Episode 8 Status (2018-07-08)

[Joeschwartz]

After keeping up with this thread for the past year without creating an account, I decided I really wanted to speak up on this topic of story vs. technology.

I'm in absolute agreement with those who say the priority is the story and the characters.

There are so many games out there (or porn for that matter) where you can see people bangin' in all number of graphic ways, usually with the flimsy, difficult to believe backstories we've grown accustomed to in bad porn.

BEW is one of the ONLY games I've seen that creates likable, relatable characters in an interesting world that has interesting things happening, AND creates a high saturation of sexy scenes that nevertheless MAKE SENSE given what's happening.

You know the writer is doing a good job when your interest in maintained even when the protagonist is rejected: You know more interesting things are to come, rather than most games where you'd be like, "oops, I guess I have to go back to the last save point and try again."

As Winter said, "Getting to Know Christine" is one of the other great games out there. Consistently sexy but with an engaging story. What BEW has on Christine is the choices: Getting to Know Christine is on a track: There are right decisions and wrong decisions. BEW let's you go where you feel like going given your current mood. It makes the game so much more replayable, so much more intriguing, and in a way helps the characters feel more real because you get the sense that one character still exists even if you decide not to pursue her.

And yeah, the graphics engines may be old, but in my opinion they are still pretty frickin' hot. Brad having a average boner actually is a huge pro for me, as I can't help but cringe at the cartoonish members in so many other games. (err, err, that IS a average size for a boner, right? )

Anyway, I realize I'm waxing on here a bit, but I just had to say something.

Wolf, you've created a pretty ambitious undertaking here: The sheer amount of options means that for you to actually 'complete' the game would take so long!! I could imagine that being intimidating.

I hope you think instead just about the next episode: What would be fun for you to create next? And deal with the rest later.

Each episode you release is really a game and a thrill unto itself, and strangely, a gift to your fans here. I hope you find a way to make it fun, and just take it one bite at a time.

Whatever you do, I'm glad you've created what you've created, and I hope it sets the standard for future games in this genre.

[ninjakab]

I don't know what you guys think, but sometimes other games can get almost too slick for me. I think the most newest images in bew is great. Like I couldn't ask for more.
The sequel to Getting to know Christine is a good example of how the characters are all new and smooth looking, but not what it was. Mortze's work is great, but Christine didn't look like Christine to me, and when her personality seemed different aswell it felt really foreign. Don't change a winning team I say.

Btw, if it wasn't clear I like the new versions of the girls in bew as much as the old ones. They look like people, not supermodels or american actors. Renpy Faith just would not do it for me

[botc76]

Ren'py is an engine for visual novels, not to create renders, like daz3d.
So slick images or not have nothing to do with ren'py.
What Ren'py provides however is (if implemented) fast ways to get back to choices, a skipping function for content you've already seen etc..

You would literally save hours of drudging through the same scene again and again when you start a playthrough going after another girl or girls, if you could just skip to the choices and only be stopped when there's actual new content you haven't played.

And I read slick here and slick there and BS like other games all have no story. There are dozens of games that are as well written as BEW, many as complicated branch-wise, many with even more women to pursue.
Seriously, I have to wonder whether some of you actually realized what you wrote, as if older, dated looking pics are better than great-looking, more realistic and beautiful ones.
That's so pretentious, like those artsy film fans who only like experimental films or classics and spit on everything else.
Me, I was always someone who appreciates all that there is, as long as it is good.

WOlfshadowe has created some beautiful girls, they would only win if they were done in a better software.

And one more point, right now the game is practically on hold and has been for years. Where will the motivation to continue come from, when it hasn't appeared for so long? I respect Wolfshadowe and his work a lot, but obviously, if the game is ever going to be finished something must change and starting over with a new engine and better graphics, might just provide that motivation.
I know of several games who switched engines several chapters in, it can be done and it's obviously not taking as long as starting the game from scratch, as you have the story, the choices and what branches they create etc..
You could even go and use the old pics for now and only update the new chapters and then slowly replace the old ones with new ones, while still working on completely new content.

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe Wolfshadowe will return next week and suddenly start developing again like there's no tomorrow, but honestly I don't believe that. If nothing changes, this game will probably end like many other good games, unfinished and forgotten by all but a few.

[Wolfschadowe]

Hi Everyone. It may look like I haven't been active, but I assure you, I read every message posted to the forum, usually the same day they are posted. Sometimes I like to see how a conversation fleshes out before I start chipping in, mainly because I'm interested in the raw responses. This is one of those.

I for one hope that this is what Wolfschadowe is talking about in regards to a remake. Getting rid of the dated look of the renders and a better engine.

This is something that I've been debating with myself on for some time. Of course, I say that I'm debating it, and at the same time I've spent a considerable time playing around with the Unreal engine for the past year. Not necessarily for BEW, but I do have another game idea I've been poking around with in the Schadoweverse.

One of my all time favorite games is Getting to Know Christine, and how old is that?

Not one of my favorites, but only because I never got to like the character. I'm more of a Getting to know Keeley (and LWK) fan myself. I still enjoyed Christine though. Keeley and Christine were my inspiration to create BEW.

Personally, I prefer the emphasis on story and flow, and, well, the humanity of the characters.

This will always be my priority, mainly because it's the type of game I'd want to play.

but by the time you revamp what you have and get going again your new tech will be outdated yet again.

This may not necessarily be true for BEW. I'm looking into a new option.

a skipping function for content you've already seen etc..

BEW will never have this as a general feature. It's aleady there in two forms. First, you can save/load (improvements coming including a potential auto-save systems for major storylines), and you can skip the intro. I may add a few more skip zones here and there, but I'm making the game I'd want to play, and I always felt that skipping areas of text actually turned the games into more of a hunt/seek grind. I'm sure that's something that may cause debate/dissatisfaction here and there, but that's the way I roll.

There are dozens of games that are as well written as BEW, many as complicated branch-wise, many with even more women to pursue.

I agree. I'm still surprised anyone even plays this mess of a game. heh.

WOlfshadowe has created some beautiful girls, they would only win if they were done in a better software.

This is kind of the root of my problem. I made BEW to practice my creativity and 3D art skills. That's why it starts as crap artwork, and advanced to almost decent artwork. When I play the game, I see all the flaws, and I feel like I can't fix them, and it always bothered me. On the other hand, with a real-time rendering engine (i.e. Unreal) I could fix all of those problems easily. If I decide I don't like a character's appearance. I can change it once, and the entire game is immediately updated, no re-rendering required.

If nothing changes, this game will probably end like many other good games, unfinished and forgotten by all but a few.

It might, but I doubt it. I am confident I will finish the game. Whether or not it's remembered, that's out of my hands and it doesn't keep me up at night. I'm just having fun with it. I'm happy if some come along for the ride, and I'm happy taking the ride alone also.

[moskys]

You would literally save hours of drudging through the same scene again and again when you start a playthrough going after another girl or girls, if you could just skip to the choices and only be stopped when there's actual new content you haven't played.

Not in this case. In BEW there's a choice almost every other dialogue line. I don't think skipping could save any significant amount of time when replaying.

And one more point, right now the game is practically on hold and has been for years. Where will the motivation to continue come from, when it hasn't appeared for so long? I respect Wolfshadowe and his work a lot, but obviously, if the game is ever going to be finished something must change and starting over with a new engine and better graphics, might just provide that motivation.
I know of several games who switched engines several chapters in, it can be done and it's obviously not taking as long as starting the game from scratch, as you have the story, the choices and what branches they create etc..
You could even go and use the old pics for now and only update the new chapters and then slowly replace the old ones with new ones, while still working on completely new content.

Not sure a restart would help to boost Wolf's motivation. He has said that one of the main reasons for his burnout is that managing this hobbie has become dangerously similar to his daily job. Restarting a large project like this would make him go through the same process again without adding a single new line to It. Zero advances. That could be hard for him.

Also, technically speaking, there are a lot of 'click on pic' options in BEW and that would be a real pain in the ass to replicate in Ren'py. This game was designed in html and changing its format would imply lots of work and/or some depth lose. Doesn't worth it, in my opinion.

[infiniteignorance]

A brief summary of the critisicsm of not only BEW but every other game of this type:

Player: And, so, in summation, let me say, "I love this game except for ... (everything)."

Developer: And, so, in response, let me say, "I have not a single fuck to give ... (and if I did I would not give it to you.)"

[Wolfschadowe]

Developer: And, so, in response, let me say, "I have not a single fuck to give ... (and if I did I would not give it to you.)"

I love the TLDR version.

[infiniteignorance]

Speaking of criticisms, what is up with the way I typed "criticism" in the above post? Holy fucking illiteracy, Batman!

[lurking]

I find it funny that people on this board claim that BEW would be so much better if it changed its engine to whatever most people use today. As if Python would solve gameplay problems introduced by JavaScript (or even the developer)!

Chances are that there aren’t many people here who have a basic understanding of programming...

[Wolfschadowe]

Chances are that there aren’t many people here who have a basic understanding of programming...

I still remember the first 2 lines of code I ever wrote:

10 PRINT HELLO
20 GOTO 10

[lurking]

That explains a lot!

[JFR]

Ah, good old BASIC. We all spent some time with it, although my first ever lines of code were in FORTRAN and punched into cards. Different generations.

[dutch]

So should I feel old if my first line of code was Morse code?

[lurking]

My first lines of code were Pascal, and I still use it occasionally. QBasic was never my favorite. (Today I usually use C or Go.)

[Tao Dude]

Ah, good old BASIC. We all spent some time with it, although my first ever lines of code were in FORTRAN and punched into cards. Different generations.

I'd be lying if i said that i remember the language that I first wrote code in, because my memory is associative and doesn't do timelines well.

However, my early forays into coding in approximate order included:

F77 using punched cards on a PDP-15, where I nearly wrecked the line printer trying to print out an array, but ended up overtyping the same point on the platten hundreds of times. That early got me banned, but fortunately they accepted my explanation of what I was trying to do and I got off with a warning.

BASIC using a college minicomputer: nothing spectacular there.

FORTRAN on a Pr1me minicomputer at another college: interesting forays in to matrix manipulation using NAG library routines.

Z80 cross-assembler on a PDP-11: for my final year project, I built the hardware and wrote the control software for a Cambridge Ring control node, but first I had to port a monitor programme written for an 8085 into Z80 code so that i could load my software onto the hardware.

Back in the day, there was a book written as a backlash to the feminist movement called 'Real Men don't eat quiche.' I never read it, but i do remember a parody of it that was doing the rounds as the Ten Commandments of Real Programming (We were programmers back then, not coders). I can't remember all of them, but here is an extract that i can remember:

1. Real Programmers write in Fortran.
2. Real Programmers that cannot write in Fortran, write in Assembler.
3. Real Programmers that cannot write in Assembler, write in Cobol.
4. Real Programmers do not write in Pascal. Strong typing is for wimps: if you can't remember what each variable is for, consider another vocation.
5. Real Programmers do not document their code: if you can't work out what the code does from the structure of the code, see 4.
6. Real Programmers do not write comments: see 5.
7, 8 and 9 are lost to the mists of time, but the killer was:

10. Real Programmers can write in Fortran in any language.