Ren'Py Time Loop Hunter [v0.69.00] [Hydrahenker]

[HydraHenker]

Thanks for the reply. Since you're around just wanted to say a couple things--I think the game is solid, but besides the fact that harem chuds will hate it by default, the main thing holding it back is the fact that in the time you've been making it, models/animations have gotten so much better that anyone new in the space is gonna pass on it just from looking at the images.

Not gonna pretend the puzzles aren't a barrier though, I personally put it down for a few years before finally finishing an update before the next public release with v69 this year. Also I know you probably don't care as much about what people who aren't paying you think, but if you've fixed issues/bugs that a lot of people are getting stuck on, you might want to consider accelerating a public release beyond your usual schedule, or rereleasing an old public version with the issue fixed so whatever the issue is doesn't leave a bad taste in people's mouth and you lose them forever. It's never been an issue for me, however, IDK how people are encountering unsolvable bugs. My main issue with the game is it hangs up when you use rollback and skip sometimes, not sure what's going on there... Also the game bugs out and eventually kicks you to the main menu at later events if you have the action menu turned off. I'm assuming it has to do with having no where for the return function to send you to the further you get in the game.

IDK if the return you get from this project gives you the resources to do it, but it would be great to see you invest in modernizing the visuals and animations; just for future releases, not like a whole rework or anything. Also if you'd create a SS page that would be great, as Patrn is on a real tear right now... they got Mr.C a few months ago, a lot of people who've flown under the radar for content they don't approve of have been getting picked off the last few weeks/months... Wish you all the best, this work occupies a really unique place in the adult content space.

Hello! Thanks for the words!

I usually don't go back to fix older public versions unless you break the game completely. usually, the bug report is the other way around.
I release a version for my few patrons. Maybe someone sees a bug and reports it, usually is something small. This will go to the public version. Months later a public version is released. the number of players is way larger and they try things that I didn't contemplate. They report it and I fix those things for the next version (that will go first to patrons and later to the public)

In the artwork, I see my early work and cringe into extinction. I've got a lot better with the time but I was never an artist so I have limitations. The problem with re-doing some older scenes is that I cannot reproduce the same lighting effect. It's a whole thing and too long but changing the computer hardware impacts in the final render. The render might look better but if the lighting is one way in 50 renders and different in two you will notice. So it comes to time, a resource that I have little.
I did some rework of old renders but usually small scenes.
For the art style, this is a preferred choice. I like this kind of style. (for those curious is a mix between Genesis 3 and Genesis 8 of DAZ)
But I can see some people consider it old and leaning more into the AI art style that is populating more games now.

I have a SS:

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and a ko-fi:

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"Hey Hydra, I went there and there are no susbcribers. Is it a bug?"
Hydra: I'm sure is your browser not refreshing... **Leaves quickly crying**

Cheers!

 

[p22]

This is not rude at all. You should see what other people DM me directly.

This is what I thought:
I hate VM games where you only click the mouse to advance the game. There are games that are labeled as sandbox but there are really VMs with one correct choice. There are also games with meaningful choices, you pick a choice and you are locked in that scenario until the end. So you replay the game and go the other way or create a save game prior to the choice and then return to it to see what would happen when you choose differently.

I wanted to create a game with some kind of gameplay mechanic where you can explore all the choices without locking yourself in a path.

So if you asked me, this game is like a point-and-click exploration porn game.

The game forces you to explore the options to advance by design. Maybe not the best game design choice but it's too late to change it. This means that if you have two options for a situation in most cases that doesn't mean you can overcome that situation in two different ways. You will choose one and hit a roadblock, you will choose the other and hit another roadblock, or maybe resolve it in a suboptimal way, but you will learn something that will open a third option to overcome the situation in a useful way for the context.

In the first 3 days of the game, there are a lot of 'memory checkpoints' that you need to hit to advance, but later I didn't expand those paths so they became meaningless. I made several clean-ups of optional memories before. I know I need to do one more but touching the demonstration event is a lot of work, so I've been putting that on hold.

I'm writing too much... In summary, The game is hard. I know that I put many helpers but it's still hard. There is room for improvement in simplifying the paths and improving the hint system but some parts of the game are locked in.

Cheers!

I think retooling the current hint system to "objective tracker", which tracks known information, and current goals (dynamic quests, based on known info) would be a good way to refactor the game experience.
Of course, doing something like this would take a lot of time, due to the game having a lot of content.

My main problem is that if I stop playing, like after finishing all current release content, it gets very difficult to continue months later.

But I must say, the game was the blast when I did the first 6 days all in one go over a span of several weeks, without any external guides.

Also, the first time I started playing, I was not even aware of the parasite mechanic. I always thought that girls' behavior was only an effect of player's own actions.