Novus
patreon
Left Hand Magic - Update
🕑 Added 2021-10-27 08:10:10 +0000 UTCOkay guys, gals, and others, I need to sit down and talk about just Left Hand Magic for a bit here. To be blunt, I've run into a series of major issues when it comes to the animations. First, it was just making the animations, which took almost 5 days instead of the 2 I expected. Most of it was stupid stuff, caused by my inexperience with making animations as complex as these. Some of it was not stupid stuff, being actual software problems that I had to sort through and find solutions for.
Unfortunately, once I finally got that all taken care of and had the pair of animations (yes, there are two, which will be normal for any given animated H-scene) all nice and finished...I hit a wall with Renpy. It was the same aggravating wall that made me develop a serious hate-on for the engine in the first place. Namely, that its documentation sucks. There may be a LOT of documentation, but a lot of it is inaccurate and, almost worse, what does exist and is technically accurate, is usually written by someone that assumes you know every last detail of how the engine works already. Despite that being insane.
All of this means that I just spend almost four hours digging through various forum threads, just to get a bloody animation video file to play in-game. Turns out, by the way, that Renpy doesn't actually support the codecs that the official documentation lists. Grr. Oh, and that little detail made my life even more fun because apparently most video converters don't work for 2k videos. I don't know why, I have no idea what morons thought it wasn't necessary to support video sizes above 1080p but below 4k. But that insane decision resulted in another wasted hour while I tracked down software that could do the conversion to Webm. Because guess what? Davinchi Resolve, which is what I use for video editing, doesn't export in any format Renpy will play.
ARRRRGGGGGGGHHHH
*deep breaths*
So, the good news is that I've finally got one of the animations actually playing in-game and it looks pretty good. The bad news is that I still have a couple of technical hurdles to achieve the full effect I want. The whole reason I went with video instead of limited-frame-count animations was because I wanted a high-quality animation that can be actively sped up and slowed down. While I was going to keep the awesomeness I was aiming for a secret, at this point it behooves me to explain myself. That explanation being that I'm shooting for the full-nine-yards with these animations. If I have my way, you will be able to actively progress through an animated scene by starting a still image, followed by an initial animation loop that has the option for two additional speeds with that loop, then switching to a second loop and controlling it's speed as well, before finally ending on an additional still.
Basically, I'm aiming for the most advanced version of interactive animation you typically see in VNs. A level of interactivity that actually exceeds many professional VN works, in fact. Regrettably, this high-quality aim isn't something Renpy natively supports. I knew from the start that I'd have to custom create some code and I've finally reached that step...almost a full week after I had expected to.
What this means is that I've flat-out given up on adding components of the prologue this month. There just isn't enough time for more, particularly not when I still have two short stories (well, 1.4 since Galactic Nomad is about 60% done) to finish as well. What I am going to do is take the time to polish the intro and first H-scene, as well as the overall game systems more completely. An example of this is that I'm going to try and go ahead and get the Gallery working. That's another tidbit I don't think I've even mentioned yet. Since I'm aiming for a full-blown professional work this time, the game is going to include things like a Gallery/Replay feature. Originally, I'd intended to put it off until the next update, since there's not going to be a lot to unlock just yet. Now, however, I'm reshuffling the priorities to get done what I can get done. Likewise, I'm going to see about some soundtrack material. I'm certain I can add background sound loops. I'm less certain that I can add sex sound effects (moans mostly) to the animations. That part may not be as doable as I'd like, though I intend to at least try.
Whew. Okay. So, that's where we are. I'm still going to hit the minimum aims for the month, unless something goes badly wrong. And what I do release should be solidly polished so you all have a good idea what quality you can look forward to in the future. It's just that the..stretch goals, I suppose...that I was hoping for just aren't going to be possible. There have simply been too many stumbling blocks. Though, hopefully, most of them are things that should only happen this once.
P.S. The attached gif of one of the animations isn't as high quality as the actual animations should be, but it will at least give you an idea. Unfortunately, Patreon doesn't allow attaching proper video files.
Comments
Bababbak
I see, well since i'm not really a developer myself, i don't really know how much time such things take. Still, i can see your high quality render scenes, which probably take a lot of time to create. So while they are nice and all, i'd personally rather see the focus on other parts of the games. :-) Now for minigames in specific, i think they'd be cool as a skill checks for certain actions in the game. They can be isolated from the rest of the game, and be reused too. Of course only if they can be implemented well in Ren'py. Anyways, it's your game after all, and you have to decide how you make it. I'm definetly looking forward to whatever you bring out. :D
Novus
* Shrug * differing opinions. Don't get me wrong, I can see some of your points. And in larger games I even agree with you. Particularly if you have the resources to pull off something of Shadowrun caliber, rather than something like RPGmaker tilesets. Unfortunately, as a solo developer, I can't commit the types of time and resources needed to build up what is, for all intents and purposes, backdrop detail. Something I need to point out here though, even if it should be obvious, is that the way you described my games is...what I was shooting for? Left Had Magic is going to be a straight-up Visual Novel, if one with more routes and side-content than is typical for that genre. The truth is that I'd LOVE to create a more full-blown RPG game, it's the sort of dream that I went to college for a degree in Game Software Design for. Unfortunately, there are some brutal limits to what a single person can pull off all on there own, unless they aren't worried about producing content (and getting paid as a result) at a reasonable speed. I WANT to create the kind of games with more challenge that you are talking about. But the more complex the systems the harder it is to produce content quickly enough as a solo developer to matter. My long term goals actually involved building up a small game studio with a handful of employees that would allow me to do just that...but for now, I have to aim for what I can actually reach. A hard lesson that I've had to learn more than once and it stings every time. Heck, technically I suppose I haven't actually learned it fully, given how much I'm stretching myself in various ways with Left Hand Magic :-).
Bababbak
I have to disagree. I think maps can be a great tool to visualize the world your in, and give context. To be honest the text based stuff „go to place“ feels pretty abstract to me, and while some people like it that way so their imagination can fill in the blanks, most don‘t really. I was thinking of a top-down world like in the Shadowrun trilogy, which is in many parts just for traveling and portraying the Distopian world. Well it‘s also used as the same map for combat, but not only. Or Octopath traveller, where the actual combat doesn‘t even happen on the map, it‘s basically just for illustrating the world. A topdown 3d map would offer a nice opportunity to illustrate the magitech part of this game for example. It also great for foreshadowing, or displaying changes to the world that happen during the story, or were even caused by the player in some way, making them feel that they had an actual impact. Also you can easily add more text content, by just placing an optional NPC to talk to, with just the dialogue boxes, without resource intensive renders. They could talk about their late BDSM adventures. This allows access for a more diverse playerbase, depending on the degree of interest in details, the world, etc. With only a few textboxes needed. And maybe you know Bondco.‘s games, where he doesn‘t have any combat or so at all, but still utilizes the map in a meaningful way that‘s fun to play. You see, currently your games don‘t really have any challenge except searching for the new scenes, and reading between the lines of social situations and predicting which answer will result in the desired outcome and even that isn‘t very present. I think your games would benefit greatly from some more challange, be it a minigame for certain actions like struggling out of bondage, or even a real combat system. Otherwise you also burn through all the new content you provide very quickly. So even if challenges feels like a filler to you, that‘s what your game needs in my opinion. Right now most of your games feel more like an interactive book than a game, with the Maid caffe having the most game like mechanics and gameplay. Otherwise it‘s often just doing an action over and over to farm enough of one stat to do a certain thing. Personally those kind of things are more important to me than sophisticated renders, and although they are nice i‘d prefer more low quality non4k than a few sophisticated 4k renders. In which case a map would help again, since you wouldn‘t have to worry about the background in renders, by simply having only the character displayed over a text field. Now don‘t get me wrong, i really appreciate your work, i just want to give some honest feedback. ;)
Novus
Thanks ! I appreciate it when you (or anyone else) takes the time to let me know they aren't mad about delays. Or at least understand them. It helps keep the anxiety in check :-).
Novus
Ughhhh. Technically, I have the skills to make my own engine. I do actually have a legit Bachelor's degree in Game Software Design, even if it was never useful for much. The problem is that I HATE programming. I'm decently good at it, but it loathe doing it. Add in the literal months of time that building an engine from scratch would take and it's simply not realistically something I want to tackle. Hence being stuck with existing engines T-T. And thanks for the encouragement :-). The stressful part of supporting my work via Patreon has always been (and likely always will be), the constant nagging fear that if I don't produce content fast enough people will lose interest and wander off T-T. Which makes startup periods for new games doubly stressful, as there just isn't a way to produce as much content as fast as I can with an established game. As for the 2D world thing, I'm not sure exactly what you mean. If you mean something like the RPG maker worlds that you wander around on a 2D tileset...I've always been annoyed by the use of those in adult games. They make perfect sense in a full-blown RPG. But in an adult content game I've always felt that they just get in the way of what people are actually there for. Not just the smut, either, but of the stories/character development. Unless the game has major elements of another genre, like a ciy builder game or some such, making people walk around manually between places is just sill.
Bababbak
At this point, you should consider just making your own engine to fit you needs. :D But seriously, it‘s okay if you take your time in the beginning, you‘re new to animation after all, and i think it‘s fine to take your time to get it right. By the way, have you ever considered to implement a 2D world for inbetween cutscenes?
