itch.io

People were ripping off your own assets for their games instead of creating their own. That is some shady shit that doesn't surprise me at all ripping off artists is unfortunately a tale as old of time but with a game there are so many small little "pieces" of the game they can rip from. Put them on blast or send them offers they can't refuse.

Those games are match 3 games. Puzzle games can and do get on the store as a censored version. Though technically possible with a visual novel style game it is far less likely. Depending on how many aspects of the game are pornographic in nature and whether they are incorporated in the story or not. Now there is absolutely nothing to stop a creator from releasing their game on android in general but on the play store itself it usually has to be a game that in itself is not lewd that just has unlockable nude assets (screenshots, animations, scenes) seperate from the game itself. There are many mobile games hundreds if not thousands that have a censored and uncensored versions because of the way the game is designed to have these assets separately and it is for this exact reason so many developers go this route. However with a visual novel this is far harder to pull off as it often detracts from the story itself. People don't complain to much about rewards with bewbs and the like for completing levels in a puzzle game being "separate" but it is a whole different story with visual novels. They want it right there in the story itself which is far more difficult to release different versions of without breaking immersion. Doesn't mean it can't be done just that more often than not developers don't see the time invested being worth the payoff. People playing the visual novels want the explicit content anyway so they don't look to kindly to it not being included. Great visual novels will release edited on steam and be negative review bombed if there isn't a patch on the developer website to uncensor it. So that target audience won't be on the play store anyway. They would use an app like itch.io or nutaku they wouldn't expect to find it on google play so making those many modifications to release it in a censored form wouldnt be worth it.

Great Writing I loved the ambiance the soundtrack works.

Here is what doesn't. The voices. To be clear I am not saying it is terrible not by any means. However there are a lot of things you could do to improve it. I will give the benefit of the doubt to language barrier being part of why it  sounds the  way it  does.

This reads or sounds like it is supposed to read like a sinister mysterious poem. And in a poem there is one thing very very important that is not done properly here. Timing. The words you have written are great and they flow well. The narration does not. There is nothing wrong with the voice itself or the person speaking but there needs to be a MUCH larger disparity between the two voices. They don't sound different enough they barely sound different at all. EVERYONE has some degree of range in their voice that can be altered. You don't have to be a professional voice actor. You should be perfectly capable of making a different voice or ten for the two characters. Try some out There is one other issue that I completely forgot about  while typing this that really breaks the immersion. You are narrating sounds that should be there with foley. 

I would give you specific notes for specific lines I would be happy to do so but there isnt an up or down back button to go back a line. But there is a moment when you say something about clattering pots and pans and the way it is written sounds like you are supposed to say it so you do but the way it seems to be implied is that it is supposed to "happen" as in with some kind of foley sounds. I am by no means a game designer so maybe you couldnt add foley because it interferes with the music as far as tracks go or something but it breaks the immersion completely. And the biggest one the Kekekeke. Why is it said like that. I don't know the right term for it and I know different countries say different things but the vast majority of the time that isn't SAID it is expressed. I imagine the Kekekeke sound being like the dog in that Hanna Barbara cartoon Wacky Racers. its like of the cross between a cackle and a laugh. but any laughter in a text for any medium is almost never spoken the only exception I can think of is robots or satire of some kind. The best examples I can give are GladOS in Portal who "because it is a machine actually SAYS HA HA HA HA HA. And the Count in Sesame Street says A HA HA HA HA HA in a grandiose larger than life heavily exaggerated fashion.

Maybe this criticism comes off as harsh if you take it that way so be it. It is accurate criticism to give and if taken would improve your piece. Here is where I am coming from. I am in the "biz" as it were. But I have the attention span of a gnat and get distracted way to damn easily. I am a writer, actor, voice actor, comedian who has "done plenty of things but has never really taken the proper time to create something in its entirety from start to finish. I have dabbled in almost all of it but have a serious problem finishing things myself. I have also been an on again off again game/movie reviewer. It is always easier to tell everyone else what they are doing wrong than to just fix your own stuff right? I am FINALLY taking things seriously and have been a stand up comedian for about 6 years now so to say I know what I am talking about when I tell your timing is off isn't just some random criticism. In Comedy timing is EVERYTHING, not something, not some of it ALL OF IT. You can tell the best joke in the world with terrible timing and it falls flat. You can tell the worst joke in the world with perfect timing and still get laughs. THAT is how important timing is to the written word.

I loved your poem absolutely loved it but it has to be rerecorded the voices need to be different the timing needs to be fixed. You should record 10 different versions maybe even 20 listen to them and see what flows you should be cackling not saying kekekeke I almost closed the game a few lines in because I couldn't stand the inconsistent timing but I stayed until the end because the prose was really good. I would hope you have entered that poem into a contest. The timing MUST be fixed laugh don't "say" the laughter. Breathe it.

Sincerely,

Curious George

Do you have a Mac with an M1 processor? I am not the dev or anything but I can tell you from experience the vast majority of games with an M1 processor don't work. M1 is a very powerful chip but very few games support it. I know there is some kind of workaround but results vary.

Specifically non apple or mainstream games.

I can confirm this. Not a developer myself but this is a "kink" I have and ya pretty much any and every hynosis related game whether it is lewd or not gets removed. There were a ton of articles about it a few years ago. A law for animation changed and any user created content got destroyed. Patreon and many many many other sites started removing anything that might imply nonconsensual. We aren't just talking about rape here I mean anything that "suggests it. A good example is hypnosis clicker. it is a comedy and the hypnosis often blows up in your own face. There is nudity yes but you have to really really really work for it. Subscribe Star which admittedly has very hit or miss success rates for financing and worse often runs slow and or has downtime seems to be the "mecca" of any a crowdfunding platform doesn't support something or removes it we will.

I understand SOME of the games they remove but ya I have yet to see anyone whose game got removed from patreon get it back. Hypnosis in particular for whatever reason is a serious target of theirs.

But the weird thing is there are a ton of very graphic leaving nothing to the imagination straight up rape simulators that don't get removed. Anything with hypnosis gets removed. Sometimes its a day later sometimes its 3 hours later or a year later but if you search "my game was removed from patreon for hy" you don't even have to type hypnosis out fully you will find a good hundred posts of people saying their content game/artwork/story/song was removed for hypnosis.

It is at the point where it makes me think the founder of Patreon's father or mother left them as a child because someone hypnotized them into doing so. 

How is that supposed to work? As you update the game people have to repurchase it? I was genuinely about to buy this until I read that question and subsequent answer. I see no reason to buy a game you will keep making me rebuy for "updates"

I can't get sound at all for some reason?

Also you(The developer)  need to "highlight" zones because I thought the game was unplayable and or crashed until I finally found the right little circle on the map to click. Maps in games have distinctive barriers sometimes subtle sometimes quite apparent but  yours is practically a "hidden object" of what to click. You could also change the mouse cursor to something game related or obvious as a way to know what zone is actually clickable.

I enjoyed this game played it for about 4 hours or so but...when I booted it up again the game never saved. Even though I mashed the save button about 50 times while playing TT

Wasn't trying to download it on my phone. Pc has 1 tb of free space available 32 gb of memory accessing through the pc launcher not the website downloaded your prequel story for the game (great little poem loved it!) for the game as well as neko paradise was checking this out because the writing in neko paradise was so good.

Downloaded several games since then.

Have attempted to download your game through the client many times restarting pc downloading at different times. Trying to see if I have broken install file for it in the folder.

The one I thing I haven't tried is downloading it directly from the website instead of the game client. I will try that when I get home.

(But I have successfully downloaded 50 some odd games and while doing so periodically kept coming back to try and download yours again (bought that Pakistan aid bundle) to no avail

Here we go....

Some of these are easier to implement then others and you may end up not being able to do some of them because of the game engine you are using but there isn't a single one that won't enhance the game experience and they require a lot more animation and game overhaul but I promise you the end result will be worth it in the end.

The gameboard MUST be overhauled from the ground up. It is the thing players will see for 95% of the length of the game. Your artwork quality is absolutely spectacular it must extend to the gameboard it just has to.

Add Icons to the spaces themselves change the hue of the pink and orangish red spaces I absolutely get the retro feel of 8 or 16 bit colors only being available but you are using way more than that many hues in your artwork so there is no reason to be a stickler for that on the gameboard. Overhauling the look and feel of that board should be the very first visual related thing you do. No one will get to round 22 without doing so most won't even get to round 10.

The gameboard itself must evolve over time

You need to add 10x more tongue in cheek nostalgia references it could be quite a bit more than that.

The player must interact with the board in some way
You MUST have penalty's on the board significant ones. You have a handful in your wild cards but there needs to be some seriously steep ones.

Because this is a visual novel you don't need a game over. You can have very severe consequential narrative shifts in the story (that are temporary until back in the black) FOR losing all of your money. As Mary Jane is the main character and you play from her perspective on the game board itself depending on that pure or perv character trait (for either Mary Jane and/or the player character the consequences should be reflecting. A more pervy Mary Jane would try to turn tricks with or without telling you in order to make the money back (you don't HAVE to animate EVERYTHING I see firsthand just how long those animations take you. How long did that Mercedes animation in Round 22 take? two weeks a month? It is so damn good. Those kind of animations should be reserved for extraordinary checkpoints in the game but you have to get to them quicker. A more pure Mary Jane would sell her own possessions because she doesn't want to trouble you come to you crying and apologizing and you would console her. Its that straightforward. Two specific "negative ends" that can absolutely go back to the 

The pure/perv narrative I genuinely think is the most important improvement you can make and I have absolutely no idea how you can implement it I have plenty of experience playing individual games but none making them. I don't know how this can possibly be done on ren'py I really don't. And since this is your 2nd game and you mention Game Development isn't your main job and you are taking considerable time to getting better at coding (hence the main reason you decided to add gameplay elements to your next visual novel to get more experience with it directly) if you feel that kind of Gameplay mechanic is going to be too difficult to implement then I strongly recommend seeking outside help. Be it from more experienced developers in the gaming community or straight up having another developer handle that specific part for you. The only way I can think of to make it work Is to prompt the player with a big ass warning right in the middle of the screen once the reach a certain amount of perv or innocence (again whatever the hell you want to call it that this will permanently effect the story path for the duration of your current playthrough. Then you have an initial story (maybe to round 10 which should equate to about an hour to an hour and a half of gameplay at the absolute most that) you can then shift to either Story A or Story B without ever having to worry about a random line of pervy dialogue sneaking its way into overlapping into the pure or innocence route. This is the only way I think it can be done without it drastically increasing the development time and bug checking needed to implement. A permanent change that the player knows is going to happen at which point the board itself changes to be more pervy or more innocent. (Still sex (which means you need a ton of gentle sex animations too) but more of falling in love with her trying to protect her while redeeming your name in the industry kind of thing.

While your perv plot is already pretty great as it is. Round 22 and Round 23 make a very specific revelation that I kind of already saw coming but you finally spell out for the player and the dialogue choices you use to do so are top tier scriptwriting lvl so again well done there! But I won't mention it because I don't want to spoil the surprise for the player.

The player being a shadow works perfect for the darker pervier route but you should choose a different hue for the more romantic purity route. I don't know what that hue is research  how different colors evoke different emotions but whether justified or not a "Black Shadow" (which shouldn't be a race thing under any circumstances but unfortunately is often attributed as such) is the absolute perfect (form) of the "grooming" route. "Mysterious/Dangerous/Anonymous/Sinister. But I have absolutely no idea what the protagonist should look like for a less "sinister" vibe as making the avatar "whiter or lighter in hue which is usually whether fairly or not attributed to more of the "good guy" The whole western bad guy wears the black hat and the good guy wears the white hat trope.

90s references Make more. When you think you have enough add more. and More and more. This tongue in cheek little jokes will add some levity to the absolutely heartbreaking story I sense you have crafted here. Its 4th wall stuff so it shouldn't take away from the story IF it takes place in rounds where "nothing happens or is unlocked" if you have great 90's references every few rounds and/or reference them through the game board chance cards themselves players WILL stick around for a round or two that isn't "lewd" and they will do it OVER and OVER again as long as you keep the hits coming.

So the starcraft II screen as cute as it is with the text "I love playing videogames it is the only thing I can do while being forced to stay here" or whatever it says. doesn't suffice. You need to directly "but probably through parody 4th wallish form make as many references as you possibly can.

So far in 4 hours of gameplay I have seen about 15 or 20. The types of clothes people wear. Downloading a porn picture. Starcraft/ Halflife/ Ultima? VHS/ Pager/ CRT TV/ Old as dirt Computer YTK and....that is about it. This is actually of everything I complained about before my own secret beef with your game. The whole reason I checked out your game was to expect cheesy 90's references alongside the porn. That is the entire reason I clicked download. And there is no way I am the only one.

I am going to time myself right now and type out as many references for you as I can 3 minutes for evil grooming route and then 3 minutes for saving the girl while redeeming yourself route. You could probably add (some of these or a good half of these as internal dialogue and some of them should involve the other characters as well. You will know the ones I am talking about as you see them. But with the barrage of suggestions I am about to give you even if you used every single one of them It still won't account for even 10% of the references you need. My honest opinion would be to set aside a week to do nothing but research 90's pop culture. Draw your own experiences look at major news events which tv shows were popular events that happened etc. If it is in the 90's you need to TRANSPORT ME THERE. I have to FEEL like I am in 1999 not read it. It's a game therefore the actual experience has to feel lived. This comes from experience.

 I am actually a writer myself and a comedian but my work ethic is trash unfortunately. It is always so much easier to give advice and criticism to others then to finish your own work right? I am bad at about 99% of things in this world but writing and comedy are not one of them. Making people laugh cry and express rage through writing is as easy as breathing to me. If I give you advice on writing or comedy I STRONGLY suggest you take it. I don't have the credibility because I haven't finished a single damn project But I have more unfinished projects in journals harddrives and audio files then I would ever feel comfortable admitting. I am entirely aware it comes off as egotistical and arrogant and I will own that entirely its the one thing in the world I am good at and I will scream it from the top of a mountain with an intercom. I have thought of being a motivational speaker but I don't have any finished works so it is pretty contradictory. Anyway here are your 90's references.

I am only guessing based off of how long it took to get to the point it did in game (which you really really really need to decrease significantly. (just show more dialogue in between rounds and lower the round count) I think you expect your game to be a visual novel that takes about 15-20 hours to complete everything. You probably didn't start off with a number that high but as your story expanded more and more it got there. You need a 90's reference whether serious, sarcastic, humorous or 4th wall breaking like every 5 to 10 minutes worth of gameplay. They don't all have to be from the player perspective but they  need to be happening constantly through the whole game. The most important rule of comedy is that a laugh a minute isn't nearly enough. laugh a minute applies to MOVIES. Comedies are the most harshly judged films and yet they are the hardest to write and act in. Anyways enough rambling (90% of my comedy material is just making fun of my many many random thoughts and idiosyncracies) on to the actual suggestions I said I would give you 5 paragraphs ago.

bop it joke

watching fuzzy porn on tv

rule 34

leisure suit larry (once praising it/ once making fun of how easy the age question is to circumvent/ once making fun of how terrible it looks or how tedious it is (poking fun at the state of the games in the adult industry in the 90s. Also known as the 5 games that had ever released.

jacking off to a porn magazine secretly while mary jane or another character knocks on the door you drop the magazine in the toilet in surprise and it starts overflowing

you've got mail

phone calls to america online begging them to give you a few more hours to have internet/ and or stealing america online trail discs from neighbors

blue screen of death

going to our website is as easy as typing http://www.mindspring.com/mail/inbox/user.php

(lol of course it turned into a link ><)

AOL instant messenger

at least 20 videogame references at least 10 movie references and at least 10 tv show references a handful of newspaper articles.

pure (gonna save the girl and win her heart route)

sleepless in seattle

friends

titanic

sonic

mario

(evil grooming her to do your bidding route)

Nighttrap sega cd game

silence of the lambs

mortal Kombat

Deliverance

Misery

(Sexual joke about the Shining sisters "come play with us")

tetris

(themes of manipulation basically)

PARENTAL ADVISORY EXPLICIT

I PERSONALLY would also throw in a ton of political jokes but that WILL divide your audience BUT I also see from your other game that you go out of your way to make it inclusive which leads me to believe you slant a certain way anyway. And to put it in plain english

Your game is text heavy and is a slow burn for the porn

That other audience you lose is not going to be interested in investing the time to get to the meat of the story. 

Make fun of the art of the deal

buy random nonsense off of QVC

Make fun of the hypocrisy of the church

reference the church calling D&D/Pokemon/Mortal Kombat (satanic and evil)

(pure route)

be trolled in one of the game references

(evil route) troll someone in one of the game references

(random stuff Mary Jane can come across)

Slap Bracelets

Bedazzling

Tupperware Parties (could be a cover for escort service?)

Pogs

Hairspray

(Oh right you gotta reference the hell out of MTV too)

I would also put a direct reference to Heavy Metal and "Take on Me" in there since you are clearly inspired by both in your artwork unknowingly or otherwise. 

There that is like 30 something references. You still need a few hundred more.

I  know you can do it because as a writer myself your narrative is spectacular! I want as many people as possible to be able to read your story that just keeps getting better and better and they won't if they abandon it do to lack of feeling invested in it.

and of course keep the porn coming

Ok wow enough criticism time for some compliments.

It was your respect and willingness to listen to my suggestions that was the SOLE determining factor in this happening but ya. I gave your game another chance. You had casually but not forcibly mentioned the only thing you didn't agree with was that things didn't happen in the game or something to that effect and that the actual gameplay itself is up to Round 33 so far.

Had I gone a single round further I wouldn't have been anywhere near as much criticism for you.

Your story is so damn good! From round 22 onwards you pack more story and information between each individual round so the feedback I gave was clearly something you had already taken into account long before I gave it :) You just added it to the story as you went along since it is a visual novel after all.

I was trying to figure out when I was playing your game initially what your art style reminded me of and in Round 22 with that absolutely superb animation (as well as the very specific narrative that runs along side said animation I finally figured it out.

The animation (movement) itself is reminiscent of one of my all time favorite series Home Movies (but without the squiggles so I guess from 2nd season on when it wasn't as severe?)

The feel of the animation/artwork is a a color instead of B/W quality is kind of mix of A-ha's Take on Me music video and the artwork is straight out of Heavy Metal from 1981 I think it was called? It is so damn good I really can't praise it enough! And before I even mentioned the other game you had played (what the hell does the name stand for by the way it is so random) I had already taken note of the fact that the artwork in that wasn't as good (though not terrible either) as it is in this game. Which is why I played this one before that one even though that one was finished.

So essentially what you are saying is this is only your 2nd game you have made? But the animation quality is like 5 years worth of experience about the first one. You are definitely going places just keep up the good work it is such a unique art style and your narrative really is great which is why I am 100% confident that you can implement the suggestions I mentioned that I know with 150% certainly will greatly increase your chances of people sticking around for the great story they just have to get to it!

Going to make a separate comment with cliff notes list of the suggestions but not in any priority order. It is going to require a lot more work but it will turn your game from below average with a great story into a genuinely good interactive novel with gameplay elements. I know from years of experience that it WILL greatly improve the quality of the title the most important thing is they get to your amazing narrative That will make or break the entire narrative.

It won't let me play your game. I can't install it just stuck in a queuing loop

I do have some genuine gripes though (I hope they are small) and probably you already plan to implement them at one point or another the game is only version 0.10 after all.

First and foremost um wow. Your game is awesome I love the characters and frankly I am not one for the furry type content excluding Neko which is of course what your game is about I had to play it. Even then I still prefer to be a human seducing cat girls but your game is too good for it to bug me much. And the reason WHY I am a furry is pretty damn good from a narrative perspective so it's all good. Hell you may have turned me into a hypocrite furry playing your game.

Start to finish one sitting about 4 hours did absolutely everything I intended to play for an hour and then go to bed...that didn't happen.

I did notice some bugs though some minor some not so much. And I personally feel like their is a feature missing in your game that is pretty damn important.

There are instances where animations kind of cut over eachother (it is honestly not that big a deal it happens very rarely and for all I know could be my graphics card but it was like a scene transition fade so it seemed more like an interface overlay type issue) but just letting you know about it.

I love the way you set up the game outright telling players "a few things before you get started" and then you tell them exactly how to play the game. That is awesome and is more often than not the very first correction I give to someone after playing their unfinished game. (I will add a tutorial later I often hear or there are a ton of features that aren't implemented but are advertised in games) I mean that is just a no brainer.

But your game does NOT have that problem. You let the player know exactly what is and isn't available from the jump you give periodic updates and hints to the player basically there is absolutely nothing to criticize or correct you for there because you have that all set up exactly like any pro would!

having said that I can't say the same for the interface. Even with the tutorial the HUD itself (thank you for having one though) takes a little figuring out. I did figure it out but it took a minute or so to understand what the icons did. I didn't know if they were places I went or selection options. It becomes clear pretty quickly but maybe the positioning of the locations is in the wrong spot? (Or maybe it isn't since it is made in renpy and putting it lower would be under the text box. Maybe make the buttons a little more detailed and obvious then? I genuinely couldnt tell right away whether they were places to go or game mode options until I clicked them. The same with the arrow forward next to the map I realized it eventually but it wasn't obvious at a glance. Maybe a prompt for the donations section? I was just clicking like a madman wondering why I had access to a place but nothing was there for days on end.

Is there a way to randomize the fishing game? It is just a pattern right now from what I can tell.

Love the story love the characters love the lewd animations you did a damn fine job there. And because it is a narrative based game I completely understand not voicing the characters themselves. Its either all or nothing in that regard. But I cant say the same for.

how adorable it is to pet Lily I want to pet my wife and best friend and all the women on the island. You don't have to have voices but some kind of sex sound even if just like panting or orgasming. purring when they are pet that kind of stuff.

For foley sex sounds you don't need a lot of it and there are adult creative commons files. But for the petting of the kitty cats I genuinely think you should have an adult VA performer who can do voices of different types of animals in a seductive way.

The more of these games I play the more I am starting to think this next issue is just me nitpicking but it comes off as unintentionally misleading. Your renpy menu which is the same as everyone elses for the most part. Has sliders for music sound effects and voice. But I never heard a single line of voiced dialogue in the entire game (excluding that one song with vocals which I doubt is isolated and is part of the music track itself. Is there not a way to take a toggle out if you don't have one of the options? I keep seeing it in these visual novel renpy games where there are toggles for voice but no voice. I think I counted about 6 sound fx in the entire gameplay as well.

I also wonder if your game has plenty of voice and sfx and my pc just isn't playing it right for some reason. When I shut off the music does it mute everything or just the music? I can't tell because the game doesn't tell me.

Overall I think you have a damn fine game in the making and I am sure you will polish more of it out as you go along but ya if you can pet Lily and she is all adorable like that I wanna hear her purr when I do. And I think anyone and everyone who plays your game will want it to. Which is why I think you already plan on doing so eventually and were just kind enough to allow people to play a pretty decent chuck of your game long before it was anywhere close to polished. Which shows your confidence in your product as well as your trust in the community and feedback you receive. All of which get gold stars in my book.

Love love love the story so many great twists and turns. I can't wait for more. Most of these games no matter how much I like them so far I am bummed out when they end but don't plan on playing them until they are much further along in development. I don't think that is the case here. I have fallen in love with your Neko characters and their stories and I want to see everything right away and will keep playing it repeatedly. Hell of a badge of honor to say about a visual novel and not something I say lightly.

Enough so that I will eventually be a patreon (so far I have played 9 games I think on the site you are only the 2nd one I am seriously considering supporting and some of those are good too but yours is really really damn good. But it will be more sporadic one time donations here and there and it won't be right away as cash is hella tight right now.

Great game can't wait for Meowr!

I was wrong see my edited comment

( this first part was the original comment see edit below) I am less than 5 minutes into your game and I am not about to serve any positive or negative judgement until I finish whatever content you have but I just have to ask as it is such an anomaly in this industry.

Why is your font size so damn big? It's almost twice the size of a typical visual novels text. I would just ask for a text size changer or something because it doesn't give off an "adult" vibe you know? if you have vision problems or something I mean no insult whatsoever it just sticks out like a sore thumb. If it is a stylistic choice that is different it comes off as more juvenile. it is an adult visual novel the last thing you want is to tell your story in the same size font early readers learn to read at. Again unless you had to in which case I sure as hell don't want to sound like a dick. So ya a text adjustment or a text size option in the menu would do wonders.

Edit:  A lot of people when proven wrong just delete their post erasing evidence of their assumption or idiocy or someone calling them out. I am NOT one of those guys and I never will be. The reason we find so many people unable to agree with eachother or admit to any wrongdoing of any kind in society today is because of little tiny things like deleting your youtube comment to erase "evidence" you were wrong. The only opinion that is correct is your own opinion right? Hell no. If more people took accountability for the little teeny tiny insignificant things more people would take accountability for the bigger things. Maybe.

So ya. I was just flat out wrong. I was only 5 minutes into the game and I was genuinely trying to reserve judgement until playing it the text size and maybe even font really threw me for a loop in that intro. But as soon as you meet Lily and her friends and with all the flashbacks it ends up being the absolutely perfect stylistic choice!  You found the one narrative instance where such a large font is justified. The player character text isn't what you are there for it is the cute Neko waifus. That font when spoken by Lily comes off as more playful and animated. The same goes for just about all of the other Neko in the game. It makes it more heartwarming gives it a perfect personal touch of intimacy. It is often understated just how important the font chosen is for a project but in marketing, advertising and graphic design it is pretty damn important.

I could not have been more wrong. Do not change your font not that you were going to it just came off as such a weird choice to me for it to be so big but it really does fit the narrative and feel of the characters perfectly the childish font and big letters it adds a personal touch to the game.

Oh and I will play the game to round 33 if that is how far it is along once it's only fair to you for me to do so after that barrage of "suggestions" and I will check out your other visual novel as the story you are telling here seems to have potential.

I appreciate that you appreciate it. I used to review games professionally and am pretty obsessed with them. I have alpha and beta tested more than a few over the years and back in the way way way back time machine infancy of Newgrounds I reviewed the hell out of some flash games....Then I forgot my password and ended up going back later on and had to start over. it kind of fell by the wayside. What it comes down to is I am a creative myself but my attention span for my own creations is that of a gnat. I am far better at giving people advice, feedback, positive and negative criticism alike than I am at finishing my own stuff. I have something "in progress yet stalled" for every facet of the entertainment industry...all of them TT It is always easier to tell people what they are doing right or wrong than to focus on my own issues right? 

I may tear you a new one but I will be honest about it and if I like something I will praise it as well.

I am VERY new to the itch.io space...even though I created a profile a few years ago and forgot aobut it? (kind of the story of my life) but I see this as a much more high stakes indie community. In a "niche" adult game market where now that I am 35 instead of 13 I don't have to hide the nudie games anymore.

I understand you not agreeing with that last point but that gameplay clock was nearing several hours (before I just started pressing "next" as soon as it popped up. I have noticed the barista scenes are different and I guess I wasn't aware of the music changing. But me ending at 20 was deliberate. It seemed like a good stopgap measure of the absolute bare minimum (major gameplay/story/change increase elements etc.)

If you had some variation in the responses if the same exact line of "here we go again" didn't play every single round...There is just so much repetition. And I get that may be the case in boardgames but even those "spice themselves up" knowing that the true advantage of a board game is interacting with your friends. 

If I were to compare your game to monopoly for CD ROM in the early 90s it would NOT hold up well. At least that had like different train whistle sounds for the railroads.... because you responded favorably to my criticism I will throw a little more detail your way. I still don't plan on playing it until it is further along again but at least can give you a blueprint of sorts of what you want to achieve. This is necessary and it is ONLY necessary because of the monotony.

FIRST AND FOREMOST

The game is not finished I know it isn't and you know it isn't the people who download it on the page know it but IN GAME you don't mention it enough. I hate to say it but people aren't as smart as you want them to be in a videogame. You have two camps. One want their hand held for everything. The other wants no hand holding whatsoever. Your goal is to find the middle. You have to give indication within the tutorial itself as well as the game progresses that x feature is still in development. You just have to. Even when you explicitly tell someone THIS GAME IS NOT FINISHED they are going to scream at you BUT HOW COME I HAVE A BUG OF IT NOT WORKING WHEN I LAND ON X SPOT?

A simple (this feature is not available with your current progress) or (this feature is still in development thank you for your support) depending on which it is. will go a REALLY long way to dispelling confusion. You give a tutorial for the whole game board but each round (at first) adds a new "space type" but then it doesn't...and it doesn't...and it doesn't... by the time you hit I think round 7 or so almost all the space are unlocked and then....nothing else unlocks....Round 20 from something like round. 9 to round 20 no other space unlocked. I may not have the correct rounds and it may be more criteria based but if the text in your game has one character explicitly say to another character give me money so she can get those photoshoots. and then 5 6 7 8 rounds later that still hasn't "materialized" into anything that is a problem.

The biggest issue you have is trying  to marry the visual novel with the tabletop gameplay. I expected the story to be far more "interactive" BECAUSE of the tabletop element. Its not about it doesn't have enough sex scenes or they don't happen at the right time or anything like that. Speaking purely from a gameplay perspective the pacing is wrong. I feel like you have allowed of experience as a writer of narrative stories and this is a way to dip your toe in the water at adding a little bit more interactivity into your story giving some player input having consequences etc.

Then you have to worry about if the game is too hard or too easy and yes the sex is obviously important I mean it is called tabletop pornstar but I mean just basic stuff.

You have cute little handdrawn cards to the left of the spaces she lands on but especially with the career one there is no information given whatsoever of what you need to accomplish or how quickly to get to that next point.

"I pay my rent and bills" but it doesn't explicitly tell you anywhere "what that amount is" There is a scene where she spends money and your character gets understandably pissed off about it. but my money doesn't change. So that penalty doesn't even exist. These are two entirely different types of games you are making here and to make them as one ESPECIALLY since the story is the meat of your game and the tabletop is the gimmick for interactivity it CANNOT be boring. It just can't be. 

Real Talk? At the BARE MINIMUM

progress updates (far more detailed than the ones current every 5 rounds) Hinting but not explicitly telling a player EXACTLY what they need to do to unlock x function. I love the narrative you have here that you either grooming or saving a girl from the ills of tinsel town. I see in the description for the game that will have genuine consequences later on but it doesn't happen quick enough. I could con my way to the pants of the women way too easily. There is no real world interactivity between the gameplay and the story. Its just checkpoints you hit after unlocking specific unspecified numbers.

My guess is you are trying to balance the pro/con of how linear or nonlinear you want the game to be but the unfortunate reality is that the second you decided to make it tabletop themed it became non linear. You probably have a really great story you want this game to tell and the tabletop aspect is a creative way of involving the player but the game itself is too generic right now. You pretty much to have either overhaul the hell out of the gameplay aspect and/or double the size of the story. When you decided to make this a tabletop interactive visual novel it stopped being a visual novel.

And honestly I have no idea how the hell you can fix this that is the fear. I worry that the game is built with an engine specifically for visual novels with very little mechanics outside of that aside from telling the story. Which means every "random" or "other" plot thread means going through your  thousands of dialogue option threads and adding a second choice but how do you randomize it? isn't it just a different character talking? a different result? Then you run the very real risk that random dialogue for the completely different storyline will get mixed in with  or overlap the other "triggers" for landing on specific spaces getting specific hidden stat bonuses etc.

Example if your plot is really groom or save you REALLY need to drive that point home. I would add a mechanic to assist or hinder mary jane from the player perspective. maybe even a skill tree for it. I had the hidden stat that she is obedient so all 6 rolls become 1 and that was a nice little secret but it should be a randomized gameplay aspect based off of a player decision not something that just happens at a specific point. And again I don't know how easy that is to do. Example being like betrayal and trust mechanics. Right now you have a Perv stat but you don't have an innocence stat. My guess would be that number being lower makes that check happen but since it is a GAME you want to give that option.

I can tell your hands are tied already with quite a few things because of the game engine chosen so instead of worrying about the things you can't change change the ones you can. Go over every line of dialogue and make them unique witty and creative. And (again I don't know how you do this in a visual novel engine) have alternates. I would love to tell you 2 or 3 but its probably closer to 10. It is a text based visual novel with gameplay ELEMENTS.

But things happen way way way too quickly. Speed it up to fast and players won't feel invested. Don't speed it up enough and they will straight up abandon the game entirely. I am actually a pretty patient guy. The amount of time it takes to get the ball rolling by round 20 after several hours of "gameplay" is just way too long. I only played that long knowing the game was unfinished wanting to give the benefit of the doubt give it a little more time to flush out the story etc. But when I "fight" 7 times and at some point in those 7 times I got a visual novel scene (my guess would be 5 as I think I got 3 in one turn) that was an "activation" but on a gameboard about being a pornstar heavily monopoly esque but dumbed down (which is good in this scenario the game needs to be worth playing but it is a companion to your story. The last thing you want to do is sideline the story itself but for people to read your story they have to be able to bear the game.

You don't have enough penaltys. I'm not but a surprising amount of people are. Your board needs to get some life to it. You have generic colored squares. People are colorblind and accessibilty options are defacto for the majority of developers now. They claimed in the past (true or otherwise) that it was a matter of the technology not being available for it. But despite that they all do now. I know quite a few games that actually aren't that great that get praise and far more plays and attention then they normally would JUST FROM the simple addition of disability options. Before that is language of course but excluding menu overlays no one expects every game to be fully translated into 10 different languages ESPECIALLY a visual novel but really anything text heavy. They want it sure but it isn't realistic in the slightest.

Your artwork for the story is great but your gameboard looks like it was drawn in MS Paint. Give the same attention to detail for the gameboard and the piece (which should change as she changes careers should reflect that same level of quality. Every little attention to detail matters (but an artist already knows that right? How often do you erase and redraw a strand of hair that doesn't fall the way you want it to?)

I don't know if 0.2 for you means 20% but I don't think you are there. I think you have a good script worked out on your pc or mac with a lot of the illustrations to accompany it done and quite a few more to go and a an absolutely bare bones pre pre pre pre alpha demo of a tabletop idea to present to a company. If this is called tabletop pornstar it needs some insane overhaul. I don't think this was your intent but because you have now staked the entirety of your novel on that gimmick (not meant as an insult it is just the method of delivery you used to tell the story) you know have to put a much larger emphasis on the tabletop aspect of it. And here is the real problem. The vast majority of tabletop games that are singleplayer only fail. It is physically impossible for you to make your game a multiplayer game because of how heavily it focuses on what is looking to be a great narrative. A company only makes a digital tabletop game a singleplayer experience if they have that existing in the world as an established game. You can play with AI or online with friends....you can't do that in this game and being able to would be like setting your script for the game on fire. That is NOT what you want to do. So it puts you between a rock in a hard place. You want to tell a great story accompanied by your uniquely handdrawn retro vibe illustrations but focusing to much on the tabletop aspect will do just that but not focusing enough means people won't even read past chapter 2 of your 30-50 chapter book.

My guess is that you had been prioritizing the tabletop aspect as maybe about 10-15% of the game. The gameboard itself is a creative medium to tell your story the handdawn animations of Mary Jane at the Barista look absolutely amazing the first time I see them and they still look great the 5 time and the tenth time but by about the 20th time (which is NOTHING in the pace of your game so far) It starts to be a little....ya I know ok give me my 12 dollars so I can move on.)

By the end of my gameplay Or maybe even halfway in Mary Jane started to sound a lot less like a scared beautiful doe eyed runaway and more like Deadpool.

"Here we go again...."

Yes Mary Jane...here we go...again....and again.... which 30 seconds of dialogue will I unlock this time before pressing next on somewhere between 6 to 15 "turns"around the bend?

I know I am being harsh but I am genuinely trying to be as detailed as possible and typing quickly this has taken about an hour to type so far and still not done. Just think of it as a free one man focus group who actually knows what he is talking about.

The gameboard and pieces should evolve alongside the story. Not just narratively but mechanically. I love absolutely love the homemade touch you give your instruction and description cards for the game aspect itself. It feels like you are playing a game your friend made and he scribbled out the instructions for the game as he builds it. And it is also kind of meta because that is exactly what we the players are doing. Playing your game as you build it. I don't love the vague content ON the card....-

Barista, Dancer, Actress, Fighter, Pornstar 

Ok...but is this an evolution of HOW my career progresses? Or a description OF some of the jobs available. When do I unlock these jobs? How many properties do I own before I can build houses in otherwords. Then it says $$$ (ok how much?) at least it is honest (varies)

You could get away with SOME of the stuff by changing up the dialog a little bit to make fun of the game itself and in a 4th wall directly referencing what you can't change. Draw a scene of Mary Jane complaining to you the player that she never knows how much money she is going to make or have her bitch at still being a waitress and quit her job midshift for the next thing.

But  purity/slut is definitely the way to go. The jobs and interactions should change accordingly. The slut path should be high risk high reward the pure path should be like the tortoise and the hare more steady gradual calculated movements. And again skillsets that directly effect the game itself. The player needs to be able to interact with the board. You gave her a pager which from a story standpoint make sense and is great 90's reference material. The 90's reference stuff is great but you need a HELL OF A LOT MORE of it. You don't have a short book here and you need people to stick around. Your game doesn't have to be groundbreaking but when there are 50 other games just like it that do most of it better you have to focus on what makes your game stand out Setting it in the 90s the theme of the game itself your illustrations the easter egg references playing on the childhood nostalgia of the player. Your main story should still be present obviously but you need a lot of "interactive tongue in cheek reference padding to appease some of the monotony.

But of all of the salt I have poured in your wounds here is the really big one. Everything I said is good advice that may or may not be worth your time to implement may or not be feasible for you to even implement but it won't make your game succeed in the slightest it just makes it a better game.

But you decided to make a porn game....so ya.....your audience is going to want a lot of it...often like REALLY often like 50 times more than you are giving them so far. It doesn't all HAVE to be illustrated but your character should be getting hot and heavy or being hit on hot and heavy just just narratively not just visually but like the game pieces themselves the tone of the text itself has to get more raunchy a lot quicker. Personally I am perfectly fine with your story as it is it is a nice change of pace from the usual throwing the tits in the face 5 seconds into the game but most people are not that patient. ESPECIALLY for the porn games.

Almost every suggestion I have given you even though they are sound reasonable suggestions don't matter anywhere near as much as a lot more sex a lot more often steamy dialogue lewd pictures random encounters people paging her for sex. It completely destroys the heart of your game but it just takes so long for things to happen. Just with more sex your game will succeed better. Your illustrations are great they really are but it could change the overall theme of the story you were trying to tell and very likely risk people not finishing the story at all. Playing it halfway through and sending you messages asking where the F the gallery is! send nudes etc.

You need to have a much more interactive much seedier much more prevalent underbully that involves Mary Jane and those around her much much quicker. I mean you have a tile that says SEX SHOP and two hours into the game it still isn't unlocked?

I am genuinely worried on whether this game can succeed. I know you want it to and I have every belief that you will do everything you can do to make it do so but I don't know what you can and cannot change game engine wise and so many suggestions contradict eachother and all of them add quite a bit more work. The easiest way out is just to add a hell of a lot more porn and 90s references but I did see the cracks of a really good story being told here and I worry that those easy changes would actually change the narrative tone you were going for. Maybe not who knows.

Now go see a nurse about that burn.

Sincerely,

George

Before I forget (as I won't be playing the game for awhile to let it develop further)

The biggest issue is the monotony. if you are truly using a tabletop mechanic you CANNOT under ANY circumstanes use the same two lines of text for encounters you will hit over and over and over again. I would suspect every box on that board will be hit several hundred if not several thousand times. Excluding the "round trip roundup and first introduction" its the same exact dialogue EVERY time. You can put a bandaid on this SOMEWHAT by randomizing maybe 5 to 10 different possible interactions (and I don't even know how that can be done with this type of game design) The best you could hope for is each of the job icons having different dialog at this point.

It feels like you are taking a game engine designed for a visual novel and stretching it for the gimmick of a board game. But since the game design is visual novel and not tabletop mechanic the randomization can only go so far. You are still beholden to recycling specific stills and specific dialogue boxes in a specific sequence. The only random thing is the spot you land on. The dialogue and the way it lvls is the same. It is way too generic. I don't really know what advice I give that you should take because some of it contradicts but unless you can seriously overhaul the tabletop aspect and put in A LOT more "text windows" give clear indicators of "progress to next lvl etc.....then I fear for this game.

Round 20 Dex 16 Stam 20 Drama 8 Perv 6 About 410 gold.

I really like your illustrations and I get where you are coming from with the plot you are telling but and this is NOT directed just at you but at every unfinished game I play that doesn't do this.

You need to have some kind of in game indicators or warnings that "this content is not yet available" or "coming soon"

I refuse to believe you would expect a player to have stats that high and still not have ranked up in job. That I would have received the 200 gold for a photo portfolio and 6 rounds later still hadn't taken it. Things happen way to slow. There is a lot of monotony here. There is a really great idea of a game here and you state here that it is unfinished but it is better to give some kind of indicator of WHAT is and isn't finished. Its clear you have tutorials and data cards for content that you don't yet have in the game. 

Again I get that it is unfinished but it is frustrating to me the player to not know WHAT IS AND ISNT playable. I can tell there is a lot of "empty space" in certain areas.   But you are working on the game it isn't finished.

Yet giving no indicator to the player ingame whatsoever that x feature is not yet complete just leaves them grasping at straws and reduces your credibility. It shouldn't. But it does. Pacing is really important in a story I thought it was about the tabletop game when I first started it but now it seems like a good unfinished visual novel using tabletop mechanics to drip out the story. Without some  serious overhauls to the tabletop aspect itself. I am guessing the sex shop and party icons aren't going to activate anytime soon. This is just to monotonous. You have what I assume is a good story about helping or corrupting a young girl on the run to hollywood but the tabletop aspect just fragments it out and chops it in to pieces.

I really like your artwork and I really like your characters as it stands I do not like your game. It seems like it is trying too hard to be two things while not finishing either one. But again it is unfinished. I will give it another try when it is much further along in development. If the game is dependant on the tabletop mechanics though then they have to be far less generic than they are currently.

Wow what a quick reply! All great information and I am all for following a main text. When you make a story too non-linear it is hard to keep players on the main thread of the plot or they deviate too often and then you have to write additional dialogue for the many different possible outcomes and happy/sad text for each character in each interaction. I COMPLETELY understand and support you not wanting to go that route.

I was more saying the way certain scenes are phrased make it explicitly seem like you have an A or B path so as great as the dialogue is you may want to tweak it a little bit "the context I mean" in those specific instances. They didn't occur often but when they did it wasn't subtle at all. Should I save them?    What do I do next? (but then the game just "does" its own thing. When you as a first person perspective narrator in charge of the story say those things it is important to have the right context. 95% of the time you hit the nail on the head but there are literal "Do I open Box A or Box B?" type dialogue where the character then just goes and opens box B. Its like umm what?

You may have misunderstood my criticism about the auto wheel text scrolling. I have no problem with that nothing needs to be changed there at all. That seems to be the defacto standard for every visual novel big and small alike now. No what I am saying is there are specific instances in the game where the text box jumps to the next line and you CANT scroll back. Its an actual bug. I have always thought of making a game like this but I don't have the patience or attention span but just from what little I can glean from Renpy and RPG MAKER type stuff in the past.

Your text box dialogue JUMPS to the next line usually a character "talks" at a specific text speed right? maybe it is adjustable maybe it isn't it could be a 3 or a 7 or 0 maybe you have an auto mode maybe you don't. I think what your intent is stylistically as you mention is for characters to be "talking over eachother) and I do NOT know the correct way to do this. Or to interrupt. Overlapping dialogue boxes I guess?

But what happens and I only encountered 3 or 4 times (but each line when looking through the text history once realizing I could seems important. Its like a character explaining something or yelling at another person comedically I think? The text "appears" but then its gone. And I don't mean the text "speaks as the character does but too quickly" I mean it literally "Flashes" on the screen. It never fully forms. its just an imprint in the eye. It was only the first last time I saw it tha tI realized oh I can look at the text history and then I could read it but before that.

You mousewheel to reread previous dialogue right? This doesn't allow you to get that line back. Its like you have line a then b then c then d. But C comes up in a half step between b and d so when you try to mousewheel back to it you physically can't. it flickers on screen and goes to b or d you can't read C scrolling to it and you don't see it in the actual text window. It "flashes" kind of like a strobe light but just once and then disappears.

Its hard to explain but ya its some kind of text based input timing thing I think. I don't know the right term for it. But I think it is two lines of dialogue from two characters trying to use the same dialogue window and one cancels the other out somehow. I have never actually seen it in a visual novel before but I only recently started playing indie visual novels (and have seen FAR FAR MORE GLARING REN'PY RPGMAKER issues in previous games you only notice this because the story is good and you are following along with the dialogue.

Nope uninstalling.

Your "episodes" appear to be minutes long and they are interactions with the townspeople. It isn't like episode 1 takes x time to complete and includes x quests. The game very explicitly tells you how to play and what to do and then given those instructions it looks like you have 5% of all of that done. Calling this episodes is inaccurate and insulting. You really have a game with potential here but the way it is being advertised is heavily misleading. And there is no "guideline of any kind. The first 20 minutes or so was pretty good now its just wondering with no indication or very very very little indication of where to go next. Farmer says to visit her the next day for more quests. But there aren't any finished yet are there? Im done.

See those are the kind of problems I am talking about. I too was wandering around looking for her. There are plenty of times where you see (coming soon) so if something isn't complete it needs to be there. That tells me everything I need to know unfortunately.

The game is interesting it is unique it seems like you will have plenty of mechanics. OR it seems like you used an RPG MAKER format but didn't remove the stuff you wouldn't be using? Will I really lvl up? are there actual battles? Will I get skills? Right now I see navigation and encounter/sex scenes. But I have only come across one combat encounter. Irena I think her name was? Now HOPEFULLY I am just really early in the game but and again I like a lot about the game.

The navigation is atrocious. I am told to "help the other townspeople" yet the only one I can find navigating around the entire map repeatedly is the farmer. Ok I helped her. Why is there dialogue about meeting and helping all of the townspeople if there is just the one? The amount of time it takes to "find" the next girl to talk to is articifical gametime. I have played for about an hour or so but half of that has been looking for the ones I am supposed to talk to next.

I see a lot of potential here but it seems heavily misleading to even call these episodes if they are fragments of a game yet to be completed. It seems more like the "episodes" are the individual interactions with the specific women. I really hope I am wrong and if so I will apologize when I see otherwise but that is what it looks like right now.

Ok love what I see so far and still blown away that you say this will always be free. How the hell are you supposed to make any money?

Anyways two complaints one of which has already been mentioned.

The map system needs a serious overhaul. The idea of a maze is fine but having to click the top right corner over and over again to sort through different menus is monotonous.

You have a great story here but you also have dialogue that infers additional choices. But those additional choices are not there. Maybe this is something you are just filling in as you go along but right now it seems like the narrative goes a specific direction (which is fine) but often implies other things that aren't there. For instance the main character asking if they should help and then they just do. Clearly that is an A B route even if the other route is a game over. I assume this is something you plan on filling in later. As you have the trust and disdain system but I have yet to find a way to get "disdain" points from anyone.

There were also a few instances where a line of dialogue pops up and then leaves right away I only encountered this a handful of times and finally found that if I went in the history I could read it that way (mouse wheel back through dialogue still didn't work it was like it autoskipped (the line doesn't display on screen for more than 1/10 a second it looked like.

Lastly I found an issue where the game crashed when I tried to talk to Varska in the casino once the game crashed to renpy screen but I was able to press whatever the button is in the bottom left corner "reload or something like that"

I love the narrative you really have a diverse range of characters with very different personality traits. I have high hopes for your game :)

Also your side quests are fucking amazing. I expected 10 minute little side stories but they are often hours long and more involved than even the main story. They are Witcher 3 lvl well done!

On your 2nd point I agree with you 100%. Thanks for the warning about My New Family I won't even bother with it.

But ya on that second point I know exactly what you are talking about from both first and second hand experience (different situations.)

I used to review videogames (didn't really go anywhere really due to my own fault) and you get to interview devs. I have also alpha and beta tested several games and have more than a few friends who work in and around the industry still. There are reasons things like Cyberpunk happened and we are certainly a contributing factor but most of it is being taken for granted. The simple fact of the matter is that for whatever reason.

The standard for a game to "go gold"  has absolutely plummeted. You used to need about 90% of your game ready to go out of the gate Excluding PC which due to constant updates have always had a similar problem but it has gotten more severe over time.

These are the contributing factors

1. Publishers forcing  developers to rush a game to completion during the home stretch as the game has been delayed too long (Sometimes this is more than justified. Other times they may see you have 24 months to finish a game then come back a few weeks later and say you have 18 months. Or they slash your budget in half. Or you might be 90% done with your game and they say "no we want to save it for the new console release) Alot of this happened with Xbox to Xbox 360, PS2 to PS3, Nintendo 64 to Gamecube and Gameboy Advance to Nintendo DS to 3DS  (in that case games often needed to be rebuit from the ground up to either take advantage of that godawful "3d Prism nonsense" and Dual screen support. Other times developers are told to start working on additional platforms as a game nears completion. In the case of the Wii version of an anticipated PS3 or Xbox 360 port this was always apparent (Though with large publishers agreed to in advance)

2. The videogame industry is the last entertainment industry that has no union. I absolutely love videogames but the way developers are treated is often terrible. Crunch is absolutely ridiculous in the industry. This has always been the case but with information being more widely accessible on the internet and with  more gamers in general there is more of an interest in the actual industry which leads to more coverage, leaks, understandably frustrated devs and just outright burnout to a criminal degree. Crunch  has always existed but as games have gotten bigger the crunch has gotten more severe what used to be 60 hour weeks for the last 2 months of a release has now become 80+ hours a week at the minimum for 6 months to a year before release!

3. Once upon a time the videogame industry was a niche. (As much as we love classic videogames maybe MAYBE 10% of the amount of people playing  videogames  now initially played them at release. Fast forward to about  the time of GTA IV and mobile games (GTA V was the evidence but it was happening long beforehand) and the videogame industry is the most profitable, expensive and time consuming entertainment industry. Yet developers are treated the same. Companies have gone from a handful of people on a team to a few hundred working across two or three different countries to now nearing a thousand across 5 or 6 or in the case of something like GTA V or Assassins Creed up to 10 countries. Who are all expected to coordinate, develop at the same time at the same quality. The videogame industry is now the most profitable entertainment industry in the world yet with that success has added pressure and expectations. From 10 different bosses instead of 2 (The TPS reports in Office Space are a great example of this.

4. With the size of the teams changing and larger publishers absorbing smaller companies (more often that not by design and destroying those smaller companies in order to poach top talent for first party titles (Midway, Akklaim, Atari, Sega, 3D0, are just a handful of victims of this practice) Development teams often change mid development (Uncharted 3 to The Last of Us is the most glaring and well known example of this as is Anthem where more than half of the developers had no experience making FPS and were taken from EA Sports and RPG teams to develop a Destiny Killer (itself a victim of the same practice when Activision bought Bungie Destiny 1 is average and generic fight me. When Jason Rubin and Andy Gavin (original founders of Naughty Dog each left the studio and the new guy came in (TLOU creator) Naughty Dog went from one of the most coveted developers to work for to one of the worst) The game quality was still great but the developers  were not treated the same and had several times higher expecations without more pay. The previously mentioned Uncharted to the Last of Us example  above involved the A team leaving Uncharted 3 Mid development (if even that far) to work on TLOU instead. You can actually see the  exact point this happens in Uncharted 3 (when you crawl through the cave crevice with the spiders when you come out the other side the story changes entirely more bugs are apparent and there is sometimes even a tip in quality of the graphics. You can actually tell which parts of the game are developed by which team. That isn't meant to imply that the B team sucks but they were probably less experienced and weren't as familiar with Uncharted as the previous  team (Naughty Dog tripled in size over the course of Uncharted's success.)

5. The shitshow of the mobile app based game industry. Publishers can now successfully argue that the quality of a title and/or size of the team doesn't have to directly correlate to the sales potential of a title because look at how well all these average titles sell and how little they cost to make?) The mobile  gaming industry IS the most successful part of the gaming industry and the comparison isn't even close. I used to trash mobile games (and still do a little) but most of the games that I play are mobile now. I buy all the great AAA titles and they sit on my shelf unplayed while I play crappy mobile games. (I am NOT proud of this they are designed from the ground up to addict you they are modeled AFTER the way someone becomes a drug addict and how casino games work FROM THE GROUND UP) At least with an MMO you get consistently high quality content but this mobile nonsense... It is improving as spec potential of our cellphones and tablets increase but you still have 1 in 5000 apps worth playing as opposed to 1 in 50-100 traditional videogames worth playing TT.

No one single factor is to blame it is all of these factors combined that lead to the poor state of the industry as it stands and they all have to be fixed (but  won't be) in order to return to the golden years of the The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of time, Metal Gear Solid, Gran Turismo 3, Donkey Kong Country, Armored Core 2, Final Fantasy ( Playstation and PS2 Era) there is a reason why So many great indie games get started from Kickstarter and Indiegogo comprised of well known developers and it is more often than not how they were treated at their previous employers, empty promises, new regime changes within the developer itself. There is one factor however that we the consumer is almost entirely to blame for.

Videogames need to cost more money than they do period. There are a lot of people who would fight me on this and all of you are wrong. Development teams have expanded in size 10x The game costs 100x more to make than it used to yet the cost of a AAA title has remained the same for the last 25 years even though the US dollar is worth less than 5 dollars than it was 30 years ago. IF games cost more to make and there was a union in place to protect developers the  added cost of development would lead to a better overall work environment and quality of the game itself. Developers paid next to nothing with 10 producers who know nothing about how to develop a videogame breathing down their necks but working twice as many hours aren't really all that invested in delivering you a masterpiece. Except they are since instead of 1000 people who want to work in the videogame industry you have 100,000 who do. DLC's are often garbage money tie ins but they exist as an alternative for additional funds to make up the difference of our refusal to pay more for our videogames. Expansion passes are often genuinely worth it but DLC's are dog shit. Looking at you horse DLC from Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion. This is how we get shit like every fighter already on the disc of Street Fighter IV but locked away so they can force you to pay for the costumes and additional characters (One used to unlock characters through specific goals met in games now they have to "pay" for the privilage of playing them) The same with those dreaded Deluxe Editions (here are a few extra weapons and an hour of extra quests BY DESIGN 10 dollars less than the game costs at retail) Unfortunately since the DLC standard has long since sailed now they want us to pay more money for the game AND the DLC which is an unfortunate side effect of how long we have waited to address this. And the consumers revolted and forced Playstation and Xbox to backpedal on asking for the perfectly justified increase in game cost.

These factors combined together are why 90% of videogames are garbage now. It used to be like half the games now it is almost all of them. A game of the year quality title is now more often than not equivalent in quality to a title that would be rated an 8 or 8.5 in the days of Metal Gear Solid and Ocarina of Time. That is a substantial difference in quality. But this whole "The game can be half finished as long as a day one dlc is available and the companies who determine whether a game is ready to "go gold" those are the real P.O.S. to blame for allowing all of the above scenarios to take place. if they had more checks and balanced even  auditors making sure developers were being treated fairly and DID NOT GREENLIGHT THE GAME FOR release until it was ACTUALLY ready to play. If publishers didn't force a game to developed on 6 different systems at once. This crap would happen far less. We would go back to the time where the half the games released are worth playing. Indie games do as well as they do because their business model is run  the way the teams who created Super Mario Bros, Sonic The Hedgehog, and Crash Bandicoot were run. Small teams who treat their staff well and are focused on releasing the game complete instead of rushing a release to appease a publisher breathing down their necks to release on X day. They release the game when they want to and don't have to worry about their budgets being halved, they don't have to worry about all of their development team being poached to another division of the company thereby changing the entire feel of the game. Don't have to coordinate with development teams from 5 other countries. They focus on creating something new and interesting instead of the same grey titles all of the large development companies make based off of their oh so successful focus groups who show that a game must be 100 hours long (even though 10% of them finish it, feature an open world, must have violence but no sex, be easy to play, puzzles can't be too hard etc. Indie developers don't have to put up with that shit. They can make the game they want to make.

I always thought 1.0 meant full release? If this is fragment based or episodic my understanding is something like 0.19 ver would be 19 percent% Or it could just be 19th alpha version or 2 beta version. No idea how the naming nomenclature actually works its definitely up to the developer but as you mention with the AAA titles it does usually follow the pattern you mention. But the game not officially being released would have its own version numbers initially after a full release is usually when it goes 1.0 and so on. Look at cyberpunk or no mans sky updates for examples of this.

I can definitely get behind that. My brother in law has epilipsy no way in hell would he  play this game but if he did I wouldn't want his experience to be hindered. So ya epilipsy warning some kind of toggle to enable or disable distortions and or visual patterns?

I Kno Right!?!?! That is a famous short story but even KNOWING that story it STILL got me! VERY well done!

That is as far as the update goes so far

Um You just answered the same question with both answers. ><

Someone asked you is the sky blue or red?

You answered

Yes!

I don't remember seeing one. My guess is there will eventually be some kind of gallery but I don't even see an option in the main menu or in the in game menu so as of now it doesn't look  like there is one. I get that it is usually "standard" for a game like this but this game just has so much content and there are "repeatable scenes" or at least there are supposed to be but it doesn't look like I actually can repeat them. (There is another bug I forgot about) at that womans house and in that bathroom those scenes make it seem as if they can be repeated I think there is even a message that pops up saying they can but they can't.

Yup catherine is glitched. The options are there but they don't do anything.

Oh just remembered something else! As cool as the easter egg is. You gotta remove the musician. You WILL get sued. Maybe not today maybe not tomorrow maybe not even this year but it absolutely positively will happen. Working in the entertainment industry you quickly learn that an artist often doesn't have the rights to what you think they do. Labels own the music, the brand, the style, the persona all of it. The artist owns the rights to their songs once out of contract if stipulated in the contract. But their "likeness" is usually owned by the label itself. And if they want it to be "family friendly" as they do. They WILL sue you. Even if you have the artists permission they will still sue you it just isn't worth it unfortunately. You could make it look kind of like them. Make a fake famous musician but ya it's not worth the risk.

If it makes you feel any better when the Neopets website first started they had a pet called Macy Gray. They weren't even hiding it was just straight up Macy Gray. No idea if they had permission or not but it was promptly removed. They also had a guy named Bruce who just looked like a Butler and they changed him to a penguin but ya. However cool having that musician is it just isn't worth the headache it WILL cause you.

And i actually completely forgot I have a personal experience regarding this. My cousin is a film director mostly short little films. He and his friends made a great short film about a guy having an absolutely terrible day in black and white and the joke is that the song "What a wonderful kind of day" is playing in the background. He was getting ready to submit it to a festival and then. He got a cease and desist from the estate of Marvin Gaye I guess the melody of the tune was too similar? He had to remove the music and since the video was directly in reference TO the music the film was completely useless. There is no "alternate music" to use. He need looked up copyright laws he was very careful of what he did and didn't use and how much and how often. It was an automated strike from the melody itself from the record label/estate. This is an extreme situation but your game could end up being REMOVED just because of that one character. OR even worse they could demand payment from you for using the musician. For someone who looks like its a 5 second kinda cool easter egg. Just not worth it.

read your comment and then checked on his patreon page to see just how off 40% was. I think you will be pleasantly surprised. If I remember correctly it said 5%!!!!! And that was 10 hours worth of content O_o

I had trouble with this as well but have your answer. Moolah you could maybe make a "chime" sound when receiving messages? Or have the phone flash at home?

Granted it does say its in beta. It isn't a bug though. You will ONLY ONLY see it at night at home. Not morning or afternoon or evening and as soon as Morning happens it won't be selectable again. it HAS to be at night. (This should maybe change as I doubt Rahader is going to be the only one that overlooks it) You will know you can check the message as it will be highlighted in blue and you can mouseover and click the actual message. HAS TO BE AT NIGHT.

the 2 factor authentication should indicate that the date you are looking for is Europe...or wait maybe it already does? Ya I think I am wrong on this one I think I just overlooked it. Now I remember you have a (DD/MM) indicator. Maybe phrase it more explcitly? Like maybe it could say Use the DD/MM Date format maybe even give an example (nowhere close to the answer of course)

I don't know if Big Boobs also works the actual answer with phrasing and everything is Big Breasts (and you won't get it right without the space in the  middle)

Depending on the route your game takes maybe just maybe for one of them it would be cool to not "need" a key or for said key to have a different purpose like locking doors from the outside only or something? ;)

I agree wholeheartedly with the epilipsy warning but I wouldn't change the distortion for anything. It gives an Eternal Darkness or Metal Gear Solid breaking the 4th wall vibe. Don't change that it is one of the more creative wtf moments in your game.
I didn't catch the snow inconsistency either. I actually thought it was snowing INSIDE your house.

While we are talking about the original snowstorm. What you see in the tub? You only see ONE of those two who are supposedly there. I would reanimate that to make it more obvious there are two people there. I looked and looked and looked your graphic shows one person.