Post by CATINMASK in Aurora's Fog comments

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Thank a lot for your feedback again, I note all the problems you mention.

"but then all the rest just said White Flower" - I guess you just lost some attributes due to thirst or hunger. And when you lose Attribute you also lose some stats (alchemy, survival...);

"encyclopedia of plants" - Nice idea, I'll add that to my task list.

"high heat for 15 minutes" - that's right. To get better quality you need to use a pan and have at least 10 Survival skill. And get your ideas, I would be improving it soon + rework the workbench crafting mechanic.

"Backstory and character development" - Added to my task list, thanks! I'm not good in writing, I'm more into coding and developing new mechanics, but I'll learn.

"Nudity - The problem is that it just happens" - I got that, I would be working on more smooth transition and more romancing.

"It seems like each scene is just an animation loop" - The current version has old and new animations. Old - just simple loops where you can only change view angle (by pressing Tab).

And new has a lot more interactions and way more longer (for example Yotra's missionary).
They have: changing penetration type, changing male's arms position, being active/passive, changing styles during the act, female orgasm animations, kissing, breathing animations (seems like a small feature but makes chars more alive + it changes depending on intensity of the act), changing holes (anal/vaginal) with animation (I know one game that has huge budget but can't afford this animation... lol), and so on...
All the old animations would be updated soon (1-2 per update).

I'll upload some video-demonstations in a few days as a devlog so you could see this (but be carefull, I'm gonna show centauress here :D). And yes, I'm a solo dev that had zero experience in animating, so I'm still learning.

"bathhouse option, and I think it is broken" - sorry, it happens sometimes. You just need to reload the scene (go to menu and back to the game) and it would be fixed. But I have this problem in my task list, just don't know how to reproduce it, it does not happen often...

"You need auto-save" - The game has quick save/load system with 20 slots for quick saves, just press F5. But alright, I got that, just tell me where I should put the auto-saves and I'll add more. After quest finish, for example?

"swimming" - Proper swimming would be added. I'm planning to change the water system to more optimized with more features in the upcoming future and then I would add the swimming system. And I understand your emotions, sorry about that.

SeiryuX17 days ago

Sounds like you've got a lot of good stuff in the works.

For the bathhouse bug, it's when you have enough charisma to offer her a massage. I've tried twice now and it happened both times, so maybe it is something specific to my hardware/software configuration that doesn't happen on yours? Not sure what to tell you, sorry.

Speaking of the bathhouse. I was curious to see how the censoring worked so I had it turned on. When I got to the point that the bathhouse was ready it just said "Turn off censor to begin act", but when I turned it off I had no way to go back and start the scene (or I couldn't figure it out, if there is a way). For every other scene just cutting it out is fine, but there is dialogue with some important plot that takes place in the bathhouse, so I would recommend coming up with a way to make sure players with censorship on still get that information.

For auto-saving, yeah, something like after each quest, or just on a timer every 15 minutes or something. It only needs to be one save that overwrites itself each time. I learned my lesson and have started hitting quick save often while periodically deleting the old ones to free up space, but something to limit how much progress is lost if you forget to save would be nice. I know some games make it an option that you can disable, in case a player wants to have the more challenging experience without the auto-save safety net.

I was curious about the things hidden behind stats so I tried making a character with 1 point each in str, end, and agi and 8 points each in per, int, and chr. I gotta say, having the feedback to show your actions matter makes the game feel a lot better. You may want to lower the stat requirements for some stuff like the "NPC liked that" messages. I think I found a decent balance with 4 str, 3 end, 3 agi, 5 per, 5 int, and 6 chr, but that still isn't enough to see a lot of the things. At what point in the game do you start being able to increase your stats so you see more?

CATINMASK17 days ago (2 edits)

"For the bathhouse bug" - I'll check it out just in case. If possible you can add me in Discord (Catinmask) so we could test it and maybe catch that bug.

"censorship" - I may add the towel for this scene so the scene could be started with censorship on.

"timer every 15 minutes" - Sounds fine for me. I can also make a toggle option so you could switch it off if not needed. But should I enable it by default?

"periodically deleting the old ones" - No need to delete them, they would be rewritten automatically, and don't weight much.

"you start being able to increase your stats" - You increase stats just by doing something. Like athletics - running, acrobatics - jumping and falling, barter - trading. And each skill tied to the each Attribute, for example: Strength = Unarmed, Clubs, Smithing, Swimming. The formula to increase the attribute is: skills / 10 * skillsAmount (where the skills - all the skills that belong to the Attribute). In other words in your Strength is 3 and you want to get Strength 4 then you need to have the summ of all STR skills to be at least 160 (just the summ, no need it to be 40+40+40+40). The easiest here is the Adam because it has only 1 skills (Lover) so it would be Lover/10;

"You may want to lower the stat requirements for some stuff like the "NPC liked that" messages" - It depends on you Perception skills. If it's more than NPC's Charisma skill then you would see that note.

SeiryuX16 days ago (1 edit)

I think I've finished what's available now. I found Alice's ring and helped Vlada, so now all I can do is the repeatable quests. Will save files still work with new builds when they are released? Or will each build require starting over? I'm debating if I want to spend any time grinding the repeatables for money, collecting recipes, furnishing the house, and increasing stats and perks, but if the save won't work that there's no point.

The story so far seems to mostly just be mystery. I don't know how long you intend the full game to be, but this basically feels like a prologue (which makes sense for a demo). As I understand it the story is:

You don't know who you are
You were attacked by *someone*
Dead animals are being found in unexplainable conditions
Some supernatural evil is causing people to disappear and leaving nothing but death and rot across the land in it's wake
*someone* is leaving traps in the woods
Vlada has also been attacked by *someone*
These 3 *someone*s may or may not be the same people
The supernatural evil, dead animals, and *someone*s may or may not be connected
You may or may not have a connection to and/or a bigger role to play in everything as your memories return.
Everyone is horny. So horny

If you plan for everything to be connected then I can see potential for an interesting story there. If it's not connected then it's too much, and you should focus the story more. The main problem, I think, is the pacing. It's just so slow. I don't know how many hours it took to run out of things to do, but I can tell that with this pace a fully fleshed out story may end up being a 100+ hour epic, which is difficult to do for even a whole studio. here's my opinion:

Problem: Buying a house takes way too long. Saving up 15 Denga takes hours, and while doing so it disincentivizes the player from spending money on other things.It makes it feel bad to buy food, or repair equipment, or other necessary things. Then when you get the house it's a bit of a disappointment. It's just a stove with no tools and a hay bale bed. Sure, the comfort level and effectiveness of sleep is better, but it just doesn't feel worth the time and effort it took to get it.

Suggestion: Don't charge for the house. Forget about the bench and campfire in the middle of town. Say it's in exchange for helping them out, and that you can pay it off slowly by working. Use that as a reasoning for some quest rewards seeming small.

Problem: Get the plot started faster. You get the main story quest "Fog in the Head" right at the start then it doesn't get updated for hours. By the time the merchant came and said to investigate where I was attacked my first thought was "Uh.. Where was I attacked? Did they tell me? It's been so long I don't remember."

Suggestion: Have him come sooner. On the second or third day, maybe. Him being there doesn't hurt the progression of the story with the other characters, so why not? If you don't want him to be there permanently from that early on then make use of your day/night cycle. Have him come once a week, maybe, then once the world opens up and you can go to other villages you become able to go visit him where he lives. Alternatively, there's another empty house. Maybe he leaves Brynja at the village to help you and also keep an eye on you to make sure you keep your end of the deal to help him.

Aside from those two things, having more show don't tell for the story would be nice. People are finding mutilated animals? OK, so have at least one somewhere in the woods for the player to find. Some evil is causing everything to rot? OK, have some portion of an area that is dead, though with the size of the world right now I can see not wanting to put that too close to the village. People are being attacked? OK, have the body of a victim somewhere for the player to find. Make them think "That could have been me... I should thank Shaartan again."

Some other things that go nowhere right now:

The bathhouse. You fix it up, get one scene, then never think about it again. All that's in it is a normal stove. It should serve a purpose. Something like letting the player visit the bathhouse to recover some health, or get a buff of some kind, but in exchange the passage of time while there makes you lose daylight you could have been doing something else in, you get hungry, and with the sauna making you sweat you need water.

Lockpicking. I finally decided to make a save in front of a lock with picks ready and said I would keep reloading until I got it. Eventually I did manage to do it. The problem is, as far as I can tell there are 5 locked buildings and no other locks in the game right now. 3 of those 5 you can get keys to (warehouse, bathhouse, and the house you buy), so I wondered about the other two. Once I managed to pick the locks I found... Nothing. They are completely empty. You should really have something in there as a reward for being able to get in.

Gloves. This feels like such a no brainer, no offense. One of the first things you do in the game is collect nettle, and you are told that you should use gloves because it's prickly and does indeed cause a small amount of damage when you collected it bare handed. There are no gloves in the game.

And in closing, a random meaningless thought I had while playing:

I climbed a mountain because it was there.

I got bit when I hand-fed a bear.

I met a centaur and wondered...

It goes where?

Also, seeing a normal human height centaur with a miniture pony sized body gave me a good laugh. Nothing wrong with it, just unexpected.

Discord add sent, too. I'm phantomearth there.

CATINMASK16 days ago

Thanks again! Noted all the interesting points you mentioned.

"Will save files still work with new builds when they are released?" - Saves starting from 0.12.3 works just fine with the latest (0.12.6) build. So no need to start the new game.

"If you plan for everything to be connected" - It's all connected and my idea to make non-linear story so the player can choose different paths each time and see different parts of the story.

"which is difficult to do for even a whole studio" - Maybe, but I'll do it anyway because I just don't want to make some simple game/vn that has 1-2 hours of gameplay and would be forgotten in a month. Plus the funniest part that some players don't want to support my game because they don't billieve in a solo dev (or just wait me to fail), but when it comes to their opinion/review they criticize it like it's a AAA game.

"Buying a house takes way too long" - I got it, and as already said I would make a new difficulty level that would make it easier. Plus I'll think about your suggestion. And just to be clear... it's my way of playing and I understand that it's not suitable for all the players. I like more hard gameplay where you start the game with just basic items and have to survive. So that's why your own house is so expensive because it solves some basic problems, like: has the place to sleep + you can cook on the stove and no need to pay someone.

"some portion of an area that is dead" - You would be finding some parts of the game world rotting and completing some "tasks" (cleaning these areas from enemies/killing bosses) would "fix" the area so it would slowly go back to normal over time.

"The bathhouse" - I have that in plans but I was thinking to change the bathhouse model first it make it look more proper.

"miniture pony sized body" - I know but trust me it made animating the scene with her way easier... otherwise, I would have to put some kind of object under the player (bucket for example...).

itch.io

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