script should prevent any further clips of that girl being played until there's been at least one clip of every other active girl (assuming there's no ranking system allowing the player to express a preference for some girls over others). And maybe the script should even keep track of previous nights, so that it will be less likely for that same girl to get two clips again next time. Legitimately pure randomness often doesn't feel random to the human mind.
  My preference is to have one big pot of random clips all in one place, but I don't want clusters of similar clips (either the same girl or the same category), whether they're caused by randomness or game variables like training, experience, mood, energy, etc.
• Gallery mode: I agree a game should be a game. I enjoy watching semi-random porn clips in VC better than a playlist in VLC, because it's a game. But, one very consistent rule of every sexy management game I've ever played (whether it be VC, TUSC, Whoremaster, SimBro, Lab Rats 2, etc.) is that they reach a point where you've built enough of a money-making engine that you really don't need to worry about the desperate struggle for financial survival anymore, and can coast along simply enjoying the lewd content. All I'm saying is, why not have an option to let people skip straight to that point, if they just feel like wanking instead of running a business at the moment? It doesn't even need to be an entirely separate game mode, it could be as simple as starting the player with all the girls already recruited and all the upgrades already unlocked. It doesn't seem like that would take much time or effort to implement, so why not?
  My preference is to be able to start a new game and be able to immediately see all the different girls I have packs for, without needing to jump through all the management hoops if I don't feel like it that day.
• Sexier management: If a game should be a game, then a sexy game that is also a management game should be a sexy management game. By which I mean, the lewd content should be closely tied to the management aspect. In this game, you might need some strippers on stage for a short period when you're just starting out, but it doesn't take long to reach a point where you can make money hand over fist without any of the girls doing anything sexy (and if I'm being completely honest, without doing any management stuff more complicated than restocking shelves). That's not a sexy management game. I know you don't want this game to be just a video player, but that doesn't mean the videos (or the profitable acts that they represent in-game) should be totally unnecessary. I think it can kinda make the sex scenes more sexy to know that I wouldn't have been able to pay the bills without them. Not that I want to be that close to bankruptcy all the time, but the point is simply that tying in the sexy bits to the maagement can enhance the sexiness of them.
  My preference, when I do feel like enjoying the management element of the game, is for it to feel intrinsically tied to the sex acts portrayed in the porn clips, and not feel like the sexy content is just a tangential distraction from the real money-making options.
• Clarity: Make the management aspects of the game something that can be understood in-game, without people like me having to write long posts in a discussion thread explaining all the things that confuse them about why this or that isn't happening. It's been quite a while since I first started playing Venus Club, so maybe I'm just forgetting some growing pains there, but it didn't seem to have nearly as many "why is that happening" (or not happening) moments. If a game says something like "staff ready for opening: 3/11," there should also be something in the game that clearly states why the other 8 are not ready.
  My preference is for the game to tell me about variable and conditionals that are being used to determine what's happening in the game, instead of leaving me to wildly guess or hope that someone else can explain it.

Anyway, those are my opinions. I sure wish I had the coding skill to make a game like this myself.

 

[atmosphere1980]

For instance, in the last night I just played, I had 4 girls assigned to Stage, 4 to VIP, 2 to Bar and 1 to Bouncer. The night was cut short because of rowdy guests. What do I need to do to prevent that? The blurb about the closing mentions the bouncer not being able to handle it, but that's the only hint I get. Do I need to assign more girls to be bouncer, do I need to assign a bouncer with more training, do I need to improve my character's Strength, do I need to upgrade the Bouncer facility? I don't know, and it doesn't seem possible to know just from the information within the game itself.

It's been a little while since I played TUSC (I've been playing VC lately myself), but as I recall, when the guests get rowdy, assigning more girls to the bouncer role, better trained bouncers, or upgrading the bouncer facility are all options. The "right" answer depends on what you can afford, and eventually, you can't assign more bouncers or train bouncers further, at which point, you really need to upgrade the facility.

Meanwhile, the CCTV for Stage showed five videos, and they were all of the same girl. The other three girls I had assigned to Stage have all shown clips before, so it's not like they aren't trained enough. Is their energy or mood too low, or was the one girl preempting them because her variables were all a bit higher than theirs, or was it just dumb luck? I have no earthly idea, based on the information the game provides.

Yes, energy and mood does play a role. Building facilities to keep the girls happier plays into it, then you get to see more sexy video clips.

And the crazy thing is, that's all kind of irrelevant as far as the challenge of the game we were discussing earlier. As a test, I ran another night where I assigned all the girls to either Bar, Bouncer, or Rest (none of the dispositions that show clips), and I still made plenty of revenue from Tickets/Drinks/Cigars/Drugs (over 100k, even with the club being closed early, and it might have been more if I hadn't forgotten to restock supplies).

Yes, there are stages in the game where you make more money from the bar than from the girls. But when you want to make even more money, you need the girls in VIP and elsewhere. You do eventually reach a point where you have a maxxed-out club, and then the problem is getting enough girls to keep up with demand. Then the game tops out when you have enough girls to meet customer demand, but not enough condoms. At that point, you're making several hundred thousand dollars per night.

You said you weren't intrigued by TUSC being basically a video player, because "a game should be a game," but it seems to me that the sexy video clips are already not salient to the business management part of the game in any meaningful sense.

I think there are points in the game where the clips become a little less relevant, but then they come back as your girls are ready to offer more services. Also there's opportunity outside the club to see sexy clips. Give your girls a night off to rest and visit the dance club, or one of the other stripclubs.

Does any of that help?

 

[rb813]

Yes, there are stages in the game where you make more money from the bar than from the girls. But when you want to make even more money, you need the girls in VIP and elsewhere. You do eventually reach a point where you have a maxxed-out club, and then the problem is getting enough girls to keep up with demand. Then the game tops out when you have enough girls to meet customer demand, but not enough condoms. At that point, you're making several hundred thousand dollars per night.

But if I can already make around 300k (when the club doesn't close early), what do I care if I can get a little more than that? I've already bought all the upgrades, and recruited all the girls (since there are only 11 packs that I want to use at the moment), so I don't even need the money to progress anything. I guess I could use it to buy girls gifts to train them faster, but the point is when you're already making that much money, a little more doesn't seem to matter that much.

But hey, on the bright side, I guess I've got my gallery mode now.

 

[atmosphere1980]

But if I can already make around 300k (when the club doesn't close early), what do I care if I can get a little more than that? I've already bought all the upgrades, and recruited all the girls (since there are only 11 packs that I want to use at the moment), so I don't even need the money to progress anything. I guess I could use it to buy girls gifts to train them faster, but the point is when you're already making that much money, a little more doesn't seem to matter that much.

But hey, on the bright side, I guess I've got my gallery mode now.

I see, with 11 packs the game would run into its limits. I think what's happening is your girls are fatigued, so not all are willing to work, and those who are aren't necessarily willing to do everything. You can go to the bar or massage room and offer drinks or massages to the girls there to cheer them up. When their mood improves, they'll work again and/or do more.

I play with a lot more than that, I like to hire 100 girls and run a mega club. If I have at least 150 packs, that leaves enough girls to work the other businesses too.

 

[rb813]

You can go to the bar or massage room and offer drinks or massages to the girls there to cheer them up. When their mood improves, they'll work again and/or do more.

Okay, that's good info, I wish stuff like that was more clear in the game itself. I never really worried about going to the locations, because I thought it was just a way to increase their affection and view a clip (like when you flirt with girls out in public), I didn't realize it had an affect on mood.

Can you still give them a massage if they don't have a TUSC massage folder?

I play with a lot more than that, I like to hire 100 girls and run a mega club. If I have at least 150 packs, that leaves enough girls to work the other businesses too.

Yeah, I have a couple hundred packs for Venus Club, but I decided to try a quality-over-quantity build for this. Since you can only ever see one video at a time with this game, I would only want to use packs that I've already gone through and removed the clips I don't like, or added a bunch of clips I made myself.

Also, with your mega club, do you assign many girls to specific tasks, or leave them to their own devices?

 

[Logan1377]

I absolutely agree with the idea that the more good packs you have, the better. Both for variety and allowing the different sections to run properly. However, I think it can be done with a few dozen if that's all that you do. After losing all of mine to a hard drive crash, I'm rebuilding my collection focusing on quality, and making sure that every one I augment has spa and gym content, and most have gloryole. I'm up to 42 (each one with between 300-1300 vids) and its working really well. I'm in the process of testing it slowly and carefully, and only adding ones that will work cheap to start, then expanding from there up.

 

[everglow]

I've been playing around with that since then, and I do like it better in some ways, but I'm still having a lot of problems with the overall "black box" nature of this game. By which I mean, the game doesn't give information about why things happen or how to make things happen.
[...]

I use VC as a "semi-random porn clip viewer," and I thought TUSC could have value as an alternate way of doing that.
[...]

...I wouldn't be derailing this thread with a long rant about how the game doesn't fit my own personal subjective tastes, if there were any other activity here at all. But since it seems like people here don't have much to talk about, let me go ahead and offer my wishlist for what would suit my personal subjective tastes in a v2 of this game, or if someone else ever made a separate game along similar lines.

[...]

While I might agree the game should be more *explanatory* of itself, I think we're on two completely different pages.
Not to sound harsh, but it feels to me the vast majority of your ideas/preferences are really biased by:
- wanting a powerful video-clip player
- your experience with VC

And at the end of the day that's fine, but, again, I can't relate. I don't care about programming a video-player, and making a VC clone with different "filters" or parameters it would've been - IMO - useless and unnecessary.
So yeah, while I'll take into account your points about *clarity* - given a v2 would even land someday - forgive me if I'll just ignore everything else.

I think if you want to play TUSC, you should do it in the way the game was intended to - many ppl already gave you a lot of suggestions/hints on how to have a better experience - and if you prefer VC, stick with VC, that's definitely an option here

The whole point here is: I made TUSC 'cause I liked doing it. I won't ever be able to keep programming TUSC without enjoying the process. I have to be motivated/pleased in the process, otherwise there's nothing there for me - as you properly recognized, it's free, and I never saw a penny even on buy me a coffee for it.

 

[rb813]

forgive me if I'll just ignore everything else.

If you don't want to sound harsh while ignoring my opinions, then probably the best way would've been to not respond at all. Especially when you say stuff like, "I think if you want to play TUSC, you should do it in the way the game was intended to," it sounds like you're basically telling me that my opinions are wrong. I get that you programmed a game to be what you would enjoy, and I would absolutely do the same if I had the programming skill. That doesn't mean that other people shouldn't enjoy the game in whatever way is most enjoyable for them.

Also, It's frankly weird that you're acting like it's a negative that my ideas/preferences are biased by VC, when practically the entire blurb for this game on the first page is that it was "quite inspired by" VC. I wouldn't be playing this at all if I weren't biased by my experience with VC.

I guess I'm just not sure what you were trying to achieve with this response. I wrote my comment in a fit of pique because I was frustrated at how much the game came close to something that I would really enjoy, but just didn't quite get there (story of my life). Like I said then, I only posted it because there had been no responses in this thread for a few days, so I might as well jot my thoughts down while I was thinking them. I was neither demanding nor expecting that you follow them, just expressing a fantasy pie-in-the-sky wishlist (and I made it pretty clear that they were only my personal preferences, not claiming that they were objectively correct), that might inspire either you or someone else privately working on another VC-compatible game.

It was basically just a description of what kind of game I would make myself if I had the skill. I don't understand how you think it contributes to the discussion, to say that I shouldn't want to play the game in the way that would be most enjoyable for me. If you didn't like my ideas, I would rather you just didn't reply at all, than explicitly stating that there is a right way and a wrong way (the latter being the way I prefer) to play the game. But hey, if you don't want feedback or discussion points from me, that's your prerogative. I'm not trying to force anything on you.

 

[atmosphere1980]

Can you still give them a massage if they don't have a TUSC massage folder?

I don't think you can. So with girls you can't give a massage to, you end up giving them a lot of drinks. One thing I did notice though is a lot of VC packs have massage content mixed in, so I just made a folder and moved those clips in some cases.

Yeah, I have a couple hundred packs for Venus Club, but I decided to try a quality-over-quantity build for this. Since you can only ever see one video at a time with this game, I would only want to use packs that I've already gone through and removed the clips I don't like, or added a bunch of clips I made myself.

Also, with your mega club, do you assign many girls to specific tasks, or leave them to their own devices?

If you take that approach, you'll want more than 11 packs. I do see the value in vetting the clips, if you're willing to invest the time in it.

In my mega club I mostly leave the girls to their own devices. Some girls end up moving around a lot. Some go straight to VIP and stay there most of the night, especially the ones with high openness. Gloryhole definitely is busier late at night than early.

 

[Logan1377]

I don't think you can. So with girls you can't give a massage to, you end up giving them a lot of drinks. One thing I did notice though is a lot of VC packs have massage content mixed in, so I just made a folder and moved those clips in some cases.


If you take that approach, you'll want more than 11 packs. I do see the value in vetting the clips, if you're willing to invest the time in it.

In my mega club I mostly leave the girls to their own devices. Some girls end up moving around a lot. Some go straight to VIP and stay there most of the night, especially the ones with high openness. Gloryhole definitely is busier late at night than early.

When I first started playing the game, I tried to coordinate where the girls went and found that it was not only more of a hassle than it was worth, but often ended up being worse than just letting the game's logic dictate itself. I think that once you have enough girls who do most or all of the areas, auto is just better.

 

[atmosphere1980]

I think that once you have enough girls who do most or all of the areas, auto is just better.

I agree, because it lets girls move around. I think there can be times when it makes sense to lock certain girls into certain roles, like locking new, low-openness girls into bartending, but in those late hours when your girls are tired, you need versatility to take care of those last remaining customers.

 

[Logan1377]

I agree, because it lets girls move around. I think there can be times when it makes sense to lock certain girls into certain roles, like locking new, low-openness girls into bartending, but in those late hours when your girls are tired, you need versatility to take care of those last remaining customers.

I used to try to assign the girls who'd been trained the most in the gym as security, but it didn't work well. Now, I just train them all up before I hire more.

 

[everglow]

It was basically just a description of what kind of game I would make myself if I had the skill. I don't understand how you think it contributes to the discussion, to say that I shouldn't want to play the game in the way that would be most enjoyable for me.

I just thought it was valuable responding to you stating the reasons why I won't follow *some* of your suggestions.
If it's a discussion, then there are 2 sides involved; I don't see why leaving out rationales from discussions is a better option to you. Aside from agreeing and disagreeing, aren't the reasons behind that interesting as well?

If you didn't like my ideas, I would rather you just didn't reply at all, than explicitly stating that there is a right way and a wrong way (the latter being the way I prefer) to play the game.

Again, in the same way you expressed your opinions, I expressed mine. I don't get why you get more offended by the fact I try to explain my reasons.
And I never said your opinions are *wrong* – as a matter of fact an opinion by its definition can't be wrong or right, it's subjective – I just explained why part of your opinions won't affect eventual future updates.
You're absolutely entitled to have all the opinions you want; pretending your opinions match mines, or that I should just *follow or ignore*, or that I don't have counter-arguments is a very different story though..

I'm not trying to force anything on you.

Me neither. It was the whole point behind me saying "if you prefer playing VC, that's fine"