Virtual Fantasy Girls release!!!

[ExLibris]

I think that describing this as a fantasy game (ie part of the fantasy genre) is a bit of a stretch. The thing that struck me when I first played the game was how it felt almost exactly like the previous games, just transplanted into a superficially fantasy setting.

Obviously characters in fantasy settings do go on dates, but making it almost exactly the same as a modern date didn't aid my suspension of disbelief. Why choose a fantasy setting if you're not going to make greater use of the genre's conventions? As it is, the main thing that lets you know that this is a fantasy game are the Oblivion screenshots.

Chaotic should be applauded for having produced however many games it is now, and they're not bad games by any means. But I do think there's still a lot of room for improvement.

[MDK]

Slipstone wrote : Endings so far:
Vanish clothes - bed - good ending
Vanish shoes - bed - undress - good ending
No game - bed - undress - good ending (3rd way MDK)
Vanish clothes - outside - good ending

ok true there is a 3rd but to my way of thinking the vanish clothes & vanish shoes are (almost exactly) the same. i was talking about the vanish method & the get drunk method as being the 2 different ways to get the bed ending :-)

[MDK]

and like others have said, this game "is" money based, so why is there not something to tell us how much money that we have? i honestly thought that once the money ran out, there would be something in the game that would allow us to get more money & buy more items.

[Slipstone]

....so let's hope that this is an interim release and all these hoped-for features are in the pipeline. Perhaps Chaotic is using this feedback to refine the game further. It certainly seems shallow at present but, all power to his elbow, he's doing a job I couldn't even begin. Let's not be critical.

[silke_s]

In my opinion, our critic of Chaotics work is a bit too much on the negative side. Granted there are bugs in his games, granted the code could be opitmized, granted not everything works on every browser etc. nevertheless, at least in my opinions, his games are the best of their kind since Ariane B.

I am sure that Chaotic has put much time and great effort in the development of his games and we should first appreciate that before we start to criticize the way he codes them.

And in my case, I prefer, Chaotic using his time to create more and more of his beautiful games than investing his time in reading through long books to improve his coding skills.

[Arnulf]

Hi, MDK, in principle you are right, but in this case the overview about the money isn't so difficult:

From the start you have 10 golden coins available.
In the store you can purchase the plant (2 coins), the game-box (4 coins) and the dress (5 coins).

In the inn you can have drinks once for 4 coins. That is all.

For the present stage of the game (maybe it will extended, as Chaotic announced) you only can influence positively the game-play with the drinks and the game. So you only need 8 coins. Also there is a way to a fucking ending (in bed), where you need no money at all.

By the way, I made a general check of the source code and I made a lot of fixes and nice extensions, which I'll offer Chaotic to implement in his basic Latricia Phantasy Date. This will be finished tomorrow and if Chaotic approves, this improvements will be available within a few days.

[Fishlips]

Just wanted to say thanks to Chaotic for another enjoyable game- far better than most of the people grizzling about bugs here can make, I guess!

[coder]

There are quite some one-line comments, saying they enjoyed the game and that people should not complain that much. It's getting on my nerves and I'll tell why.

We obviously like his games, otherwise we would not even try them or not longer than a few minutes. I would just like the games to improve. And to know how to do that, you need to know the flaws. Maybe the tone sometimes is too negative. I don't really agree, but that might be just my way of viewing.

I don't see any of the positive people suggesting any improvements, whereas the negative comments at least suggest the stuff that they disagree with, so it can help for this game or future games. And there are some suggestions for improvement too.

It's nice to hear/read a compliment. If the people who don't like the game or parts of would not speak up, but just ignore the game and think forget about those games (that's the alternative), your audience will become smaller untill there's almost noone left.

So let's all just compliment when you want to do so and criticise when you feel it's in order. And if you don't agree with the critics, point out what you don't agree with instead of just generally shouting people should not complain. That just would be more helpful as I see it.

[Tjommi]

I got 2 things to say, first I decited to buy VIP membership for a year on his site. That should tell what I think about his game, and the other thing is more of of a comment really:

Morrowind ? never played...

.... Nope the background graphics is borrowed from Elder scrolls of Oblivion. It's an open source game and can be used and manipulated as one wish as long as you sell/earn money on their work. ( It's beeing considered as an oblivion Mod allthough you can't play it in Oblivion ).

other than that I don't really know what to say than Elves and Mermaids are purdy.

[ExLibris]

Just as a point of clarification, Oblivion is *not* open-source as I understand the term (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source). It does have a very active modding community, but that's not quite the same thing (and you might want to Google 'Limbo of the Lost' as well)

On the larger issue, I don't see how criticism can be a bad thing as long as it's objective and constructive. It might seem a bit churlish to find fault with something that is being offered to the community for free (eventually), but if games are met with only uncritical adulation there's no reason for authors to make any effort to improve their quality. And given that Chaotic is selling his games (to a limited extent), surely he'd want to improve their quality to the point that more people would be willing to part with their money?

[K9GM3]

I must agree with ExLibris. The fantasy setting is very underused - other than the magic game, there's no real fantasy elements involved.

On a less serious note, does anyone find it odd or dangerous that kids can buy a game to make things disappear?

[silke_s]

@coder and others

(Just a short reply to make myself a bit more clear, after that I wan't bother you further)

Of course, I agree there is nothing wrong with constructive critic and if Chaotic is still reading this forum I am sure he will profiit a lot from it. And if somebody as Arnulf really helps the author to improve the code, I am sure he appreciates it.


However, I think it is important how we articulate our critic and we should not forget to point out what is good. Everyone who know how it feels to be critized knows as well that it is much easier to deal constructively with critic, even it is harsh, when first the positive aspects are pointed out. When you go through the posts in this thread, you do find little praise for the game, but you find for every aspect of the game at least someone who does not like it: to much fantasy, not enough fantasy, bad language, bad code and on and on...

If I don't ad my own critic, it is not because I have no opinion or think that it can't be improved, but because I think that the few real bugs have already been reported (the gift at the beginning, the shop) and we all know, that Chaotic is working on the game, and as far as I can see, he has enough good ideas. E.g. both the archery and the dog are nice ideas (one could of course expand).

[cheese101]

just wondering when the update is goin to be if anybody knows?

[betterbig2]

The entire website was redesigned (much better now! Congratulations Chaotic!). An update was announced in his blog for Sunday ...

[cheese101]

i noticed:D
and a new char instead of just adding endings:D
and he says this way is faster:D
and 3somes:P