VN Unreal Engine Abandoned The Vlogger [v0.1] [DreamBig Games]

[SecretSal]

General concept of the game has promise, and the renders are good, but a couple of things throw me off at the moment.

• The tone is overly on the narrative side. For example, when he's seducing the black girl at the club, it would have been nice to have at least a little dialog between them instead of having him give us the play-by-play throughout. But maybe the exposition is heavy just for the intro.

• That clashes a bit with my second point, which is there seems to be a dissonance between the narrator and the dialog. He says he's now a player, but his conversations with the shy girl are Curb Your Enthusiasm level cringe. After that, he can't tell that a neighbour is hitting on him, even though she cooked a flimsy excuse to get him to her house and practically flashes her tits at him. It's in unreliable narrator territory, which could well be a cool angle, but only if intended.

• Quality of Life suggestion: Consider another text speed (Instant). That's one thing Renpy sorts out for me all the time. Any game with slow text ends up having me click/key twice for each textbox, which adds up over time.

Good luck with the development!

 

[darkoraclegirl]

I never thought that might be a problem, at least it never was for me... I have used that mashup to create a website where people would upload their recordings and get paid for them.

Well I guess it's just me then. Everyone's different with what works for them and what doesn't. Guess I'll bow out and leave everyone else to enjoy then, while I find something more me to play.

 

[Artellegence]

Characters and renders look pretty good! I'll give it a shot

 

[SecretSal]

Gnavjamin : Fair enough, I can get behind that plan. I guess the next update will be more representative of the game's core gameplay loop, so I'll look forward to that.

 

[DreamBig Games]

Wait, didn't he reference 'Unreal'? Why did you change that to 'Unity'? I'm curious about the compression myself as it seems to be something many people find an issue.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean...
My original post was to show that UE4 uses less RAM, it's less heavy than a RenPy game.
Then he posted this :

"ren'py is easy to compress, if unity is the same then you've convinced me. "

By that, I thought he wants a comparison with Unity games, so I've tested Man of the house.

As for compression, if you are referring to changing the IMAGE resolution ( as it's done in some of the unofficial compressed games around here), then yes, I don't think you can do that in UE4, or Unity ( I have built my game around a full 1080 resolution, so even if you were to get a CG Rip, reduce the size of the image, then re-pack them as UE4 assets, and replace the original files with the resized one, I'm not sure if it would work, as it would also stretch the images to cover the whole screen, and some menus positions are linked to the image size).
If you are referring to just pack them tight using 7zip or similar, then it would be the same as for a RenPy game.

 

[DreamBig Games]

General concept of the game has promise, and the renders are good, but a couple of things throw me off at the moment.



• Quality of Life suggestion: Consider another text speed (Instant). That's one thing Renpy sorts out for me all the time. Any game with slow text ends up having me click/key twice for each textbox, which adds up over time.

Good luck with the development!

That is something that I had in mind too. I will give an option to have either the Typewriter effect, with 3 speeds, just as it is now, and an option to have instant text, no typewriter effect. I'll get it in for the next update.

As for the story writing, that is Gnavjamin's territory

 

[DreamBig Games]

Gnavjamin : Fair enough, I can get behind that plan. I guess the next update will be more representative of the game's core gameplay loop, so I'll look forward to that.

Can I ask what are you referring to with "

By games' core loop " ?

 

[SecretSal]

Can I ask what are you referring to with "

By games' core loop " ?

That might have been an inaccurate term for a narrative game, but I meant generally what the player experience feels like. What kind of choices you have, whether the seduction is a challenge or straightforward, whether if you fail a seduction attempt (assuming that's possible), do you get to try again the next day? Things like that.

So far, it feels like an extended intro to the game, since we've just been following the main character around, watching and listening to his story. Once we start making some decisions, it'll be easier to tell what kind of game it is.

 

[DreamBig Games]

That might have been an inaccurate term for a narrative game, but I meant generally what the player experience feels like. What kind of choices you have, whether the seduction is a challenge or straightforward, whether if you fail a seduction attempt (assuming that's possible), do you get to try again the next day? Things like that.

So far, it feels like an extended intro to the game, since we've just been following the main character around, watching and listening to his story. Once we start making some decisions, it'll be easier to tell what kind of game it is.

My idea/ the original script was light on choices, I wanted to present a story, so only have 2 paths for each character. There is no free roam ( so you could not visit an NPC and redo some events in order to gain/ lose points).
Challenges, no. You will be able to make a few choices that will dictate the kind of relationship you will have with a character ( none, type A, type B). And if you pick any other than NONE, there will be no challenges to talk of, no points leveling up.

 

[formasual]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean...
My original post was to show that UE4 uses less RAM, it's less heavy than a RenPy game.
Then he posted this :

"ren'py is easy to compress, if unity is the same then you've convinced me. "

By that, I thought he wants a comparison with Unity games, so I've tested Man of the house.

As for compression, if you are referring to changing the IMAGE resolution ( as it's done in some of the unofficial compressed games around here), then yes, I don't think you can do that in UE4, or Unity ( I have built my game around a full 1080 resolution, so even if you were to get a CG Rip, reduce the size of the image, then re-pack them as UE4 assets, and replace the original files with the resized one, I'm not sure if it would work, as it would also stretch the images to cover the whole screen, and some menus positions are linked to the image size).
If you are referring to just pack them tight using 7zip or similar, then it would be the same as for a RenPy game.

Well, if you or anyone else looks back at post #40 you can see that he literally typed "Unreal" in his post. You quoted, but changed "Unreal" to "Unity" and used Man of the House as an example which is not an example Unreal processing. Now I'm curious what's up with the smoke and mirrors.

 

[DreamBig Games]

Well, if you or anyone else looks back at post #40 you can see that he literally typed "Unreal" in his post. You quoted, but changed "Unreal" to "Unity" and used Man of the House as an example which is not an example Unreal processing. Now I'm curious what's up with the smoke and mirrors.

Go a bit further back, where I have posted the screenshot with Unreal and RenPy comparison. There are no smoke and mirrors . Post 36. Combine Post 36 and Post 41 and you get a comparison of my game, Babysitter and Man of the house.

 

[formasual]

Go a bit further back, where I have posted the screenshot with Unreal and RenPy comparison. There are no smoke and mirrors . Post 36. Combine Post 36 and Post 41 and you get a comparison of my game, Babysitter and Man of the house.

View attachment 384358 View attachment 384359

Yea smoke and mirrors. Its when you distract attention from something and direct it to another.

Pretty sure I'm not confusing you because you are the one who quoted post #40 and then edited what was written so that you could explain the comparison to Unity instead of Unreal. Its a matter of deception and I just wanted to know why thats all.

No big deal at all really, which is why can't understand the need for smoke and mirrors. Guess my curiosity gets the better of me sometimes and I have to ask why.

Besides, the post was actually about a comparison to compression not RAM usage, which I'm still curious about as well. See, there I go again.

And now a quote from my favorite Commander... I should go.

 

[DreamBig Games]

Yea smoke and mirrors. Its when you distract attention from something and direct it to another.

Pretty sure I'm not confusing you because you are the one who quoted post #40 and then edited what was written so that you could explain the comparison to Unity instead of Unreal. Its a matter of deception and I just wanted to know why thats all.

No big deal at all really, which is why can't understand the need for smoke and mirrors. Guess my curiosity gets the better of me sometimes and I have to ask why.

Besides, the post was actually about a comparison to compression not RAM usage, which I'm still curious about as well. See, there I go again.

And now a quote from my favorite Commander... I should go.

Compression: post 50.

I haven't edited anything ). It's the poster who edited his post, after I have replied. I can't edit your comments, even if it's my game thread. Bellow it's the proof:


As you can see, in this quote of mine, he (aluoaniki) is referring to UNITY, not unreal.

Here is a screen of how his post looks now:



Look at names, and I hope this proves now that I haven't used any smoke and mirrors or deception. He simply edited his post after I have replied .

And just for reference, when people say that a game is heavy, I always thought they are referring to resources used to run the game, not it's size on the Hard Drive.

 

[formasual]

Ah, sorry. I see now what you mean. Strange tho, this forum doesn't indicate when a post has been edited so I assumed it was vanilla.

Regardless, sorry for the confusion. Also, I was curious about compression with Unreal games because there are two that I mess around with, but I rarely deal in compressed versions. Experimenting would not be very fun so thank you for your info =)

 

[Evil Dr Porkchop]

Go a bit further back, where I have posted the screenshot with Unreal and RenPy comparison. There are no smoke and mirrors . Post 36. Combine Post 36 and Post 41 and you get a comparison of my game, Babysitter and Man of the house.

View attachment 384358 View attachment 384359

just curious are you running a 32 bit OS ? I thought the requirements for UE4 were 64 bit or is an older version ?


Never mind it's a 32 bit application,runs fine

 

[DreamBig Games]

just curious are you running a 32 bit OS ? I thought the requirements for UE4 were 64 bit or is an older version ?


Never mind it's a 32 bit application,runs fine

UNreal can create a 32 bit version too. It's just that, for more complex, rich visuals games, 32bit is too low, so most devs these days create 64 bit games.

 

[Evil Dr Porkchop]

UNreal can create a 32 bit version too. It's just that, for more complex, rich visuals games, 32bit is too low, so most devs these days create 64 bit games.

thanks just wanted to clear that up, I'm still trying to get a higher resolution, however as it stands it's playable and enjoyable,I was always under the impression you don't mess with Windows pagefile ? am I wrong ? I'm running 2 SSD's and 4 7200 rpm WD Black Hdd'S,now running Asus ROG Radeon 5700XT so without sounding like mines better than yours,this game runs flawlessly for me ,I've had no errors of any kind and BTW thank you for using 7 Zip about time

 

[DreamBig Games]

thanks just wanted to clear that up, I'm still trying to get a higher resolution, however as it stands it's playable and enjoyable,I was always under the impression you don't mess with Windows pagefile ? am I wrong ? I'm running 2 SSD's and 4 7200 rpm WD Black Hdd'S,now running Asus ROG Radeon 5700XT so without sounding like mines better than yours,this game runs flawlessly for me ,I've had no errors of any kind and BTW thank you for using 7 Zip about time

I am not sure what are you referring to. If you are referring to the error that someone else has posted here, and the reply I gave him, that was a possible solution I have found on the net, but can't test as the game runs fine for me.
As for changing the windows pagefile, you can do so, if you are a bit more of an experienced user. Basically, the pagefile is the Extension of RAM, Windows will use that to store data for quick access. I have set mine to custom values, according to my needs for each drive. There are plenty of guides on how or when to do it.

 

[Evil Dr Porkchop]

I am not sure what are you referring to. If you are referring to the error that someone else has posted here, and the reply I gave him, that was a possible solution I have found on the net, but can't test as the game runs fine for me.
As for changing the windows pagefile, you can do so, if you are a bit more of an experienced user. Basically, the pagefile is the Extension of RAM, Windows will use that to store data for quick access. I have set mine to custom values, according to my needs for each drive. There are plenty of guides on how or when to do it.

not getting any errors the game runs just fine,looking forward to more updates

 

[Retro]

DreamBig Games this still in development?