The Photographer by Chaotic

[SYH]

Was it truly posted as a "beta"? If so, then bugs are to be expected and I'll wait until the final version is out there to judge. If it was a beta, sounds like he was asking for help and input. No one is forcing anyone to play it.

Tacking on "beta" is Chaotic's cheap copout for all the bugs in this game.

"Of course there are broken links and chunks of HTML lifted from (Katie, Nelana, Office Party, etc.) without any proofreading. It's a beta release!"

[tlaero]

I personally 'fix' the game by turning off javascprit temporarily. This allows you to go to the previously visited page and works wonders in the game (at least under Opera)

If you look at the Javascript code, there's a much cleaner way to go to previously visited pages. I know because he's using code I wrote (with permission!)

Tlaero

[tlaero]

"Of course there are broken links and chunks of HTML lifted from (Katie, Nelana, Office Party, etc.) without any proofreading. It's a beta release!"

Let's be fair. It IS listed as beta as is only available on offsite. That's kind of the same as people posting unfinished stuff to the "Projects" section here on the Lagoon. No one complains about that (rightfully so). I suspect he'll fix most of the actual bugs before he releases this free game to the masses. It's too close to his proposed release date to change the more fundamental gameplay and storyline problems, though. At least I THINK it is. He may surprise us.

Tlaero

[Wutaro]

i didn't really run into any bugs, and i'll agree it's a little dissapointing that all the girls aren't playable but he does clearly list who has an ending and who doesn't so it shouldn't be a surprise when you can't talk to a certain girl at the end. i will ask though is Ellie (your secretary) a gettable girl at the end, i can't figure out how to get her as there seems to be so few options for her when you speak

[TheBrain]

Let's be fair. It IS listed as beta as is only available on offsite. That's kind of the same as people posting unfinished stuff to the "Projects" section here on the Lagoon. No one complains about that (rightfully so). I suspect he'll fix most of the actual bugs before he releases this free game to the masses. It's too close to his proposed release date to change the more fundamental gameplay and storyline problems, though. At least I THINK it is. He may surprise us.

Tlaero

It's already been released for the public (I don't have an offsite account), with no mention of beta at all. But even if it is labeled beta I think there are bugs in here that are simply unexcusable. For any self-respecting developer beta would mean something like "it's playable, but there may be bugs". And for me that means that he would at least just play through each main storyline (if you can call it a story) to see if it isn't obviously broken. Now, for example, the first time you talk to the assistant at the party she will always say she's chatting to the bartender because of a bug, effectively breaking that whole ending. This could've been caught by simply playing through the game making the right choices for that ending, and "beta" is not an excuse for that, it shouldn't have been released with such easy to find bugs present.

[rabbie]

Chaotic is slipping badly these days, his first few games were made with care and attention i thought - phreaky and tlaero have left him behind. Chaotic can deff raise his game again though.

[blaman]

I honestly don't remember if offsite mentioned that it's beta or not, checked a moment ago and indeed it says beta. Dont remember if it said that originally

Anyways, I downloaded it thinking it's final release. The blog clearly states 'final release date', not 'beta release date'. In no way it even mentions that a beta version would be released. On contrary, it states "It isn’t far from a point where I would be happy releasing it however". I hope that doesn't mean that Chaotic treats beta as a normal release

I still greatly oppose releasing soemthing so broken even as a beta. I've done a few beta tests of my games and we have always worked very hard to remove all the known bugs before the beta test began. If you let your game outside - it should be working. Sure, bugs can be expected. But the game needs to be playable, and in case of Chaotic's recent games this doesn't hold true. And he did delay it by a week anyway, so the bugs shouldn't be there, at least not in such amount...

As I've said before - it feels wrong to bitch about someone's work that you get for free, but we need to show that we'd be much happier to receive a polished game even if that means waiting a bit more, than to receive something broken. That's all

[tlaero]

TheBrain, the version I played was from the Offsite and listed as Beta. It's unfortunate that he went on to release it in that buggy form. )-:

Tlaero

[Serge]

The first version on office site is the beta one.
I've found a lot of bugs and send to chaotic a realease.
The free version is less buggy (but still)than the first one . I've send Chaotic another realease.

Hope the next one will be the good one.

[ExLibris]

After playing through The Photographer as much as I cared to, I just have one question: how on Earth does Chaotic's Offsite still have paying members?

The only thing I can think of is that people are sticking around out of a sense of loyalty. If so, I think that sense of loyalty is misplaced. This year's free games have uniformly been buggy, poorly written messes, and I've not heard anything to indicate that the Offsite games have been any better. The conclusion I reach from that is that Chaotic has long since ceased to care about the quality of his games, and the only thing that's going to jolt him out of his complacency is if the number of paying customers nosedives.

[sizzdaddy]

I think Maddison is pretty hot. Anyone willing to give me the walkthrough for her ending via pm?

[Cochise]

Guess it's alright... far from the final masterpiece it's supposed to be though.

Pretty much sacrificed any depth to the sex scenes in favor of multiple girls. The new non-recycled models like the boss and the girl from the beach are good too, too bad the sex scenes are so shallow.

[SYH]

After playing through The Photographer as much as I cared to, I just have one question: how on Earth does Chaotic's Offsite still have paying members?

The only thing I can think of is that people are sticking around out of a sense of loyalty. If so, I think that sense of loyalty is misplaced. This year's free games have uniformly been buggy, poorly written messes, and I've not heard anything to indicate that the Offsite games have been any better. The conclusion I reach from that is that Chaotic has long since ceased to care about the quality of his games, and the only thing that's going to jolt him out of his complacency is if the number of paying customers nosedives.

I admit, I did buy an Offsite membership three months ago. I had hoped there would be something behind the curtain worth my $20. Yes, there are more games on the Offsite side, but they are just as poorly coded (if not worse) as the free offerings. If anything, Chaotic uses the Offsite folks as alpha-testers before giving the unwashed masses the beta version. Serge quite often supplies the final release.

I will not be renewing my membership. I am done supporting Chaotic.

Guess it's alright...far from the final masterpiece it's supposed to be though.

Agreed.

[ExLibris]

Guess it's alright... far from the final masterpiece it's supposed to be though.

Pretty much sacrificed any depth to the sex scenes in favor of multiple girls. The new non-recycled models like the boss and the girl from the beach are good too, too bad the sex scenes are so shallow.

I actually thought the gameplay of The Photographer was better than Rachel 2, especially once I edited helloworld.html so that I didn't have to do those tedious photoshoots. The thing that worries me is if Chaotic's HTML games (which are comparatively simple to test) are this buggy, how bad are his Flash games going to be?

I have written a walkthrough, which I'll post once I've tidied it up a bit. Unfortunately it depends on the broken links being fixed, and I failed to note down which ones I'd fixed as I was going through the game.

[Super]

Guess it's alright... far from the final masterpiece it's supposed to be though.

Pretty much sacrificed any depth to the sex scenes in favor of multiple girls. The new non-recycled models like the boss and the girl from the beach are good too, too bad the sex scenes are so shallow.

The shallowness of the sex scenes doesn't really bother me. There are millions of other porn movies out there that handle sex better then any html adventure game could.

My problem is really just the shallowness of everything. Yes, there are, like, what, six girls? Something like that. All of them are the same. Even more counting all those repetitive photoshoots. What's more, the dialogue just sucks. It's... shallow. Some random guy walks up to random woman holding a camera, says "Will you model for me?", then they decide to follow you for no reason. Then they all agree to nude photoshoots. It's just... Yeah. He really needs to do some better dialogue... and actually focus on making one good story then repetitive blehness. Look at cudgel's Brenda thing. It's a one path story featuring only one girl, but it's able to focus on making that one path enjoyable instead of making six identical paths that I can't even force myself to do all of.

And the bugs... considering that this is a simple html game, and most of the problems could have been edited out if he played it through once... I mean, it's not like this is Skyrim, where it's actually huge and varied and all the bugs are just typos.

As for the Off-site... if anyone is actually paying him for this... why? What has he done deserving of your money? Especially considering its a recurring fee after it was originally supposed to be 20 dollars once and done? If you just want to support him or whatever... can I have some money too? I'd gladly take your money, and I won't even make crap with it!