Ren'Py Time Loop Hunter [v0.77.10] [Hydrahenker]

[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.

 

[eptz]

You said you are closer to finishing the game. May I ask how close? More like months or years? What after? A new project?

When I started writing my posts I had no idea of the scope of the game. Now I see that changing something even seemingly small at this stage would require tons of work, so I'll stop pushing. I'll try keep my suggestions to simple ones. Here they are along with some bug reports:

Just like the person above me, it took me a lot of time to notice the parasite mechanic. It takes a lot of time until it really comes into play, you might try to clarify it in game somehow. Honestly, the map highlighting the location of the parasite makes it so much easier to understand what's going on, I would not lock it behind the Fun points.

I'm sure those things are hard to track down due to the amount of variables but I got the following message both when visiting cooper and interrupting or massaging Bensen:
"The office is now clean and closed and you don't know who is paying for that yet"
for context, when you try to molest her she refuses

"Maybe you should investigate her daughter Jessie" It's HIS daughter

Shouldn't Cas have something to say when Ayumi tells you about the alien? Shouldn't MC probe her?

At party, Cas says that you can not infect anyone with the parasite here, even if you never caught one, and you do not know you will be able to do that.

Some hints tell you to do something at the food court, even when you don' have it unlocked, even without the "You can not unlock it currently" prefix. I was confused by that.

When you have to ask Georgia about her mafia connection, maybe you could add option when meeting her on the first day, and then she would refuse, and you would get a hint to ask her after she told you about it. Without it it might send you to a wild goose chase after the dialog option, especially if you never before got into the party.

Similar thing for other situations where hint says you should ask someone.

Alice's icon still shows up at the bar, even if she is in the VIP room with Claire

You can give Ayumi the scientist information after the party, even before you got it (You visited him bud did not earned his trust)

"Let me take a look at this so I can get away form her as soon as possible" She already got away form "her", should be "here"

"someone jump the line and steal it first" should be in past tense.

 

[ElizabethArtemis]

I feel like I have a very werid relationship with this game since I played it when it was very early on ( when Day 3 hadn't been implemented), and then came back to it years later and have since replayed it multiple times after enough updates came out.

Due to that, I now know enough that I don't really get stuck that much as I understand the logic of the game. But I do remember several things that I did have to learn from external sources which without can make the game not make sense.

The Main two are the same pitfalls that everyone else seems to be falling into: Day1 Ignoring Dana VS not helping and the parasite transfers.

I do think the first is a very minor point that could be fixed by just a note on the action that no time will pass, or to implement a time pass icon for all actions (similar to the club) but I understand that the latter is a much bigger job than the former.

The Second point, about Parasite transfers, I do think that there needs to be a more clearer tutorial to this mechanic. I understand that the reason you cannot persue the Alice path to unlock day 3 until you have infected Janice, Mia and Georgia would imply that the player must understand how to do so before they can move on. But I do think that since its not clear that this mechanic exists, it is too common to either get confused why the girls seem to act differently when you have seemingly done the same thing, or to accidently get though it without understanding how and thus struggling later on. I remember when trying to convince Mia/Georgia, I would always ignore Dana since I didn't think she was needed only to not be able to stop Janice from coming back home, and being very confused.

Not sure on the best solution for this, but an option would be to have the ability to track the parasite via the girls tab at certain FUN level (would have to be an eariler level to match when the player would first need the parasite transfer), and maybe do a pop up tutorial after this is unlocked the next time Dana is hit and the parasite is transferred to Janice to just tell the player 'LOOK AT THIS MECHANIC'. Obviously this would be very hand-holdy and I would understand if you didn't want to do this, I just feel bad if I raise a problem without trying to offer a solution.

I do hope this helps, but feel free to ignore me

 

[XulOnTuesday]

I feel like I have a very werid relationship with this game since I played it when it was very early on ( when Day 3 hadn't been implemented), and then came back to it years later and have since replayed it multiple times after enough updates came out.

Due to that, I now know enough that I don't really get stuck that much as I understand the logic of the game. But I do remember several things that I did have to learn from external sources which without can make the game not make sense.

The Main two are the same pitfalls that everyone else seems to be falling into: Day1 Ignoring Dana VS not helping and the parasite transfers.

I do think the first is a very minor point that could be fixed by just a note on the action that no time will pass, or to implement a time pass icon for all actions (similar to the club) but I understand that the latter is a much bigger job than the former.

The Second point, about Parasite transfers, I do think that there needs to be a more clearer tutorial to this mechanic. I understand that the reason you cannot persue the Alice path to unlock day 3 until you have infected Janice, Mia and Georgia would imply that the player must understand how to do so before they can move on. But I do think that since its not clear that this mechanic exists, it is too common to either get confused why the girls seem to act differently when you have seemingly done the same thing, or to accidently get though it without understanding how and thus struggling later on. I remember when trying to convince Mia/Georgia, I would always ignore Dana since I didn't think she was needed only to not be able to stop Janice from coming back home, and being very confused.

Not sure on the best solution for this, but an option would be to have the ability to track the parasite via the girls tab at certain FUN level (would have to be an eariler level to match when the player would first need the parasite transfer), and maybe do a pop up tutorial after this is unlocked the next time Dana is hit and the parasite is transferred to Janice to just tell the player 'LOOK AT THIS MECHANIC'. Obviously this would be very hand-holdy and I would understand if you didn't want to do this, I just feel bad if I raise a problem without trying to offer a solution.

I do hope this helps, but feel free to ignore me

How about changing the prompt from "Don't save (Dana) and don't get involved." to "Don't save her and do something else."?

I could see it being spoilery, lore-breaking, and flow-breaking, but CAS could point out whenever there's a hop. When Dana gets hit, CAS says "If she was infected, she's definitely not anymore". At the rally point after Dana bumps into Mia/Georgia, CAS could point out that they are acting funny. That could be enough to point out that something important happened and to pay closer attention next time.

 

[eptz]

I am trying to get the four girl lineup point, I am following the walkthrough but I do not get an option to ditch them. I don't even get an option to save either of them.

 

[HydraHenker]

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.

Hey,

hard to implement an objective tracker at this state. I'll talk about the parasite mechanic later, since more people are asking

Cheers!

 

[HydraHenker]

You said you are closer to finishing the game. May I ask how close? More like months or years? What after? A new project?

All my projections to when will be finished ended miserly because I always underestimate how long it takes me to do a release. Right now I'm doing a release and a half every 2 month, that means a big release and the next month a smaller release with the stuff I couldn't get in time.

But I have all the roadmap of events now. My problem is how I'm going to deliver the finale. There are going to be multiple endings and I can't just say: Oh that particular ending you reached is not finished yet.
So the final version might take me more time.

Cheers!

 

[HydraHenker]

I feel like I have a very werid relationship with this game since I played it when it was very early on ( when Day 3 hadn't been implemented), and then came back to it years later and have since replayed it multiple times after enough updates came out.

Due to that, I now know enough that I don't really get stuck that much as I understand the logic of the game. But I do remember several things that I did have to learn from external sources which without can make the game not make sense.

The Main two are the same pitfalls that everyone else seems to be falling into: Day1 Ignoring Dana VS not helping and the parasite transfers.

I do think the first is a very minor point that could be fixed by just a note on the action that no time will pass, or to implement a time pass icon for all actions (similar to the club) but I understand that the latter is a much bigger job than the former.

The Second point, about Parasite transfers, I do think that there needs to be a more clearer tutorial to this mechanic. I understand that the reason you cannot persue the Alice path to unlock day 3 until you have infected Janice, Mia and Georgia would imply that the player must understand how to do so before they can move on. But I do think that since its not clear that this mechanic exists, it is too common to either get confused why the girls seem to act differently when you have seemingly done the same thing, or to accidently get though it without understanding how and thus struggling later on. I remember when trying to convince Mia/Georgia, I would always ignore Dana since I didn't think she was needed only to not be able to stop Janice from coming back home, and being very confused.

Not sure on the best solution for this, but an option would be to have the ability to track the parasite via the girls tab at certain FUN level (would have to be an eariler level to match when the player would first need the parasite transfer), and maybe do a pop up tutorial after this is unlocked the next time Dana is hit and the parasite is transferred to Janice to just tell the player 'LOOK AT THIS MECHANIC'. Obviously this would be very hand-holdy and I would understand if you didn't want to do this, I just feel bad if I raise a problem without trying to offer a solution.

I do hope this helps, but feel free to ignore me

Hello!

Ok, so I definitely need to reword that not helping Dana and leave option.

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.

Just like the person above me, it took me a lot of time to notice the parasite mechanic. It takes a lot of time until it really comes into play, you might try to clarify it in game somehow. Honestly, the map highlighting the location of the parasite makes it so much easier to understand what's going on, I would not lock it behind the Fun points.

The parasite mechanic.
This is a balance. I don't want to straight up say to the players "This is like this". I want the players to discover it and have that "Oh" moment. And once I know the player is aware I'll give you the tracker.
Like any balance it might need some tweaking.

Cheers!

 

[HydraHenker]

How about changing the prompt from "Don't save (Dana) and don't get involved." to "Don't save her and do something else."?

I could see it being spoilery, lore-breaking, and flow-breaking, but CAS could point out whenever there's a hop. When Dana gets hit, CAS says "If she was infected, she's definitely not anymore". At the rally point after Dana bumps into Mia/Georgia, CAS could point out that they are acting funny. That could be enough to point out that something important happened and to pay closer attention next time.

Hi

I like this. Subtle CAS's remarks.

Cheers!

 

[HydraHenker]

I am trying to get the four girl lineup point, I am following the walkthrough but I do not get an option to ditch them. I don't even get an option to save either of them.

You need Dana and Mia at the stage
Dana will only be there if Janice invites her, Mia will only be there if you tell her to follow you.
You only get the option to ditch them both after CAS challenge you to get all four of them at the same time.

Cheers!

 

[holtlobster]

Since you don't mind I'll keep writing. I'll start with bugs and similar:
The button that takes you back one action, sometimes takes you back one time slot, even though the last action took multiple. Happened to me few times at the hospital, but I can not recall exact details. The one place I did took notice was when your sister forces you to the party. Theoretically the game takes away your choice but if you go to the party and then press back you can do something else.
I was confused once because MC started talking about stealing dress for the patient for no reason. She asked for it a moment later, so I guess there's an error in logic of what MC knows.
There ware few grammatical errors but tis is the only one I noted, you can ctrl+f it:"Finally you feel about to cum so you squeeze her tits" I think you missed "like you are" or something like that.

Now those are are only suggestions, but here what I would change:

I might be wrong about it, since the whole game is a such a mess and I might be misremembering, but when you are told to steal drugs, you can initially only steal them through the cop, and then only later you get an option to steal them in the morning. Why not unlock all those options at the same time? In fact, why not give the player option to steal them when there is no one around? I mean he knows the passcode.

In general I think you underestimate the creativity of players. I think options should get unlocked when player can reasonably think of them, and not when the demon makes a suggestion. Allow us to skip to solution if we know what it is, don't make us suffer through MC feeling his way blind.

The persuasion mini game is too hard, especially compared to other mini games. it is partly a my fault for getting stuck there, since there was something stuck at the back of my mind from playing all those years ago, that you said it was not meant to be winnable until you progressed further. It turned out that I remembered wrong, but I only found out by accidently discovering the skip mini games option in the settings. Anyway here is my suggestion: After player fails given mini game for the third time, give a new skip mini game option anyway. Also there is already an option that says "skip mini game(win)" an it is misleading, since it does not award you with the skill point, that also deepened my misunderstanding.

You should loosen some conditions and make the game more forgiving. I know it would make game shorter, but you would make the remaining playtime more fun. It really feels arbitrary why does stopping the car crash or not allows you to seduce the short girl for the after-party scene or yoga recommendation, or if you can interrogate the rioter girl or not.
I talked about alternate routes, so even if you do not want to touch the current state of the demonstration, you could make it so that going shoplifting together brings you close enough to recommendation, even if you did not stop the crash.

The game feels empty after clearing the first roadblock. When I first got there I expected "work in progress" messages left and right. This did not change. Populate the city, even if only with flavour scenes. When we unlock a location allow us to visit it on days before it becomes relevant. If player can not visit a location, give an explicit reason why. I'm sure you can write some scenes for the gym in the city. Those scenes do not even have to advance the story. You can write some disconnected short quests, just to farm fun points.

Also the main characters. When I first reached the 3rd day and beyond, I thought that the game will really open up, but you made a very convoluted and clever web of reasons why you can not do joust anything, it all felt just outside the arms reach.
The one thing that did not have such excuse, was the relationship with the car crash girl. Add some scenes please to her, again it does not have to advance the story, only feel like it does. Her case stands out in particular since on the first days you can interact with her on almost every time slot, and then it becomes so sparse, but you should add options for meeting other characters outside of when it matters as well.

As you said rewriting the demonstration would take a lot of time, but I think you should absolutely put it at the top of your to-do list. This is what a new player sees, and it an absolute TORTURE. At the very least loosen the conditions on certain outcomes like mentioned above.

I imagine you are so intimately familiar with your project, that everything about it seems obvious to you. but a new player does not have the same knowledge as you, the dev. It took me a whole IRL day to get over that 3rd in-game day. I think you will agree that is way too much time.

Sorry for making it so long. Am I wasting my breath? Should I write more, when something new comes to my mind?

Honestly it seems like this game is just not for you, so far you have complained and offered "suggestions" about almost all the base mechanics of the game, sure you've said it in a "nice way" but honestly reading your walls of complaints it's just coming off as cleverly disguised pretentious bullshit. "Oh I don't like this and this and this, this is rubbish, I hate this" etc. Why are you still playing it if you obviously dislike the game? And before you say you don't when you literally complain about almost every facet of the game it makes it hard to believe you enjoy it.

Personally I hope HydraHenker doesn't simplify TimeLoop Hunter further. What makes this game unique is at it's core it actually is a game and you have to read information and use your brain to utilise the mechanics not just click or choose one of two choices to advance, there are very few actual games on here. Loser by Baal is about the only other one I can think of where the emphasis is on the gameplay first and foremost rather than the porn. Almost all your suggestions in my opinion make the game worse and far too easy. It's not meant to be an easy game, it's a puzzle game, and puzzle games are made to be hard and test you. Hence why the game revolves around the designated roadblocks before you can advance. If you could simply do multiple other options to get to the same point its just not challenging. Could you imagine if an escape room had a dozen ways to complete it?
And yet if you actually pay attention and read what the characters tell you, what CAS tells you and do you due diligence to explore options properly the game is incredibly easy to play, if you have an issue or you're stuck i've never had an issue with the hint system. However if you don't want to explore, if you can't be bothered reading or remembering some details than of course you will struggle... but thats on you not the game.
As for your other suggestion you're asking Hydra to do an absurd amount of backtracking and work for scenes or backgrounds etc that would simply be meaningless. And honestly that more than everything would confuse players. Pretty much as it stands now every location has a reason as well as the characters at specific points. Having the gym for example be open from the first day and populated with characters for three days for no other reason than adding to the background just convolutes the game.

I wish whenever this game is finished that Hydra makes another game similar to this because as I've already said it's good and refreshing to be able to play an actual porn game on this site. And for those that don't like it, there's thousands of VN's and hundreds of "fake sandboxes" for people to play.

 

[eptz]

Why are you still playing it if you obviously dislike the game? And before you say you don't when you literally complain about almost every facet of the game it makes it hard to believe you enjoy it.

I'm asking myself the same question. There is the thing, that I find it hard to put away things I started without finishing them, but mostly after playing the game for some time I started to see it as a dataset I would like to analyze, but first I wanted to experience as intended before analyzing the code. Meaning a technical interest.

At the begging I misinterpreted what the game was trying to achieve, therefore I misjudged how well it was achieving it.

I love puzzles where it takes you time to figure things out, when you lie at the dentist or you wake up in the middle of the night and run to your computer to try your solution. I had few similar experiences here, but they all turned out to be wrong because I was missing some variable, like the time slot that I would need was already taken up by something else. And when I got to the point where my solution would work, the game would have already hand-held it to me.

There is a difference between a riddle being hard and it being convoluted. The first one makes you proud you solved it, the second makes you frustrated. I guess the line that separates the two lays in different places for everyone. You are right that this game is not for me.

 

[HydraHenker]

Honestly it seems like this game is just not for you, so far you have complained and offered "suggestions" about almost all the base mechanics of the game, sure you've said it in a "nice way" but honestly reading your walls of complaints it's just coming off as cleverly disguised pretentious bullshit. "Oh I don't like this and this and this, this is rubbish, I hate this" etc. Why are you still playing it if you obviously dislike the game? And before you say you don't when you literally complain about almost every facet of the game it makes it hard to believe you enjoy it.

Personally I hope HydraHenker doesn't simplify TimeLoop Hunter further. What makes this game unique is at it's core it actually is a game and you have to read information and use your brain to utilise the mechanics not just click or choose one of two choices to advance, there are very few actual games on here. Loser by Baal is about the only other one I can think of where the emphasis is on the gameplay first and foremost rather than the porn. Almost all your suggestions in my opinion make the game worse and far too easy. It's not meant to be an easy game, it's a puzzle game, and puzzle games are made to be hard and test you. Hence why the game revolves around the designated roadblocks before you can advance. If you could simply do multiple other options to get to the same point its just not challenging. Could you imagine if an escape room had a dozen ways to complete it?
And yet if you actually pay attention and read what the characters tell you, what CAS tells you and do you due diligence to explore options properly the game is incredibly easy to play, if you have an issue or you're stuck i've never had an issue with the hint system. However if you don't want to explore, if you can't be bothered reading or remembering some details than of course you will struggle... but thats on you not the game.
As for your other suggestion you're asking Hydra to do an absurd amount of backtracking and work for scenes or backgrounds etc that would simply be meaningless. And honestly that more than everything would confuse players. Pretty much as it stands now every location has a reason as well as the characters at specific points. Having the gym for example be open from the first day and populated with characters for three days for no other reason than adding to the background just convolutes the game.

I wish whenever this game is finished that Hydra makes another game similar to this because as I've already said it's good and refreshing to be able to play an actual porn game on this site. And for those that don't like it, there's thousands of VN's and hundreds of "fake sandboxes" for people to play.

Hello!
Thanks for the kind words and I'm happy you enjoy the game!

As for the wall of complaints, I find it useful. Some people take the high horse route and ignore all criticism. others go the other way making all the changes trying to please everyone.
I read everything, I evaluate it against my defined design choices and decide what I'm willing to change or not. And what I'm willing to change is measure in time. At the end I might reject 90% of the proposed changes and only add something that I'll decided will improve the game.
If they can understand that, I'm willing to continue listening. Also if there are some bug reports in there, those are always welcome.

As for the a future game. Man I don't know. Part of me wants to do a simple game, more popular to the masses, with less development time. On the other hand I can't make a game that I will hate to play myself.

Cheers!

 

[ElizabethArtemis]

Hello!
Thanks for the kind words and I'm happy you enjoy the game!

As for the wall of complaints, I find it useful. Some people take the high horse route and ignore all criticism. others go the other way making all the changes trying to please everyone.
I read everything, I evaluate it against my defined design choices and decide what I'm willing to change or not. And what I'm willing to change is measure in time. At the end I might reject 90% of the proposed changes and only add something that I'll decided will improve the game.
If they can understand that, I'm willing to continue listening. Also if there are some bug reports in there, those are always welcome.

As for the a future game. Man I don't know. Part of me wants to do a simple game, more popular to the masses, with less development time. On the other hand I can't make a game that I will hate to play myself.

Cheers!

I can only speak for myself, but it would be great if you kept true to yourself and make games you are happy with. I am mainly saying that since I personally find this one of my favourite games not just on this website but of everything. I understand that its not for everyone, most of the best games aren't, but its amazing for the people who it is for.

Having recently playing though Geneis Order, I have seen the change in which NLT has gone down where it has lost part of itself to appeal to more and more people. The result ends up being repetative and much less interesting.

I understand that it is easier to say this as an outsider who isn't involved in the Development. The difference from mass appeal and niche can be the difference of having it as a full time job or having to work another job to survive.

It would just be nice to see you use the skills and experience that you have developed over working on this game to build something just as interesting

 

[yoyomistro]

I can only speak for myself, but it would be great if you kept true to yourself and make games you are happy with. I am mainly saying that since I personally find this one of my favourite games not just on this website but of everything. I understand that its not for everyone, most of the best games aren't, but its amazing for the people who it is for.

Having recently playing though Geneis Order, I have seen the change in which NLT has gone down where it has lost part of itself to appeal to more and more people. The result ends up being repetative and much less interesting.

I understand that it is easier to say this as an outsider who isn't involved in the Development. The difference from mass appeal and niche can be the difference of having it as a full time job or having to work another job to survive.

It would just be nice to see you use the skills and experience that you have developed over working on this game to build something just as interesting

Where NLT has gone is such a sad statement to game development. Ironically, even the people he changed to appeal to are somewhat getting bored of the formulaicness of his work now, lol.

 

[HHSForever]

Latest public releases went up yesterday, links from

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[SonsOfLiberty]

Time Loop Hunter [v0.70.10] [Hydrahenker]

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[Muddin4fun2002]

Is there a android version of this?

 

[Muddin4fun2002]

Is there a android version of this?

 

[Little Finny]

tnxx