itch.io

[…] I'm mostly emulating Cho Ren Sha 68k

Now that you named it, I can definitely see a bit of its design influence.

I've only recently delved deeper into analysis of "vertical shooter" design. Quite an interesting subject, especially considering I never gave its dynamics much thought back in the day. If you plan on expanding the demo (and haven't done so already) consider looking up some video essays by Lazy Dev (and their guests) covering shmups design. I'd also refer you to shmups(dot)com forums, but that may be «really» too old-school. 😅

edit: Oh, and good luck in the jam!

Amazing artwork.

I do like that the grazing dynamic is so explicitly stated from the start; especially like that visually the ship indicates when a bomb is ready. I don't remember many shmups (I played) that did that.

Now, I don't know what era of retro aesthetics is being emulated (definitely pre-Dreamcast) but I feel the SFX is probably the weakest bit. They felt unfitting, if not undercooked or completely absent in places I'd expect audio feedback.

Overall, for what it is, a decent little gamejam demo. 👍

Close. It's "Construction and Management Simulation". :)

'tis quite ambitious for a first game ngl. Is there any roadmap we can follow along?

I love the aesthetics of this. Your pixel-art is quite pleasant to look at, and very memorable indeed. Frankly, the first impression was how I landed on this page at all.

However, the dynamics, or lack thereof, is very disappointing. It gimps the entire experience, for me at least. Turned it on, clicked, instant regret.

Surely this would've been better off as a simple CMS? Like, I make no claims about knowing what's happening behind the scenes, nor the purpose behind its making. But you'd be hard-pressed to persuade me an idle game, what's basically a parody genre, was the perfect fit for this sort of theme? I can't be alone in thinking a wizard-themed SimTower-like is that outlandish a concept… right?

The machine used was a quad-core Intel i7 3.70, with 24 GB RAM, and a Radeon 270X/370X hybrid. It's running Linux Mint 21.3 Cinnamon, with Mesa 24.2.1 on the 6.8.0-40 generic kernel.

Okay, so I noticed very poor performance (on the free version) even when running with the GLES2 renderer. I got suspicious since this is a rather simple project, and after some debugging it seems the scenes are all running at the same time, which is throttling the performance.

You should probably release the scenes while they're not in use. i.e. Restructure the project for instancing if you haven't done so already, as performance will suffer the more scenes get added.

While I'd love to argue with a complete stranger over the definition of vapourware and how the term evolved since the olden days in this age of GaaS hellscape, 'tis a fool's errand. And not one worth wasting my time over tbph.

All *I* will say about this one particular case is that, for better or worse, some of us remember how it started a long time ago, and have been around to evaluate how it's going. It does not look good when compared with other, similar endeavours. And considering *my* previous experience with both development hell and the gaming business, I highly doubt it will ever see a release date, if nothing else, then purely because of very obvious, monetary reasons.

Probably because most people are not familiar with the term “vapourware”.

Yeah, seems so.

The best I could find was a video about testing UE5 builds using WSL (which, in case you do decide to pursue Linux deployment, is worth setting up anywise).

Unfortunately, without looking at the project's settings and build output log, why the binaries are missing is only guesswork.

I never used UE4, so I can't help you with the build arguments.

I'm presuming you're running Windows; have you set up the cross-compiler?

Hello! 

Just wanted to let you know that the Linux version seems to be missing the binaries. That is:

4.24.3-11590370+++UE4+Release-4.24 518 0
Disabling core dumps.
Project file not found: ../../../CatBurglarGame/CatBurglarGame.uproject Exiting abnormally (error code: 1)

Linux Mint 21.1 Cinnamon.

Anywise, I had this same issue with another web-based text-game made with Godot.
Turns out, I was able to fix it by switching the renderer from GLES2 to GLES3 in their game's options menu.

So, I'm having this font issue while running the game on Firefox (Linux).
It works fine via Thorium, thou. Any ideas?

Does your machine support Vulkan and have at least 4GB ram?

Yes, GPU (Curacao XT / Trinidad XT) has Vulkan support through AMDGPU drivers. And yes, 24 GB of RAM.

could try running the Windows version with Proton

It runs just fine with Wine. I wanted to report the issue with the native blob crashing… 🤷
I'm leaning towards the crash being API related; I've noticed glitches with multiple indie games when upgrading mesa v22.0.5 to v22.2.5+

OS: Linux Mint 21.1 Cinnamon 64-bit (that's Ubuntu 22.04 LTS base).

The game crashes upon launch. The terminal output:

[UnityMemory] Configuration Parameters - Can be set up in boot.config
    "memorysetup-bucket-allocator-granularity=16"
    "memorysetup-bucket-allocator-bucket-count=8"
    "memorysetup-bucket-allocator-block-size=4194304"
    "memorysetup-bucket-allocator-block-count=1"
    "memorysetup-main-allocator-block-size=16777216"
    "memorysetup-thread-allocator-block-size=16777216"
    "memorysetup-gfx-main-allocator-block-size=16777216"
    "memorysetup-gfx-thread-allocator-block-size=16777216"
    "memorysetup-cache-allocator-block-size=4194304"
    "memorysetup-typetree-allocator-block-size=2097152"
    "memorysetup-profiler-bucket-allocator-granularity=16"
    "memorysetup-profiler-bucket-allocator-bucket-count=8"
    "memorysetup-profiler-bucket-allocator-block-size=4194304"
    "memorysetup-profiler-bucket-allocator-block-count=1"
    "memorysetup-profiler-allocator-block-size=16777216"
    "memorysetup-profiler-editor-allocator-block-size=1048576"
    "memorysetup-temp-allocator-size-main=4194304"
    "memorysetup-job-temp-allocator-block-size=2097152"
    "memorysetup-job-temp-allocator-block-size-background=1048576"
    "memorysetup-job-temp-allocator-reduction-small-platforms=262144"
    "memorysetup-temp-allocator-size-background-worker=32768"
    "memorysetup-temp-allocator-size-job-worker=262144"
    "memorysetup-temp-allocator-size-preload-manager=262144"
    "memorysetup-temp-allocator-size-nav-mesh-worker=65536"
    "memorysetup-temp-allocator-size-audio-worker=65536"
    "memorysetup-temp-allocator-size-cloud-worker=32768"
    "memorysetup-temp-allocator-size-gfx=262144"
Aborted (core dumped)

Yes. You should consider giving it a spin. Granted, 'tis a different sort of game to what you're trying to make here but, despite the archaic concepts, analysing its dynamics will surly benefit your design in the long run.

Edit: If you do, remember to skim through the game manual… :P

Hmm… Have you ever played "Wolf" from 1994?

I'm facing an issue while running the game on Linux Mint 21.1 Cinnamon (Ubuntu 22.04 base). Namely, after updating the mesa packages to the latest stable v22.2.5 there is now a white overlay during combat-encounters, as well as a white rectangle along the top of the screen.

Everything worked just fine with the distribution's default package, version 22.0.5.
Note that toggling the hide UI removes the white overlay (and rectangle) and shows the background and character normally.

That's fair.

If you change your mind (and don't feel like installing a distro) I'd be happy to give it a test run. 👍

This is really atmospheric, actually.

Would you be willing to provide a binary to download? I'd love to set this as a screensaver on my Linux Mint machine. 🤔

Frankly, I think the "customized random encounters" and "action visualization" systems are incredibly powerful gameplay elements. I thoroughly recommend expanding on those further.

Huh. Not the reply I expected, actually.

> I feel the same way. Unfortunately, there isn't a lot of precedence for mixing porn and gameplay that doesn't ruin flow for either. But as of right now (as far as I can see), there is none.

Well… In the context of current design, you can't have your cake and eat it: either players get to progress, or –  see porno content. To the best of my knowledge, you cannot marry two fundamentally opposite game goals into a functional loop. i.e. A ‘run and gun’ style of gameplay where the player’s trying to avoid losing to enemies, and a ‘desirable loss’ state which encourages staying completely passive while getting (literally) fucked.

Frankly, it all comes down to what you, as the dev, want to achieve. Going out on a limb here, but doing this as a hobby, artistic expression, or even extra income, please don’t mind my wishful thinking. People obviously do want the porn, and they don’t care much about loops, MDA theory and UX stuff - I'm in the minority there. Instead have fun while picking up some experience along the way.

Heck, go ultra-silly! Give the audience even more reasons to want to ‘do it’ with the aliens…

Otherwise, may be you'd want to try some genre subversion. Like controlling the monsters against the character, à la reverse-horror games do, etc.

> I'd love to know a game that mixes lewd and game well, though

Gonna go off on a tangent first, so bear with me.

The availability of impactful mechanics in sex-games depend a lot on the game’s genre. As porn is meant to fulfil sexual fantasy scenarios and provide quick gratification, most smut experiences either focus on shorter play-times and simple, nonintrusive mechanics (e.g. casual, point&click, social), or have a lot of easily accessible and various lewd content (e.g. visual novels, dating sims, freeplay).

Games that delve more into narrative-design ultimately outgrow the pornography and turn to either exploring eroticism, sexual themes, or other, more grown-up stuff. Ze old ‘came for the porn, stayed for the story’ jazz.

All that said, off the top of my head, I do have are some suggestions of games (that are not pure visual novels, dating sims, or mini-games) that implemented sex-mechanics in 'interesting' ways:

- ‘Corruption of Champions’ makes the top of the list, as the body-modification mechanics, in addition to allowing combat customization and personalising the descriptions, (dis)allow certain sexual interactions depending on what tools the player possessed. Plus, the modded versions of the game have sooo much content ‘tis really hard not to be impressed.

- ‘Breeding Season’ was, before its downfall, the highest earning adult game on Patreon. I suppose people really wanted a well-drawn, animated, match-making, stats-management game about monster-hybrid husbandry. UI had a lot of issues, and tech-wise it got worse with every revision, but in case you’re curious how to run a promising project into the ground and still have an audience…

- ‘Tales of Androgyny’, for the time being, also suffers from the ‘desirable loss’ problem, but it’s the only porn game I know of that uses an RP combo system to allow setting-up certain (sexual) actions depending on the character’s stance and state of being. So there’s food for thought.

- ‘Rack 2’ is pretty darn impressive as far as visualization of lewd activities is concerned. Paired with the amounts of allowed customization, and the way it blends simple mechanics into more complex sexual interactions, it is a very promising adult freeplay game. Has some performance issues and bugs atm thou.

- ‘House of Tail’ is a game about managing a brothel. There are many of these out there, but somehow this one left the best impression, probably cause of the clean UI, or smtn. The porn element isn't as accented as the other ones I've listed. It's more about the theme, really.

- ‘My Very Own Lith’ starts off as a lewd digital pet game but, since its creator is a writer, things can get rather subversive depending on the players actions. Good example how writing can exploit basic mechanics.

So… there, I guess?
Hopefully you'll find at least some of this useful.
I'm all ears in case you need any more comment.

edit: clarity, fluency, formatting, spelling - work is never done.

The floor at the start? Didn't see it coming.

I hate to say it but, frankly, I do wish this was a 'proper' sci-fi survival horror adventure (cinematic) platformer instead of (yet another) vessel for porn content.

Honestly, ye old "have to let em catch me to lose clothes before getting fucked" formula was never that good of a mechanic, even back when ToonPimp introduced the concept… Including a mini-game won't fix much.

So yeah, considering the artstyle and theme in general, as well as how the combat state and lighting behave, I can see the potential. Believe it or not, there aren't that many games in the genre. Some level design, movement animation, better gunplay - a lot that can be done on the UX front if the focus was shifted. Sex sells, but so do well-made video games.

Each to their own, I suppose. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Good luck, anywise.