Post by Ponydragon in Terrene (18+) comments

Viewing post in Terrene (18+) comments

Some feedback.

The intro is too long. Maybe warn people that they will be playing a rather linear vn for half an hour (or more, I paused at the city gates).

But it is very good, if I may say so.

Your game is too big. You do not even use max compression on your lossless png. With so much colors (>10k) in the pictures it means there is color continuum and that compresses good in lossy formats like jpg. This ain't pixel art, nor a print master. You could shrink most images down by 90% and no one would notice the difference. Try making a jpg with factor 75 and do a blind test for some pictures and see for yourself if you can tell the difference. At this rate you will hit file size problems and limitations soon, when you add new content.

Did I mention that I dislike kinetic vn stories and still endured your intro ;-) If you keep that level, people would play your game even without the boobs.

Cri-ten256 days ago (4 edits)

Thanks you for the feedback!

As for the prologue being too long, I agree since that's probably been the biggest complaint I've received, from some of my Patreon members.

I do plan to cut a fair bit of the bloated dialogue/streamline the prologue in a future update.

Talking about the game size, I have been playing around with compression on the Android version, to keep it well under 2gb for the .apk install requirements, and will be changing/transitioning some of the compression over to the Windows version. Static images will probably just be converted to .jpg, and the more dynamic layered .png images, will receive some compression.

Ponydragon256 days ago (1 edit)

Oh, maybe I used misleading words. It is unexpectedly long for an intro. If you tell people that it will take a while to reach sandbox, you create different expectations. You could also create a third option between skipping and playing intro. A summary in a few pictures. With your style of breaking 4th wall pre-intro, that would be fitting, with that girl laughing at you or you complaining, that your nice intro was being skimmed over instead of being played.

png is a compressed but lossless format. I do not understand why there are png that are not fully compressed. Is this from the olden days of weak hardware? Even the cheapest smartphone has more than enough power to decode those. I loaded one of those and saved it as png with compression 9 and it shrunk by 10-20%. And for the bigger png, I had the tool count colors. While same color areas compress well in png, if it is too many colors, this is bad, because png is lossless and preserves each and every pixel. But your creation tools created those pixels specifically to have a color shading, just as in real life images. So you can use all the tech to keep files small, as is used for normal photos. Your absolute limit would be the point where the ink lines get fuzzy. I only tried with a 1.5MB background. And even in the original, there is dithering if you look closely.

Original size, 1.5MB, jpg75 110kB. While there might be a slight fuzzyness with the black lines, this is also only 1/15th of the size and the original also has this blocky dithering in the green area. Interestingly, when saving this in paint, the png was 52kB and when I saved it again with other tool and compression 9 it only was 35kB. Default png compress is outdated by 10+ years I suspect. They should make default the max. Oh, and that snipped has 5800 colors.

(Of course you need not go 1/15th, but you do have a lot of room for compression)

Cri-ten255 days ago(+1)

A third option that's a quick summary could be a good idea, since right now I only have two options, being either to watch it or skip the prologue.

I have plans to update some of the prologue, such as updating the Goddess's avatar, etc. So I'll probably look into adding a third option, when I do an update focused on changing some of the prologue.

And originally for compression, I was just using the the default export settings for my images, but eventually ran into trouble with the Android port, since it was originally the same size as the Windows version, being around 1.7gb and struggled to initiate.

Though, after compressing the images and reducing the Android port to about 450mb, it's been working fine.

I'll be adding some of that compression to the Windows version, since I already have the compressed png/img files, but because v0.03 and v0.04 of Terrene are already finished, I'll probably start adding compression to the Windows version with v0.05 and after.

fgh25250 days ago (4 edits) (+1)

in truth i liked the intro the way it was some people like to skip it but why not keep it as all three options 1 you skip it 2 a quick summary and 3 the full deal cause each person is different and i kind of liked how it started but that is my opinion in truth i kind of wished there was more too it like maybe an origin thing so that depending on the origin you choose you could pass the adventure thing easily or could make it harder you said he never accomplished anything in that summary but in truth he could of accomplished something in his previous life maybe like exercise or read even if those things barely count and outfits could be cool like once the story progresses further in he gets different outfits well i do like the suit so far it makes his adventure seem very funny

Cri-ten250 days ago (1 edit)

At this point, I'll be keeping most of prologue and will just be removing some of the redundant/repeated dialogue, so the prologue won't be too different. But I'll also be adding a quick third option of summarizing it - (Probably with the Goddess summarizing it for the player in a rude/condescending manner).

Though, this will probably be added in v0.05 or 0.06, depending.

And as for adding an origin to the Player to make him more proficient at certain task or skills, I probably won't. Simply because it'll kind of interfere with the story/the reasons why he was chosen in the first place by the Goddess - (Aka the player being seen as completely useless in her eyes).

However, I will be adding/working on light rpg mechanics, where the player can improve himself throughout the story. Like him training with Cecilia at the Barracks etc.

fgh25249 days ago (1 edit)

i hope there will come a point where you don't have to gather or hunt wolves cause that does get very repetitive and also want him to become a merchant then he could have 2 ranks a letter rank for the adventures guild and a number rank for the merchants guild it would be cool to be able to counter James by building up the city and growing your influence more than his and getting some sort of passive income would be nice cause i bet there will be quest where you need a lot of money later down the line because i bet there will be other debts or am i wrong

Cri-ten249 days ago (3 edits)

In the latest version, you do get a huge amount of gold for completing that quest with Lenya, so that should help out with gold for a bit.

And at one point, I was thinking of adding something similar to light city building mechanics, but there's an idea I have for an arc of Terrene, way into the future, that might benefit from it more, so if I do decide to add light city building mechanics to Terrene, I'll probably add it in at that time, if I feel it still fits the game.

Also, as for huge gold debt, this is more related towards only Lily and her story/questline with James, so the game won't really be focusing on paying off characters gold debts, after Lily's story is complete.

Though, other characters will have their own individual problems and stories, which the player will have to solve, similar to Lily.

fgh25248 days ago (1 edit)

it would be nice if he could prove to everyone who the goddess really is cause he cant really mention that he hates her it would be cool if eventually he could weaken her and bring her to the world somehow i kind of want revenge on her in the game hopefully it will happen later but anyways will there be a way to increase stamina and health cause i would assume training strength would increase health and speed would increase stamina and it could be nice to add more to his outfit later like per act or something but i still think it would be funny if you could prove all of james stuff he did wrong and maybe get him turned into a woman

Cri-ten248 days ago

The Goddess will be the final villain of the whole game/series, so it won't be for a long time, but I do plan to give players that choice when the time comes.

Right now, the player is more focused on surviving in this new world he's found himself in.

About training, yes there will be a way to increase those other stats. I've got plan for Cecilia content, I'm going to be working on for future versions, that will add some more training options in.

As for James's conclusion, I've got a somewhat brutal ending planned for him, once Lily's content/story is done and I can move onto the next arc.

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