Breeding Season Legacy Discussion

[Jealousy1867]

As discussed in HartistaPipebomb's thread "Breeding Season: Update 3.8.2 [Game Update 8/26/2013]", some people (myself included) would like to discuss what to do about that game developer's absence, as well as the future of that game. I proposed making this thread to divvy up tasks to continue the developer's works, and thus here we are.
NOTE: This is not a thread about stealing someone else's game idea or exploiting their work. This thread is about discussing what we want to do about HartistaPipeBomb's absence from the project. Specifically, I want to know what our options are, and who is willing to act on those options. Essentially: "Where do we go from here?"

A bit about me: I am in my 40's, and have a great deal of time to do whatever I like. I have rudimentary programming experience with Java and Flash, but I am fluent in C++/Basic/MS Visual Studio and most related variants. I have some professional experience in creative writing, game design, and (failed) business management (ha). Mainly I was an editor in the journalism field - but not a journalist. I can also do UI graphics and some Photoshop, but I am not an artist. I also have experience in adult psychology, child development, and a few other fields, but I doubt those will come into play on this forum. I just like to be thorough.

Technically, this thread is scheduled to kick-off on October 10th, 2013. However, I wanted to put this up a bit early to give people more time to find it beforehand.
I create this thread, but I do not declare myself to be in charge.

I'll wait until the 10th to state my ideas, and I look forward to hearing from others

[weenog]

I think it's safe to say he's abandoned the project. We haven't seen a new monster type since June and about it's been about 40 days since his last post. I would love for him to prove me wrong though. In terms of what I could contribute to the project, I can't say I can do much. I have no programming experience, although I wouldn't be opposed to writing a few events if someone else could code them.

[Sythis_Sythes]

My thoughts on the matter would be to take the simple idea of this game and expand on it. It'd be cool to start with making it a better looking and much more fun breeding style of game, but add in all those creatures and features he promised to add but never got to. I REALLY wanted to see the futa content myself to be honest (my most preferred fetish, the one without balls mind you.) Alas, I'm not that great at ANY of the skills you need to make such a game, so i can only be an "idea" kind of person, but wish i could make something this great.

[IrrelevantComment]

I have a few concerns with this. Can you really justify ripping a swf and using someone's art and animation without their permission to make a game? (I guess that's what you're suggesting, right?). Just because Hartista is gone, does that make it okay to just use his work? And let's say that you decide it is okay, where do you want to go with this? Do you have artists or animators to add new content? And if you do, why not just make your own game with your own content?

These are sincere questions; I'm not saying you would be wrong to do this, I want something to come of this project, I just need a little convincing that it is fair before I get on board with it. If you can assure me that this is a fair treatment of Hartista's work, you can count me in for helping out with programming, I'm pretty experienced with Flash and AS3.

[Jealousy1867]

I have a few concerns with this. Can you really justify ripping a swf and using someone's art and animation without their permission to make a game? (I guess that's what you're suggesting, right?). Just because Hartista is gone, does that make it okay to just use his work? And let's say that you decide it is okay, where do you want to go with this? Do you have artists or animators to add new content? And if you do, why not just make your own game with your own content?

These are sincere questions; I'm not saying you would be wrong to do this, I want something to come of this project, I just need a little convincing that it is fair before I get on board with it. If you can assure me that this is a fair treatment of Hartista's work, you can count me in for helping out with programming, I'm pretty experienced with Flash and AS3.

A fair question, and exactly what topic was made for.
Personally, I don't like the thought of stealing someone else's work. However, I also feel that it's irresponsible to accept money for implied work and then not do the work. And I don't think it's okay to do wrong to someone just because you percieve them as having did you wrong.
In my experience, whoever has the most credentials as an artist and/or programmer usually makes the main decisions of what to do (because they have the power to execute that vision). I am a very solid programmer - but not for flash. The writing in this game is not the focus, so my writing credentials are fairly trivial. Therefore, I don't have much pull - which is totally okay I have only a rough idea of what to do.
Basically, I see all of these courses of action as possible:
* Create a game inspired by Breeding Season with completely fresh coding an animation, although similar mechanics. To me, this is most appealing, although will require quite a bit of coordination.
* Decompile Hartista's code and continuing Breeding Season in the same spirit he began. The art could be a big issue, if not the whole plagiarism thing.
* Shrug our collective shoulders and walk away. Breeding Season had a good run, and maybe Hartista will come back. Easy but unsatisfying.
Of course, we could all just end up announcing our various talents and end up pairing off into little development teams producing original content or whatever. Also, someone could very well come up with a cool idea I never though of.

[obsidian56]

Well I hope you do a really good job. I wish there was something I could offer skill wise. I guess I'll just have to put my poms poms on and cheer you guys on. This game was soo awesome, I put so many hours into playing this game, and still continue to play. Games like this spark good creative juices. I understand you guys have basically copy this artwork inorder to get the game back up running but can you atleast make sure to keep hartista as the original or main creator even though you'll be adding your own stuff as well. I really dont think he abandoned the project, I believe something really bad happened at home that he just couldnt overcome and I also believe he'll come back it just might be a lot longer than expected.

IrrelevantComment, I hope you join the project, The best thing I can tell you is just make sure hartista gets a lot of credit. I dont think he would be too upset as long as you dont put his artwork as your own.
You sound like you have a lot to contribute and I hope you do. i'm glad your concerned over his artwork and it shows you really care, but the best we can do is just make sure hartista gets A LOT of credit and hope he comes back sometime soon. I believe we're not really stealing his work but just trying to finish where he left off. I hope this was enough to convince you.

As for anything I can offer, I did have a lot of money saved up for hartista and was hoping too donate for a open source feature. If its possible I can try to donate $10 or $20 bucks from time to time and hope to do so. As for programming I'm one of those failing wanna bes, always giving it a shot and always quiting because im just too stupid. I'm sometimes ok at looking at open source stuff and just manipulating it. Theres tons of good tutorials on flash but cs6 isnt free and last time i checked the trail version kinda sucked, its mainly Object oriented programming and seems really easy to learn. Right now now im just learning rpg maker xv ace, ms paint, gimp and trying to make a game very similar this but im just borrowing sprites from other peoples games to make the breeding seem interesting. I wish there was something I can contribute to help out, but I guess ill put my poms poms on and cheer everyone one on.

Also could you guys from time to time let us know how the project is moving along or at least have a blog to keep an eye on it. I hope you guys do a great job and continue hartistas work

[Zeus Kabob]

Personally, I don't like the thought of stealing someone else's work. However, I also feel that it's irresponsible to accept money for implied work and then not do the work. And I don't think it's okay to do wrong to someone just because you percieve them as having did you wrong.
In my experience, whoever has the most credentials as an artist and/or programmer usually makes the main decisions of what to do (because they have the power to execute that vision). I am a very solid programmer - but not for flash. The writing in this game is not the focus, so my writing credentials are fairly trivial. Therefore, I don't have much pull - which is totally okay I have only a rough idea of what to do.
Basically, I see all of these courses of action as possible:
* Create a game inspired by Breeding Season with completely fresh coding an animation, although similar mechanics. To me, this is most appealing, although will require quite a bit of coordination.
* Decompile Hartista's code and continuing Breeding Season in the same spirit he began. The art could be a big issue, if not the whole plagiarism thing.
* Shrug our collective shoulders and walk away. Breeding Season had a good run, and maybe Hartista will come back. Easy but unsatisfying.
Of course, we could all just end up announcing our various talents and end up pairing off into little development teams producing original content or whatever. Also, someone could very well come up with a cool idea I never though of.

I'd like for you to communicate with Hartista before going through on any of these approaches. I wouldn't be surprised if he shared his work with you willingly if he's really done with it. If he doesn't respond and you choose to write your own code, you don't have to limit yourself to his vision, you have a lot more options. Although I enjoyed the Breeding Season game, I think that your skill in programming will lead you to making a more polished game when it comes to basic mechanics such as buying and selling creatures.

If you choose to decompile his code, I'll not be too happy about it. I don't know any flash decompilers, but I'd expect you'd end up with buggy code and a bad starting place.

[IrrelevantComment]

I'd like for you to communicate with Hartista before going through on any of these approaches. I wouldn't be surprised if he shared his work with you willingly if he's really done with it. .

Part of the problem is that Hartista hasn't replied to anyone - he hasn't been on the forum in over a month and some people have said they tried to email him but got no reply.

[Jealousy1867]

I'd like for you to communicate with Hartista before going through on any of these approaches.

We don't have any plan at all yet. That's what we're here to talk about.
Perhaps it would help if I put it up to a vote. But before I do that I'd like to know if anyone has any additional options to the three I came up with in my initial post.
As for communicating with Hartisa... Well, we'd all love to. But that's the entire problem. And the only approach that I see warranting communication with Hartista would be if we utilized any of his actual work - which we aren't doing if we make an game inspired by it, or if we just walk away from it. So really only one approach warrants his approval. And considering that he took people's money and then removed his payment info and vanished; he's not going to get complete sympathy if his abandoned project is stolen. But as I said before: two wrongs don't make a right, so we shouldn't just do whatever we want with his work. But I'm not alone in this discussion, and I want to know what other people think.

If he doesn't respond and you choose to write your own code, you don't have to limit yourself to his vision, you have a lot more options.

I'm interested to see what comes from this.

Although I enjoyed the Breeding Season game, I think that your skill in programming will lead you to making a more polished game when it comes to basic mechanics such as buying and selling creatures.

Actual programming finesse and the know-how to make skillfully balanced mechanics are two different things, but I read you. I have some issue with the logistics in the game, myself. I'd love to know what other people think - but only after we've established a course of action.

So I want to put this to a vote soon, but not yet. First I want to know if there's more things to vote for. So far we have...
1. Make an original game inspired by Breeding Season with fresh art, coding, and a different name.
2. Cannibalize his code and art and continue Breeding Season as best we can to see it finished.
3. Make something completely new - a flash game by committee.
4. Do none of these and be done with it.

Please remember that we shouldn't limit our decisions to what we percieve is available. For example, you might think, "We can't make a new game because we don't have an artist. Due to that, I'll resign myself to saying we should let it be." A artist might show up. We aren't committing to anything yet, just rooting around for ideas.

Thank you to everyone reading this and contributing their input.

[Zeus Kabob]

That's kinda what I was saying though. If Hartista is willing to share his assets or even willing to draw assets for the game once there's shared work on it, then it completely changes the situation.

[BlueLight]

* Create a game inspired by Breeding Season with completely fresh coding an animation, although similar mechanics. To me, this is most appealing, although will require quite a bit of coordination.
* Decompile Hartista's code and continuing Breeding Season in the same spirit he began. The art could be a big issue, if not the whole plagiarism thing.
* Shrug our collective shoulders and walk away. Breeding Season had a good run, and maybe Hartista will come back. Easy but unsatisfying.
Of course, we could all just end up announcing our various talents and end up pairing off into little development teams producing original content or whatever. Also, someone could very well come up with a cool idea I never though of.

I'd like for you to communicate with Hartista before going through on any of these approaches. I wouldn't be surprised if he shared his work with you willingly if he's really done with it. If he doesn't respond and you choose to write your own code, you don't have to limit yourself to his vision, you have a lot more options. Although I enjoyed the Breeding Season game, I think that your skill in programming will lead you to making a more polished game when it comes to basic mechanics such as buying and selling creatures.

If you choose to decompile his code, I'll not be too happy about it. I don't know any flash decompilers, but I'd expect you'd end up with buggy code and a bad starting place.

Look Zeus, in your post you come off bossy for no good reason. Here's the problem, Jealousy stated 3 course of action which involved copying the design of the game; stealing code & resources; & just walking away.

I'm fine with you saying we should check with the author before steal his work; however the problem is that you said that no matter what we do, even if it's do nothing, we must talk to hartista which is stupid. I don't think i need to point out anymore what my problem is.

I'd like for you to communicate with Hartista before going through on any of these approaches.

We don't have any plan at all yet. That's what we're here to talk about.
Perhaps it would help if I put it up to a vote. But before I do that I'd like to know if anyone has any additional options to the three I came up with in my initial post.
As for communicating with Hartisa... Well, we'd all love to. But that's the entire problem. And the only approach that I see warranting communication with Hartista would be if we utilized any of his actual work - which we aren't doing if we make an game inspired by it, or if we just walk away from it. So really only one approach warrants his approval. And considering that he took people's money and then removed his payment info and vanished; he's not going to get complete sympathy if his abandoned project is stolen. But as I said before: two wrongs don't make a right, so we shouldn't just do whatever we want with his work. But I'm not alone in this discussion, and I want to know what other people think.

I would however like to point out that he did take your money and run thus ethically you could consider him an animal which would allow you to commit an animal like action on him without being a animal yourself. -_- not say you should do it, just that you could do it ethically.

So I want to put this to a vote soon, but not yet. First I want to know if there's more things to vote for. So far we have...
1. Make an original game inspired by Breeding Season with fresh art, coding, and a different name.
2. Cannibalize his code and art and continue Breeding Season as best we can to see it finished.
3. Make something completely new - a flash game by committee.
4. Do none of these and be done with it.

Please remember that we shouldn't limit our decisions to what we percieve is available. For example, you might think, "We can't make a new game because we don't have an artist. Due to that, I'll resign myself to saying we should let it be." A artist might show up. We aren't committing to anything yet, just rooting around for ideas.

Thank you to everyone reading this and contributing their input.

1 or 3 but i would rather have 1. as for the artist commit... we don't need em! We can just use what models were made since the dawn of time on this forum specifically for this reason.

[Sythis_Sythes]

Option 1 is exactly what i was trying to say in my first post. The sheer simplicity and yet sophisticated nature of flash can allow us to create whatever we want, so i say it'd be quite simple to make this game a very expanded idea upon a breeding simulator. I mean, really, you could take it one step further if you're that good at coding and make a disgaea hentai game(especially since laharal just went female, lmao.), or even make a rune factory game inspired by it. That's obviously looking at original ideas and trying to use them for hentai, but i'm just taking about the basic ideas for each game. But like i said, i'm more of an idea guy. I just bought a new Wacom tablet (one of the small ones cause i don't earn much) in hopes of trying to get better at art and maybe releasing my own game someday.

[Oneko]

I'd say to "cannibalize" code and art. I'll try to play devil's advocate here.
I can't say nothing if the developer has made a game entirely for free, nor if he had put up a donation drive and he's really working to sastify his funders, nor if he's having some problems but at least he notify his followers. Yet the developer not had the time to write a 3-row comments informing everyone that he's not working on the game but he's still interested on continuing it (or at least he is kinda at a dead point now, but at least knowing he's still alive), but he surely had the time to make the donation page disappear.
Hartista (time ago) said that, even if the donation feature was blocked because of the many features corrently under developing, you could have retracted the money at any time, in case you felt down to donating at any time. Yet, i think around... 2 weeks ago? The donation page was already blank, and no explanation was left from it.
The developer growed tired of making the game, but instead of admitting the abadonment of the game to everyone (as well as refunding the donation money) he just ran out with it.
That's my version, if he had caught in some sort of accident (like, other family stuff, or been cut-out from the internet due to its ISP/router, or for whatever reason he couldn't touch the PC) then not only no news or comments were spotted from him, but the donation page could also be left there as is. (He) Not being interested anymore in his game, why not taking what has made?

Maybe i may look a little harsh, but nobody considered this: will the new group/collab accept money or not? We don't necessarily need artists working at this for a relevant amount of time, so even small work from everyone can help make a big piece.
If no donation is accepted, wouldn't that count as "share the work but credit the original author and do not gain profit from it"? I see nothing bad here, considering that the whole donation stuff is closed, the only thing we can "steal and walk away" with is, code and graphics, but if we cite him for his work then we won't technically "steal" right?
I personally hope for the new group to be large in number as possible, counting the whole mess of the missing animations. Or at least, under my viewpoint, having a large group of OC animations (or even new monsters) can be a great way to relaunch the game, as well as attracting more people to play it (or even developing for it). Plot and game mechanics are great, but can be left as is, there are few critical freatures to fix off. These are my observations in a (very) resticted way, but i don't want to make unnecessary long WoTs and eventually go offtopic.
You can use decompilers to also take away at least the graphic, they not always work very well (sometimes they split the body to multiple istances like head/eyes/legs/arms etc), but you can rig them back, if you are good at using flash CS. This is useful if you aren't a good artist, having some knowledge in flash you can help with the project anyway.
You can also extract code and scrips but i haven't tested it personally.

Instead, making a new game from scratch would be also great (make stuff from anew istead of fixing broken stuff) but that also means getting new animations. I hope it won't (only) use the recycled sprites used in decades projects involving Krystal (Thus making Breeding Krystal: the game ) and no OCs or stuff from other projects. But i think this is the best path if you want to follow the "clean" way, and who knows, it might eventually be a great game.
Just... we should also discuss to whoever coordinate whatever the decompiled (or the new) project, and PLEASE, don't put someone to the lead that is like (i like monster/fetish X but i dislike monster/fetish Y, so won't put that in the game). The more stuff the better.

[VintageBass]

Hello. I really haven't been following this game much so I know little about its production history, but I know that as of lately the creator isn't doing much and now the original thread is lock. And now here's something new that has the fans of the game wanting to do their own take of it. I, for one, want to be a part of this!

If there's anything I can contribute to the game, I could use my writing skills. Sure it's not the real focus of the game, but when you have characters speaking, events and various descriptions for monsters and items, it'll still be handy to have. Even with the story at is barest of bones, you still have these characters and the wonderful thing you can make them say, which could help build the world better. And even if you were to carry some things over from the game, it'll still be useful to have someone to write some new things to improve on the quality of it or put their own twist to the matter.

Heck if there's anything else I want to do, I want to see something done about the interface. I get that it was in its early stages and some of it isn't going to look good, but I really dislike how it look in terms with the menus look. Plus I kinda dislike how the recent breeding choices went, as I was getting a little upset over trying to get the right monster to breed. I guess those will be fix, along with maybe the debt problem of having that go skyrocketing and maybe fix some of the random possibilities of the client cards so that, if you're someone like me, aren't slaving away trying to figure out the best way to earn money while meeting the demands of those picky clients.

I dunno, maybe I suck at the game.

I really do like the game and I do hate that it's not going anywhere at the moment, but I am happy to see other excited about it and want to do something. If there's a chance I could help, I'l be glad to offer my services to improve on such a good game!

[Jealousy1867]

It seems that we have a general consensus so far. However, I would like to wait at least until the 14th to give more people time to find this thread and voice their ideas.

[Zeus Kabob]

Look Zeus, in your post you come off bossy for no good reason. Here's the problem, Jealousy stated 3 course of action which involved copying the design of the game; stealing code & resources; & just walking away.

I'm fine with you saying we should check with the author before steal his work; however the problem is that you said that no matter what we do, even if it's do nothing, we must talk to hartista which is stupid. I don't think i need to point out anymore what my problem is.

I'm not trying to boss anyone around. In my opinion, Jealousy only has the ability to benefit from contacting Hartista (assuming Hartista is reasonable and Jealousy sends a polite message, both of which I find likely).

As for communicating with Hartisa... Well, we'd all love to. But that's the entire problem. And the only approach that I see warranting communication with Hartista would be if we utilized any of his actual work - which we aren't doing if we make an game inspired by it, or if we just walk away from it. So really only one approach warrants his approval. And considering that he took people's money and then removed his payment info and vanished; he's not going to get complete sympathy if his abandoned project is stolen. But as I said before: two wrongs don't make a right, so we shouldn't just do whatever we want with his work. But I'm not alone in this discussion, and I want to know what other people think.

I would however like to point out that he did take your money and run thus ethically you could consider him an animal which would allow you to commit an animal like action on him without being a animal yourself. -_- not say you should do it, just that you could do it ethically.

No, stealing from someone who stole from you isn't ethical.

[Oneko]

I'm not trying to boss anyone around. In my opinion, Jealousy only has the ability to benefit from contacting Hartista (assuming Hartista is reasonable and Jealousy sends a polite message, both of which I find likely).

Jealousy had started this thread on this forum, but on Hartista blog is just a random anon dwelling there hoping for updates, just as me and everyone else. He isn't related in any way with him.
The only way Hartsta communicated with his fans (or to be more accurate, to everyone) is his blog, nothing more. Even when some people wanted to help him with the game (and left their email addresses as well) Hartista haven't contacted them, not even to decline the help.
Now, i don't see how a random anon can enter in contact with someone not prone to talking with PMs, and ran away with everything, without noticing anyone. It's true that it won't hurt trying and talk to him, just don't expect to get a reply from Hartista beyond this point.

No, stealing from someone who stole from you isn't ethical.

I haven't thought on this, but what about making a new game from scratch but including his previous animations as monsters already? Based on this, only the persons that includes Hartista's animations will have their hands "dirty", and even if, least possible event to happen, Hartista comes back and reclaim his graphics, we can just remove them from the game instead of screwing up the entire project.

[VintageBass]

So from what I'm getting, it sounds like if this were to get anywhere, it's more likely to go with either Options 1 or 3 just to prevent anything ugly if Hartista comes back and say something. I'm all for Option 1, as I see this being one of the more valuable ways of going about this. Sure Option 3 is good in that creating something entirely new made by the community is great, but Option 1 seems the better option to go. Plus I have no idea about coding so I have no idea about what to do with Option 2, so I can't help you there. For those who do understand it might want to check it out and see what's there, so maybe you can peek around and see what does what and maybe improve on it. It'll certainly help in maybe fixing some of the random chances the game offered.

*shrugs* I dunno, just trying to help out, that's all. I don't have any problems saying we shouldn't discredit Hartista as maybe original concept, but if it comes to using his art and code... that I'm not entirely sure of. It'll probably be better to start off fresh and build up from there.

I feel like I should talk about my ideas, but there's the matter of figuring out what to do with the game first before we can discuss add new material.

[Zeus Kabob]

No, stealing from someone who stole from you isn't ethical.

I haven't thought on this, but what about making a new game from scratch but including his previous animations as monsters already? Based on this, only the persons that includes Hartista's animations will have their hands "dirty", and even if, least possible event to happen, Hartista comes back and reclaim his graphics, we can just remove them from the game instead of screwing up the entire project.

Yeah, this seems like a good choice. Honestly I'd side with you guys if Hartista tried to get you to take down your game because of something like that.

[weenog]

I think we could use this as an opportunity to improve on some of the games design flaws. I think it's kind of a weird mechanic that monsters affect their partners stats when mating. Does it really make sense that a monster would become wiser or more charismatic just by sleeping with another monster? Also the breeding menu is cumbersome and could be improved significantly.
I think the game would also benefit from more events that you could get money or items or monsters from. For instance a monthly fair where you could showcase a monster and win cash or a license to raise a new kind of monster. A dickwolf fighting ring you could bet on would be interesting to see.
Another mechanic that might be interesting would be a way to build a family that could help you with the monsters. You could assign tasks to each member of your family to get things done.
Anyway, I guess my point is we might be better off starting something new inspired by this game, and not limit ourselves to just trying to complete Harista's game.