VN Ren'Py Where the Heart Is [S1 Rev1] [CheekyGimp]

[hakarlman]

Haven't started playing yet. Want to, but can't.
Downloaded it and got the issue where the game intro shows an error page, then you get to the main menu and it's fine. But when you just start the game, it gives another error.

The traceback:
I'm sorry, but an uncaught exception occurred.

While running game code:
File "game/script.rpy", line 520, in script
if persistent.ph_advstart_ep >= 2:
File "game/script.rpy", line 520, in <module>
if persistent.ph_advstart_ep >= 2:
TypeError: '>=' not supported between instances of 'NoneType' and 'int'

-- Full Traceback ------------------------------------------------------------

Full traceback:
File "game/script.rpy", line 520, in script
if persistent.ph_advstart_ep >= 2:
File "C:\Users\bay_y\Desktop\WhereTheHeartIs-Ep23-pc\WhereTheHeartIs-Ep23-pc\renpy\ast.py", line 2115, in execute
if renpy.python.py_eval(condition):
File "C:\Users\bay_y\Desktop\WhereTheHeartIs-Ep23-pc\WhereTheHeartIs-Ep23-pc\renpy\python.py", line 1092, in py_eval
return py_eval_bytecode(code, globals, locals)
File "C:\Users\bay_y\Desktop\WhereTheHeartIs-Ep23-pc\WhereTheHeartIs-Ep23-pc\renpy\python.py", line 1085, in py_eval_bytecode
return eval(bytecode, globals, locals)
File "game/script.rpy", line 520, in <module>
if persistent.ph_advstart_ep >= 2:
TypeError: '>=' not supported between instances of 'NoneType' and 'int'

Windows-10-10.0.19045 AMD64
Ren'Py 8.0.3.22090809
Where The Heart Is Ep23
Tue Feb 21 23:13:16 2023

The dev just needs to add one line of code to fix the problem. I just tested it.

The problem occurs with people who've never played the game, so the persistent variable is not in the C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\RenPy\WhereTheHeartIs-1519902503 folder, from previous playthroughs, even from different versions? (pretty sure this is the case but i'm exhausted right now).

So you edit script.rpy, add that one line of code of below, then run the game, and the error won't happen.

script.rpy

########ADDED CODE
# set a default value. i'm not too familiar with his code, but this
# should work. we want to make sure the variable is not of type None.
# 0 seems to work fine for now. defaulting variables is a good practice.#
# there are some rare cases where people don't wnat to default the
# variable, but I truly believe you want to default your persistent variables.
# so tired, but I'll look into this more tomorrow.
default persistent.ph_advstart_ep = 0
########ADDED CODE

### BEGIN START ANY EPISODE CODE  #Quickstart menu
label startanyepisodegal:
    play music WTHI_Intro volume .5 fadein 2 #ace quickstart wthi intro start
    $MC = player_name

Additional info on the topic:

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The persistent object is special in that an access to an undefined field will have a None value, rather than causing an exception. If something other than None is to be the default of a persistent value, the

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statement should be used:

default persistent.main_background = "princess_not_saved"

Or in the case of his game: default persistent.ph_advstart_ep = 0

 

[hakarlman]

You've no idea

It's not about being entitled. It's about fixing critical problems to earn patreon support.

Imagine you really like something, but it makes a catastrophic mistake that could've been easily rectified, and STILL appease 100% of the userbase, wouldn't you do it and get free $$$, with no one getting upset? lol Think about it. You add a fix that please potential new customers, while not upsetting your existing patreons in anyway. IT'S A NO BRAINER.

 

[Night Hacker]

It's not about being entitled. It's about fixing critical problems to earn patreon support.

Imagine you really like something, but it makes a catastrophic mistake that could've been easily rectified, and STILL appease 100% of the userbase, wouldn't you do it and get free $$$, with no one getting upset? lol Think about it. You add a fix that please potential new customers, while not upsetting your existing patreons in anyway. IT'S A NO BRAINER.

Yeah, YOU REALLY LIKE SOMETHING, while other people (other people do exist besides you, hence the "entitled" comment). I prefer Jenna, and others prefer other characters. I think your meds need renewing.

If you want a different game where you force players to like only certain characters (good luck with that) than MAKE IT YOURSELF! Coming out and telling a writer how to write THEIR STORY is considered rude! Minor tweaks where there might be a flaw they didn't see, but what you want is unreasonable. Make your own story with your own characters. See how "easy" it really is (hint: it's NOT, that's why updates take so long).

 

[hakarlman]

Yeah, YOU REALLY LIKE SOMETHING, while other people (other people do exist besides you, hence the "entitled" comment). I prefer Jenna, and others prefer other characters. I think your meds need renewing.

I'm glad you like Jenna, but adding a dialogue option that lets us avoid her would appease me, and it wouldn't affect you from pursuing Jenna in anyway. Do you understand this logic? You'll be happy, I'll be happy, with a simple addition of a dialogue choice that lets us bypass content with her.

Imagine if you could make two separate groups happy, with a few lines of code, and no one gets upset, and you gain more patreon revenue, wouldn't you do it?

Put your emotions aside. Put your need to want to be right aside. Think logically.

The game already lets us kind of reject Jenna. All I'm asking is that choice should matter, it should stick, and we should be able to just kind of ignore Jenna, tell her we're not interested. We can still be friendly to her. But once we say we're not interested, that's it, we're not interested, unless perhaps she changes in a dramatic way later or something?

When making a porn romance game, you never want the end user to be turned off, do you understand this?

Here's another thing. If someone introduces you to 5 women, do you think you're going to like ALL 5 women? There's a chance, but there's also a chance if you introduce the same 5 girls to other guys, they won't be interested in all 5 of them, get it? A simple way to reject the ones you don't like would APPEASE EVERYONE. EVERYONE WINS.

 

[Night Hacker]

I'm glad you like Jenna, but adding a dialogue option that lets us avoid her would appease me, and it wouldn't affect you from pursuing Jenna in anyway. Do you understand this logic? You'll be happy, I'll be happy, with a simple addition of a dialogue choice that lets us bypass content with her.

Imagine if you could make two separate groups happy, with a few lines of code, and no one gets upset, and you gain more patreon revenue, wouldn't you do it?

Put your emotions aside. Put your need to want to be right aside. Think logically.

Adding a dialog option to avoid her isn't just a matter of adding in a new menu option. Go ahead, TRY CODING IT YOURSELF!!! If you wish to avoid her, than all future updates need to be written with multiple scenarios, including the totally NEW scenario where you have nothing at all to do with her, which not only requires a newer, complete story REWRITE, it requires many new renders for new scenes without her and it adds to the already large, complex paths that need to be accounted for.

Just adding in ONE more option like this exponentially adds to the complexity and work involved! Removing something doesn't make things easier. Whether you're removing the option to choose a character or adding in an option to choose a new character, the work is THE SAME! No matter how you roll it, you're adding in a NEW PATH the character can take that NEEDS to be fully accounted for now, and in the future = A LOT MORE WORK.

Go ahead, DO IT YOURSELF! You're not experienced with this AT ALL I see. Experiment, create your own game, maybe a short story with multiple paths for now. You'll see it's not so easy. Heck, just writing a story that makes sense is difficult, let alone setting up each scene in Daz and rendering them.

Edit: As for me "thinking logically", I have created video games since the 1990s (I have one that was downloaded millions of times worldwide) and I have started a visual novel that will probably never see the light of day and done tons of renders. It's a lot of work... and a lot of LOGIC involved ironically.

 

[hakarlman]

Adding a dialog option to avoid her isn't just a matter of adding in a new menu option. Go ahead, TRY CODING IT YOURSELF!!!

Bro, it's easy. Here you go:

label story83:
  menu:
    "let's fuck":
        jump JennaSexScene
    "go away":
        jump NoSexWithJenna_GoToNextPartofStory

How long did that take? Like 30 seconds?

I can't respond to you anymore until you make rational sense.

want more code?

default playerHatesJenna = False
label story3:
  menu:
    "i like jenna":
         "your great"
    "i hate jenna":
       $ playerHatesJenna  = True

 

[Night Hacker]

Bro, it's easy. Here? How long did that take? Like 30 seconds?

label story83:
  menu:
    "let's fuck":
        jump JennaSexScene
    "go away":
        jump NoSexWithJenna_GoToNextPartofStory

I can't respond to you anymore until you make rational sense.

As I said (and you didn't read it obviously) it's more than just one menu option. How will the game know in the future that you didn't want to have sex with Jenna? You didn't add any variables in to account for that. And what about scenes where Jenna would be a part of any sex, the dev has to check the variables and render new scenes without her. he also has to rewrite the story to account for her NOT being an interest for you.

As I said, go ahead, DO IT YOURSELF, you have ZERO experience with making games obviously. ALL choices like this create new paths and alter the story and need to be accounted for in the future in game = A LOT more work.

 

[hakarlman]

As I said (and you didn't read it obviously) it's more than just one menu option. How will the game know in the future that you didn't want to have sex with Jenna?

plot flag, it took 30 seconds to write this.

default playerHatesJenna = False
label story3:
  menu:
    "i like jenna":
         "your great"
    "i hate jenna":
       $ playerHatesJenna  = True

Cheekygimp is an expert at doing the above. It's trivial for him, because he's already done it throughout the whole game.

 

[hakarlman]

the dev has to check the variables and render new scenes without her.

OH NO. HE HAS TO CHECK A VARIABLE. THE HORROR.

label story_bla:
    if playerHateJenna:
        mc "please go away"

he also has to rewrite the story to account for her NOT being an interest for you.

Nah, just skip any sexual scenario. I'd be fine with that.

As I said, go ahead, DO IT YOURSELF, you have ZERO experience with making games obviously. ALL choices like this create new paths and alter the story and need to be accounted for in the future in game = A LOT more work.

I could probably do all this in a day or less. If the dev wants help I'll help. This stuff is literally the easiest to do in ren'py. If you did ren'py tutorials, you could learn how to do all this in like a few hours.

 

[ghostrider4570]

Just my 5 cents here. As one who reads a lot of these discussions and plays a lot of these games there is something that has become quite obvious. There are a lot of folks that want these games tailored to their whims and wishes. I want this but i don't want that, I want to see this but don't show me that, oh my god NTR, the world is coming to an end. There are things I care for and some not so much, things I would like to see or have occur in the story line and some that I don't care if they do or not. In the end, just as in real life you don't always get what you want and somethings, no matter how much you don't care for, it isn't avoidable. There is a tremendous amount of work that goes into these games and my hats off to ALL the devs as I wouldn't know where to even begin such an endeavor. One needs to keep in mind that all of these games are created and revolve around the visions of the developer and suggestions are welcome I'm sure, but don't ever think a dev is going to change their vision to suit the personal likes or dislikes of any player.

 

[Night Hacker]

This is pointless. "in one ear and out the other". Got to love the IGNORE feature!

 

[Night Hacker]

Just to explain the exponential increase in work for a dev a little better for those who do know how to read and understand...

Lets say you have a scene with a threesome that has say, 20 renders (a conservative number, usually there's lots more). That's one path, 20 renders. BUT, the players want the option to exclude any one or all of the girls. You have Girl 1, 2 and 3. You need a path for all three, a path for girl 1 + 2, a path for girl 1 + 3, a path for girl 2 + 3 if any one of them is excluded. You also need paths if two are excluded, so 1, 2 or 3 (three paths). You also need variables to control all of this so you can write the dialog, checking the variables so the character doesn't mention someone they shouldn't, that's three variables there plus all the dialog rewrites.

So that's 7 separate paths at 20 separate renders per path means your small 20 render scene just ballooned to 140 renders, three extra variables and a whole lot of dialog to account for each path and have fun trying to work out a good story taking into account just these minor changes.

Just so people know... there's a whole lot more you need to think about when making changes.

 

[♩♪♫ ŤЦ尺尺ØЛ ♫♪♩]

good that its [onhold] no 32bit fix it

 

[CheekyGimp]

Cool thank's for letting me know i really like your game btw
Although no girl comes close to being as awesome as Katie lol
Is the re-do gonna give us the option to not be as mean to the other milf (I think her name is Zarah?) besides the mom
i feel like the mc is very rude to her at the beginning of the game
Either way tho like i said it's a really good game

Yep, the re-do will give some more options including not being as rude to Zarah (if you don't want to be) and also (as the previous poster pointed out) more options to say no to women earlier in the game and completely avoid content with women you aren't interested in.

 

[Night Hacker]

good that its [onhold] no 32bit fix it

The game uses RenPY 8, which no longer produces 32bit versions. Not sure why anyone would need one these days.

 

[Joshy92]

Yep, the re-do will give some more options including not being as rude to Zarah (if you don't want to be) and also (as the previous poster pointed out) more options to say no to women earlier in the game and completely avoid content with women you aren't interested in.

Ok cool thank's i always felt like an arsehole with the way the mc treated her.
Yeah katie's the only girl for me lol (at least for a first playthrought)

 

[CheekyGimp]

Just to explain the exponential increase in work for a dev a little better for those who do know how to read and understand...

Lets say you have a scene with a threesome that has say, 20 renders (a conservative number, usually there's lots more). That's one path, 20 renders. BUT, the players want the option to exclude any one or all of the girls. You have Girl 1, 2 and 3. You need a path for all three, a path for girl 1 + 2, a path for girl 1 + 3, a path for girl 2 + 3 if any one of them is excluded. You also need paths if two are excluded, so 1, 2 or 3 (three paths). You also need variables to control all of this so you can write the dialog, checking the variables so the character doesn't mention someone they shouldn't, that's three variables there plus all the dialog rewrites.

So that's 7 separate paths at 20 separate renders per path means your small 20 render scene just ballooned to 140 renders, three extra variables and a whole lot of dialog to account for each path and have fun trying to work out a good story taking into account just these minor changes.

Just so people know... there's a whole lot more you need to think about when making changes.

Yeah, the writing/branching is a nightmare too. I painted myself into a corner giving too many options but I'm committed now so I'm going to see it through and not going to start ignoring previous choices just to make things easier/quicker.

Currently writing a scene for EP24 with

Spoiler: EP24 scene details

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[HornyyPussy]

Just to explain the exponential increase in work for a dev a little better for those who do know how to read and understand...

Lets say you have a scene with a threesome that has say, 20 renders (a conservative number, usually there's lots more). That's one path, 20 renders. BUT, the players want the option to exclude any one or all of the girls. You have Girl 1, 2 and 3. You need a path for all three, a path for girl 1 + 2, a path for girl 1 + 3, a path for girl 2 + 3 if any one of them is excluded. You also need paths if two are excluded, so 1, 2 or 3 (three paths). You also need variables to control all of this so you can write the dialog, checking the variables so the character doesn't mention someone they shouldn't, that's three variables there plus all the dialog rewrites.

So that's 7 separate paths at 20 separate renders per path means your small 20 render scene just ballooned to 140 renders, three extra variables and a whole lot of dialog to account for each path and have fun trying to work out a good story taking into account just these minor changes.

Just so people know... there's a whole lot more you need to think about when making changes.

Anyone with the capacity of rational thinking understands it

 

[CheekyGimp]

It's not a huge undertaking. It's extremely easy. I kid you not man. Cheekygimp is already good with dialogue choice and plot flag management, a few more plot flags wouldn't hurt.

Also the game errors out a lot when you first start it. He needs to either declare persistent variables VERY early, giving them a default value or just check for nonetype. It's so easy.

On a side note, these are my stats. I"m the kind of player that is very choosy and picky about the women in game. This is just critical feedback for the dev. He doesn't even need to respond.
View attachment 2519837

Are you playing with a mod? Shouldn't be getting errors like that. ALL variables do have a default value so shouldn't be errors for calling a non-declared variable. Let me know which variables are causing you problems. And let me know what episode/version of the game you are playing (and confirm no mods). Also...the re-do version of the game that we're working on will give more freedom to declare less interest in characters you choose (and will reduce their screentime). There will be some scenes that I will have to make unavoidable (for plot reasons) but there will still be plenty of scenes that will be removed for non-interested players.

 

[CheekyGimp]

Anyone with the capacity of rational thinking understands it

You'd be surprised how many people that rules out. And most of them seem to have my email address (the joys!)