Jacowboy

Active Member
Aug 8, 2022
969
1,109
You may be right, but we're using the classic for vn scheme, where we have static images, sprites and a dialog box. If we don't write the vn tag, then which one will more accurately reflect the essence?
uhm, well most games like this just have the purple ren'py tag, from what I've seen, so I'd recommend doing that too.

also, about the scheme, I get what you mean, but on this site it kinda means something else... I'm sure you can safely use the visual novel tag on steam, for example, but in here the "VN" tag is a lot more specific.

also also, that scheme also applies to RPGs and other types of games... it was born out of older game design limitations, so plenty of different types of games have used it... it's more a case of the first VNs also adopting it... but anyways, neither here or there =P
 
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storm1051787

Active Member
Mar 23, 2019
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uhm, well most games like this just have the purple ren'py tag, from what I've seen, so I'd recommend doing that too.

Renpy tag is just about the engine. It has literally nothing to do with what type of game this is. And dude why are you so bothered? Tons of visual novels have freeroam sections and are still visual novels. This is a visual novel for 90% of the game and doesn't include any of the typical stuff people who are actually looking for sandbox games cares about nor does it have anything that most people who don't like sandbox games look away from. I'm been lurking through this convo for a while and I can not understand why you are being so pedantic about this.


The VN tag. is fine for this game.
 

Jacowboy

Active Member
Aug 8, 2022
969
1,109
Renpy tag is just about the engine. It has literally nothing to do with what type of game this is. And dude why are you so bothered? Tons of visual novels have freeroam sections and are still visual novels. This is a visual novel for 90% of the game and doesn't include any of the typical stuff people who are actually looking for sandbox games cares about nor does it have anything that most people who don't like sandbox games look away from. I'm been lurking through this convo for a while and I can not understand why you are being so pedantic about this.


The VN tag. is fine for this game.
Who's talking about "sandbox"?

People looking for VNs usually ain't looking for stuff with a lot of mini-games and p&c elements, which this game is full of, regardless of what you define as sandbox or not.

I'm not bothered and I'm not being pedantic, I'm just telling the dev so he doesn't keep answering the same questions over and over and over again, which WILL happen, since it happened to me too... but of course, y'all can do what you like, not my problem... you can go back to lurking now (y)
 
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storm1051787

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Mar 23, 2019
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People looking for VNs usually ain't looking for stuff with a lot of mini-games and p&c elements, which this game is full of, regardless of what you define as sandbox or not.
Literally the most popular game on this site is listed as VN and has Mini games and P&C elements. Infact a lot of the popular VN tagged games on this site do. Nobody cares about that espically if mini games are optional like they are here.

The current tags listed here are fine because multiple more popular and well known games have the exact same tags. So yes you are being pedantic as well as being factually wrong.
 

Jacowboy

Active Member
Aug 8, 2022
969
1,109
Wow it's like you're trying really hard to be dense and picking a stupid fight to boot... okay then, whatever, I don't care... it's up to the dev anyways.
 
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storm1051787

Active Member
Mar 23, 2019
787
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Wow it's like you're trying really hard to be dense and picking a stupid fight to boot... okay then, whatever, I don't care... it's up to the dev anyways.
How am I being dense? You picked your own definition and then decided to generlize it even though most people don't feel that way and don't care. You are wrong, the tags are pretty typical and a lot of VN tag games have optional minigames. There is nothing unusual here that needs to jutify changing the tags.
 

Spondie

New Member
Apr 4, 2023
8
7
Just finished the most recent version, and I have to say it's really a wonderful game. There are a significant amount of positives, but they don't really need a change, so I think touching on a couple of negatives for constructive critism would be useful.

It feels wild to me that your until recently betrothed ends up on your ship, with a view to explain everything or get back on her good side, and instead you put her in the brig and forget about her completely. It's one thing to not return to a plot point for a while, but it's a whole different kettle of sea-peoples for that plot point to take the form of a spurned lover that you've left locked in the hold for days without speaking to her. Either that encounter should happen later when there's less pressing things to do, or there needs to be more interraction opportunities - maybe a minigame each visit that helps break down barriers.

Speaking of speaking to people, it's really jarring the amount of times there will be an event that affects how the crew feel about you or that you can only pick one person for a particular thing, and for some it's a make or break for that romance, and for others there's no mechanical change at all, or that change happens really far into the game so you can't even go back and try a different path. Again, not specifically a bad mechanic, just needs tweaking to maybe identify where those decisions can REALLY make a difference and where they maybe arent that important.

Overall, Love the base of the game, love the journey, looking forward to future iterations
 

Likho Games

Member
Game Developer
Mar 20, 2022
181
526
Just finished the most recent version, and I have to say it's really a wonderful game. There are a significant amount of positives, but they don't really need a change, so I think touching on a couple of negatives for constructive critism would be useful.

It feels wild to me that your until recently betrothed ends up on your ship, with a view to explain everything or get back on her good side, and instead you put her in the brig and forget about her completely. It's one thing to not return to a plot point for a while, but it's a whole different kettle of sea-peoples for that plot point to take the form of a spurned lover that you've left locked in the hold for days without speaking to her. Either that encounter should happen later when there's less pressing things to do, or there needs to be more interraction opportunities - maybe a minigame each visit that helps break down barriers.

Speaking of speaking to people, it's really jarring the amount of times there will be an event that affects how the crew feel about you or that you can only pick one person for a particular thing, and for some it's a make or break for that romance, and for others there's no mechanical change at all, or that change happens really far into the game so you can't even go back and try a different path. Again, not specifically a bad mechanic, just needs tweaking to maybe identify where those decisions can REALLY make a difference and where they maybe arent that important.

Overall, Love the base of the game, love the journey, looking forward to future iterations
Thanks for the kind words!

As for Dolores - here's the thing - the original plan was that she would be unconscious in the hold, then Fab would go underwater and come back. That's where the action would start with her. The thing is that the underwater part at that moment was planned for literally 1 hour of the game, but it grew to something bigger. So we will look at the feedback and either leave everything as it is and after returning to the ship there will be a root for her, or in one of the patches we will change the events and first add actions with her, and then the underwater part.

But about the mechanics - can you elaborate on what exactly is wrong? On the example will be clearer
 

KingAss666

New Member
Jun 26, 2024
1
0
just finished the game, what i would like added is the gallery showing hints on how to unlock the images for the sake of completion
 

Spondie

New Member
Apr 4, 2023
8
7
Thanks for the kind words!

As for Dolores - here's the thing - the original plan was that she would be unconscious in the hold, then Fab would go underwater and come back. That's where the action would start with her. The thing is that the underwater part at that moment was planned for literally 1 hour of the game, but it grew to something bigger. So we will look at the feedback and either leave everything as it is and after returning to the ship there will be a root for her, or in one of the patches we will change the events and first add actions with her, and then the underwater part.

But about the mechanics - can you elaborate on what exactly is wrong? On the example will be clearer
Yeah, easy enough.

It is 100% your decision how to implement the +1/-1 relationship mechanics based on choices regarding giving a clue to whom it might affect positively or negatively, I won't presume to tell a developer that. But to elaborate as asked, a specific example would be like chapter 4 - who you give your hat to before heading underwater. If this has a mechanical effect, theres a heck of a lot of gameplay between your choice and (eventually) coming back on deck, so if it changes anything your average player won't can't go through everything again to find out. This makes some choices stressful since there are times where one decision will change half the crew's relationship with Fabian, and other times (like who to go to on the beach) it doesn't seem to make a huge difference. I've always been 1 point off being able to see any of Anne's scenes from a decision made early in the game, which is frustrating but I acknowlege that's part of the game, but it means without a clear avenue of which decisions could lock out another character, or a method of revisiting those moments and chosing differently without having to replay through chapters worth of the game, a lot of choices become stressful. I've resorted to a disgusting (as in I am disgusted in myself) amount of save scumming to avoid missing character details, stories, scenes, lore, and fun because I genuinely love the game and want to experience it all.

Does that longwinded example/explanation help?
 

Likho Games

Member
Game Developer
Mar 20, 2022
181
526
Yeah, easy enough.

It is 100% your decision how to implement the +1/-1 relationship mechanics based on choices regarding giving a clue to whom it might affect positively or negatively, I won't presume to tell a developer that. But to elaborate as asked, a specific example would be like chapter 4 - who you give your hat to before heading underwater. If this has a mechanical effect, theres a heck of a lot of gameplay between your choice and (eventually) coming back on deck, so if it changes anything your average player won't can't go through everything again to find out. This makes some choices stressful since there are times where one decision will change half the crew's relationship with Fabian, and other times (like who to go to on the beach) it doesn't seem to make a huge difference. I've always been 1 point off being able to see any of Anne's scenes from a decision made early in the game, which is frustrating but I acknowlege that's part of the game, but it means without a clear avenue of which decisions could lock out another character, or a method of revisiting those moments and chosing differently without having to replay through chapters worth of the game, a lot of choices become stressful. I've resorted to a disgusting (as in I am disgusted in myself) amount of save scumming to avoid missing character details, stories, scenes, lore, and fun because I genuinely love the game and want to experience it all.

Does that longwinded example/explanation help?
Yes, thank you, that makes more sense! But the solution - are you suggesting to warn the player that some of the choices are critical or to lower the threshold for scenes, so that even someone who misses check can see the scene?
 

Spondie

New Member
Apr 4, 2023
8
7
Yes, thank you, that makes more sense! But the solution - are you suggesting to warn the player that some of the choices are critical or to lower the threshold for scenes, so that even someone who misses check can see the scene?
If you lower the threshold, it negates the reason for having the mechanic in the first place.
While you could make it clear that some choices are critical (i.e. "You will miss 1/2/3 scenes if you pick this option" because there aren't any other points they can make them back before the scene), you're likely to get people playing not how they want to envision the character, but for the most efficent play.

I think there are two better choices that will require work, but will be more rewarding for the player:

1) Expand the mechanic to have pretty much every decision or action affect the crew score so they're constantly in a state of flux. While you might miss a scene or two if you've really followed the wrong path, you can't brick yourself from the get go. This also means a scene might be viewable after a few more choices are made but before you've moved on from the area (Anna on the beach, for example, means you've got a chance to gain a point or two before that opportunity disappears). Since its ship wide, High approval from the men on board means they might help out Fabian with endeavours of love, or maybe even other bonuses like telling him how to get a discount on items from the shop keeper or showing a dirty picture they found. I had Ethan on -2 for nearly the entire game, and as far as I can tell, nothing changed. Maybe that means he doesn't help you in the caves, but if he likes you he joins in to give you a bit more sanity or something (just spitballing ideas)

2) Mention at the start of the game something like "While your choices will affect how the people on board will interact with you, play the game however you want. Once you finish the story, you can go back and see what you missed" and create a cheat/debug mode that drops you at certain choices/just before scenes where you can choose to raise or lower your stats to see or avoid a scene. Slightly seperate from an unlocked gallery, this would allow you to play on from that point with the changes in place in case there's new dialogue, or scene plays out an entirely different way (I missed Olivia's visit because I chose Lauren's visit, and I only know that thanks to the walkthrough). I tried to make a few saves at those kinds of points, but I gave up after a while as I realised how far back I'd have to go to to set things in motion and stopped bothering.



Anyways, hope that was more helpful. The way the system is now doesn't ruin the game - if none of these options feels easy enough to implement, I don't think anyone will lose their mind. BUT if you do improve the system, or let people choose whatever choices make them happy and the get the cookies at the end of the adventure, it can only make people go "WOW, this is next level!"
 
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