Something's in the Air

[Fraekke]

NICE
Long awaited game for sure

Think I found a minor bug tho:

First game playthrough: made steaks, went to the bar, then went to the stripclub with Rebekka. Brought her home and stripped for the girls.
Code: efe26
Talking to Rebecca over the icecream she says 'you left me in a strip club' ... I would think she should have had some coment about me stripping for her (especially after seeing what is more or less a porn movie .. )

[tlaero]

Thank you, Ariane! I'm excited to play this. Quick bug report:

In the readme:

This software is provided "as is", with no warranty expressed or implied, us at your own risk.

Typo: you mean "use".

Also, search your code for the string, "Your welcome." It's something the player says, and you mean "You're".
Also search for "eaves dropper". It's one word.

Tlaero

[wagner]

In the save games section, there are buttons for the first eight pages of slots, but the 'next' button just lets you keep going indefinitely.

The lights for the Ellison Array settings seem to be glitchy. The puzzle itself works fine, but the buttons only sometimes light up.

[tlaero]

First impressions:

I've been playing the Ariane second date story and I'm seriously enjoying it. The artwork is fantastic, easily the best in the genre. It took me a bit of time to get used to the new look for Ariane, but she's so pretty I think you made the right choice by "upgrading" her.

There's some wonderful humor in the game, both visual and story. I love the Drive n Dine where things keep getting positioned strategically in front of the waitress. And the whole scene with Ariane calling you while you're sitting in front of her is a stitch.

Programatically, I like how much choices on the first date affect the second. I know first hand how much work these games are to make (and you did the art too! Poor dear.) and working that much variation in had to have been laborious. You set a high bar on the first game, and from early indications (I've played about 5 times so far) you surpassed it here.

Seriously quality work.

I miss clicking on the pictures. Part of the fun in these games is figuring out where to click, and it adds a secondary sense of interactivity. I don't know if Renpy allows hit targets on the images, and I'm certainly not suggesting you change THIS game. But file it away for thoughts on any potential future games. In my games, I make the menu be things you say and the on picture hit targets be things you do, and they've been well received. That said, I'm unquestionably enjoying this, lack of hit targets notwithstanding.

You've always been an inspiration to many of us on this board, Ariane. Thank you for all your hard work.

Tlaero

[ArianeB]

I miss clicking on the pictures. Part of the fun in these games is figuring out where to click, and it adds a secondary sense of interactivity. I don't know if Renpy allows hit targets on the images, and I'm certainly not suggesting you change THIS game. But file it away for thoughts on any potential future games. In my games, I make the menu be things you say and the on picture hit targets be things you do, and they've been well received. That said, I'm unquestionably enjoying this, lack of hit targets notwithstanding.

You've always been an inspiration to many of us on this board, Ariane. Thank you for all your hard work.

Tlaero

Thanks! I have played a few of your games and like them too.

Renpy does allow mouse over events, the opening menu is an example of that, as well as the first and last puzzles in story 4. The problem is that it requires at least two images, so making the whole game that way is a memory hog.

I'm planning to convert Date Ariane to Renpy. To save memory, I will mostly use menus, but there are obvious places in the Date Ariane game (the mini games, the make out scenes) that MUST use mouse over events. Hopefully I can keep that project under 200 MB as well.

[tlaero]

Ooh, I just played the "You've done everything with Ariane" one. I'm a sucker for nostalgia, and there's plenty in the normal games, but this version is awesome. I'm also a sucker for positive relationships, and I liked where this one went the best. The two of them are really cute together. I also like the way the major events happen (thunderstorm, etc) in all the date variations even though the rest is different. It's a nice storytelling technique.

Okay, on to story 2.

Tlaero

[tlaero]

Thanks! I have played a few of your games and like them too.

Sweet! I'm glad you like them. Never would have gotten into making them if not for Virtual Date with Ariane.

Tlaero

[blaman]

There are indeed 40: 11 involving Ariane, 19 involving Rachel, 1 involving Stacy, 3 involving Wendy, 2 involving Bonnie, 1 involving Veronica, and 3 involving Paula. At least 4 of these endings are only reachable by picking different prequel settings in the Options screen.

So far got:

11 (all) o Ariane's
15 of Rachel's (missing 4, out of ideas)
1 (all) of Stacy's
2 involving Wendy (missing the "good" one I guess but no idea what to do)
2 involving Bonnie (all)
1 Veronica (all)
2 Paula's (missing one, no ideas)

Massive game

Like Tlaero said - it's great that you have one consistent setting for both big dates and that you can visit same places with different girls for different results

And I never even encountered any kind of error!

Things I would work a bit more on:
Dragon's - screw that! can't see anything and I have good vision... All you can do is click, click, click, click and save
Give visible names to girls, for example in menu - right now you need to see find them in conversations, so I imagine lot's of people will look for solutions on "gym trainer" not "Wendy", as it's not so obvious which one is Wendy
Maybe a bit more of feedback to the player when he/she chooses answers?
Hint's in general - I'm missing 6 endings and without your post I wouldn't even know which girls I should continue with. You could show small hints as to how to find the unfound endings
Auto-skip button That would be handy Right now there is skip but it's deactivated each time you are presented with a choice / new scene
More sex scenes? In the current game "you get there" but there's little to see

In general - looks great, plays great and is almost completely bug-less. Wonderful

[ihutch]

There are indeed 40: 11 involving Ariane, 19 involving Rachel, 1 involving Stacy, 3 involving Wendy, 2 involving Bonnie, 1 involving Veronica, and 3 involving Paula. At least 4 of these endings are only reachable by picking different prequel settings in the Options screen.

Auto-skip button That would be handy Right now there is skip but it's deactivated each time you are presented with a choice / new scene

I am DL the beta right now but from My experience with games by - Mangagamer , Winterwolves & indie freiends (WW games are Ren'py only) and JASTUSA .... A skip previously read text is good but you always want it to stop at a decision choice or a new scene else you can miss important parts of the story.

[ihutch]

One question from a UI design point of view ....

When you right click an open up the Save , Load and options menu ... I noticed there is no "return to Title" option

This would be helpful as a way to go back and start over again if you saved and over written a savegame slot when instead you wanted to load from the savegame slot.

Example is that I always create "Savegame 1" usually at the first decision choice as this is often after intro or prologue. I had just overwritten my savegame in slot 1 so to recreate this I had to quit and restart the .exe

[thawk2048]

I've gotten 12 of the endings so far, and wow...

Rachel gives Ariane and Christina a run for their money for "hottest girl of the genre."

No bugs found, although I was -really- surprised at the Veronica ending.

I was hoping for much more out of her.

[blaman]

Auto-skip button That would be handy Right now there is skip but it's deactivated each time you are presented with a choice / new scene

from My experience with games by - Mangagamer , Winterwolves & indie freiends (WW games are Ren'py only) and JASTUSA .... A skip previously read text is good but you always want it to stop at a decision choice or a new scene else you can miss important parts of the story.

Oh absolutely, but you have misunderstood me

Autoskip should "pause" on decisions/new scenes but should "resume" once you're done with them. Right now once you reach any decision the autoskip gets fully deactivated until you reactivate it. So instead of just making decisions you make a decision, manually skip, decision, manually skip and so on

[fukae]

Is there an easy way to check how many endings you have gotten with each girl?

I have trouble getting Rachel to do it. Can't get any of Paula. A walkthrough would be great in times like this.

[ArianeB]

There are indeed 40: 11 involving Ariane, 19 involving Rachel, 1 involving Stacy, 3 involving Wendy, 2 involving Bonnie, 1 involving Veronica, and 3 involving Paula. At least 4 of these endings are only reachable by picking different prequel settings in the Options screen.

So far got:

11 (all) o Ariane's
15 of Rachel's (missing 4, out of ideas)
1 (all) of Stacy's
2 involving Wendy (missing the "good" one I guess but no idea what to do)
2 involving Bonnie (all)
1 Veronica (all)
2 Paula's (missing one, no ideas)

Hint's in general - I'm missing 6 endings and without your post I wouldn't even know which girls I should continue with. You could show small hints as to how to find the unfound endings
Auto-skip button That would be handy Right now there is skip but it's deactivated each time you are presented with a choice / new scene
More sex scenes? In the current game "you get there" but there's little to see

In general - looks great, plays great and is almost completely bug-less. Wonderful

Further breakdown of Rachel: 1 bar ending, 2 dinner endings, 1 movie ending, 4 branching off the night club, 5 branching off the convention, 6 branching off the amusement park. The "good" Wendy ending is a logical result of the workout session: save as much energy as you can without making yourself look lazy, or getting caught cheating. There are 27 combinations, only one gets to the "good" ending.

All this emphasis on endings has got me thinking of a brilliant idea for my "official 1.0" version: an elaborate achievement system (and the more elaborate the better).
Not just for getting to the various endings, but things like: doing everything at the amusement park, seeing all the magazine articles, seeing all the movies, seeing each character naked for the first time, and all the characters naked at least once, etc. Have these achievements actually flash on the screen as they get accomplished so you can see when you get one.

[blaman]

Further breakdown of Rachel: 1 bar ending, 2 dinner endings, 1 movie ending, 4 branching off the night club, 5 branching off the convention, 6 branching off the amusement park. The "good" Wendy ending is a logical result of the workout session: save as much energy as you can without making yourself look lazy, or getting caught cheating. There are 27 combinations, only one gets to the "good" ending.

Aaaaah! Now I have to play MOAR

What about the Paula's one? Is it before the token game or after?

All this emphasis on endings has got me thinking of a brilliant idea for my "official 1.0" version: an elaborate achievement system (and the more elaborate the better).
Not just for getting to the various endings, but things like: doing everything at the amusement park, seeing all the magazine articles, seeing all the movies, seeing each character naked for the first time, and all the characters naked at least once, etc. Have these achievements actually flash on the screen as they get accomplished so you can see when you get one.

Yeah, great idea! There's just so much stuff in the game, it's almost ridiculous

I kinda wish for more interactivity though. Dialog options are fine and all, but finding stuff on the screens has its charms as well