Feb 13, 2022
30
13
Just curious, is it possible (either by mod or maybe coding it myself in some way) to put in custom photos/profile pictures on some of the generated dudes? Because I would like to change, mostly the ones in the chad folder, into other people of my choosing (obviously through the downloaded version.)
 

l1lym

Aphrodite, creator of X-Change Life™
Game Developer
Jan 21, 2019
1,145
3,754
Just curious, is it possible (either by mod or maybe coding it myself in some way) to put in custom photos/profile pictures on some of the generated dudes? Because I would like to change, mostly the ones in the chad folder, into other people of my choosing (obviously through the downloaded version.)
Definitely! You would simple replace the images in /img/npc/guys/generated/, and the game will use your new ones.

Now, if you want to change it so the descriptions match these photos, you can do that too, but slightly tougher. There's a js file compiled with the game that contains all the data structure definitions. I've attached the separate file so you can see how it's structured. You can edit the values directly in the X-Change Life.html file, alternatively I believe the Mod loader allows you to recompile the js files now.

Anyhow that's just if you want to change their attributes - adding the custom images is super easy - just replace the images using the same names.
 

Z3r0K00l

Member
Aug 30, 2022
185
440
Harlowe no longer scales poorly due to recent updates to the engine, the history macro can be eliminated and the local storage bloat can as well. I have also customized the engine a bit to cut out some things we don’t need and add features like save exporting.

The only other Twine game as mechanically complex as this one is accidental woman written in Sugarcube.
Not gonna take you at your word 'cause the poor performance in a browser that isn't chromium based speaks by itself, and even then it tends to get laggy in certain events.

AW mechanics are definetely more complex than this game, although it's terribly unnecesary tho. This game mechanics are definetely more elegant and acomplish in a much simpler way what AW cant accomplish with its complex mechanics.
 

l1lym

Aphrodite, creator of X-Change Life™
Game Developer
Jan 21, 2019
1,145
3,754
Not gonna take you at your word 'cause the poor performance in a browser that isn't chromium based speaks by itself, and even then it tends to get laggy in certain events.

AW mechanics are definetely more complex than this game, although it's terribly unnecesary tho. This game mechanics are definetely more elegant and acomplish in a much simpler way what AW cant accomplish with its complex mechanics.
You can see in the save file size, that XCL save file sizes are under 1mb, mine are usually around 200kb. It used to be that Harlowe would continue storing every "turn" of data, but now it no longer does if you use the (forget-undos:) etc macros.

XCL may not *seem* more complex from the outset, because it hides a lot of its complexity from the player and tries to present things simply. But if you take a look at the NPC generation etc under the hood, the cock database, the clothing database and sex position database, it is handing quite a large amount of stuff.

Most people do have good performance on Firefox, there are just so many things going into browser performance. My desired future state is to release an electron app that will have more access to system resources.

I love this game, personally I hope it never ends
Me too! My goal is to continue supporting it, building it more into a "platform" than just a game, so that people can make their own mods and storylines.
 
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Z3r0K00l

Member
Aug 30, 2022
185
440
You can see in the save file size, that XCL save file sizes are under 1mb, mine are usually around 200kb. It used to be that Harlowe would continue storing every "turn" of data, but now it no longer does if you use the (forget-undos:) etc macros.

XCL may not *seem* more complex from the outset, because it hides a lot of its complexity from the player and tries to present things simply. But if you take a look at the NPC generation etc under the hood, the cock database, the clothing database and sex position database, it is handing quite a large amount of stuff.

Most people do have good performance on Firefox, there are just so many things going into browser performance. My desired future state is to release an electron app that will have more access to system resources.
Electron spins up an instance of chromium to run your code so i dont really see why it should give you increased performance, the browser already has access to all the system resources anyways.
 

l1lym

Aphrodite, creator of X-Change Life™
Game Developer
Jan 21, 2019
1,145
3,754
Yes it's running chromium but there are performance benefits to an electron app.

Mainly,

1. Overhead is reduced - it doesn't have to deal with all of the other tasks a browser is doing, such as managing multiple tabs, extensions, etc.
2. Access to file system - i'll be able to use node.js apis to offload game content to separate files potentially rather than jamming everything into the .html file.

Save data will be easier to keep safe too.

Overall browsers are optimized for web browsing, not for media heavy game experiences.
 
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Z3r0K00l

Member
Aug 30, 2022
185
440
Yes it's running chromium but there are performance benefits to an electron app.

Mainly,

1. Overhead is reduced - it doesn't have to deal with all of the other tasks a browser is doing, such as managing multiple tabs, extensions, etc.
2. Access to file system - i'll be able to use node.js apis to offload game content to separate files potentially rather than jamming everything into the .html file.

Save data will be easier to keep safe too.

Overall browsers are optimized for web browsing, not for media heavy game experiences.
Point one is moot since browsers are multi threaded so each tab executes in its own process.
I dunno about point two, in browsers all media content is lazy loaded so they're not read from the disk/downloaded from the internet till they're about to be displayed.

I think youre more limited by javascript single threaded nature than by the browsers themselves.
 

l1lym

Aphrodite, creator of X-Change Life™
Game Developer
Jan 21, 2019
1,145
3,754
Point one is moot since browsers are multi threaded so each tab executes in its own process.
I dunno about point two, in browsers all media content is lazy loaded so they're not read from the disk/downloaded from the internet till they're about to be displayed.

I think youre more limited by javascript single threaded nature than by the browsers themselves.
I'm not referring to loading media, referring to loading text databases and stuff, keeping them separate from the HTML file so that they are only retrieved exactly when necessary.

Anyhow... gonna kick that can down the road. For now, just note that Firefox will have lower performance when running the game compared to Chrome, generally speaking. If it works fine for you then good, but I will be continuing to test mainly on Chrome as it is by far what most people are using.
 
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iamtheman000

Member
Mar 6, 2018
127
201
l1lym I'm not sure if I did something wrong or what. After I've done the dancing for Dredd and lost masculinity/identity points he didn't ask me to come back with him. Afterwards when I went to the bar I also wasn't able to dance again. Whenever I click on it the screen just goes blank and nothing happens at all.
 

l1lym

Aphrodite, creator of X-Change Life™
Game Developer
Jan 21, 2019
1,145
3,754
l1lym I'm not sure if I did something wrong or what. After I've done the dancing for Dredd and lost masculinity/identity points he didn't ask me to come back with him. Afterwards when I went to the bar I also wasn't able to dance again. Whenever I click on it the screen just goes blank and nothing happens at all.
Can you see if this test build fixes it?
 
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l1lym

Aphrodite, creator of X-Change Life™
Game Developer
Jan 21, 2019
1,145
3,754
What is the name of the button specifically that you're clicking?
 

iamtheman000

Member
Mar 6, 2018
127
201
What is the name of the button specifically that you're clicking?
I'll try to explain it more clearly. The first time I even did the dance for Dredd's boys I didn't get offered the serum even after losing identity. When I did go back to the bar thought to speak to him again I clicked the dance again button and when I do basically nothing happens. I'll attach these two photos for some reference so it might make it easier. Screenshot 2023-05-19 023332.png Screenshot 2023-05-19 023405.png
 

l1lym

Aphrodite, creator of X-Change Life™
Game Developer
Jan 21, 2019
1,145
3,754
How about this:
I'll try to explain it more clearly. The first time I even did the dance for Dredd's boys I didn't get offered the serum even after losing identity. When I did go back to the bar thought to speak to him again I clicked the dance again button and when I do basically nothing happens. I'll attach these two photos for some reference so it might make it easier. View attachment 2633020 View attachment 2633021
Okay, understood. How about this then:
 
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Kavalor

Member
Jan 29, 2021
451
431
Anyhow... gonna kick that can down the road. For now, just note that Firefox will have lower performance when running the game compared to Chrome, generally speaking. If it works fine for you then good, but I will be continuing to test mainly on Chrome as it is by far what most people are using.
From the point of view of a single developer I can understand you, but please be aware that if you only optimize for Chrome Engine, you are contributing to a return to the bad old days of Internet Explorer 6. Back then nearly all webistes were not following standards , but were build only to work with IE6. Firefox helped to break this trend and made standards viable again.
Now Google is on the brink to control the Internet in this way as Firefox is the only major browder (I know of) out there which does not use the Chrome engine. And optimizing only for Chrome contributes to the fact that this is bad.
 
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fayoun

Newbie
Mar 23, 2018
15
9
From the point of view of a single developer I can understand you, but please be aware that if you only optimize for Chrome Engine, you are contributing to a return to the bad old days of Internet Explorer 6. Back then nearly all webistes were not following standards , but were build only to work with IE6. Firefox helped to break this trend and made standards viable again.
Now Google is on the brink to control the Internet in this way as Firefox is the only major browder (I know of) out there which does not use the Chrome engine. And optimizing only for Chrome contributes to the fact that this is bad.
Dude, XCL won't have a significant impact on which browser people will use and I think the devs are free to choose what browser to optimize the game for. Just embrace big brother and chill ;)
 

carabasse

Newbie
Feb 28, 2018
36
14
Started a new game...
I ran into an issue where guys won't actually pay me for sex.
I mean, they offer to pay me, but I won't actually get the money.
 

Z3r0K00l

Member
Aug 30, 2022
185
440
From the point of view of a single developer I can understand you, but please be aware that if you only optimize for Chrome Engine, you are contributing to a return to the bad old days of Internet Explorer 6. Back then nearly all webistes were not following standards , but were build only to work with IE6. Firefox helped to break this trend and made standards viable again.
Now Google is on the brink to control the Internet in this way as Firefox is the only major browder (I know of) out there which does not use the Chrome engine. And optimizing only for Chrome contributes to the fact that this is bad.
The game doesnt have poor performance because the dev has optimized for chrome, it has poor performance because its a fact that firefox is inherently slower than chrome, and its firefox own fault because they seem more interested in politics rather than in improving their browser. focusing on chrome is the best choice for a dev because you get better performance out of the box without a hassle.

and i say this as someone who daily drives firefox btw.

EDIT: Do not misunderstand my post as me placing all the burden of performance on the browser alone, when it comes down to it there's a heavy price to pay for Harlowe's abstractions but Firefox will slow down earlier than Chrome due to their different JavaScript engines. The bottleneck itself in this case is no other than Harlowe, Harlowe was meant for small text-based games of the CYOA style not for this kind of heavily interactive game with lots of media.
The game will continue getting slower as it grows and Firefox will continue slowing down earlier.
 
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