Ren'Py Try it and tell me your opinion - download link inside

[Grumpy Eagle]

Hi,
If you have time, try to play Pre-Demo of my upcoming game. This is not an optimized version or demo version! This is zero version!!! I would like to know your opinion on the gameplay mechanics.

You can visit 3 locations (home, slave market and marketplace).
You can jump between day and night.
There is one story about Sadira (she will tell you what happened when she got drunk).

Just try it and tell me what do you think.

I would like to know what is good and what is bad. What to change to improve the game experience.

Obviously the biggest problem is my engrlish... I am trying to use short sentences to reduce number of mistakes but I understand that it can be quite annoing...

Download links:

win:

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mac:

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Link to original thread about this game https://f95zone.to/threads/desert-adventure-preview-and-discussion.27423/

Thank you!!!

 

[Canto Forte]

O K ... you may be too late in the GOT department but city of moreen had its slave masters burnt like .. 3 , 2, 1 season ago ... when is

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coming to liberate this city?

 

[Grumpy Eagle]

O K ... you may be too late in the GOT department but city of moreen had its slave masters burnt like .. 3 , 2, 1 season ago ... when is

You must be registered to see the links

coming to liberate this city?

Thanks for a plot twist idea... Daenerys Targaryen will kill the main character at the end... Yeah we can do it.

 

[Canto Forte]

O K ... played it ... there is literally nothing to do if MC just skips day after day from compass/map area, as there is literally no need to go home.
Home in the evening does nothing.
Gifts never show up in inventory. Girl has no dialogue after initial dialogue - maybe she talks on the 1st day of every week?
Grinding money for gifts that never unlock new dialogues. Places unlocked for plot purposes suddenly lock back up after said plot exposition i. e. after tavern talk and gallery plug said tavern locks back up. the slave market never has anything.
The market at night just has the one mustache guard. This is all over the place, nice music, nice pictures, nice environments - but plot has no starter, progression is not intuitive and all this skipping days to grind money has no end in sight. You should decide if it is linear - grind to a certain point - get bored in the process- and afterwards hope at some point scenes trigger ... or it is branching where each place you unlock is a step forward and MC has that innate ability to spot such opportunity. You got your work cut out ahead of you.

 

[Grumpy Eagle]

O K ... played it ... there is literally nothing to do if MC just skips day after day from compass/map area, as there is literally no need to go home.
Home in the evening does nothing.
Gifts never show up in inventory. Girl has no dialogue after initial dialogue - maybe she talks on the 1st day of every week?
Grinding money for gifts that never unlock new dialogues. Places unlocked for plot purposes suddenly lock back up after said plot exposition i. e. after tavern talk and gallery plug said tavern locks back up. the slave market never has anything.
The market at night just has the one mustache guard. This is all over the place, nice music, nice pictures, nice environments - but plot has no starter, progression is not intuitive and all this skipping days to grind money has no end in sight. You should decide if it is linear - grind to a certain point - get bored in the process- and afterwards hope at some point scenes trigger ... or it is branching where each place you unlock is a step forward and MC has that innate ability to spot such opportunity. You got your work cut out ahead of you.

1. day - talk with girl at home
2. day - talk with guy at marketplace
4. buy 3 gifts
3. day talk with girl at home (You have to give her 3 gifts)

There is no more content right now.

 

[Grumpy Eagle]

O K ... played it ... there is literally nothing to do if MC just skips day after day from compass/map area, as there is literally no need to go home.
Home in the evening does nothing.
Gifts never show up in inventory. Girl has no dialogue after initial dialogue - maybe she talks on the 1st day of every week?
Grinding money for gifts that never unlock new dialogues. Places unlocked for plot purposes suddenly lock back up after said plot exposition i. e. after tavern talk and gallery plug said tavern locks back up. the slave market never has anything.
The market at night just has the one mustache guard. This is all over the place, nice music, nice pictures, nice environments - but plot has no starter, progression is not intuitive and all this skipping days to grind money has no end in sight. You should decide if it is linear - grind to a certain point - get bored in the process- and afterwards hope at some point scenes trigger ... or it is branching where each place you unlock is a step forward and MC has that innate ability to spot such opportunity. You got your work cut out ahead of you.

I know there is almost no content. The tavern is locked because there is no content at this point. For me the most important think is your opinion on day-night skipping and gifts grinding. I don't want to continue in creating story if gameplay mechanics are bad. So have to do something with day-night and earning money...

 

[Grumpy Eagle]

O K ... played it ... there is literally nothing to do if MC just skips day after day from compass/map area, as there is literally no need to go home.
Home in the evening does nothing.
Gifts never show up in inventory. Girl has no dialogue after initial dialogue - maybe she talks on the 1st day of every week?
Grinding money for gifts that never unlock new dialogues. Places unlocked for plot purposes suddenly lock back up after said plot exposition i. e. after tavern talk and gallery plug said tavern locks back up. the slave market never has anything.
The market at night just has the one mustache guard. This is all over the place, nice music, nice pictures, nice environments - but plot has no starter, progression is not intuitive and all this skipping days to grind money has no end in sight. You should decide if it is linear - grind to a certain point - get bored in the process- and afterwards hope at some point scenes trigger ... or it is branching where each place you unlock is a step forward and MC has that innate ability to spot such opportunity. You got your work cut out ahead of you.

Anyway thank you, for your ideas. I will definitely use them to improve the game.

 

[Canto Forte]

Yup ... like you pointed out (thank you) got to the tavern ... says visit me in the evening ... literally after MC leaves the map gets dark, it it evening and ... of course tavern is locked.

On those points ... day and night is great but it has to involve the story. Just making it a map skipping shenanigans just encourages the feel of hopeless grind and the fear at the back of players' mind - how much money/work grind is enough? Also it discourages people from actually following the dialogue as there is a miss conception that either - all you need is money - or that there are some intricate trigger mechanics for actual scenes - at which point a mindless click fest ensues, desperate for the lucky gear that furthers the plot.

The tutorial says places that are not unlocked ... it should say the 3 places that do unlock right from the start (home, market for slaves, market/work place) and then point MC in the direction to actually unlock the others. No thing is said about the girl and MC has to figure stuff out.

Great concept, kind of old alladin feel about it.

 

[Grumpy Eagle]

Yup ... like you pointed out (thank you) got to the tavern ... says visit me in the evening ... literally after MC leaves the map gets dark, it it evening and ... of course tavern is locked.

On those points ... day and night is great but it has to involve the story. Just making it a map skipping shenanigans just encourages the feel of hopeless grind and the fear at the back of players' mind - how much money/work grind is enough? Also it discourages people from actually following the dialogue as there is a miss conception that either - all you need is money - or that there are some intricate trigger mechanics for actual scenes - at which point a mindless click fest ensues, desperate for the lucky gear that furthers the plot.

The tutorial says places that are not unlocked ... it should say the 3 places that do unlock right from the start (home, market for slaves, market/work place) and then point MC in the direction to actually unlock the others. No thing is said about the girl and MC has to figure stuff out.

Great concept, kind of old alladin feel about it.

The tutorial is bad. I will do completely new one. I create it in 10 minutes. I am worried that the hover effect when you want to buy gifts or talk with girl isn't intuitive enough so wanted to show it in tutorial.

Day - night is good concept but because it is my first game ever created it create so many problems... Still not sure how to deal with it.

About money grinding. I will increase the money you earn every day plus I want to add more options to earn money so you don't have to work at marketplace all the time. I honestly hate grinding. I don't want the player has to go to work 30 times to buy 5 gifts... that is boring. Working and making money should be more like "take a break from the game". To add the feel that you live in the city.

One more question for you . What about the writing? That is my biggest fear...

 

[Canto Forte]

Well ... you should really fear it .. because I fail to see it.
Like you said, this is a proof of concept ... I held back about it from that perspective, but should you need to know:

-a lot is lacking, including the plot / the incentive / the drive / exposition about where we come from or where we are going.
- dialogues just hit snags they should not and some motivations are vague:
.-. slaver would rather romance his slave rather than motivate / train / send to work / get her out of the very clothes that repulse other citizens.
.-. slaver is rather poor to afford a slave that stays home and mopes.
.-. MC looks like the mad man - Mu' a dib was in the children of dune - shroud all over, inconsequential, throwing ideas left and right and barely winning (this is debatable) an argument with his employer (where he accepts defeat and loss of money but sticks his slave in as a customer, maybe, let us see where this is going) - like he himself was a pardoned slave now wondering where his place is in this new life.
.-. right now this works like a game with no story - click stuff, enjoy the art, click some more, fill the gallery and ... move along.

 

[Grumpy Eagle]

Well ... you should really fear it .. because I fail to see it.
Like you said, this is a proof of concept ... I held back about it from that perspective, but should you need to know:

-a lot is lacking, including the plot / the incentive / the drive / exposition about where we come from or where we are going.
- dialogues just hit snags they should not and some motivations are vague:
.-. slaver would rather romance his slave rather than motivate / train / send to work / get her out of the very clothes that repulse other citizens.
.-. slaver is rather poor to afford a slave that stays home and mopes.
.-. MC looks like the mad man - Mu' a dib was in the children of dune - shroud all over, inconsequential, throwing ideas left and right and barely winning (this is debatable) an argument with his employer (where he accepts defeat and loss of money but sticks his slave in as a customer, maybe, let us see where this is going) - like he himself was a pardoned slave now wondering where his place is in this new life.
.-. right now this works like a game with no story - click stuff, enjoy the art, click some more, fill the gallery and ... move along.

Ok I got it. I'll try to work more on the story and characters motivations.

Well right now I am trying to do something with gifts and inventory... so a lot of work.

 

[Deleted member 185293]

Love the aesthetics. What a refreshing change after all these VNs in a modern setting, using the same 5 DAZ models.
I understand that there isn't much content yet but indeed there's a background/motivation issue: who's MC, what is he doing in town, why did MC decide to get a slave, why did he pick Sadira of all possible options, and why does he let her run her mouth like that if she's a slave?
Also, I noticed that the more you work at the market the less money you get: it goes down from 8 gold on Day 1 to 3 on Day 4 IIRC. I wonder if it is intentional or a bad RNG.

 

[Grumpy Eagle]

Love the aesthetics. What a refreshing change after all these VNs in a modern setting, using the same 5 DAZ models.
I understand that there isn't much content yet but indeed there's a background/motivation issue: who's MC, what is he doing in town, why did MC decide to get a slave, why did he pick Sadira of all possible options, and why does he let her run her mouth like that if she's a slave?
Also, I noticed that the more you work at the market the less money you get: it goes down from 8 gold on Day 1 to 3 on Day 4 IIRC. I wonder if it is intentional or a bad RNG.

Thanks for your reply. There is actually quite long introduction to the game but I didn't add it to this version.

I'm still working on the gameplay mechanics and don't want to create story (I have the core storyline, characters and backgrounds) if you tell me that gameplay sucks. I would probably commit suicide if I wrote whole story and then find out that gameplay mechanics is bad .
So in this stage it is now about story. It is about design.

I want to know your opinion about mechanics. Canto Forte already told me that day-night system need to be improved. I repair inventory and whole "buy gift" stage.

For the gold there is random number generator between 4 to 8 so it was probably coincidence. There is no intention to lower earnings with every day.

I am happy you like the aesthetics.
I will probably change hover effect (I don't like that gears).

If you have any ideas how to improve this game (except of story), please tell me.

Have a good day.

 

[Grumpy Eagle]

Love the aesthetics. What a refreshing change after all these VNs in a modern setting, using the same 5 DAZ models.
I understand that there isn't much content yet but indeed there's a background/motivation issue: who's MC, what is he doing in town, why did MC decide to get a slave, why did he pick Sadira of all possible options, and why does he let her run her mouth like that if she's a slave?
Also, I noticed that the more you work at the market the less money you get: it goes down from 8 gold on Day 1 to 3 on Day 4 IIRC. I wonder if it is intentional or a bad RNG.

And I am actually glad that the game runs on your PC. I never create any game in Ren'Py so this is another valuable information for me .

 

[Mekbang435]

I love everything about this game, this is the only game I check updates for haha