devolution

Author Topic: Yet another remake of an old Pooolka game  (Read 27023 times)

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Offline Hedonismbot

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Yet another remake of an old Pooolka game
« on: March 20, 2010, 03:31:27 AM »
First things first, several of the gents in the off-topic thread told me to post in a separate thread, so here it is.  If any of the powers that be don't want me hawking my development this way, let me know.

As I mentioned in the other thread, I'm remaking Pooolka's Hentai High School from scratch. About two weeks ago I found that his source had been uploaded here.  I'm glad I didn't start with it though, as he's a bit notorious for his coding practices, and this codebase is no different.

The current version is 0.1.2, which has a number of interface tweaks from 0.1.1, and a free extra visit event every quarter.  I'd love any feedback you guys have to offer.

Main download site is http://anonym.to/?http://www.4shared.com/dir/29450247/fd361b90/sharing.html

Someone asked for a Mediafire link, so I think this should work: http://www.mediafire.com/?1z5tnn5mzhx

Offline Hedonismbot

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Re: Yet another remake of an old Pooolka game
« Reply #1 on: March 21, 2010, 05:37:33 PM »
Just updated to 0.1.3.  I fixed a few little things, and added a couple of new gym events.  I won't be updating anymore until 0.2 is ready, unless a major bug is found.  As always, let me know what you think.

Offline zodiac44

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Re: Yet another remake of an old Pooolka game
« Reply #2 on: March 21, 2010, 10:40:39 PM »
I like the basic mechanics you have implemented so far.  The game plays rather predictably at this point, but you are in the early stages of development, so that's ok.  What do you envision for the final product?  Are you looking to parallel poolka's work or to take the concept in a different direction?
Capitalization is the difference between "I had to help my uncle Jack off a horse" and "I had to help my uncle jack off a horse."

Offline Hedonismbot

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Re: Yet another remake of an old Pooolka game
« Reply #3 on: March 22, 2010, 12:13:37 AM »
I'd like to match his design first.  I want to basically do what he did at first, only moreso.  For instance, the quarterly selections are more intricate and important already, teachers are a touch more complex (though that's debatable due to the lack of specialization), there are a lot more periodic events (yearly and quarterly), that sort of thing.  I plan to have quite a few more places to visit in the school, more buildings, more purchasable things and generally greater quantity and quality of visit events.  But my initial gameplan is to remake all the things he had originally.

After that, I have plans to greatly extend the game into new directions.  I plan on adding much more replayability.  Ultimately, I'd like to add large amounts of fetish material to a mostly-completed engine.  That's why I've left the bondage, catgirls and tentacles out.  Pooolka touched on those things, but when I do it, I want to really make a large-scale expansion on them.  But I want that to all wait on getting the core game complete.  This will probably be a long dev time, given that I'm on several other free projects, and my job is fairly demanding.  But there are plenty of great free hentai projects out there to fill the time (WM and the new slavemaker, to name a favorite two).  I'll post here when I get my next major addition in.  I promise the complexity will grow over time.

Offline Savagefrog

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Re: Yet another remake of an old Pooolka game
« Reply #4 on: March 22, 2010, 12:18:22 AM »
Enjoyed what you have done with the game an look forward to see what all you do with it.

Offline thetwo

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Re: Yet another remake of an old Pooolka game
« Reply #5 on: March 22, 2010, 11:15:13 PM »
Good to see someone developing that again. Now, complaints.

First, obviously you haven't implemented the kinds of choices that made the original fairly interesting. No rules, no clubs, no re-play mechanics. You also haven't differentiated the teachers or even subjects in any meaningful way. But you knew that already, I see.

In that case, on to the core mechanics... they seem pretty solid as far as they go. Not really many ways to screw up, but I'm sure adding rules and clubs will help with that. Also it seems like a pretty linear movement from 30-30-30-30 to 100-100-100-100, with a few minor exceptions in the upward direction. That doesn't seem to have an obvious fix, but something like allowing skills to decay once they pass a certain threshold (even allowing progress past 100 and just decaying back toward 100) might help.

Finally, interface. I have to say that it's already better then the original, or at least less confusing, but I have two major complaints on this front.
1.) Non-standard use of windows. My stats bar floats off to the side with no header bar or way to manipulate it. The same with the pop-up "teacher" window. Properly, the stats bar should be a part of the main window and the "teacher" window should be a proper pop-up dialog, one the blocks access to the main window but that has the standard "manipulation" bar at the top.
2.) The "teacher" window isn't very clear when first used. There should be some visually obvious sign of how to assign a subject to a teacher.... if nothing else, putting "click on a subject then a teacher to assign classes" hint somewhere on the page.

Now on to the "constructive" part - two content suggestions:
First, teacher specialization. The original had a pretty boring and static variety... just giving each teach a bonus to exactly one subject set at game design. Better would be to split a teacher's stats into three parts - "general" skill, "area" skill, and "class" skill. "General" skill is just their generic skill as a teacher, "area" skill is specific to a group of classes (academic, artistic, physical?), and "class" skill applies only to the class it was earned in. This could probably be simplified to "general" and "class", but either way it ought to be hidden from the user except for the change in numbers when they change classes.

It should be obvious that someone who was an expert at teaching algebra wouldn't automatically be an expert at teaching history. Also that some qualities of a teacher might pay off no matter what the subject. Slightly less obvious may be that there are some skills you learn teaching algebra that would transfer to english, but not to gym. An example might be discipline - maybe in algebra and english you'd assign extra homework, but in gym you'd make them run a lap.

Experience earned just teaching should be split between all the categories, but experience earned in special events might not be (for example, sending all your teachers to a seminar probably means it's generic rather then particular to their discipline). There should be a cap for generic experience below the cap for total experience.

Secondly, the "which do you want to focus on" dialog could use a little help. I'd suggest either making the two attributes you're choosing from bold (up top where the numbers are), or including the stat in the choice ("Loyalty(30)    Teaching(35)").

I'll be interested to see the final product.

Offline GmanPrime

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Re: Yet another remake of an old Pooolka game
« Reply #6 on: March 25, 2010, 08:52:39 PM »
I like the game, but I think the pace for stat building could be sped up some.  You only have 20 years to finish, but it takes like 15 to get all the teachers.  Give a teacher every other year, so five are given by the 10th year.  The teachers suck in the beginning anyways due to low stats, and this way they would be mostly maxed by end-game.  I would also suggest all female teachers, but that's just me. 
 
More balancing of the classes would also be useful.  Only one academic class like science is needed currently to get max or almost max academic stats, but there is a ton of those classes.  However there is only one sex-related class for deviance building and you can't seem to reach 100 even with cheating for unlimited money.  I would either include more sex classes, or give a small chance whenever inhibition is lowered to increase deviance as well.
 
One of the things I think is lacking in Poolka's version is there is no h-scenes for the class/teacher interaction.  It would be nice to see a h picture occasionaly when the teachers "influence" the students, ideally tied to the specific teacher and deviance/inhibition level.  I know there are not that many pics out there though, so I think at least some generic pics would be nice.
 
Overall I think this is great, I just would like to see more emphasis on the h-content personally, and some clean-up of the stat building and overall speed of the game, so its faster.

Offline Alugere

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Re: Yet another remake of an old Pooolka game
« Reply #7 on: March 25, 2010, 10:00:18 PM »
Currently the whole teacher thing is completely random. I had maxed stats and ended the game with only 6 teachers at year 20.

Offline Bloodly

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Re: Yet another remake of an old Pooolka game
« Reply #8 on: March 26, 2010, 06:54:04 AM »
...Where are the stats?  Where's the money count?  They don't appear.

Offline GonDra

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Re: Yet another remake of an old Pooolka game
« Reply #9 on: March 26, 2010, 01:34:43 PM »
...Where are the stats?  Where's the money count?  They don't appear.
It should look like this: http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php?quickkey=kjyevnmdidu

As you can see its a border-less window without control elements, it has a fixed position on screen as far as I know, so check your other Screens (if you use multiple Displays) or check if another window is in front of it, if the problem still occurs you will probably need to provide a bit more information than that.

Offline Bloodly

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Re: Yet another remake of an old Pooolka game
« Reply #10 on: March 27, 2010, 02:59:46 AM »
Well, I found it.  Damm thing was practically off-screen on my monitor-any further right and I wouldn't have been able to get it at all.  I suggest having it spawn nearer the middle, or better yet incorporating it into the main panel.
 
The Deviance thing has a point.  Review:
 
You have 80 turns in the game.
 
A successful Sexuality class raises Deviance by +1.  You start with 0 Deviance, so even with getting 'Teaches Well' from beginning to end, you'd need 100 turns to max, and given the poor stats you start with, it gets even more unlikely, as you'll get plenty of 'Doesn't teach well(No effect) or 'Fails to teach anything' (Deviance -1). 
 
'Teaches Superbly' might lower this to 50(I'm presuming you'd get +2 rather than +1), but that'd only occur relatively late, when you've got great Teaching stats.  And your own intervention(Distribute Smut', various random choices) can only do so much.
 
Then again, there seem to only be pictures for 'Medium Deviance' and none for 'High' if the image directory is to be believed, so maybe it's just something that needs to be cleared up later.

Looking at the image directory, there's a large imbalance with regard to the pictures you get as deviancy rises.  Class and Around School have only a few, where Pool and Gym have a huge amount.

You can get more use out of the same pictures by simply changing the text for events as inhibition/deviance changes.  Take the 'peeking at girls' scences.  Where early on there's screaming and shouting, later they might invite you in.  There's a few pictures neutral enough that that would work.
« Last Edit: March 27, 2010, 05:35:40 AM by Bloodly »

Offline Alugere

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Re: Yet another remake of an old Pooolka game
« Reply #11 on: March 27, 2010, 04:42:06 PM »
There are events that happen that increase deviancy and distributing porn can do so as well.

Offline Hedonismbot

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Re: Yet another remake of an old Pooolka game
« Reply #12 on: March 28, 2010, 02:24:09 PM »
The teacher count is dependent on the number of students, which in turn is based on the reputation.  Rep is bounded above and below by a function of your academic stats.  If you push really hard on artistry, for instance, you might find that you can't increase reputation at all until you do something to bring up your athletics and intelligence as well.

Deviance is extremely hard to raise right now.  I'm going to be putting a lot of +deviance effects into the visit events as it develops.  That is supposed to be your main source.  Distributing smut and the sexuality class are neat boosts, but long-term, you will get most of your deviance from visits.

Currently, I only have light and medium h-intensity events in.  0.2 will have the heavy stuff that is unlocked with high deviance and low inhibition.  The great imbalance between types of events (gym versus classroom) is something that's just an artifact of development.  Some areas are easier to fill up.  Over time they will balance much better (0.2 has a mass of classroom events, for instance).

This was the first of two passes at teachers.  They aren't quite complex or polished to the point I'd like them to be.  Someone on here a while back mentioned that it's better in the late game to NOT get new teachers, because they are untrained and crap up your stats until they get more skilled.  That's something that will change soon.  You will be able to increase the stats of incoming teachers.  Also, longer-term, I have lots of plans for more personalized interactions with the teachers, rather than them being a bunch of clones with different names and pictures.

Offline letmein

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Re: Yet another remake of an old Pooolka game
« Reply #13 on: March 28, 2010, 06:47:26 PM »
Another point on teachers:  you might want to consider randomizing their spawn, because ATM I think that they always show up in the same order.
Still lurking.

Offline Knogern

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Re: Yet another remake of an old Pooolka game
« Reply #14 on: September 06, 2010, 02:26:22 PM »
anyone still working on this?