Well, hello again, everyone!
It's been over half a year, almost a year now since I last came around to work/play with the game. Life and work sidelined me for a while since I had a couple new projects I had to take on which ate up most of my time.
I ended up wanting to play a game similar to this again a couple weeks ago, and since I still had it installed, I figured I'd fire it up again for fun. However, I really wanted to add some new girls to the game, as the 'standard' version of the alpha only came with a handful. Unfortunately, there aren't any alpha-compatible packs, and it still seems like the beta is not yet ready for release.
Coincidentally, I noticed you guys released a tech demo for GiBC today; very nice! It's not a type of game that's up my particular alley (I prefer the sort of more 'tycoon'-like gameplay of PyTFall, or more just the running of an establishment) but I recognize the usefulness of these types of releases. I'm hoping the experience it gives can be carried over to the whole exploration/combat system of the PyTFall beta as it honestly wasn't very good in the alpha.
That said, I know the last time I was active here, I mentioned, among other things:
Unfortunately, I'm too lazy to try and decipher all the tags to get them into an alpha-compatible format for the entire folder. I suppose since the tags follow a specific structure one could write a small app to decipher it according to the naming rules you set and generate a tags file appropriately, but that's more effort than I want to spend right now, so I'll scrap the idea and just wait for the beta.
Since I decided it's been so long that I might as well start a new game anyway, and meant I had the chance to include new girls, I ended up...doing exactly that. Thankfully, you guys documented the new tagging format, including what tag every character pair stood for, so I took that and spent a couple hours whipping up a quick and basic PHP script to scan through filenames and automatically generate an alpha-compatible 'tags' file. It's not perfect because I wasn't quite sure how to translate most of the 'new' tags into tags that would be recognized by the alpha (I couldn't find a way to locate any sort of 'master list' of tags the alpha recognized.) In any case, I have something that allows me to port the beta-pack girls into the alpha with just a couple clicks, and if I update the 'tag dict' (which I'll probably have to do) I can re-generate every girl's 'tags' file in a couple seconds.
What took me longer was adapting, and in most cases, manually creating the data files for each new girl, as most either didn't come with one, or was designed for the beta. By far the longest part, though, was re-tagging images that were not in the beta-packs. I had a utility automatically scan and remove all duplicates when merging 'beta' packs into existing 'alpha' girls (such as the default Touhou1, Bleach, One Piece, etc. packs) but even with the DarkTagger utility it takes a while to tag hundreds of leftover images. On the bright side, I have virtually everything as basically-beta-compatible.
In all, I went through all 3 of the forum's stickied girl-pack threads (DarkTI, Lurker, Cherrywood) and merged everything into the alpha. This includes the 5 'Random Human' girl packs from DarkTI, bringing the total number of random girl types from 15 to 20. I've also updated all of the other 15 rchars types to use the new beta-tagged images (manually retagging the ones that were unique to the alpha's folders.)
I've also added in almost every unique girl from those threads, bringing the total up from 31 girls across 4 series to 137 girls across 30 series, including updating the 'stock' Bleach, One Piece, and Touhou folders. This has the amusing side-effect of making this game now take over 12GB of space, though.
Unfortunately, I am still missing a couple things.
For one, while I first went through DarkTI's image packs thread, it seems to be missing beta-type packs for the '
Maid Elf' and '
XP-tan' random girls.
As well, I have not yet added the 13 'minor' characters from the Arcana Heart pack (which would bring the total up from 137 to 150) mostly because they seem
really light on images. Do you have updated packs and/or more images for either of these?
Also, as I was going through Cherrywood's pack thread, DarkTI also posted a 'patch' for
Sakura (I assume from Fate) but I was unable to download a copy because it's been removed or deleted. Do you still have a copy of this so I can merge it in as well?
Finally, the last 'pack' I need to merge is the Naruto pack, but that one is......staggering, to say the least. Considering retagging images is the bulk of the time spent on merging these together, it's going to take a while to retag 15 girls' worth of images (especially considering I'm not a huge fan of Naruto to begin with.) Just running the dupe utility, it only found ~187 out of a folder of 550 images.... that's a lot of retagging I still have to do, lol. I know you released a 'combined' Naruto pack, but even that one is missing some of the girls that came standard with the alpha. Do you happen to have any sort of, uh, 'ultimate pack' with all of them that I can just drop in?
Still, it's enough where I can play now and it feels much more fun/lively as there's a vastly larger variety of girls to recruit now.
.... I will say, though, that the 'modder' in me caught the modding bug again almost right away, and I've gone ahead and added in a visual indicator of when a free girl is ready to be hired (the disposition bar changes color.) I plan to 'lock' this 'ability' behind the MC having probably a certain amount of intelligence and charisma. If not, you instead have 'generic' bar color changes at preset intervals (500, 700, 900 disposition) allowing you to try to guess without being totally blind.
I wasn't able to fix the disposition bar animating weirdly (when I modified one of the responses to give +200 disposition change instead of 15, for example) because it'll sort of creep up a tiny amount right as you click the response, but not get anywhere near its required endpoint, and then clicking anywhere again to dismiss the 'dialogue' line causes the disposition bar to just...appear at the new level without animating (and the +240 or whatever number floats up.) I feel like perhaps it's because of the fact that the whole bar is being replaced, and I was unable to successfully 'cache' a value for use as the 'old_value' parameter, so I gave up.
Finally, in case anyone wants to pitch in and help me refine the beta-alpha-tag-conversion dictionary, feel free to suggest changes. Again, it's trivial for me to re-generate tags for all 137+ girls at this point, as it just involves clicking a couple buttons and waiting 3 seconds once I update the dictionary.
From the original list, I've made a few (random) changes hoping to get it more in line with the alpha, but I'm pretty sure the 'nn' (non-nude) tag should not be set to 'portrait.' Unfortunately, I have no idea if 'sfw' is a valid alpha tag. The other things were tags for the various sex acts and group tags as I believe the alpha versions had spaces, or different wording, etc. Duplicate tags are not an issue, as my script strips out dupes before writing the tags.
$tagDict = array(
'nd' => 'nude',
'nn' => 'portrait',
'sx' => 'sex',
'bs' => 'battle_sprite',
'po' => 'portrait',
'qs' => 'vnsprite',
'pr' => 'profile',
'pa' => 'girlsmeets',
'pb' => 'fighting',
'pc' => 'rest',
'pd' => 'beauty',
'pf' => 'etiquette',
'l1' => 'no bg',
'l2' => 'simple bg',
'l3' => 'generic outdoor',
'l4' => 'generic indoor',
'l5' => 'beach',
'l6' => 'onsen',
'l7' => 'pool',
'l8' => 'stage',
'l9' => 'urban',
'la' => 'wilderness',
'lb' => 'suburb',
'lc' => 'nature',
'ld' => 'dungeon',
'le' => 'living',
'lf' => 'public',
'e1' => 'angry',
'e2' => 'confident',
'e3' => 'defiant',
'e4' => 'ecstatic',
'e5' => 'happy',
'e7' => 'hurt',
'e6' => 'indifferent',
'e9' => 'sad',
'e8' => 'insane',
'ea' => 'scared',
'ec' => 'suggestive',
'eb' => 'shy',
'ed' => 'tired',
'ee' => 'uncertain',
'c9' => 'lingerie',
'c8' => 'nude',
'c3' => 'indoor',
'c2' => 'formal',
'c1' => 'casual',
'c7' => 'transformed',
'c6' => 'cosplay',
'c5' => 'ripped',
'c4' => 'exposed',
'ca' => 'armor',
'ck' => 'cow',
'cj' => 'cat',
'ci' => 'bunny',
'ch' => 'yukata',
'cm' => 'ninja',
'cl' => 'dog',
'cc' => 'maid',
'cb' => 'swimsuit',
'cg' => 'sportswear',
'cf' => 'schoolgirl',
'ce' => 'nurse',
'cd' => 'miko',
'a1' => 'strip',
'a3' => 'cleaning',
'a2' => 'bathing',
'a5' => 'dance',
'a4' => 'cooking',
'a7' => 'exercising',
'a6' => 'eating',
'a9' => 'gambling',
'a8' => 'fighting',
'aa' => 'healing',
'ac' => 'musician',
'ab' => 'magic',
'ae' => 'sleeping',
'ad' => 'reading',
'ag' => 'singing',
'af' => 'shopping',
'ai' => 'studying',
'ah' => 'sport',
'aj' => 'waitress',
'ma' => 'mast',
'm5' => 'randomitem',
'm4' => 'othertoy',
'm7' => 'tits vibrator',
'm2' => 'anal plug',
'm1' => 'anal beads',
'm3' => 'dildo',
'm6' => 'vibrator',
'm8' => 'forced',
'cu' => 'after sex',
'gr' => 'group',
'gg' => 'ass',
'gf' => 'group',
'ge' => 'group',
'gd' => 'other mast',
'gc' => 'notmain',
'gb' => 'bukkake',
'ga' => 'girl hidden',
'gl' => 'tits',
'gk' => 'feet',
'gj' => 'hands',
'gi' => 'mouth',
'gh' => 'pussy',
'g7' => 'three girls',
'g6' => 'two girls',
'g5' => 'girl',
'g4' => 'more guys',
'g3' => 'three guys',
'g2' => 'two guys',
'g1' => 'guy',
'g9' => 'guy hidden',
'g8' => 'more girls',
'bc' => 'cumcovered',
'bd' => 'bdsm',
'b4' => 'suspended',
'b5' => 'whipped',
'b6' => 'tortured',
'b7' => 'alone',
'b1' => 'leashed',
'b2' => 'bdsm',
'b3' => 'spanked',
'b8' => 'girl',
'b9' => 'hiddengirl',
'be' => 'dominatrix',
'ba' => 'guy',
'bb' => 'hiddenguy',
'ns' => 'sex',
'p2' => 'straight',
'p3' => 'partner hidden',
'p1' => 'les',
's9' => 'standing',
's8' => 'spooning',
's3' => 'missionary',
's2' => 'doggy',
's1' => '69',
's6' => 'scissors',
's5' => 'ontop',
's4' => 'onside',
's7' => 'sitting',
'sb' => 'bdsm',
'sa' => 'rape',
'sl' => 'hug',
'sc' => 'anal fingering',
'se' => 'lick anus',
'sg' => 'anal toy',
'sf' => 'lick pussy',
'sh' => 'vaginal toy',
'si' => 'anal',
'sj' => 'vaginal',
'sk' => 'kiss',
'sm' => 'caress tits',
'sd' => 'vaginal fingering',
'sz' => 'vaginal footjob',
'sy' => 'anal footjob',
'ss' => 'hug',
'sr' => 'handjob',
'sp' => 'footjob',
'sw' => 'vaginal handjob',
'sv' => 'anal handjob',
'su' => 'titsjob',
'st' => 'kiss',
'so' => 'deepthroat',
'sn' => 'blowjob',
't6' => 'toy pussy',
't7' => 'caress tits',
't4' => 'vaginal',
't5' => 'toy anal',
't2' => 'lick pussy',
't3' => 'anal',
't1' => 'lick anus',
'z1' => 'evening',
'z4' => 'winter',
'z2' => 'night',
'z3' => 'autumn'
);
It's nice to see you guys still active and plugging away, and I'm happy to be able to play this again with a whole new set of characters.
Finally, @krakr:
Sorry, I never got back to you. I'll keep in mind the intelligence-related stuff. I'm not sure about the CON bonus being bugged, because the code is just written to make it VERY rare to happen -- there's no bug to 'fix' other than making it happen more often, or cost less gold per attempt.
The low reputation catch-22 thing seems more like an oversight than a bug though, but that I can probably look over and fix, because I had (looking back at my previous posts here from last year!) apparently wanted to make some tweaks to how the whole ranking/reputation/refusal system worked.