itch.io

Godot, at least, are taking a stance against it now: https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/open-source-game-engine-godot-will-no-lo...

(It's a problem a lot of open-source projects that allow user contributions have been facing recently. The contributions aren't always malicious - sometimes it's just users who really do want that feature, or that bug fixed, but who don't quite know how to code it themselves - but they've been a constant stream of pull requests ever since the tech became available.)

Ren'py doesn't seem to have that excuse, though.

My understanding is that Ren'Py is based on Python, and speaking as someone who picked up Python over a one-week period that wasn't even particularly intense... it isn't that difficult. If you're doing any coding at all rather than simply feeding Ren'Py what is functionally a script (as in stageplay), you'll probably pick up real python without any issue. If you're not, it still isn't a bad language to start with.

Besides Python, there's free engines like Godot (look at Rakugo Project), or other languages. To the end user I'd be surprised if the engine mattered in most cases - mostly people want standard features (save/load, show text, show sprites, special effects, maybe a gallery, et cetera), but it's not like those matter if the story they support isn't any good; besides concerns about whether you can truly own something where generated code was present somewhere in it, avoidance of slop (which your work certainly isn't) is probably the primary reason for aversion to generated stuff. People dislike asset flips for similar reasons.

So I think, regardless of engine, you'll be fine. Hopefully you'll find something you're happy to use going forwards, if you do look for other engines, though.

It's a shame that the Ren'Py dev only deigned to mention the use of copilot recently. Github now shows if copilot contributed to commits, or something like that, so it may not entirely have been a willing disclosure.

Would it be possible for you to update your asset packs (all of them, ideally' I'm mostly just commenting here because I can't comment on your author page) to include the license in a text file along with the assets?

Honestly, that's fine.

Will this be shipped outside of the US, should it reach its goal?

Sounds good, then.

Bear in mind if anyone did voluntarily pay money, but less than $9.99, this may take access to the game away from them just as surely as if they'd paid $0. Itch.io is weird about that with variable price stuff.

Oof. I'd worried that was the case. 

Good luck, and thanks as always for replying.

I don't know if generated keys are compatible with items of variable price, but maybe that'd be a solution that would work for giving people access to the items through itch.io? (Understand if you don't want to figure the mess out, though, with a support request waiting.)

It honestly hasn't felt like itch.io care much about its users since it came out the Vintage Story dev hadn't been paid their sales in half a year.

Thanks for the prompt response. itch.io still not have a workable solution for the pricing weirdness, I assume? (I don't even know if they've even replied to you.)

Also, the price change leaves me uncertain which kind of license I'm on now, because it was not distributed with a license. 

Prior to the change, if someone bought the full pack at $4.98, would that have been enough for the premium license?

(General request: please include the license with your asset packs directly.)

I'm guessing itch.io weren't able to fix the issue at all?

That's... kind of annoying, having bought the game on Steam for convenience over itch.io (where it was also bought).

Edit: actually, no 'kind of', it's just annoying. I prefer playing things through Steam. Is this just the scene by itself or do you need to drop it into the itch.io version?

Is this going to be added to the Steam version? (Is it already there?)

Ah ha. Thanks for the quick response. Honestly if it weren't for the timing when I bought it I'd have taken longer to notice.

...hold on. I literally bought this a day ago, the price has changed, and now I only have access to the free version again?

Yeah. I checked. I have the receipt in my inbox, and have the paid files from yesterday. Apparently changing the price of the asset pack changes whether people have access to the content they paid for.

Do you think if we pay the sale price, we'll still have the asset when it goes off sale?

Please tell me this wasn't intentional.

Just wanted to say that. Thanks for creating and publishing the asset pack.

To anyone in the UK, anything hosted on imgur just shows a 'Content not viewable in your region' rectangle (Imgur decided it wasn't going to serve UK users any more, and I'm not sure how much it informs users in other regions of that).

I'd provide a screenshot but itch.io keeps complaining about the body needing to be text, so... yeah. Anyway, other imagery not hosted on imgur is visible perfectly fine, so it's not a huge issue, I imagine.

Sorry if this is a silly question, but: does the DLC version of the game include the base game content already? Most DLC's delivered as a patch or files you drop into the base game's folder, but this seems to be a completely distinct app.

I think  it's better to say it tolerates folders, but doesn't do anything with them in the application - for example, I have several folders, one for naming tables from a particular book, and several folders under that for particular sections.

Oracle does not do anything with these folders. All you get is a list of random tables to choose from, with no grouping based on folder. I was imagining expandable folders containing subfolders and tables.

I'd love for the program to support folders - probably based on the organisation of the Obsidian vault you have it connected to; I'm going to have so many tables in this thing eventually, some organisation would be useful.

Do you plan to rework the other Magnetic Scrolls games? I'd be interested in picking up the entire collection of them.

...if there's any shot of you having decks of the knight and myth art printed, I'd most likely buy both.

I don't know where you're taking feedback on spelling errors, but there's an issue with the 'Heart of Gold' section under Twists: 'A common twist is to a character a "Heart of Gold"'; you're missing the word 'give': 'A common twist is to give a character ...'

No, it just doesn't count as a purchase. It wants me to pay again.

Donated from the link on this post without noticing you actually have to select a thing on the main page to actually get the benefit, FML.

Thanks. Looking forwards to it.

The game has a price in search results, but I can't seem to find a purchase link on the page proper, and it isn't live on Steam yet; is the game buyable currently?

Was this still getting updated? I love the concept, but every time I look at it I get disappointed because it looks abandoned, even if itch.io claims it was updated 47 days ago.

The API now costing money has caused the means by which I interacted with it (a RSS reader) to drop it like a hot potato. Twitter doesn't do digest emails like itch.io, either.

Is the full version of this still in development?

Yeah, I'm an idiot, missed expanding the group in GIMP. Thanks. I still end up with an endless loading cycle on the web editor (in Firefox), though.

The tool just endlessly loads and gets nowhere and, unfortunately, I can't use the template; no adobe, and other tools just open the card as one single layer.

Adding a skill via traits on the actor page, on the class page, or on the state page (possibly also via traits on weapons and armour, but I haven't tested these) doesn't seem to add the skill to the character or class's available cards. The only things that seem to add cards properly are adding the skill via the class Learnable Skills section in the database, via the Change Skill event command, or via the Effect 'Learn Skill', for Skills.

Also, it looks like only skills in the first skill category ('Cards' in the sample project) are manageable in the deck screen or accessible in battle, even if a particular actor or class has access to those extra skill types. Scrolling to the other skill types in the deck screen shows an odd section of transparency that persists even after scrolling back to the main Cards category, and I don't think skills from any other types show up in battle (I was trying to make a skill add a card that was only usable by specific actors, via being a skill type only certain actors have). Weird bit circled in red here:

Also, you don't seem to be able to select other cards via the cursor, in battle (I haven't checked the deck menu, yet). Clicking selects the current card in battle but you can't change what you have selected by clicking anywhere (or anything short of using the keyboard, or possibly a gamepad).

If any of these should be feature requests, let me know and I'll move them to that thread instead.

Also, just want to say, as it is this plugin is already absolutely excellent.

My suggestion:

Variations on card discarding. As it stands the plugin only seems to allow for one type of discard; the player chooses what they discard (or if the discard is the size of their entire hand, it's handled for them automatically). What about randomly chosen discards? What about discarding cards from the top of the deck instead of the hand? What about 'discarding' to the top of the deck, instead of the discard pile?

Enemy attacks forcing the player to discard cards (their choice or random) too?

Edit: also, mouse support. I don't seem to be able to select different cards using my cursor, only confirm the current selection. This might impact mobile compatibility, too.

Yeah, but in any case (above the $1 minimum) as users we can just pay the minimum amount the developer specifies. We're not forced to always enter minimum+$0.25.

Honestly, it might be an idea to contact itch.io support about this, as the site UI certainly suggests paying the shown price is possible, and I'm guessing you didn't get a warning at your end that users wouldn't be able to pay the displayed price.