Brad's Erotic Week (BEW) - S01, E07 (2017-12-04)

[bing6541]

Congratulations and thank you for such a great game. This is very entertaining and I can't wait for the future episodes.

I'm having a little trouble with one of the elite paths at the bar and hoping for some help.

I can get Emily/Faith together in the booth with my reward afterward on Easy and Medium, but not on Hard. Always get stopped with a "keep it above the waist". Must be missing a point or two somewhere but I can't figure it out.

Get out of the office with 10 points for Emily on easy. Get another 1 reputation for looking at the coffee shop girl out the window. She's up to 14 after Faith's fondling.

Ask her what's wrong, don't stare at her legs. DO catch the upskirts and rub her leg (up to 22 by the time we get to the booth). And by that point it is self explanatory on easy/medium. Can't figure out any differences on hard, other than being able to go further feeling her up on the 2nd upskirt, but that doesn't seem to do it.

Any ideas?

Here's where you might be going wrong...

There is a better option than "Ask her what's wrong"

[bing6541]

Damn, why do all people have to make the wrong votes

Agree. I can't imagine Thursday at the office being complete without Brad going to the diner the night before.

[dirtyoar]

Is it wrong that the only reason that I voted for the diner is because it had the shortest wait time? Fantastic game, wolf! Very much looking forward to more!

[ares]

Damn, why do all people have to make the wrong votes

Hehe, indeed. Azumi inclusion is clearly the best path and still people are ignoring it.

No but seriously, delaying Azumi inclusion will mean that the wait when she is finally included will be bigger because as it is explained in the first page, there will be more content. So my reasoning was that better wait 4 months now than 6 months later. It also seems that if not chosen now, it will involve going back and revise old code when it is chosen. Revising old code is very time consuming. Finally, chronologically it's the one that seems to make more sense since pages pertaining to Azumi inclusion seem to appear Before than both the dinner date and the office morning scenes. but heh, I guess I'm in the minority.

[Wolfschadowe]

Congratulations and thank you for such a great game. This is very entertaining and I can't wait for the future episodes.

Thank you Inferno9898!

It's hard to tell from your description, where you're missing out, but maybe it's ok to look at her legs as long as you don't overdo it.

...many choices, but this proves the potentiality of your game.

Decisions, decisions. Thanks Rexxx for the confidence about the potentiality!

... but it seems Emily has too many fans She's my least favourite character actually.

Well, the Emily path also unlocks the Faith paths, so maybe you are facing down fans of two girls instead of just one...for now. Who is your favorite?

I literally made an account to vote in the poll (diner date) . I find this game very well made and polished (at least the parts that are completed) and I was thoroughly impressed with how tasteful and mature it is. I'm not sure how much praise I should give, because I want to sound level-headed, but I really loved it. It just shows that an erotic game doesn't need to be completely explicit to be any good, and intellectually it is far superior to most out there. Well done!
--SNIP--
Tone down the hardest difficulty a little bit. The difficulty settings you've got are a classic formula in ero games, but I've never really liked them. This is why: I want to be unrestricted in what I'll get if I play. So I always choose the hardest difficulty. I like that the stats are hidden while I play on it, makes the whole thing feel organic, but it also makes the game extremely punishing.!

Thank you for the thoughtful feedback! I'm glad that you are enjoying the game overall. Right now, I'll agree. The elite paths are punishing for those who try to do them all now. As further episodes open up and everyone becomes more familiar with the characters and their motiviations, I expect that the elite paths won't seem quite so punishing though. I recommend that everyone not try to burn themselves out going for the elite paths until there is at least a full playthrough of Season 1 available. For example, Very mild relationship spoiler

The Faith Perfect path is nearly impossible to find until we understand what happens during the erotic portion of the office on Thursday, when we start getting callback clues to the Wednesday bar scene. Since it's only episode 2, players aren't yet getting those callback clues and storypoints necessary to help with the elite paths. As the game progresses, if you pay attention, it will tell you what you need to do to achieve those paths.

As for the size of the targets. Hopefully there should be no need to scan the full screen. I tried to be careful that they would make sense. Check a few key points, like maybe lips for kissing, which may be only the size of the head, or in the case where there's lips and cheek options, they will be a little smaller. Anything else should make sense to the size of the target and story. There are no intentionally hidden hit-points.

Not counting tic-tac-toe that has already been mentioned.

I don't know, I find the voting thing a bit odd. You mention that if we don't pick Azumi now, she will need some stuff adding into things we've already done at a later date.
My only gripe with this game is it's too big - you have a huge multi path storyline with lots more to come (and complicate things). The more you release, the more options there are to have at the end of any specific chapter and therefore the more complicated the next chapter is to put together (and play through). I think you would be best off choosing what will be easiest to code and add in at any given stage and produce a timetable yourself, rather than rely on the whims of the general public

Thanks bigchief, I appreciate the feedback! The "Inclusion" packs are a special case. They are essentially expansion packs that may be selected midgame instead of waiting until the end of the game. More like DLC, so they will have an impact to the overall game. The standard episodes, the only thing that the public is choosing, is what order to see them in. The storyline is fixed.

In theory, you will have a story and plenty of sexual encounters if you choose to play on Hard Difficulty and that should leave you satisfied. The "Elite" content is then justified to be extremely hard since strictly speaking it is not necessary.

This is correct. Elite paths lead to alternate endings, but not necessarily better ones. It depends on each players individual preferences which will be "best."

Hence, I have a suggestion. For people playing in Hard Difficulty, I suggest that after the player has played m times, he accesses an option to be informed, say, every 15 or 20 pages, whether any of the Perfect Endings can be achieved. What I have in mind is a simple text box at the bottom of the screen that updates every N pages (it can't be every page because then it would be telling exactly where you made the mistake) that says something like 'Emily Perfect is achievable' or 'No Perfect Path is achievable. This option would become available to the player after he has reached an ending a number of times m where m can be say between 5 and 10.

I actually thought about this quite a bit. The game can do this, or something similar, but it's disabled. The game constantly tracks the active path, and it's an easy thing to output that on the screen, although some of the feedback I got from testers was that it was too disruptive to the story, so I pulled it. Elite paths are only achievable on Hard difficulty, and it would be misleading to show that information on lower difficulty levels. It could also be somewhat misleading as many paths are shared at points. I'm happy to re-evaluate this for future episodes and take ideas on it though.

Hopefully, and I think Wolf has confirmed this elsewhere, the game plan is already written and structured and he is not inventing the story as he goes. If the creative and organizational work is done - as in, the game is in a state such that someonw without previous knowledge of the game but with the programming/3D art skills would be able to finish it if he/she had access to Wolf's notes - then I think it's doable.

This is a true statement. The story and plan is 80-90% complete and the broad strokes are fixed. I'm still weaving a bit of Season 3, Tweaking story details a little here and there, and not everything is transferred from my notebook to digital files yet, but with a couple days of effort, If I decided to stop making the game for some reason, Someone, or a team, with Programming, Art, and a little bit of storytelling to flesh out the outline could pick up the game and deliver something very close to what I would deliver.

In fact, and no howling please, The game is actually complete through Episode 8, and I'm about halfway done with Episode 9. So why am I doling it out slowly? Consider it a buffer, like when watching a video. If I have a family emergency and need to take a month off, it won't cause delays, it will just use a month of the buffer. Or..maybe I need to take a few weeks to catch my breath and take a sanity break...you get the idea.

...when I say make them a LITTLE bit bigger, I really mean a little.

I'll keep this in mind as I make future pages.

Damn, why do all people have to make the wrong votes

Because you have refined tastes.

Thank you Wolfschadowe for what is a truly very good game

You are welcome! I'm glad you are enjoying the game evilgrim!

I can't imagine Thursday at the office being complete without Brad going to the diner the night before.

I guess that depends if you want to find out what Emily was doing while Brad was at the strip club in a later episode.

Is it wrong that the only reason that I voted for the diner is because it had the shortest wait time? Fantastic game, wolf! Very much looking forward to more!

Not wrong at all, but it's a double edged knife. Shortest wait time means also the shortest episode.

...Finally included well be bigger because as it is explained in the first page, my reasoning was that better wait 4 months now than 6 late but heh, I guess I'm in the minority.

The main difference about the inclusion characters, is that the game is complete without them. Episodes that aren't voted on will eventually become required for the game to complete due to dependencies with later episodes. An "Inclusion" vote, however, essentially promotes a character from a supporting role, to a main role adding their story's to the overall game, and is completely optional for the full game. We will meet a total of 3 inclusion capable characters over the course of the game, but it's entirely possible that they will never be added if the vote doesn't go their way. This is unique to the inclusions. All other episodes are required in one way or another before the game will be considered complete.

Wolfschadowe

[M]

Exactly the reason to wait on the inclusion characters, as far as my vote goes. They'll take longer to do in the future, but they'll make the whole game take longer now.

[inferno9898]

Congratulations and thank you for such a great game. This is very entertaining and I can't wait for the future episodes.

I'm having a little trouble with one of the elite paths at the bar and hoping for some help.

I can get Emily/Faith together in the booth with my reward afterward on Easy and Medium, but not on Hard. Always get stopped with a "keep it above the waist". Must be missing a point or two somewhere but I can't figure it out.

Get out of the office with 10 points for Emily on easy. Get another 1 reputation for looking at the coffee shop girl out the window. She's up to 14 after Faith's fondling.

Ask her what's wrong, don't stare at her legs. DO catch the upskirts and rub her leg (up to 22 by the time we get to the booth). And by that point it is self explanatory on easy/medium. Can't figure out any differences on hard, other than being able to go further feeling her up on the 2nd upskirt, but that doesn't seem to do it.

Any ideas?

Here's where you might be going wrong...

There is a better option than "Ask her what's wrong"

Thanks. It wasn't that there was a better option to say, but that I hadn't noticed you can get a guilt-free peek at her legs on the first turn after....that made the difference. It's a game of inches....

[Jiimbojones]

I feel like I played this demo 100 years ago and must say I'm very impressed with what's been done since, very nice work.

Everyone else seems much more ahead than me, so I'll post my issue that I'm sure has a simple answer that I'm missing, how do i get the demo master achievement, can't find anything else to do.

[MysteryMan2333]

First, let me begin by saying once again this game is clearly going to be the greatest version of this genre ever created. It will so far and away surpass ArianeB when it's done... which may very well be 15 years from now. It's also already borderline better than my 2nd favorite of this genre already, Getting to Know Christine. The one thing that this game does so well is build the tension with the characters really well. It's the 1st day and you're not sleeping with the characters, but just playing around with them some. That's very similar to Getting to Know Christine where it's a slow burn and I like that. I'm not sure I like it so much when we have to wait for the next episodes, but that's not your fault

I do think it would help with voting if you gave context for how much each episode took to develop. For instance, the strip club scene. In your current outlines, how long would that have taken to complete if compared to the other options? 4 months similar to Azumi? 8 months? A year? I think it'll help people decide if you give an example scene (office, bar, strip club) before the additional options to give us a comparison of what the expectation should be.

Also, FWIW, I commented on my feelings in the Projects thread for BEW about voting a couple months ago. I'll reiterate it here because it already seems like it's coming to fruition:
"I get why you want to have voting options to determine what people want to see next. However, what if the strip club options never get voted for? It seems likely that people are just going to keep voting for the next storylines of Faith and Emily considering people are invested in those characters at that point. Why would they throw a vote towards a segment of a storyline they care nothing about? Along those lines, people that potentially want to see something new are going to keep being stuck going along with the masses."

Now that I've played the updated demo with the strip club I see that you pretty much introduced all the major characters. However, I think the point still stands. Faith, Emily and Natalie at this point are the main romance-able options. I don't see how people (myself included as I selected Diner Date) are ever going to select the Azumi option. The majority of people will never want to wait 4 months for a character that they're not already invested in when given the choice. So the people who do want Azumi are going to be stuck getting the other content until you're forced to just include that optiondue to other game mechanic requirements (e.g. Azumi needs to be here on Day 2, but we don't even have her date from Day 1 yet). When you do that, are people then going to get upset because you're focusing on a character you don't care about? I guess as long as people are willing to wait longer for their "choice" character then obviously this doesn't really matter at all. I'm just concerned people will get frustrated.

That being said, obviously you deserve nothing but praise Wolfschadowe! I along with everyone else anxiously await further episodes no matter what is selected.

[Köpi]

No but seriously, delaying Azumi inclusion will mean that the wait when she is finally included will be bigger because as it is explained in the first page, there will be more content. So my reasoning was that better wait 4 months now than 6 months later.

Yes, I like the style of this game very much, and obviously many people else too. I personally miss the option at the survey to wait 7 month and get an update on every front at the same time. But i appreciate the fact, that the player is included in the development of the game

[ares]

The main difference about the inclusion characters, is that the game is complete without them. Episodes that aren't voted on will eventually become required for the game to complete due to dependencies with later episodes. An "Inclusion" vote, however, essentially promotes a character from a supporting role, to a main role adding their story's to the overall game, and is completely optional for the full game. We will meet a total of 3 inclusion capable characters over the course of the game, but it's entirely possible that they will never be added if the vote doesn't go their way. This is unique to the inclusions. All other episodes are required in one way or another before the game will be considered complete.

Ok, I had assumed that Azumi was a principal character on the same terms than Faith, Natalie and Emily due to the fact that she is one of the 8 grls that appear on the wheel in the Menu. I thought that when she became lit, it meant that there was a path with her, just like with the others. For the record, I also think Azumi is the most interesting character so far. Bar the mystery girl, she is the only one that gives hints - well, more than hints - that this is not going to be just a week in which Brad happens to get laid. Of course, maybe my problem is that

I found the Hell Hath No Fury achievement.

Anyway, given your reply, if I can, I would like to change my vote to Dinner.

[Wolfschadowe]

...how do i get the demo master achievement, can't find anything else to do.

You need

Office Max, Barfly, Megabucks Coffee, and RTFM to unlock the Demo Mastery achievement.

First, let me begin by saying once again this game is clearly going to be the greatest version of this genre ever created.

Thanks MysteryMan2333!

I do think it would help with voting if you gave context for how much each episode took to develop. For instance, the strip club scene. In your current outlines, how long would that have taken to complete if compared to the other options? 4 months similar to Azumi? 8 months? A year? I think it'll help people decide if you give an example scene (office, bar, strip club) before the additional options to give us a comparison of what the expectation should be.

The timing between episodes is pretty much how long they took to develop. As a rule of thumb, when adding up all the time for planning, outlining, posing, rendering, writing and testing, every web page takes about an hour of effort.

...So the people who do want Azumi are going to be stuck getting the other content until you're forced to just include that optiondue to other game mechanic requirements (e.g. Azumi needs to be here on Day 2, but we don't even have her date from Day 1 yet). When you do that, are people then going to get upset because you're focusing on a character you don't care about? I guess as long as people are willing to wait longer for their "choice" character then obviously this doesn't really matter at all. I'm just concerned people will get frustrated.

Since Azumi is an expansion character...there isn't even a game mechanic requirement for her. But also keep in mind that some larger episodes will take 6 months, and compare that to 4 months for Azumi. Don't worry though, some of Natalie's story-lines will feature Azumi prominently, which also provides more chances for people to become invested in her.

Wolfschadowe

[Wolfschadowe]

Anyway, given your reply, if I can, I would like to change my vote to Dinner.

Noted.

[Serge]

unable to reach n1-bar77-h in hard difficulty because F 34 is not possible...function n1bar76h()

[kexter]

unable to reach n1-bar77-h in hard difficulty because F 34 is not possible...function n1bar76h()

I've just checked, and it is possible to have "F: 34" on hard at that point. You're probably missing a point somewhere along the way.