Neon_Night_Time
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Notes "From the life of a developer").
🕑 Added 2024-01-10 02:03:07 +0000 UTCHi guys!)
First of all, I want to say that this is not personal correspondence and I collected this from open places available to every person. Why did I post this here? Firstly, this is quite interesting in my opinion and there are really a lot of questions and answers here that interest people. Secondly, today I am Willy Wonka and I invite you all to the “Backstage of the Chocolate Factory”, my friends). You will look a little at the world through the eyes of the developer "Boo!". So pour yourself some delicious tea and “Welcome to Mr. Gray and Ms. Miralissa’s Pixel Factory!” One rule - ADULTS ONLY!
I've collected some things that players like and don't like and decided to answer them all here. I in no way want to offend these dudes or make fun of their opinions. I just want to answer questions and show you "Behind the Scenes"). I did this in a slightly humorous manner, so if it's a little rude in places, I apologize in advance.
Dev - Developer, P - Player.
P - Typical RPGM time wasting content, turned up to 11. I don't want to go run around picking up random crap on the ground for 15 minutes at a time to see a still image of a character sitting on a toilet or something similar.
Dev - This is the RPG genre. There are many varieties but I chose this one. Unlike many games that really stretch time on purpose for various reasons (for example, a huge map + a minimum of content or increasing time where it is not needed), with us everything is strict and logical, well, at least we strive for this. I have so many interesting things in the plot that there is simply no need to take up time because the game will be quite large in any case. There is no random crap in the game either, but if you don’t want to look for some things, then you don’t need to write that you couldn’t go further. You can buy some things, etc. after, but let’s say some things like this: “If you didn’t find it, you didn’t pass.” I understand that this is not very easy, especially if the player has little experience in old-school gaming, but this game is based on the experience of the developer and I don’t know how to do otherwise. But when meeting the players, I try to make some aspects simpler. I understand everything guys, but you should also understand that there are three types of developers:
1. “I will do whatever you say!”
2. “I do it my way, because I know the world of the game better than anyone.”
3. “I will do as I want and I don’t care about the players. Don’t like it? Don’t play!”
I'm number 2 on this list. I know my game better than anyone, but I'm not doing it just for myself, so I always pay attention to any feedback and draw conclusions. But! I only fulfill requests/advice/comments that do not change my personal vision of the game. Why is that? Well... Otherwise, I simply won’t be interested in working:D
P - Instant game overs with no real warning. Oh you decided to interact with some slime on a wall? Enjoy going back to the last save point and watching another 10 minutes of boring RPGM sprite cutscenes! What's that? You stepped onto an area that was somewhat near an enemy on the map? Oops! Go back to the same exact save point as before since you can only save at certain spots! Hope you're looking forward to more RPGM sprite cutscenes that you've seen at least twice!
Dev - All this is summarized by the game’s save system and the addition of “Skip”. It’s physically impossible to do everything at once, but I’m working on it. I don't want to save from the menu because I like to do it on the map like in the games "Final Fantasy" for example and many others. But I’ll think of something to make you and I feel comfortable. As for the sudden “Game Over”... well... this is such a classic thing that I don’t know what to answer). A lot of players and I personally really like this, so this game will do exactly that.
P - Quests are awful. "Hey, you need to go into this house." Okay, how do I get in? Don't know, better run around 4 maps while I look for the magical tile that starts the event. Didn't you know? You have to go jump over a river to stand below a waterfall to get hit in the head! Then the other characters will come and find you, duh! (The dev's response to the quest design issue in the game thread was "a player said they're going to make a walkthrough for the game so suck it up and deal". Not ideal honestly...)
Dev - Version 0.04 was the first to introduce quests. And to be honest, this was my first experience (your developer is a newbie, it's true). I only half agree. For example, you can make the description of quests more detailed (this will happen), but you cannot make a step-by-step description because it will not be a game, but a guide. When you turned on the game, you opened a magical door to another world (Hello Alice!). And in order to walk in this world you must interact with the environment (nice friend the developer specifically writes monologues/dialogues/titles/hints, etc.) in order to move along the plot. Rocky sees something shining under the waterfall and it interests him. Rocky is you, the player. It was Greta who took away your pants (Ai ai... lost to the giiirl... Nya nya nya nya nyaaa nya!:D:P) but you are very curious about what glitters. And this is where the logic comes in:
1. Above the waterfall there is a log with which you can interact (Remember? No? O.o How is that possible?).
2. Boom! The log turns into a bridge!
3. Now we have crossed the log to the island and a cut-scene begins that shows everything independently.
Everything is built only on logic and is in no way different from any game I have played (including the most famous and popular ones at the time).
About walkthrough, yes, one wonderful person at that time promised Miralissa (note - on his initiative!) to write a description of the passage and (pay attention again!) he did it). Description/screenshots, etc. Do you see? The developer isn't such a bad guy, right? :D
P - Latest update broke save games. Great! Now I have to slog through all that boring RPGM BS to get back to where I was for the exciting prize of like three more actual images.
Dev - Well... Guys... I put this moment here just as an example of “How not to talk to people.”:D Here's a man saying "Now I have to slog through all that boring RPGM BS." It’s very unpleasant for me to read this and I want to ask “why are you playing boring nonsense?”
The latest update broke the save. Well, yes). Many games in the early stages of development have such problems. Are you a newbie? OK). Some people wrote to me "I don't want to read the changelog! I want to play!" Well... ok... I don't forbid... But for example, the warning about old saves and the new version is written in the changelog. Draw your own conclusions). By the way, sometimes a developer spends the whole day to compile a changelog... For me, the possibility of stable saves appeared only starting from version 0.06 and I reported this, as always, I report any information. I can't force a player to read if he/she is completely against it. I can only suggest waiting for later versions. For example, when I see (well, yes... so far only Miralissa and I lol) version 0.05 and remember the demo version, I see very great progress. And of course, in future versions the situation will improve always and everywhere. As they say, “Everything is for the players!”).
P - It's a porn game, no one is winning awards for their gameplay (especially RPGM games).
Dev - I don't consider my game to be "Porno". I don’t like this word at all and all that. As far as I know, porn and erotica are quite different things. That's why I prefer to call my game "Erotic Fairy Tale" something like that. This is a fairy tale just for adults. I try to ensure that the player has bright and light emotions after the game, and of course I don’t forget about... (well, you understand me lol).
Awards... Hmm... Maybe... Sorry, I'm a developer and not a player, so I don't know such details. But if we are talking about awards, then many thousands of players have played my game and in 90% of cases the comments are quite positive, which means people like the game. But like, write a review, increase the rating... About 3% do this. Do you see the numbers? Many thousands of players vs 3%. Rating and like are not money in my bottomless and greedy pocket :D. This is to help the game become more famous and all that (ohh... and of course popularity brings money, I don't know what to say here because I couldn't formulate a phrase without talking about money lol). As you can see for the developer, awards don’t fall from the sky either. So excuse me, but let's close this topic and have some tea).
P - Gallery or "album" seems to not work. At least as far I could tell. And if I can't get it to work in over 2 hours played, it might as well not exist.
Dev - I decided to name all the elements of the game in accordance with the lore, so some standard names have been changed. Yes... This function does not work in the game yet. It should be in the menu (which, despite its simplicity, is actually quite custom) and I placed this item there in advance. Many people do this. I could easily make an album, but the game has images much larger than the screen resolution and therefore the album should have an image scrolling function + externally match the style of the game.
P - I'm not going to put this in actual cons, since I realize it is just personal preference, but the art is just...gross. I'll happily watch a girl get fucked by tentacles, or have her anus prolapsed or whatever, but this stuff? Bleh. The artist adds in coarse-looking hair coming out of like every character's ass, the mom (who seems to be the focus of the game) is unappealing and super flabby and just not nice to look at. Add in a super wrinkly fox lady and then you get gray stringy pubes and ass hair everywhere. "Milf" and Gilf focused. The daughter, and the childhood friend or whatever are pretty damn good looking (but prepare for a forest of pubes and some ass hair again), but the number of images they have pales in comparison to the aforementioned mother and granny characters.
Dev - Damn... Well, what should I answer to this? This is really the case when you need to say "Don't like it? Don't play." Dude, I really don't know what to say so I'll say this: "This game is definitely not for you, buddy":D
P - The Patreon sub name list is an actual in game cutscene, and can be accessed from the pause menu. Hope you don't accidently hit it, or bye bye to another 40+ seconds of your time.
Dev - 100% fair. Unfortunately, I was too carried away by the idea and missed the point that not all players would want to see my little addition. At the moment, a choice appears here and you can watch scenes or simply open the guest book.
P - I would say that this game would be better as a Ren'py point and click game, but the dev/devs seem to be focused on making this some kind of pseudo RPG/adventure game...and I'm just not feeling it. The game needs a metric ton of QoL improvements, and give us an actual reason to want to explore maps and areas. Put in easter eggs, player choices, optional content, something, anything to not just feel like I'm playing an on rails story with about extra bull crap I need to do in between seeing the sparse number of scenes the game actually has. Or maybe they just want to give the illusion of having content by artificially lengthening game time, who knows?
Dev - Maybe you are right, but I decided to do exactly as you said "pseudo RPG/adventure game" but of course I will remove the word "pseudo". This is an RPG no matter what. This part is not clear to me at all because... The game is full of content at almost every turn. But if you want every tree to scream "Martha! Show me your ass!" or so that a “pum-pum” happens under every bush, then yes... there’s not enough content... Damn, okay guys, I’m just kidding) This comment is from a parallel dimension and I don’t know what to say).
P - Despite the good points, if a game feels tedious/annoying/frustrating to play, that's a trip to the bottom of the ranking from me.
Dev - No comments... No way!:D I'll answer in Jack Sparrow style... Bottom of the rating? Heh okay... But I know that when the new version comes out, you'll be here again, savvy?:D
P - Good concept, many original aspects, terrible, terrible execution.
Dev - Please give your reasons.
P - For whatever reason, the dev decided to go with keyboard support only. Small ding.
("Ding" is the personal opinion of a given person for rating. 2 stars. Well... It's better than 1, but... worse than 3:D)
Dev - Well... I'm old school and as far as I remember I used to only play on the keyboard. But there is another reason, mouse support causes some small but unpleasant problems due to some old plugins that the developer abandoned long ago. However, gamepad support will come in the future. By the way... It's all in the changelog. Are you not reading this? Your choice. Everything is extremely honest with us.)
P - A fairly good instruction of the key's used, nicely displayed, but a little annoying that the dev chose not to make "always dash" an available option. Small ding.
Dev - "always dash" I actually wanted to remove this forever (old school guys) but decided to keep this feature. Honestly I just forgot to turn it on at that time lol. But ok, I need to keep collecting "ding".
P - The pixilated 8 bit art that is the games normal is mildly annoying.
Dev - Um... What do you mean? Description of “Pixel art”... “Pixel/Dot”... Damn, man, are you serious?) You don’t want to read the changelog, description and genres too... But you’re here, you played the game, you saw the preview (pixel art)... WHY DID YOU PLAY?:D
P - Continued pixilated full screen graphics when there's an H scene to show you, even more annoying but something you get used to. Some of the H scenes later in the game just leave you with the smaller chibi view instead of going full screen. It's not clear that art of the closer view just hasn't been made yet or if that's just how some of the H scenes are going to be presented. Big ding.
Dev - Here I didn’t understand anything at all, but I was interested in the part about “Chibi”. I know what this word means, I just don’t understand where it is in my game?
(I really wanted to ask this person about this but there is no function to answer. So if you understand what he meant, please let me know).
P - Many times, something happens that is signified by the character flashing or a sound happens. No text tells you what happened. In the case of sounds it's usually finding something and you have to go to your inventory to see what you found.
Dev - On the forums, in posts, and again... changelog, mate. Sorry but I can't write all the details of the game over and over again. Don't you want to read? What should I do in this case? Secret places are normal practice for RPGs. There are many options and I chose one of them. In future versions, only some items will be secret (like now), such as collectibles and Easter eggs. The rest will be noticeable. A character blinking (in a color corresponding to the scale) means that he/she has received a point (corruption, transformation, sympathy). There is information about this that you do not want to read. Here I also want to give you a “Ding”).Even if I write all the instructions, etc. to a file and put it in the game folder with the name "READ THIS OTHERWISE THE GAME WILL NOT WORK!" you will still ignore it (I already checked this in one of the first demos). The developer is doing everything to prevent the player from stepping on a rake, but... (now somewhere in The Simpsons Sideshow Bob started crying).
P - In some of the cases a status bar in the upper left (when Rocky has the lead, there are two sunglasses and capital T, when Martha or Stacey, 3 Sunglasses, heart, capital T) These are not defined anywhere. I'm assuming the heart status bar is how the girls feeel about Rocky, but ther others??? Kind of defined in the changelog, but of no use to a player who doesn't read changelogs. HUGE ding.
Dev - Yes! Here it is! Read carefully, residents of the Kingdom!
(I'm just kidding:D It’s just that this is where a person gave the answer to almost everything, without noticing it "No use to a player who doesn't read changelogs. HUGE ding."). So this is a problem with the developer... Well, well... Oki-Doki...HUGE DING! Game is bullsh... emm... ok, just rating in ass.
P - Instead of being able to choose kinks you don't want to see, you're given the dialogue
box
"The game contains scenes that may not be suitable for all players. You can refuse them by making a choice now. Refusal does not affect the plot, but changing your choice will only be possible by starting a new game!"
No mention of what scenes aren't suitable for all players, just a blind choice. You could be turning down scenes with actual sexual activity, or maybe you're just saying you're not into scat, golden showers and extreme scenes. But you as a player have no idea. There is a message in the forum indicating that it's toilet and fart scenes, but the current description sucks. Huge Ding.
Dev - Fair 100% and of course already fixed (where is my star sir?):D
P - Quests is an even bigger Ding. For reasons beyond comprehension your tasks are divided up in your diary under "Received", "Updated", and "Completed". There is no option for ALL, or ALL Active And when you select a task, the description kind of tells you what you need to do, but offers Zero hints or really vague hints on how to accomplish them.
Dev - I already wrote about quests above. I'll just add one thing (again) It's all in the changelogs. I can even find a post (or even several posts) about this here on Patreon. Well ok, let's move on...
P - Then.. when you complete a piece of a quest, that quest moves to "Updated" and the text "Quest <name> has been updated", then you have to go into your diary and updated quests to see the hint changed instead of actually getting that clue or anything similar in text.
Dev - At this moment, Gray turns into Sailor Moon (By the way, I look a little like her lol) and says in her voice “Ehh???..”)
Then he becomes himself again and... You take the quest (this happens automatically: Received - Started). (As Tony Stark (Iron Man) would say, “I came up with this!”). Then you complete part of the quest and he moves... Well... Yes). The quest information changes to the following. The completed quest with the latest information is permanently sent to "Completed". The quest log is made in minimalism and this is my personal preference. But as I said above, I will add a more detailed description, but this still will not be an open step-by-step instruction.
P - The quest has a character icon at the front, which I assume is who's got to be leading the group or be the character you are moving around to move it forward...
Dev - Absolutely right).
P - ...yet for many quests it stays a grey question mark. At first I thought that was to indicate you haven't gotten far enough into the quest to learn who's quest it is, but then I completed Call of the roads and it stayed a grey question mark, so apparently that's indicating more than a single character's actions. Horrible design when you're not actually informing the end user what it means. Another big ding.
Dev - Now I'm Harry Potter and here's my new spell: "CHANGELOGIUS!":D
A gray question mark means that the player does not know what character he should be at this moment. This protects the quest from spoilers and adds intrigue. This icon never changes. When you play any new game, you should forget old habits and play as is. With the rules set by the developer. They may be a little unusual (for you) but the developer looks at the world with his own eyes. It's either yes or no.
P - Next ding. You can't save at will, you can only save at proscribed save points. Not huge, it's not the only game like this which does that, but it's always a minor ding in my book.
Dev - ... Emm... o-okey...
Well, that’s pretty much how we (mostly Miralissa) spend our time reading reviews, etc. I didn’t write positive reviews and warm words here (guys, this is simply impossible because there are so many and there is no reason for this either. People just wish us and the project well and support, thank, etc. in their own way). It won’t be interesting to you because you do it all the time too, and we are very grateful to you for that.
And here I showed you the “Dark Part of Behind the Scenes”. Damn... I don't know why, dudes:D
This concludes our fun journey through our “Pixel Factory”. Thank you for your attention. I went to work because sprites won’t draw themselves).
P.S. Let me remind you, friends, I did this “mini-interview” myself (I was just relaxing and fooling around). All questions, etc. on behalf of the players (P) are real. But I wrote my answers specifically for you because basically I did not have the opportunity to answer these players because... There is no option to respond to reviews. Also note that this is not one person, this is a mix of questions, etc. which I collected by reading all the forums and messages to know all the wishes/advices/requests, etc. to improve development results. Everything for you, ladies/gentlemen!)
Comments
PIETRO GRUMI
Thanks!! Keep it up!!
