Ren'Py What a Legend! [v0.7.05] [MagicNuts]

[gyrewGWEN41]

He wasn't a cunt, that's for sure

would be great if he was a cunny since they're cute and funny.

 

[gyrewGWEN41]

"I got banned from this thread so created an alt account, with one letter's difference, to ignore & circumvent that ban.
My 1st post, in the thread I'm banned from, I admit to being banned & even like my own post, with my main account."
Comedy gold.

we need to go deeper "pornception".

 

[KillerBee487]

There is no point in arguing that updates take too much time. If you look carefully, you realize there are like three people who constantly defend developers. I noticed that updates take too much time several months ago, and the people who defended devs are the same who defend them now. They are either super fans or somehow connected to the team - either way, they will defend the developers no matter how absurdly long the development time becomes. The simple fact is that this update already took more than a year, and it is not close to completion. Who cares how much the developers make after paying taxes, what excuses they give you - the update time is not ok. This comment section is becoming toxic wasteland - people come and complain about long wait, and three white knights defend the honor of devs and will defend them if updates take another two years to complete. My prediction - the update will come out this year and abandoned afterwards, while people slowly realize that a year and a half of waiting for two hours of content was not worth it. Such a shame as well, the art is gorgeous and the idea is nice, but I just can't see how such an ambitious project with devs refusing to hire more people - whether because of greed or artistic vision - can be complete.

I am not a white knight (although I have to say I liked this part haha) nor do I know the developers personally, but I have been on their Discord channel for 2 years now and I think you are really wrong.
I have been browsing on F95 for 2 years now. It's not a long time, but I think it's enough time to get to know the fauna that moves around here. There are developers of absolutely all shapes and colors: Lazy, inspired, hard working, ghosts, people who take developing as a hobby and even entrepreneurs.
MagicNuts has made mistakes. They are 2 people working on something they have never done before and have left their job to do something that inspires them. And yet, they have worked practically every day on the game even if they have been sick or taking care of their children (you can easily check it in their progress tracks), and working better or worse, at least they are honest with what they are doing.

The game is free, as CountMorado would say in Sts, and you don't need to pay for the game with your patience.
Will the game be abandoned? Probably not. There are many people who love and support this game, although we know they need help. This is not the first and will not be the last Discord discussion about hiring someone. But even if it comes out only one update a year (also unlikely because it's not the same situation anymore), it will still be better to support people who are transparent with what they are doing and bring games that are really worthwhile.

There have been many people here who have profited by making good games and then disappeared. MagicNuts could have done it a long time ago, but they have always been honest and have come forward if people have asked them.
Darkcookie has also been brave, and I'm sure that's why people continue to support him despite the waiting time. But the clear difference between these two is that the first one has always published EVERYTHING that happened around the project day after day. No lies.

So why the merciless criticism? There are very few developers who act as good as MagicNuts. We should take care of people who work and do things honestly even if they make mistakes. We all make mistakes.

 

[KillerBee487]

And now that we talk about it, let me show you what the devs think too:

 

[gyrewGWEN41]

I am not a white knigh...........hings honestly even if they make mistakes. We all make mistakes.

darn straight skippy

 

[locomakle]

A lot of animosity on this thread, really sad to see that. just one thing to those that say that Pirates have no say on a game since they are not supporting.

This site is literally one of the biggest marketing arms for these types of games, just see the other places popular places (and I don't really if you can do some good marketing there):

• Twitter: Good until you get a shadowban since you cannot promote Patreon and others
• Discord: a website sectioned as a server it's not a place to promote your stuff and remember that Sony owns part of it now, so not safe for +18 things whenever there is a ad panic with porn.
• Patreon: ......... Really Patreon? a bipolar teenager is more manageable that Patreon and their surprise rules/changes. Just one bad thing and you are done, ex. new irish bank.
• Steam: Good luck, since you are competing with all types of games, Triple A, endless early access, gacha, shitpost. Also you need to pay a deposit just to start.

Here you have reviews (tho these days have been hijacked and brigaded on some of the cases), actual game previews not just the pics for marketing, game devs (cus that way they can control the leaks), whale donos, random people that just see what's upvoted and maybe it could be interesting, a big tag system for people to search their interests, and the only reason why this place has people, the games are right there; they don't have to go to a paywall, they don't need to go to steam, they can download the game and see if it's shit or good.


If there is any other site that can shut me up then enlighten me, tho pretty sure this will be erased since this is just too off-topic and long, and will give my actual thoughts of the game on another post

 

[Syrabert]

[...] I've said this before on here and got blasted for it, but I've never played a Triple A game that was only 10% complete and had to wait months for the next 2.5% of game content. I understand they are feeling out players' perceptions before they fully commit, but imagine if TV shows, or movies worked like this?[...]

Yes, you won't see such things because the triple A devs had alpha and beta tester before they start to publish. And a lot of games were never be released because the first tests were catastrophic. Or take movies, there is a lot of "wasted" filmmaterial, lots of scenes will be rejected in the pre-screening or will be altered redone.

Someone tried to compare this "A little at a time model" to musicians testing unreleased songs live on crowds, but the difference is that the song has been fully written! They aren't just playing the intro guitar riff and then saying, "So... thoughts?" [...]

A lot of musicians are testing their song in a studio, ask for comments, change their song or text and test again, and when it's barely ready it goes on stage , similar happens with other artists. In my courier for some time i was a mangaka, don't ask me how often i had to rework my manga-series. And it was similar to some games, the manga changed after every few chapters, so it was similar to those "unfinished" games.
So maybe it helps to smooth your mind if you treat those indy-games as beta-releases and be happy to follow the steps from first edition up to the final product.
Another solution would be to select only games with the "complete" tag, those would be similar to triple a games in terms of "final product"

 

[locomakle]

I see that the Devs finally got to the last 10%.

And reading on previous posts they are finally back on a good pace.

With the arrival of a child, I gave at least 6 months of difficulties down the road (you can see that I posted on jun 29th), the surgeries are news that I didn't know of, so without any actual knowledge of what happen then I would say 2-3 months extra. so on my assumptions they are right on track.

Since I'm not a supporter I really don't have any neck in the game so waiting that long was good for me. Sad that the thread devolved so bad but also its understandable really with all those bad actors from before.

Still as I said in my previous post, this forum is a big chunk of all the marketing for these types of projects, and Im pretty sure that even though the devs no longer post, they skim the thread since it's that important (I give it 20-25% of the reach it's because this place), so this type of big update has to change if there the next update will take more than 10 months, since people here are not gonna wait that long, and the venom from here gets tied with the game, subconsciously.

The most dangerous thing that could happen to the game right now, it's burnout as evilman3 said. The devs are finally in a better place but had to chug along harder than normal to get there. They have to begin a new cycle so they will feel the weight of a whole new character to do from the ground up, and that tires people.

Also, if you deleted my previous post, Hi mods

 

[whichone]

the surgeries are news that I didn't know of, so without any actual knowledge of what happen then I would say 2-3 months extra. so on my assumptions they are right on track.

I think that's a fair estimate. IIRC he had a hip replacement, then had to go back in for a second operation on the same issue.

 

[whichone]

but I've never played a Triple A game that was only 10% complete and had to wait months for the next 2.5% of game content.

Because AAA games take years to complete, before they go to market. They have much bigger teams\more resources & their devs get paid a contractual monthly fee throughout the 2-5 year development time.
They are often rushed to finish & meet imposed deadlines, when the game is nowhere near where they want it to be.
Then they take a further couple of years to reach a point where the game is considered "finished".
Take something like Cyberpunk, as an example.
Development started circa May 2016. Released Dec 2020 (in a shit state). Finished Dec 2023.

As Gzoosos said above, these devs do not get a contractual monthly fee from a studio, so need money to support them while they're creating.
Musicians often get paid an advance by the studio, as do authors, by the publisher.
These guys do not.

You must be registered to see the links

releases are not a new thing.

 

[fusibile87]

The problem is that with 1 update every 18 months, the game will be ready in 8 years, if not more...

 

[wd1111]

I don't understand why folks keep making their games a little at a time and then release it to the public as they go. I've said this before on here and got blasted for it, but I've never played a Triple A game that was only 10% complete and had to wait months for the next 2.5% of game content. I understand they are feeling out players' perceptions before they fully commit, but imagine if TV shows, or movies worked like this? Why not just make your game, and then add DLC to the completed game after the release?

Someone tried to compare this "A little at a time model" to musicians testing unreleased songs live on crowds, but the difference is that the song has been fully written! They aren't just playing the intro guitar riff and then saying, "So... thoughts?" No, they play the entire song and then gage the audience reaction. Comedians do the same thing, but they retool and rewrite their joke based on audience response. If you will, both musicians and comedians Beta test, however, these games are not beta testing. They are writing and releasing at the same time, which inevitably leads to not being able to keep-up with demand.


But then again, the F@#$ do I know? I just like playing these games and jacking-off...

it isn't quite like that, a lot of tv series for instance start off with a pilot, and quite a lot of them never take off, some turn to utter crap after a season or two, when the original material is all used up and they can't be arsed to write more good stuff for same money

so, with these games, they take quite a lot of time to develop, this game so far could probably take a year full time from 0 to 0.6, but what if it never takes off? would you be ok to flush a year or more of your work down the drain with nothing to show for it?

the real enigma is why pretty much all of these devs production drops dramatically once they get some success, because the logic dictates that they would reinvest, grow, learn to be more productive, but the exact opposite seems to always be the case, hence my speculation that they simply develop alternative revenue streams, other games, this original game still is going strong, so why bother, when you can double, triple or more your income by creating another game, that's my theory anyway

 

[rajawali34]

another greedy bastard with abandoned game tag soon

 

[Knight]

Side point - are there any projects when the next update after the long wait is significantly quicker? I am trying to remember any games where devs managed to overcome the slow down, but so far it looks like if something like this happens, the development is in deep waters for good.

I have never heard of any despite years on this site, whenever the development windows get stretched the update afterwards is usually even slower and with less content and the pattern continues until all works stops and you just get endless excuses with nothing to show for it. I.e: "My mom died, I will be in mourning for the next month", "I needed surgery!, see you in three months", "I had a baby!, see you next year" then they stop even bothering to make excuses and just go dark. Any one of these things is understandably but it's the pattern of behavior that is the problem.

While the pattern repeats the diehard fanbase that a game has cultivated viciously attack anyone who says something about it or expresses disbelief in the devs statements, this is amplified by devs who set up discords and the like where they can put their most fanatical supporters as mods who then brutally police on their behalf.
It happens to every single dev who doesn't openly quit and shutdown their Patreon, it's just a question of how much content gets put out before it happens, if you are really lucky they at least finish the main story of a game but these last few years I haven't seen a single case of that happening.

 

[Xupuzulla]

I know a game but im scared to name it for being off-topic.
In that game the dev realized pumping small content releases regurarly was better long term than working X months to deliver bigger releases.
To this day i dont understand why the patreons of this game voted for big updates,seems like a terrible decision for both the fans and the devs.

 

[Syrabert]

Well there are two sides of the coin and the dev's will never find a proper solution. If he do pumping out small updates some people will complain as "only small update, i will wait few updates" which will be similar to a bigger update. If he do bigger update people will complain about long update time.
There are also people like the dev of "o.r.s" (abbreviated, you know the game ), between the final update you get a lot of alpha, beta, rework, bugfix releases but if you only take the time between each final chapter you have also a "working x month".
Let's switch back to WAL, the story's are arc-based means an update is the story about one character. The patreons have voted for a complete arc to prevent cliffhangers even it would be longer dev time. AFAIK during the discussion/vote the estimated time between each update was expected around 6-10 month. At this time nobody expected the IRL problems leading to this extreme delay. So if you want to blame the devs for something it's their lack of emergency planning.
(lol, contraception? health care? )

 

[Bobbylikesthegames]

Yes, you won't see such things because the triple A devs had alpha and beta tester before they start to publish. And a lot of games were never be released because the first tests were catastrophic. Or take movies, there is a lot of "wasted" filmmaterial, lots of scenes will be rejected in the pre-screening or will be altered redone.
A lot of musicians are testing their song in a studio, ask for comments, change their song or text and test again, and when it's barely ready it goes on stage , similar happens with other artists. In my courier for some time i was a mangaka, don't ask me how often i had to rework my manga-series. And it was similar to some games, the manga changed after every few chapters, so it was similar to those "unfinished" games.
So maybe it helps to smooth your mind if you treat those indy-games as beta-releases and be happy to follow the steps from first edition up to the final product.
Another solution would be to select only games with the "complete" tag, those would be similar to triple a games in terms of "final product"

Did you read what I wrote? The games on here are not doing what you have regurgitated from my post.

Most art forms write, rewrite, and retool before public consumption. The games here are not retooling. They fix bugs and spelling errors, but they are not writing, changing their stories, or overhauling their entire game. Their releases function more like a comic book series, however, the difference is that a comic book run is completed and then released bi-weekly, or every month as issues, or in the case of TV, episodes.

Pre-screenings are done for a small group, however, most of those films are not rewritten, re-shot, and overhauled, but rather edited, or shelved. If they are redone and completely overhauled, then it becomes something entirely different. They also show the ENTIRE MOVIE, and not the first 12 minutes! Of course, there is such a thing as screen testing, or panel testing, but again, that is done in a very small group and it is mostly to feel out ideas and topics of the story, or to get a sense for how folks feel about a specific actor on screen. Not the same as what most developers do here.

As for musicians... You just proved my point! Yes, when a band/artist records, they go through the process of, "Pre-production." At this time they write, practice, retool, and receive feedback from their producer, A&R, and associates, and NOT THE FANS. They are not releasing their demos to the general public and then saying, "What do you all think?" After pre, they record, then release a single, and then the album. (Well they used to release albums. Those are dead now). My example of live audience song testing could be similar to what these developers are doing, but again, THEY ARE PLAYING THE ENTIRE F!@#$ING SONG, and not 30 seconds!

Rewriting, retooling, and starting over is part of the creative process. However, this is done outside of the public sphere. The Artist is always right, and knows what is best best for their art. They are not and should not be making art for us, but rather themselves. If it is true, then they will find folks who wish to fund their passion.

That being said... I think this game is amazing! I highly respect what this couple has created thus far. Their circumstances are completely understood, given that I am in the exact same situation. When you have little ones, everything else goes to hell, as it should! Seriously, there is nothing more important, fun, and exciting than waking-up 4 times a night, not sleeping for close to 72 hours, being thrown-up on, pooped on, peed on, or all three at once (sarcasm for folks who don't understand nuance).
However, once the clouds start to part and these little poop machines start to walk, talk, and develop personalities, you stop giving a shit about everything else, because they become your new muse. I'm sure once their kids hit 9, 10, 11, or 12, then they will jump right back into this and rock our worlds. Till then, I can wait and go back to parody porn...

Seriously, who gives a F*!@? Also, yes, I enjoy arguing for the sake of arguing... HAHA

 

[Syrabert]

Did you read what I wrote? The games on here are not doing what you have regurgitated from my post.

yes i read your first post and i interpreted it as a direct comparison between triple a games and the indy games. sorry for my misunderstanding but it felt like a comparison between apple and pears.

Most art forms write, rewrite, and retool before public consumption. The games here are not retooling. They fix bugs and spelling errors, but they are not writing, changing their stories, or overhauling their entire game. Their releases function more like a comic book series, however, the difference is that a comic book run is completed and then released bi-weekly, or every month as issues, or in the case of TV, episodes.

Would you agree with me that they change or add content based on the input of their fans? You are right that they nearly never overhaul the entire game but that also never happens on other games. For your example about the comics you are unfortunately wrong, lots of comics change during their serialization after input from editor ->publisher ->readers. (ask me how i know, did this shit for more than 30 years). As writer you offer an overview aka global storyboard. Later you change it on demands of your editor, publisher, reader response. Trust me i had my fair share of "you cant write like this!" or "it doesn't fit our line" or "the character is not pleasing" or "too long, too short," , " it need's more...."
edit: back to the original, i got distracted. I could agree with your thesis that the games here are more like a comic series, but there is maybe a reason: lack of money and lack of experience. There are very few indy-devs asking for pre-testing their ideas or gameplay, most devs are just like"i have an idea, let's try".
In my mind the support via patreon (or similar) is important, unfortunately some devs misused this as a "quick money scheme".

Pre-screenings are done for a small group, however, most of those films are not rewritten, re-shot, and overhauled, but rather edited, or shelved. If they are redone and completely overhauled, then it becomes something entirely different. They also show the ENTIRE MOVIE, and not the first 12 minutes! Of course, there is such a thing as screen testing, or panel testing, but again, that is done in a very small group and it is mostly to feel out ideas and topics of the story, or to get a sense for how folks feel about a specific actor on screen. Not the same as what most developers do here.

no, not the entire movie, normally the movie is split in small chunks and the animatic of those chunks is screened and discussed. The character screening is a separate task. If any of these tasks failed this chunk will be changed or dropped (worst case)

As for musicians... You just proved my point! Yes, when a band/artist records, they go through the process of, "Pre-production." At this time they write, practice, retool, and receive feedback from their producer, A&R, and associates, and NOT THE FANS. They are not releasing their demos to the general public and then saying, "What do you all think?" After pre, they record, then release a single, and then the album.

Sorry, but you wrote it differently in your previous post, the sentence " No, they play the entire song and then gage the audience reaction" is misleading and gave a different impression

The Artist is always right, and knows what is best best for their art. They are not and should not be making art for us, but rather themselves. If it is true, then they will find folks who wish to fund their passion.

Oh, that's a nice wish unfortunately the real world is not so kind. You even mentioned this somehow in your post. You will find lot's of examples where the artist has to change their work up to the point it's no longer their original work. Let me phrase this like : the artist is always right until job or money is involved. Best example would be the patreon drama when the fanbase decide the content of a game. Or as an artist try to create a film for company's like netflix, you are in for a bad surprise.

Seriously, who gives a F*!@? Also, yes, I enjoy arguing for the sake of arguing... HAHA

exact my thought, haha. Heck, sometimes i wish we could discuss such things direct in person and not in a limited area with written arguments

 

[John Dane]

atleast writing and art is finished. it will be another 3 months minimum. I am expecting big content.

 

[Kaerad]

it isn't quite like that, a lot of tv series for instance start off with a pilot, and quite a lot of them never take off, some turn to utter crap after a season or two, when the original material is all used up and they can't be arsed to write more good stuff for same money

so, with these games, they take quite a lot of time to develop, this game so far could probably take a year full time from 0 to 0.6, but what if it never takes off? would you be ok to flush a year or more of your work down the drain with nothing to show for it?

the real enigma is why pretty much all of these devs production drops dramatically once they get some success, because the logic dictates that they would reinvest, grow, learn to be more productive, but the exact opposite seems to always be the case, hence my speculation that they simply develop alternative revenue streams, other games, this original game still is going strong, so why bother, when you can double, triple or more your income by creating another game, that's my theory anyway

That's depend in what those devs are pursuing. I'm pretty sure almost everyone want to get a solid income, some of they want do get a kinda of full job. There's actually some who want to tell a history, get better in his art skills, be recognized as artist or improve his portfolio.
Unfortunally, there's a few developers who want anything besides money, and even these soner or later will face adverse situations and think twice about go further with the project. Managing the project is actually harder than coding or drawing