BEW - Ongoing Dev Thread (DAZ Artists Still Wanted)

[tlaero]

Okay, I've played through pretty extensively. I like the difficulty changes. I still think the score will confuse people. Since score comes from happy not aroused and aroused is *2 and there are places you have to choose one over the other, you will have areas where your score goes up, but you made the wrong choice. And if you go back and make the right choice, your score will be lower. I think that's asking for player confusion.

Only other bit of advice for now is that I think it would be a good idea to make the page where you see trenchcoat lady through the bar window have clicking on her be the only hit target. Rather than watch Faith, have the character be able to say something. That way the yellow border helps us find the window. Otherwise, I think the majority of people are going to miss that.

Edit: I forgot to mention the recap page. I think that's a great way to show people where they missed stuff. It seems to work well too in this incarnation.

Tlaero

[Wolfschadowe]

Okay, I've played through pretty extensively. I like the difficulty changes. I still think the score will confuse people. Since score comes from happy not aroused and aroused is *2 and there are places you have to choose one over the other, you will have areas where your score goes up, but you made the wrong choice. And if you go back and make the right choice, your score will be lower. I think that's asking for player confusion.

I'm glad to hear that the changes to the difficulty system are better.
The current scoring system is not intended to capture every interaction, there may be scenarios where a determination between happy or aroused will mean that happy is the right choice, especially when multiple girls are around at the same time, or will meet up later. One of the challenges I'm trying to address in the game design is blurring the line of what is the "right" choice, and that it is not necessarily the highest scoring one at that particular time. The lower scoring path in one scene, may lead to an ultimately higher scoring one later. Instant gratification vs. patience. I'm sure I'll take some heat on that when the game goes public though.

For example, if the players goal is to reach an ending to day 7 with Faith, it may not be a good thing to arouse Emily too much. In that scenario, choosing the happy option with Emily may be the right answer because it won't cause problems with Faith later. In one of the current bar scene branches, everyone gets caught up in the moment, but Emily's reaction at the end foreshadows that it may not be sustainable. As the game progresses, Emily and/or Faith may not really be happy with a three-way relationship, or if it is possible, it may be very difficult to reach and be a high risk (end up alone at the end) high reward scenario. The score is currently intended to hint at this, but I'm uncertain yet if the mechanic will work out.

I don't know what the end result will be with how score itself is calculated through the game. I'll probably leave it as is until Act 1 pans out and see how it works. Right now it's a blend of reputation and happiness, while threat and arousal aren't factors, even though both are important to relationships with individual love interests. There is a possibility that its current incarnation may be a leftover from the previous difficulty system. It's easy enough to tie into everything if that's the case.

Only other bit of advice for now is that I think it would be a good idea to make the page where you see trenchcoat lady through the bar window have clicking on her be the only hit target. Rather than watch Faith, have the character be able to say something. That way the yellow border helps us find the window. Otherwise, I think the majority of people are going to miss that.

That interaction is intended to be easily missed on the first play through, and it is not a game breaker. It is a key decision point that has an important impact to Act 2, but does not make or break the game. It is also something that is hinted at in the recap, which should bring attention to it.

Edit: I forgot to mention the recap page. I think that's a great way to show people where they missed stuff. It seems to work well too in this incarnation.

Thanks. I'm glad it's working to it's intended purpose. I think many people who play this will get one of the "good" endings for each branch (Bar/Strip Club for example) and think they have seen everything, when really there are various "good" endings. The intent is to alert the player to where there are other branches of the game.

For example, the Bar scene has four positive primary paths, with several variations to each, and the recap points to decision points. There are also endings to the bar scene, that seem good taken in the bar scene itself, but end up being bad later, and vice-versa. At least one Bar branch is good for some Day 2 paths, and bad for others. A lot can happen in the next 6 days.

Thanks for playing the game so much and sharing your input, advice and thoughts!

Wolfschadowe

[tlaero]

1) Set your monitor to 1024x768 and try to play. You'll find that it doesn't fit vertically.

I'd like it all to be on a page where there isn't a need to switch to a save load game. I'm probably privileged, in that I didn't think there were any 1024x768 monitors out there. I don't want to count those folks out though. Maybe align the save games horizontally in a table somehow?

Laptops and tablets. To try the small screen out, I played on my Surface RT (1366x768), and I know a number of people with laptops the same resolution. Second, the most used OS on the planet is still WindowsXP, and it hasn't been on sale for over a decade. Lot's of people still running old machines. Third, the reason I added the ability to show two image sizes in adventure creator was that I wanted to go above 1024x768, but Leonizer told me that something like 30% of the browsers hitting his site are running on 1024x768 screens. You really need to consider that case.

Tlaero

[Wolfschadowe]

Laptops and tablets. To try the small screen out, I played on my Surface RT (1366x768), and I know a number of people with laptops the same resolution. Second, the most used OS on the planet is still WindowsXP, and it hasn't been on sale for over a decade. Lot's of people still running old machines. Third, the reason I added the ability to show two image sizes in adventure creator was that I wanted to go above 1024x768, but Leonizer told me that something like 30% of the browsers hitting his site are running on 1024x768 screens. You really need to consider that case.
Tlaero

I agree with you. I just wasn't thinking. I have a Surface too, but it's 1920x1080, so I still didn't even think about 1024x768. I've been at least 1200x1024 for so many years that it just completely slipped my mind. i changed to this for gameShowScore, and it seems to help, although I haven't tested it at 768 yet.

str = "Your current score is: " + score + " and your current relationships status is: E: " + epoints + ", F: " + fpoints + ", S: " + spoints + ", N: " + npoints + ", L: " + lpoints + ". <br>" + "Save slot 1: " + save + restore + " || Save slot 2: " + save1 + restore1 + " || Save slot 3: " + save2 + restore2;

Wolfschadowe.

[tlaero]

That looks like it will work. One thing I did was go to 1024x768 and count how many lines of text I could have, then make sure I never went over that. Since you're using smaller fonts, you've got more wiggle room. Putting the 3 saves on the same line will make it because it was the 3rd that went below the bar.

Tlaero

[Wolfschadowe]

Thanks Tlaero.

Here's a question for the community:

First, the set-up:
The incentive I'm using for playing the game on Hard difficulty is that the lower difficulties have limited and restricted erotic scenes. Without some kind of incentive, there is no reason to play the game on anything but Easy with full information. In a hypothetical example case, let's say there's an erotic scene with 10 pages of foreplay building to greater erotic levels, and another 10 pages or so of sex before the climax scene, and perhaps there are 2 or 3 different ways to climax (ie. Face, tits, mouth).

On easy mode, I may allow all 10 pages of foreplay, and then skip from page 3 of the sex straight to one of the climax pages, forcing tit's.
On Medium mode, I may allow all 10 pages of foreplay, and then skip from page 5 of the sex and give 2 of the 3 climax options, say tit's or face.
On hard mode, all 10 pages of foreplay, and 10 pages of sex, and player option to all three climaxes.

I try to put good transitions for each mode, so there isn't a jarring feeling that something was just skipped.

An example from BEW of this at work in spoiler

in the Faith ending at easy level, only the handjob is accessible. Medium players have the option to end with the handjob or move on to the titfuck, and hard players (no pun intended) can move on to a blowjob

The question:
When content is being skipped due to the difficulty setting being too low, should I provide any kind of notice to the player, like a notice in the top text or something? If so, what would be good without breaking the immersion. Or, should I just let the players figure out something is being skipped in that place on their own?

Thanks in advance for your input!

Wolfschadowe

[tlaero]

I think if you say on the difficulty page words to the effect of "Sex scenes are better on harder levels" you don't need to say anything else.

Tlaero

[ExLibris]

Score system feedback:

Does it make sense that your relationship with women you haven't met yet goes up because you said hello to Emily? I understand the mechanics of it, and can come up with a "reputation" angle to justify it, but I think most people are going to find it weird.

Perhaps removing the overall score from Easy mode would be one way of eliminating that potential source of confusion? That way on Easy you'd have the benefit of knowing exactly how each woman feels about Brad, on Medium you'd have the more general guide of his overall score, and on Hard you'd have no training wheels at all. Alternatively, you could just remove the reputation element from the visible score for each woman so that it wouldn't look like reputation was affecting your relationship with women you've yet to meet.

Either way you should probably provide some explanation of the scoring system, either in the readme or the instructions, or the player will be groping in the dark.

On a related note, would it be possible to hide Brad's score with the women he hasn't met yet? Also, I'd personally prefer names rather than initials, although that might be a spoiler as far as the unmet women are concerned.

[ExLibris]

Without some kind of incentive, there is no reason to play the game on anything but Easy with full information.

You could say that about most games with a difficulty setting, and yet some people still play on Nightmare. Some people want a challenge and some don't. By limiting the amount of content on the easier levels, you're basically saying that Hard is the 'right' way to play the game. If you force the players who don't want a challenge to play on hard, you're giving them an incentive to just go the whole hog and look at the source code (or a walkthrough). Of course the counter-argument to that is that if you make the game too easy, you're taking away an incentive to talk about it. However, judging from your comments about blurring what the 'right' answer is, it might turn out that easy is not as easy as all that since the player could be misled by the fact that a certain option leads to a higher score. Personally, I like the idea that there's no unequivocally right options as it makes the game the decisions that the PC makes, rather than what gets the highest score.

Setting all that aside, I think that if you're going to implement different content on different difficulties, the method you've outlined looks fine. Leaving the ending of a scene intact (even if you narrow down the possible options) is a good idea since it means that when the characters talk about their past experiences you don't have to adjust what they say to fit the difficulty level. A simple notice such as Tlaero suggested should be enough to cover all that. Anyone who's familiar with Tlaero and phreaky's games is going to expect it anyway.

The only alternatives I can think of are achievements or bonus content. For example, if you complete a particular path on hard you see an epilogue that you wouldn't see on easy, although that is creating more work for you.

[Wolfschadowe]

However, judging from your comments about blurring what the 'right' answer is, it might turn out that easy is not as easy as all that since the player could be misled by the fact that a certain option leads to a higher score. Personally, I like the idea that there's no unequivocally right options as it makes the game the decisions that the PC makes, rather than what gets the highest score.

It's not apparent much in day one, and not at all in the office and bar scenes of day one, but any good story needs some conflict. As the week progresses, inevitably some conflict will arise and the player will have to decide if they are going to try and avoid the conflict and try to take a unicorn and rainbows happy path, or dive in and face the conflict, make people angry and take the associated hit in scores and relationship to come out the other side to see what's there. Kind of like the adage "The best sex is make-up sex." That can lead to deeper relationships, and therefore higher scores.

Perhaps removing the overall score from Easy mode would be one way of eliminating that potential source of confusion? That way on Easy you'd have the benefit of knowing exactly how each woman feels about Brad, on Medium you'd have the more general guide of his overall score, and on Hard you'd have no training wheels at all.

This is an interesting idea that I'll need to think about. Either way, I'll probably be adding a third instructions page so that I can dedicate one to score and relationships.

Wolfschadowe

[tonytiger]

Hi Wolfschadowe, In reply as to whether you should put some sort of notice for skipped scenes, I'm against it as it would break the 'fourth wall' so to speak. When I first played through your game I did as many may do and tried it on hard and quickly failed. On reading the txt file? release notes? (cant remember) on the game, I started on easy and then to medium then hard and I really felt I gained alot from this progression and the added scenes each time. I think the reason for this and why it may fail for others was the quality of the writing/story, any way keep up the good work (Im not going to play any other beta's and wait till you have complete it). On a side note I downloaded your slightly later version (the jpgs) and on my firefox browser there was a definite loss of quality from the previous version may just be me but in this age of fast home broadband is a 200-300meg file that difficult for people to download.

[Wolfschadowe]

I downloaded your slightly later version (the jpgs) and on my firefox browser there was a definite loss of quality from the previous version may just be me but in this age of fast home broadband is a 200-300meg file that difficult for people to download.

I wasn't happy with the loss of fidelity to the images as well. There is only one more beta build that will be released before the final versions, that will contain all of day 1. That and the final release will have a low-res and high-res option for download. Those that have bandwidth and non-metered connections can grab the high-res, and the other unfortunate soles can snag the low-res. The only difference between the two is the quality of images. Unfortunately, I had a mishap with some of the early bar and most of the recap images and lost the hi-res originals, but luckily that clears up before things get interesting.

I'm glad you've enjoyed the game so far! Thanks for playing!

Wolfschadowe

[tlaero]

I find that jpg 70% quality is a good tradeoff. Significantly smaller file sizes with little appreciable loss.

Tlaero

[sylakone2]

I downloaded your slightly later version (the jpgs) and on my firefox browser there was a definite loss of quality from the previous version may just be me but in this age of fast home broadband is a 200-300meg file that difficult for people to download.

I wasn't happy with the loss of fidelity to the images as well. There is only one more beta build that will be released before the final versions, that will contain all of day 1. That and the final release will have a low-res and high-res option for download. Those that have bandwidth and non-metered connections can grab the high-res, and the other unfortunate soles can snag the low-res. The only difference between the two is the quality of images. Unfortunately, I had a mishap with some of the early bar and most of the recap images and lost the hi-res originals, but luckily that clears up before things get interesting.

I'm glad you've enjoyed the game so far! Thanks for playing!

Wolfschadowe

Hi Wolf I still have your orginal download with the high res images.
If you want me to send them to you I could put them on my site and you can dl them from there.
Or I might be able to upload them on hotfiles or one of the other file hosting sites.
Let me know

Cheers for a great game it's looking really good makes me think I need to get my finger out and finish mine.

Sy

[Wolfschadowe]

Hi Wolf I still have your orginal download with the high res images.
If you want me to send them to you I could put them on my site and you can dl them from there.
Or I might be able to upload them on hotfiles or one of the other file hosting sites.
Let me know

Cheers for a great game

Sy

Syl, that would be fantastic. I'd really appreciate it. I mourn the loss of the original file sizes.

Word of advice to all, don't use a string editor to replace smart quotes with standard quotes en-mass when including the images sub directory. Apparently the code for smart quotes is also used in JPG formats, and corrupts all the images. If for some reason you don't heed my advice and decide to try it anyway, certainly don't do it while the backup is running like I did. And then...if for some reason you DO do it while the backup is running, at least have your backup software keep at one previous version of each image, like mine does now .

Luckily I caught what happened fairly quickly and only lost 40-50 of the original images, but still... heh.

Wolfschadowe