zum Damenhaus (new public release 3.8.1!) (11/03/19)

[sogekik]

a fast forward for the day might be useful, and a re-assign/unassign option would be useful, currently you can only do this closing and reopening the game, and this can actually be fairly useful, given that if you assign the wrong worker to the wrong room it can make things difficult

[WonderGamer]

General question, but I was going to ask if the name of this game was German, seeing as the spelling of the second word in the title made it appear that way. I ran it through a translator & determined that at least the first word ("zum") was, translated to "for", but the question at this point is is there an English translation for ”Damenhaus". Not that it really matters, just curiosity killing the cat (and maybe some brain cells along with it).

Ah, the first one who asks this question. When I think about it I should probably post an explanation and a translation on my blog. But for now I will answer your question here:
The english equivalent for the word "dame" would be "lady". Add the "n" and you have the plural of it: "damen".
If I think today of a "Dame" it would look something like this (quite old fashioned, even that the word is still in german use.):

1910 Dame.jpg

Ah. Well the terms of "dame(s)" I was aware of, although the combination of words threw me off, so I had no way of guessing it. "Dame" is an older term, however "damsels" is more common nowadays, particularly when use in conjunction with "in distress" (if you play videos games or watch movies, you're bound to hear this term a number of times in your lifetime). As for the rest of the explanation:

The last part "haus" simply translates to "house".
So you could say it's a house full of ladys.
I checked the phrase, but this combination of words isn't in use for anything special. That means the game can be found quick in the internet.

The first part "zum" could be indeed "for" as in "zum Beispiel", which means "for example".
But in this context it's an idicator for an inn.

Thanks for the detailed explanation.

Now this picture makes sense,right?:

To some degree, although there's some complication to it; I'm not going to question it beyond what's already been said however, I think I have enough detail. If what you say is true about "zum" translating to "Inn" in this case, then it seems that German has similar grammar standards to Japanese, where words can be reversed in written format as opposed to how it may be said verbally. Sure I don't understand a lot of what is said in Japanese, but when I've watched subtitled Japanese anime, one thing that stands out is words that I have come to recognize, along with actual names seem to have differences between visual text & verbal communication when translated to English.

[random Crow]

a fast forward for the day might be useful, and a re-assign/unassign option would be useful, currently you can only do this closing and reopening the game, and this can actually be fairly useful, given that if you assign the wrong worker to the wrong room it can make things difficult

A fast forward button is on the way. The assign thingy will soon get a small overhaul.

To some degree, although there's some complication to it; I'm not going to question it beyond what's already been said however, I think I have enough detail. If what you say is true about "zum" translating to "Inn" in this case, then it seems that German has similar grammar standards to Japanese, where words can be reversed in written format as opposed to how it may be said verbally. Sure I don't understand a lot of what is said in Japanese, but when I've watched subtitled Japanese anime, one thing that stands out is words that I have come to recognize, along with actual names seem to have differences between visual text & verbal communication when translated to English.

Well, it's not litterally translated to "inn". That would then be "Gasthaus". :p
It's actually somekind of wordplay where a location plays a role.
If someone asks you where do you go and you say:
"I go to the train station."
In german:
"Ich gehe zum Bahnhof."
But the train station isn't actually a train station, but more of a bar with that name for example. I hope you get the idea

As a side note: "zum" is just a short way to say "zu dem". Simple example like above:"to the".

[WonderGamer]

I noticed for the first time yesterday that when you have an additional girl working in the bar that carrying around drinks on a tray isn't the only thing she does. I was surprised to see her giving one of the guys a handjob while wiping the table. Normally I wouldn't see this because I'm zoomed in on whatever room I assigned a customer to last, but normally I start in the bar if I have anybody working up there, so this was a big shocker & somewhat amusing when I first noticed it (I actually did laugh out loud when I saw it).

[random Crow]

I noticed for the first time yesterday that when you have an additional girl working in the bar that carrying around drinks on a tray isn't the only thing she does. I was surprised to see her giving one of the guys a handjob while wiping the table. Normally I wouldn't see this because I'm zoomed in on whatever room I assigned a customer to last, but normally I start in the bar if I have anybody working up there, so this was a big shocker & somewhat amusing when I first noticed it (I actually did laugh out loud when I saw it).

That's what I call service, right? Plantgirls have a similar animation. They also try to hide it somewhat, but fail miserably.

[Hannemann117]

Been following your blog a bit, really looking forwards to the next update.

[random Crow]

Been following your blog a bit, really looking forwards to the next update.

Well then, wait no longer! New version is out!

Thanks for your support, friend.

[iwbtg9544]

Wow! Very fun new update,not gonna lie.I spent probably an hour or two playing it.
I love Cassandra's animations,Now all we need is a VIP plantgirl.

[looloolala35353]

Very impressive update. The fast forward feature really helps to let users control the pace of the game.

[aephrosi]

Heya, great work here! The concept and systems are solid and the animations are . . .motivating

Two big things are kind of killing the experience for me though:

The scrolling around the environments is brutally bad. It's clunky and really doesn't seem like it should be necessary. There's so much wasted space. Each pixel is valuable. There's way too many rooms at the start that are just taking up precious little screen space and they're too big. It's confusing and overwhelming. The characters get lost in them. I'd love to see the following:
-Start out with like 4 rooms in each place. Additions can be built later.
-The rooms could be like half the width they are now.
-Less wasted space on stairs and elevators.
-3 Zoom levels: 1 room, 4 rooms, all rooms. All rooms would be variable as additions are built.
-1 click zoom into a single room.
-Character outlines. Most lines are like 1 pixel, make character outlines like 3 pixels so they stand out more and are easier to find in the overview.

The girls proportions are waaaay off. Amanda is decent, but Madeline looks like she has some kind of hunchback/scoliosis. Also the girls at the slave market all have the same body, and it's not a good one. I totally get that adding variance takes time and is probably on your list of things to do already, but I would suggest finding some good source images and just trace them to get the proportions right. Being a solo dev is hard. There's too much to learn and too many skills to master. You gotta find ways to produce things efficiently. In the end, no one is really going to know the difference anyway.

Here are some kind of stream of concious notes that I took, if you're interested:

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

Just starting out, having to hunt for the different options on the title screen is a bit of a hang up.

Madeline looks pretty rough. Amanda is decent.

Having so many floors right at the start is a little overwhelming.

Clicking on the '-' to zoom out immediately goes back into the dialog, so you don't really get to look around.

It's not obvious that you can scroll around either, so that was a bit of a hang up.

It can be hard to locate people as they kind of blend in with the environment.

Travel to Town hit box is only a very small part of the icon in the pie menu.

Clicking on Visit Town gives no indication that anything has happened.

"Maybe I should go visit the brothel" but then to put her in a room I have to go back to the house? So did she visit it or didn't she?

"Buy a room on the first floor" Is that the bottom floor or the top floor? I went with the top.

Again, all the scrolling around doesn't make it clear that the guy is walking in immediately. I click "Start day" then have to scroll all over the place to see what is happening.

It's interesting, the art style is kind of rough, but the animations are quite good.

Looking at the Slave trading thing. The proportions of these chicks is bad.

Seriously, there's soooo much wasted space on the screen. So much. This scrolling around is killing me. I can't have the mouse leave the game window without scroll way off to the side.

Also, here's a little paintover:

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

It's off to a fantastic start though! Keep up the good work.

[random Crow]

So much stuff to do...

Thanks for the review aephrosi.
I'll take a look at those issues. It will take some time though, since as always, I'm occupied with something else first.

[aephrosi]

This popped into my head so I drew it up:

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

zumDamenhaus2.png (37.56 KiB) Viewed 2658 times

Each magnifying glass is a button. The green one is a full view of everything, the red ones zoom into the four rooms around them and the blue ones zoom into their respective rooms.

Just an idea. Feel free to do with it as you like.

[Dongman]

I think this game will be absolutely amazing one finished.

[random Crow]

I think this game will be absolutely amazing one finished.

I'll give my best!

Btw... new public version available!

[dingofiz]

Is there a way to get rid of your old saves that I missed? I kinda messed some things up and want to start over.

[random Crow]

Is there a way to get rid of your old saves that I missed? I kinda messed some things up and want to start over.

At the start screen click the trash cans cap to erase all data.

[RunningAroundInCircles]

Is there a way to get rid of your old saves that I missed? I kinda messed some things up and want to start over.

At the start screen click the trash cans cap to erase all data.

You should probably make that a little bit more transparent. I too took a while before I found it. Maybe a sign to show it's a trash can?

[random Crow]

I'll highlight a few things at the start screen, so it's easier to find.

[random Crow]

New version out, gals and guys! Have fun!

[Justapuppet]

Still just playing the public version, but wanted to point out I've been noticing a bug where one or more wolves can be lost by exiting and loading the game. Apparently in some circumstances, if you load the game after exiting, you can go from having 2 wolves back to only having 1 (possibly only when they were being used previously). I've had this happen at least twice in my current run through the game.

EDIT: maybe it's because the game can now remember which room the wolf/slave were assigned to (so you don't have to re-assign them every day), but only the slave is sent back to the mansion upon loading the game again?

EDIT 2: also, the game doesn't seem to consider all types of rooms when deciding whether you can assign a slave to a room in the brothel. If you try to assign a slave to the animal show room, in particular, when all the other rooms are full, it won't let you do so unless you empty out one of the other rooms first, too.