Ren'Py Abandoned Where I Belong [v0.1.0 Beta] [Elementario]

4.00 star(s) 1 Vote

Alteni

Engaged Member
Jan 23, 2018
2,564
5,514
Here's my crunched version.

Note: This is an unofficial modified version of this game so if something goes wrong it goes wrong ;)

Image/audio/video quality is reduced to make this smaller. This is not a perfect process and sometimes can break a game. You've been warned so no complaining.

Where I Belong [v0.1.0 Beta] [Elementario] - Original Size: 580MB

Download Win (89.8MB): -


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thnx for the compressed (y)
 
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passiveDragon

Newbie
Aug 28, 2017
80
41
i like the gameplay but the grinding/ options list and stuff nha lineair games are easier and more playable instead of grind and stuff
I don't find it particularly grindy. Events are forced, so you can't really miss them and in total you need to 'grind' for money on something like 4-6 days, which really isn't bad imo!

Especially manageable due to the fact that you have the skip button, i'm loving that addition!
 

Elementario

Member
Game Developer
Nov 11, 2017
252
312
Good starting,nice concept
Looking forward it, keep it up(y):love:
Thank you very much for trying out the game.
Really glad you liked it.
I will try to improve the problems most people are having with the game hope you tune in for the next version. :giggle:
 
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Elementario

Member
Game Developer
Nov 11, 2017
252
312
i like the gameplay but the grinding/ options list and stuff nha lineair games are easier and more playable instead of grind and stuff
There really isn't much grinding in the game at the moment, I guess there is a little bit of clicking but other than that not really much grinding to do.
Technically you do have to grind a little for some cash (Psst. Which you don't really need to do right now since this is beta, but don't tell that to other xD)
But as for your concern don't worry a Linear VN version is coming soon.
 
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Elementario

Member
Game Developer
Nov 11, 2017
252
312
I don't find it particularly grindy. Events are forced, so you can't really miss them and in total you need to 'grind' for money on something like 4-6 days, which really isn't bad imo!

Especially manageable due to the fact that you have the skip button, i'm loving that addition!
Wow, you are actually enjoying the game?
I can't tell you how I am happy to hear that, I was seriously starting to feel like no one was enjoying the game at all.
I am really very glad that you enjoyed it, knowing that my hardwork payed off (even if its just for very few people), is a really great feeling.
I am very grateful for your support, please if you feel like it, finish the game and let me know what you think about it.
Looking forward to your feedback. :giggle:

And thanks for using the skip button, I was really worried that people would miss that and get bored of the repetitive dialogues.
Glad you are enjoying it.
 
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Elementario

Member
Game Developer
Nov 11, 2017
252
312
Okay, so I am working on the non-sandbox version of the game right now. In the mean time I decided to make a render of Elaine as a little informal apology, nothing too crazy, just a very simple render, but I think it has its charms, hope you like it too.

341158

Now, I will get my ass back to work :)
 

Canto Forte

Post Pro
Jul 10, 2017
20,864
25,447
Thanks that would be great, I can use a few suggestions for sure, I will check out High Rise Climb soon and if I can, learn something good from it.
If you do try this high rise sham ... please ... pretty please fix the botched animation at the start in the bathroom -> morning, bathroom, shower, top choices, talk about last night, talk about the **x.

That dev acknowledged he botched the code, then he left the broken code in there -> and now he just abandoned the whole botched fall on your face animation non animated.

It would be a good practice and also see where ego and overall bad management can get you.

Who in their right mind would ever go past the botched animation (he even left the broken repeat trigger button on screen to hassle players into disappointment and anguish to boot) !?!

P.S. -> I play all the iterations, like the first animated one and the next many botched ones because I love the game, even if dev spat on it early on and the scars of that burn out still show, I always go past the $%$% horrid animation non animated first scenes because the rest of the game (fingers crossed) is a gem, like rob said ...

You seem a more sensible and able dev to REALLY LEARN FROM PAST DEV MISTAKES ...

Happy dev-ing!
 

Canto Forte

Post Pro
Jul 10, 2017
20,864
25,447
Okay, so I am working on the non-sandbox version of the game right now. In the mean time I decided to make a render of Elaine as a little informal apology, nothing too crazy, just a very simple render, but I think it has its charms, hope you like it too.

View attachment 341158

Now, I will get my ass back to work :)
Try Luke's way - version 10 (VN turn to sand box turn to VN) and then version 13 (pure VN straight shooter). Learn from past dev mistakes!
 

Elementario

Member
Game Developer
Nov 11, 2017
252
312
If you do try this high rise sham ... please ... pretty please fix the botched animation at the start in the bathroom -> morning, bathroom, shower, top choices, talk about last night, talk about the **x.

That dev acknowledged he botched the code, then he left the broken code in there -> and now he just abandoned the whole botched fall on your face animation non animated.

It would be a good practice and also see where ego and overall bad management can get you.

Who in their right mind would ever go past the botched animation (he even left the broken repeat trigger button on screen to hassle players into disappointment and anguish to boot) !?!

P.S. -> I play all the iterations, like the first animated one and the next many botched ones because I love the game, even if dev spat on it early on and the scars of that burn out still show, I always go past the $%$% horrid animation non animated first scenes because the rest of the game (fingers crossed) is a gem, like rob said ...

You seem a more sensible and able dev to REALLY LEARN FROM PAST DEV MISTAKES ...

Happy dev-ing!
Okay, so I haven't played High Rise Climb, but I will check out animation problem you are talking about.
I most of time try to adapt the code to fit instead of blindly copy and pasting, so don't worry about the broken code, if I am gonna release something I will make sure its playable and not broken first before releasing it.
Keeping a game broken only makes players loose interest in otherwise enjoyable game, so I will try not to make the same mistake.
Thanks for the heads up, I will keep that in mind :)
 

Taher

New Member
Dec 10, 2018
9
5
I must say, I am impressed at how positively the dev is taking in all the criticism and replying to everyone.
I too am trying to make a game, I don't really have much knowledge about coding but as much as I have learned, when I saw the code for this game I was surprised at the sheer amount of it. I haven't counted yet but there must be more than 10,000 lines of code in this game.
So much coding for a beta is just crazy.
Now, I do admit that the UI for interacting with characters is a bit bad looking but frankly I am loving everything else in the game.
The story, renders, characters, nav system, keyboard shortcuts, this are all very impressive and at least to me, they are really fun too.
From what I have read many people gave up even before trying out the system, I would say people should at least try it out before criticizing so much hardwork from a dev who seems to genuinely enjoy doing his work instead of just trying to grab as much money as he can.
I honestly like the change in gameplay for once instead of mindlessly clicking to get to the next sex scene.
I am looking forward to the next update, keep up the good work. (y)
 

Elementario

Member
Game Developer
Nov 11, 2017
252
312
I must say, I am impressed at how positively the dev is taking in all the criticism and replying to everyone.
I too am trying to make a game, I don't really have much knowledge about coding but as much as I have learned, when I saw the code for this game I was surprised at the sheer amount of it. I haven't counted yet but there must be more than 10,000 lines of code in this game.
So much coding for a beta is just crazy.
Now, I do admit that the UI for interacting with characters is a bit bad looking but frankly I am loving everything else in the game.
The story, renders, characters, nav system, keyboard shortcuts, this are all very impressive and at least to me, they are really fun too.
From what I have read many people gave up even before trying out the system, I would say people should at least try it out before criticizing so much hardwork from a dev who seems to genuinely enjoy doing his work instead of just trying to grab as much money as he can.
I honestly like the change in gameplay for once instead of mindlessly clicking to get to the next sex scene.
I am looking forward to the next update, keep up the good work. (y)
Thank you very very much, that is very high praise :love:
I am really glad you enjoyed the game.
And I am happy you are enjoying the system too, but I too think there is a lot of room for improvement.
But I appreciate the feedback.

About the code, there is more than 20,000 lines actually :LOL:
I really went a bit too overboard there.

Honestly, I really felt it would work as a proof of concept and people would enjoy these systems, that's why I put them in.
But I get why the don't like it to, there is no need for well, needless mechanics in a porn game, I just thought it would make the game fun and easy to take in all the info.
Anyway, I will try to make things a little simpler and streamlined.

I too personally feel that sometimes Linear VNs get a little boring, I mean I am not a good writter but sometimes even the great writers can make stories that can get stale, I feel like Sandbox gives more freedom, choices.

But I am still gonna work on a non-sandbox version too, hope you like that too.
Sincere thanks for trying out the game, I am very glad that you enjoyed it.
And I am very happy to see you support the game.
Have a good day and thank you :)
 

Johnny6

Active Member
Feb 18, 2018
554
821
Yeah, you're right sometimes linear VNs get a little boring, so sandbox games are nice alternatives. I suggest you to just simplify that gameplay a lot. Like Milfy City, Summertime Saga, F.I.L.F and maybe Man of the house. Those games are easy enough to play and they offers you a lots of place to visit and lots of npc to interact without to much grind. And like I said earlier I like to play just using mouse, so I'm a little frustrated in your game navigation, so much clicking in one room that you can get to next one or interact with someone or something.
The story seems to be interesting even though it feels little rushed, it need a bit more backstory or do you intent to tell that later.

I'm sorry but I'm so bad at english so it is difficult to express myself in english.
 

Elementario

Member
Game Developer
Nov 11, 2017
252
312
Yeah, you're right sometimes linear VNs get a little boring, so sandbox games are nice alternatives. I suggest you to just simplify that gameplay a lot. Like Milfy City, Summertime Saga, F.I.L.F and maybe Man of the house. Those games are easy enough to play and they offers you a lots of place to visit and lots of npc to interact without to much grind. And like I said earlier I like to play just using mouse, so I'm a little frustrated in your game navigation, so much clicking in one room that you can get to next one or interact with someone or something.
The story seems to be interesting even though it feels little rushed, it need a bit more backstory or do you intent to tell that later.

I'm sorry but I'm so bad at english so it is difficult to express myself in english.
In this game there is little to no grind at all, at the most you need to grind a little for money but other than that there's nothing grindy yet.
Talking to NPCs are purely player's choice.
The reason I wanted the game to be a sandbox is this, I wanted to add a lot of characters but not force the players to interact with them.
Its all up to the players, who they want to spend time with, who they want to know more about, who they want to make their friends. Only a few relationships are necessary for the game rest everything depends on the players.
Anyway, I am getting off topic.

About clicking, yes I made a mistake there, I should have made a traversable map first, which is now first on my list of things to do for the next version.
I understand there's a lot of clicking for those who don't like playing with keyboard. I will fix it soon.

Also, don't worry your english is good, its all understandable, I am not that good at english either.

Edit. Forgot to answer to your backstory query, yeah the thing is I wanted to kinda create mystery about what happened, why its happening and all that so the players can discover it in time.
So, sorry if it seems rushed (I thought the pacing was okay, but I will try to fix it if I can) I just wanted to create a bit of mystery.
 
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Darkmetal

Well-Known Member
Jul 6, 2019
1,077
13,971
As many have stated, gameplay is kind of all over the place, what/when you can do things often seem to be timered and navigation is very difficult. For example:

When the quest objective updated to "get a birthday cake," in a sandbox game you'd normally get a "Bakery location unlocked" message to go with it. With no world map in this game, that's obviously not going to happen. Still, playing with a free roam mindset, I was thinking "so how tf am I going to get to the bakery, let me try this exit from the school and maybe I can WASD through assorted streets until I stumble into it." I walk out the door and, boom! I get locked into a conversation with James (w/o ever clicking on him) and force transported back home where there are two women who don't want to talk about anything and nothing to do but chop veggies for $2 until some timer runs out. This is not what I would call free roam. It's kind of a mish-mash that kind of springs at you randomly.

That said, you don't have to turn this into a VN unless you want to. You can also commit to free roam and allow the MC to walk around the streets all night until his energy level runs out if that's what he wants to do.

However, to go that route, I would suggest that a far better map and travel system should be implemented. The current single room map is useless as it doesn't help you with anything and can be axed. There should be two maps instead 1. A local map, showing all the rooms in that current local (house, school etc. ) location and the ability to move between them via click. This can be a cut-out doll house floor plan (e.g. Betrayed) or panels listing what rooms there are (e.g. Man of the House, The DeLuca Family and many others). 2. A world map showing whatever locations you'll be using in the game (Bakery, bar, barista, beach etc. - pretty much the usual suspects in a free roam).

Anyways, thanks for making the game and hope you continue improving upon it.
 

Elementario

Member
Game Developer
Nov 11, 2017
252
312
As many have stated, gameplay is kind of all over the place, what/when you can do things often seem to be timered and navigation is very difficult. For example:

When the quest objective updated to "get a birthday cake," in a sandbox game you'd normally get a "Bakery location unlocked" message to go with it. With no world map in this game, that's obviously not going to happen. Still, playing with a free roam mindset, I was thinking "so how tf am I going to get to the bakery, let me try this exit from the school and maybe I can WASD through assorted streets until I stumble into it." I walk out the door and, boom! I get locked into a conversation with James (w/o ever clicking on him) and force transported back home where there are two women who don't want to talk about anything and nothing to do but chop veggies for $2 until some timer runs out. This is not what I would call free roam. It's kind of a mish-mash that kind of springs at you randomly.

That said, you don't have to turn this into a VN unless you want to. You can also commit to free roam and allow the MC to walk around the streets all night until his energy level runs out if that's what he wants to do.

However, to go that route, I would suggest that a far better map and travel system should be implemented. The current single room map is useless as it doesn't help you with anything and can be axed. There should be two maps instead 1. A local map, showing all the rooms in that current local (house, school etc. ) location and the ability to move between them via click. This can be a cut-out doll house floor plan (e.g. Betrayed) or panels listing what rooms there are (e.g. Man of the House, The DeLuca Family and many others). 2. A world map showing whatever locations you'll be using in the game (Bakery, bar, barista, beach etc. - pretty much the usual suspects in a free roam).

Anyways, thanks for making the game and hope you continue improving upon it.
About the bakery location, the thing simply about that is that this is 0.1.0 Beta version of the game,
I had already spent a lot of time setting up the nav system, interaction system, map, calendar, phone, story events, the notification/achievement system (Now that really was a pain in the ass), etc and after that creating some fleshed out streets and stores as free roam for a beta version...it just would take so much time that I had to give up the sandbox aspect altogether.
Things will be added yes, but with time of course if I could implement everything I wanted to from the start I would have released it as a v1.0 xD
There are 2 ways to get the cake, if you leave the home at night you will be able to go to the market (Which I forgot to make clear in the game) and the other option will be unlocked after day 4 (Please use the time skip)

So, to sum it up...yeah its totally my fault, I totally forgot to add some sort of hint system so that players would know what to do xD. That was an oversight on my part, a lot of things had to be explained which I didn't.

The reason why freeroam is limited for now is because I could only add that much at this point, that's why when you leave the college you get locked in a conversation with James because for now there's no street to roam as of yet.

About characters who don't want to talk about anything, well that's why you have the skip button, only the first day is necessary, rest you can skip
There is I think only 1 days that doesn't have anything to do because the event on that day gets triggered at night after you go to sleep.

As for your few concerns, here's what I have planned for future -
A lot more freeroam locations like the class room (With some new classmates too), fleshed out streets and stores (Stores will not be freeroam, just static images), a few bases to explore (Future content), a fleshed out world map which also will be traversable so you can go to places just by clicking on it, also the map will show the location of the characters, and last and most importantly a hint system.

I hope this answers all your concerns and I hope you do enjoy the game despite its faults :)
Just one request though, please keep in mind that its the first version and that too a beta, I am not saying that as an excuse but as an apology that I can't add as many things as you'd like just yet, I will in time though.
So, thanks for checking the game out.
 
Last edited:

tonny

Active Member
Jun 14, 2017
667
691
Quick time event failed... then I quit.. played too many games now, with those in, just makes me sick :sick: everything else looked good tho
 
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4.00 star(s) 1 Vote