Harem c8m4 released Sep 6 2019

[Lucky777]

I think Zeus meant he didn't UNDERSTAND Ker's use of FF and RG.

In defence of both those who didn't notice Ker's monetary motivations and the people asking for mediafire links in the thread, I don't think Ker mentioned in this thread's first post either his motivation OR the fact that he is willing to PM Mediafire links to dudes if they just can't get the other links to work.
Of course, there is the fact that if he tried to edit the first post while he's in his current state of not having 10 posts on the forum, he'd cause the thread to temporarily disappear, and that might explain why he hasn't mentioned those things in the OP even now.
On top of that, in his current state as a dude with fewer than 10 posts on the forum, I'm not even sure he can receive LOK PMs, and I AM quite sure that he can't send them.

So... yeah.

The approval system does tend to make fools of us all.

I still don't think it's a bad thing, for all that.

[ker]

It's like trying to run a race waist deep in quicksand with both hands tied behind my back.

Wait, that gives me an idea for a new scene...

[Happenstache]

Alright, readme file, you get to mock me now. I downloaded the RPG-VX content and the game is still giving me that .dll error. I think there's something fundamental I'm missing here, any brainsmart individuals want to learn me how to computer good?

[Peschken]

This doesn't get nearly as much as attention as it deserves, maybe because of the shitty host, I don't know.
But seriously guys, download the fuck out of this game.

[Zeus Kabob]

Ah, that's true. I detest pay-for-download sites like that with a vengeance (mainly because of the fact that the ALL DO THE SAME THING).

Use adf.ly or something. Then it's more obvious that we're supporting you, and it's less aggravating once we get to the actual content. (80 mB is either 120 seconds with MediaFire or 10 minutes with FileGator. Meh.)

Below is my fan comment.

[Zeus Kabob]

You did an awesome job with this game. It's polished, gripping, and has an openendedness that's hard to do with most story-based games. I sat down yesterday and played for at least 6 hours, going through both light and dark campaigns and working for completion.

The light/dark choices are awesome, but the CG mode doesn't adapt to them properly. (I earned dark Terra tentacle offering, but when I played it in CG mode, I got light Terra offering.)

The posing and writing are done very well.

The plot is there, but it doesn't open up macguffins or plot-holes. The one black box, the protagonist's sperm, is enough to explain the actions of all the other characters, and leads to an organic story that's also really light on "can't do that", and perfectly suited to the story.

The characters are all likable, and their personality is really highlighted by playing both runthroughs. Some are very light in exposition, but they're still given personality.

I liked every minute of it. Less grind, more sex. Shift-key running was a great touch.

One thing that irked me: instead of "would have", you put "would of" (or "must of", or maybe some others). The pronunciation in common speech is "would 've", so you could write that, but it's not "would of".

[BlueLight]

Zues - Fairly easy answer to that one. The premium sites pay me a small commission for each download. While it's nothing huge per download the sheer number of times Harem gets downloaded should net me a few hundred dollars a year and still allow me to deliver the game for free. Considering the amount of content and the feedback I've gotten on it, if it takes you an additional 10-20 minutes to download it the value your getting is still pretty great. And if they don't work for you, just hit me up with a PM. But not on this forum as I don't have access to PMs yet.

I find this under handed, personally. Would you at least give people the options but say "I am more likely, going to be able to continue work if you support me by using this link." or something like it? I personally have no had time to try out your game but from the sounds of it, I want nothing to do with you and i don't want to support you.

[Lucky777]

Under-handed, when he blatantly states it?

Under-handed, when he's not stealing anyone's work, nor is he charging you money to play his videogame?

I'm not even going to ask you about your reasoning process, I'm just asking you if you're fucking serious.

[Zeus Kabob]

Zues - Fairly easy answer to that one. The premium sites pay me a small commission for each download. While it's nothing huge per download the sheer number of times Harem gets downloaded should net me a few hundred dollars a year and still allow me to deliver the game for free. Considering the amount of content and the feedback I've gotten on it, if it takes you an additional 10-20 minutes to download it the value your getting is still pretty great. And if they don't work for you, just hit me up with a PM. But not on this forum as I don't have access to PMs yet.

I find this under handed, personally. Would you at least give people the options but say "I am more likely, going to be able to continue work if you support me by using this link." or something like it? I personally have no had time to try out your game but from the sounds of it, I want nothing to do with you and i don't want to support you.

You find it detestable that he's attempting to make money off of a game that he worked hard on without charging us?

As I said above, I would have liked it better if he'd made it clear that he was getting money from the download provider. I'm fine with being hassled if it's giving money to a person who deserves it.

Kinda harsh, but w/e.

[Zeus Kabob]

Under-handed, when he blatantly states it?

I think Blue was looking for the statement in the main post.

[Lucky777]

Ah, possibly.

[ker]

Woohoo! I'm no longer trying to communicate by pony express. I understand and agree with why you do it that way, but god it was a pain in the ass.

Thank you for all the feedback! It is appreciated and as I have time I'll give some more directed answers to it.

Just a quick thing on the filehost thing. Yes I'm doing it to earn a bit of money on the side. Kind of a funny story as to how it developed. I had released 0.4.2 several months before the file-sharing crackdown using megaupload. When it went down, I essentially shrugged my shoulders and ignored it, figuring that whoever wanted to play the game already had it. Got a message or two saying please switch hosts and a user over at Hongfire (Steveman, be sure to check out his VX game there as well, very good) asked if he could put it up on his mediafire which was fine. A few days later he sent me a PM saying that he had nearly 500 downloads in a week. A bit mind blowing for me as I hadn't released any new content for 5 months (0.4 was the last real content add, 4.1 was a bug-fix and 4.2 was the CG mode) and people were still downloading it at an insane rate. I had used the premium sites a few times for everyday downloads and figured why not. But most of them don't payout to American users. Filefactory was the first one that I found that would and tried it, not realizing how shitty it actually was. Rapidgator is the only other one that I can find that pays out to the US and it seems to be working far better.

While there's been some issues with it, for the vast majority of people either RG or FF work just fine. FF has had 757 successful downloads of 0.5.1 in the 10 days it's been posted there, and rapidgator has had 996 in the 6 days it's been used. Since using both hosts, I've had maybe 20 requests for the MF link (which I'm always glad to provide through PMs which should be working for me here now) giving a success rate nearly 99%. But all you see is that 1% that it doesn't work for.

Again, I am completely fine with sending a MF link to anyone that needs it for the game itself. The CG packs will not be made available through MF as they're mostly just fluff anyways.

Enjoy the game, and as always give me feedback! Not so much bug reports, but what you enjoyed and didn't. Which is your favorite character, your favorite scene. Is the new combat enjoyable, sufferable, or simply horrible? If you have interesting ideas for new characters, events, scenes, or sidequests please let me hear them!

Looking through the responses. Thanks for the adf.ly idea Zues, but they have a strict ban on adult content.

[ker]

Blue - I added a snippet to the OP to indicate that I am making a bit on the traffic and to request MF If you can't get either of the primary ddls to work

I really don't understand the objection though. There's money changing hands whenever you download a free game here. Mediafire doesn't bombard you with pop-ups and banner ads because they I need to know about grub-hub, rockmelt, bloomberg, or any of the other crap that's there. They do it because their advertisers pay them. And they do try to pitch their own plans as well. But if the work that I'm doing is driving the traffic to their site, I don't see any reason to object to me getting a cut of it, which is really what a premium site does. I do agree that sometimes they push you too hard into buying their plans which is why I use multiple premium DDLs. And if anyone finds another premium DDL that pays per download (I don't want to try to force you to buy a sub), pays to US residents, and allows adult content, let me know and I'll add them in as well.

Edit : Unless there's anything really interesting added, I won't talk anymore about the hosts. I'd much rather hear your opinions about Harem and how you think I can make it into a better game.

[Zodiark69]

I love the game, I really do. but when you need to grind for money, it's get boring, not being able to level up with that as well. I understand you tried a new way to level up, and it's unique, I know that much, but still...

Meh, maybe I'm griping about something I don't really need to gripe about.

People I loved in the game - Ralph (Of course!), Noemi, (That is her name right?), Phoebe, Sarah. Hell, I loved all the girls in the harem! I hope to learn the names of the Angel and Demon we had gotten to meet.

[BlueLight]

Blue - I added a snippet to the OP to indicate that I am making a bit on the traffic and to request MF If you can't get either of the primary ddls to work

I really don't understand the objection though. There's money changing hands whenever you download a free game here. Mediafire doesn't bombard you with pop-ups and banner ads because they I need to know about grub-hub, rockmelt, bloomberg, or any of the other crap that's there. They do it because their advertisers pay them. And they do try to pitch their own plans as well. But if the work that I'm doing is driving the traffic to their site, I don't see any reason to object to me getting a cut of it, which is really what a premium site does. I do agree that sometimes they push you too hard into buying their plans which is why I use multiple premium DDLs. And if anyone finds another premium DDL that pays per download (I don't want to try to force you to buy a sub), pays to US residents, and allows adult content, let me know and I'll add them in as well.

Edit : Unless there's anything really interesting added, I won't talk anymore about the hosts. I'd much rather hear your opinions about Harem and how you think I can make it into a better game.

I see no reason to restate what other people have said that you're ignoring. This will be my last post here since I don't want to bog down your thread with useless post.

[ker]

I love the game, I really do. but when you need to grind for money, it's get boring, not being able to level up with that as well. I understand you tried a new way to level up, and it's unique, I know that much, but still...

Meh, maybe I'm griping about something I don't really need to gripe about.

People I loved in the game - Ralph (Of course!), Noemi, (That is her name right?), Phoebe, Sarah. Hell, I loved all the girls in the harem! I hope to learn the names of the Angel and Demon we had gotten to meet.

Oh, are you by chance looking for a beta tester? If so, do shoot me a PM, and we can discuss things there.

There isn't too much gold that you need in the game. When I was testing I was able to complete all content without stopping to find gold. What I am going to be looking to do to add more incentive to combat is to introduce more drops that lead to unique scenes and rewards. Like what you saw with Terra's and Angelica's bonus scene. Another team member (Deloir) creates sidequests which are more combat and gold reliant, but those are completely optional.

Currently 0.6 is nowhere near a testable state so I'm not looking for any testers, and usually do well with what I already have. If that changes, I'll be sure to announce it in this forum. But we're months away from any form of testing.

[Zodiark69]

I must've missed a few things then, considering I had to grind for gold to get some really good weapons and armor. And why is Terra so low on health, no matter what? She dies way too quick for my liking, even with great armor.

[ker]

I'll take a look at that and bump it if I think that it's too low.

[Zeus Kabob]

She's a mage. Make sure to activate Ralph's "defend" ability (oh, you don't have it? Why are you playing with more than one or two team members? They should all be in the brothel!), and she should survive.

Party composition is important. I found that my best party was Sarah (dps, self-healing), Donna (healing, what more do I need to say?), and Samantha (buffs ftw!). I was playing on goodie-goodie, but on evil mode I had only Angelica, because she healed and I couldn't put her into the brothel (I'm evil, I know...). One thing I'd point out; Samantha's really good. She increases damage by 50-75% for the whole party. Even with only 1 dps character, this makes her invaluable as a party member.

I found the game pretty easy. I finished the game without ever buying more than a single claymore. A couple suggestions regarding that would be to add some "random" bosses, i.e. bosses that aren't in the main story. They'd have to have H-scenes along with them or good loot to pick up, but they'd essentially be for the completionists.

Another thing to point out; maybe in CG mode you can toggle whether you're looking at light/dark scenes?

Finally: CGs are saved with the files. If you can change that, it'd be cool. I want to be able to unlock all the tentacle rape scenes!

[ker]

Angelica may be joining the brothel, but it wouldn't be until later, and would be unlocked through a sidequest. That's a maybe though and not until 0.6.1 at the earliest.

I really don't have a good grasp of combat, so I'm balancing toward easy until I understand it better.

That isn't quite how CG's are unlocked. Essentially the game scans every time you make a save. If the switch for that scene has been toggled, it adds it to the CG.save file which is essentially permanent, no longer dependent on any save. So if you want to have all the tentacle scenes in CG mode save immediately before the choice. After the choice, save the game into a new slot. Go back to the title and reload the first save and make the choice for the next character and save in the second spot. By doing that you should be able to unlock all the scenes without repeated playthroughs.