House Party Beta

[xviii]

The new house design looks great, it will make the stories work so much better as I already expressed concern with previously.

I'm very happy that you are able to use your own models also. Variety is the spice of life. It looks like you're heading in the right direction already, but making the girls be very different from one another is very important IMO. Even intentionally making some less attractive is interesting to me. A redesign of all the current girls would cover most niche's that people have for typically hot girls, adding a few more slightly more average girls with less involvement in their stories would really fill out the game and put the party in house party. Even if they are just sub characters that you can't seduce, or can have an input to another characters story (threesome, lesbian, getting with another male npc etc.) that would really flesh out the game and add variety. Don't spend too much time on them or anything, tweaking existing characters into less hot versions with a different hair colour would do personally.

As for the direction in general. I think the quirky puzzle take is refreshing in the genre. My only wish is that it gets more challenging, or at least have an easy standard ending with a character and a harder to obtain ending that involves timing things with other characters better or making choices between who you want to focus on (like ashley vs madison). This allows for a quirky fun game for the standard endings but gives a challenge and is slightly more realistic for the harder endings.

Best of luck and I hope the new flexibility allows for the sex scenes to end up better than they would have using daz models.

[mistacorn]

The new house design looks great, it will make the stories work so much better as I already expressed concern with previously.

I'm very happy that you are able to use your own models also. Variety is the spice of life. It looks like you're heading in the right direction already, but making the girls be very different from one another is very important IMO. Even intentionally making some less attractive is interesting to me. A redesign of all the current girls would cover most niche's that people have for typically hot girls, adding a few more slightly more average girls with less involvement in their stories would really fill out the game and put the party in house party. Even if they are just sub characters that you can't seduce, or can have an input to another characters story (threesome, lesbian, getting with another male npc etc.) that would really flesh out the game and add variety. Don't spend too much time on them or anything, tweaking existing characters into less hot versions with a different hair colour would do personally.

As for the direction in general. I think the quirky puzzle take is refreshing in the genre. My only wish is that it gets more challenging, or at least have an easy standard ending with a character and a harder to obtain ending that involves timing things with other characters better or making choices between who you want to focus on (like ashley vs madison). This allows for a quirky fun game for the standard endings but gives a challenge and is slightly more realistic for the harder endings.

Best of luck and I hope the new flexibility allows for the sex scenes to end up better than they would have using daz models.

Thanks! Yes, I will have many more options using these over Daz models. I'm excited to be able to eventually port this to Virtual Reality (We can't lift off the top of your head to see what you're visualizing. PLEASE spell it out! LRM) as well, as the play style is very well suited for it, and there's no way I would be able to with the really processor expensive Daz models.

[Super]

I would like a more intensive game, sure, but for this particular game I think the current path is the best. If/when you make a game after this, you can expand upon the concept, but a House Party doesn't need to be too big and epic

Also, that video looked amazing.

[lath]

My opinion is that you should master the basics with this first game, then expand and experiment steadily with each following main project or do quick and dirty side works, so you can learn from them.

[mistacorn]

My opinion is that you should master the basics with this first game, then expand and experiment steadily with each following main project or do quick and dirty side works, so you can learn from them.

What do you mean by basics? The main reason I started on a redesign is because the dialogue, inventory, motion, and all fundamental mechanics of the game came to a point where they were functioning really solidly, and I felt like it made more sense to start over and redesign this game on a stable platform rather than trying to tweak it as I go. I feel like at this point, the fundamentals of the game play are there. Of course they will inevitably be added to over time I'm sure, but I'm interested to know where you think the game is lacking (other than content).

[boyo111]

Loved the game, and the new interface. The girls are attractive looking and I love the puzzles so far, still haven't won the card game yet but have seen a two of the three naked (still working on Brittany). Looking forward to the next installment.

Worked my way around one issue by reloading, turned out I was not in quite the right place.

When pulling the shelves down in the garage, if you are not in just the right place by the door you can easily get trapped in the garage with no way back into the party.

Not sure if its something that can be handled, but wanted to at least mention it.

[mistacorn]

Loved the game, and the new interface. The girls are attractive looking and I love the puzzles so far, still haven't won the card game yet but have seen a two of the three naked (still working on Brittany). Looking forward to the next installment.

Worked my way around one issue by reloading, turned out I was not in quite the right place.

When pulling the shelves down in the garage, if you are not in just the right place by the door you can easily get trapped in the garage with no way back into the party.

Not sure if its something that can be handled, but wanted to at least mention it.

Thanks for the feedback! The shelf shouldn't be an issue in the new house, as the garage will be much bigger, and I may write it a little differently.

[lath]

My opinion is that you should master the basics with this first game, then expand and experiment steadily with each following main project or do quick and dirty side works, so you can learn from them.

What do you mean by basics? The main reason I started on a redesign is because the dialogue, inventory, motion, and all fundamental mechanics of the game came to a point where they were functioning really solidly, and I felt like it made more sense to start over and redesign this game on a stable platform rather than trying to tweak it as I go. I feel like at this point, the fundamentals of the game play are there. Of course they will inevitably be added to over time I'm sure, but I'm interested to know where you think the game is lacking (other than content).

Sorry, i was thinking about Illusion's works, what they added and what they removed in the series' evolution.
What i meant by basics was to try and not overreach from the start. Take it one step at a time, each feature as best done as possible, to make sure that you can eventually be able to say "i'm done, the game is finished." at any time. I say this in hopes to avoid development hell and/or countless delays, internal discord, a cancellation or an unfinished/buggy release.
This is, as you said, your first game. It doesn't have to be perfect, but it has to work. Make it a good foundation and you'll find that future games will have more instead of less, like most other companies tend to do these days.

Sorry if this seems like a whole lot of nothing. It's the best i have.

[mistacorn]

Sorry, i was thinking about Illusion's works, what they added and what they removed in the series' evolution.
What i meant by basics was to try and not overreach from the start. Take it one step at a time, each feature as best done as possible, to make sure that you can eventually be able to say "i'm done, the game is finished." at any time. I say this in hopes to avoid development hell and/or countless delays, internal discord, a cancellation or an unfinished/buggy release.
This is, as you said, your first game. It doesn't have to be perfect, but it has to work. Make it a good foundation and you'll find that future games will have more instead of less, like most other companies tend to do these days.

Sorry if this seems like a whole lot of nothing. It's the best i have.

No that makes a lot of sense. That's been my plan from the start actually. The reason I chose the "House Party" setting for the first game was because it's all contained into one night and there's nowhere crazy for the storyline to go. I could focus on details and game mechanics to make sure I get a solid platform together. All of the code is re-usable in a new project, and I can skip the "getting it to work" part and dive straight into story development. My next project will probably be a broader scope and involve some aspects of of time management and progress over a time span.

[xviii]

I think retooling the game at this point is fine since none of the real 'end-game' moments have been reached. If using your own models helps do exactly what you want with the sex scenes without bringing about performance issues then it's worth the delay. You are right about the constraints of the location and time frame helping keep the game in check, but I guess it's still very easy to go too far. The amount of characters you have now for instance is definitely enough, I'd love more, but unless they are very secondary it will make the game a bit too in depth. That said, if you can finish the base game and then add some secondary characters which allow for new scenes with other characters that would be a good compromise. Something like have a main path with each character and add some other options once all those paths are done and possibly released. Something like a 1.5 version of the game.

Can't wait for the next beta, I'm very much looking forward to how the new characters and house look.

[mistacorn]

I think retooling the game at this point is fine since none of the real 'end-game' moments have been reached. If using your own models helps do exactly what you want with the sex scenes without bringing about performance issues then it's worth the delay. You are right about the constraints of the location and time frame helping keep the game in check, but I guess it's still very easy to go too far. The amount of characters you have now for instance is definitely enough, I'd love more, but unless they are very secondary it will make the game a bit too in depth. That said, if you can finish the base game and then add some secondary characters which allow for new scenes with other characters that would be a good compromise. Something like have a main path with each character and add some other options once all those paths are done and possibly released. Something like a 1.5 version of the game.

Can't wait for the next beta, I'm very much looking forward to how the new characters and house look.

It might be cool to add more characters, but I agree, they'd have to be secondary. I plan to re-use some of the characters in future games as well, so it also might be cool to introduce a new character as a secondary, and that character may go on to have a lead in a future game. But yes, having my own models built to my specifications helps tremendously with getting this game to where I need it to be. It also makes adding in more characters possible because the Daz models are just so expensive on the processor. My original idea for the is game was to have a bunch of secondary characters in the house, but that became impossible once I got up to around 3 or 4 Daz models in the same area.

[mistacorn]

Hey guys! We're finished up with the Madison revision and I just wanted to show it off to all of you. Check out the earrings and how they hang off her head with their own physics. Very cool stuff. We also went very different on her face and body shape than Brittney to ensure we have good variety in the game. We intend to keep this pattern up so all of the girls look very different from one another and give a better sense of reality in game!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlaUVDMkbmQ

For those of you reading this for the first time and new to House Party, you can grab the latest version for free here:
http://games.eekllc.com/index.php/category/downloads/

[xviii]

Nice work. She's definitely not quite as hot but on the flip side much more realistic looking which personally I find refreshing in the genre. I'm excited to see the variation between the characters as that will make the game far more interesting to me.

[mistacorn]

Nice work. She's definitely not quite as hot but on the flip side much more realistic looking which personally I find refreshing in the genre. I'm excited to see the variation between the characters as that will make the game far more interesting to me.

Yes, the goal was to go for realistic and not have every model smoking hot. Of course we will have one or two smoking hot girls, but we are focusing about variety.

[Super]

Looking god so far.

Have you figured out how sex scenes will work yet?

Also, I guess most or all of your games will be 3D adventure games with no action? I guess more gamey stuff would get in the way of the eroticism but yeah lol.