A Perfect Ten - Cancelled

[Exer]

Okay, just wanted to make sure everyone knows what they're voting for.

Just 3 more days left in the DC Heroines poll, and 3 days until v0.3 is released to the public!

[musical74]

Go Zatanna fans go!

I'm a little surprised at the breakdown, honestly. I figured Wonder Woman would be more popular, and that Batgirl would be more popular than Supergirl. I know it's just costumes but I think the Batgirl costume would be more popular than the Supergirl costume. *shrug* That being said, happy Zatanna costume is doing as well as it is!

[Exer]

Version 0.3 is finally here! A lot has been updated and added in this version! Take a look below to check out the things changed and added in 0.3.

- Various Bug and Text Fixes

- Increased text scroll speed

- The first costume poll winner "It's A Secret" costume added with 1 scene

- "Rocket Skirt" costume added with 1 scene

- "Ghost Mom" costume added with 1 scene

- Added 2nd scene for "Classy Dress" costume

- Movie Date added

- 3rd scene added for Angela (has to be unlocked before you can do it whenever)

- Added a "Stats" button on the main map, so you can access your stats without having to go back to your apartment.

I'll be slowing down development a bit between 0.3 and 0.4. I've currently been working on it like a part-time job, at around 20-30 hours a week. Having to work full-time on top of that, and do commissions, is killing me. Since this project is getting the least amount of support, I'll be slowing down a bit. I'm definitely not going to be stopping, but I'll be working maybe 2-4 hours a week on it. If the game starts to get some support, I will ramp up the amount of time spent making the game though. In the meantime, I'll just be working on it in my free time. I hope everyone likes v0.3!

You can get the latest public build from my Patreon!
Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/exerart


Also, the results of the poll are in, and the winner of the DC Heroine Costume poll is...!

Zatanna!

And in second place we have Supergirl. So, Supergirl will be getting thrown into the runner up pool.

I'm honestly pretty surprised that Zatanna won. I thought for sure it would be one of the others. I'm definitely not complaining though. I've always been a big fan of Zatanna's design.

The next poll theme will be "Be My Valentine". With development slowing, I don't have an ETA on when the poll will go up though. It will start once 0.4 is almost done.

[Exer]

Just wanted to give a quick update, to let people know I'm still working. Like I said when I released 0.3, I'd be slowing down unless the game started to get more support. By support, I don't just mean on Patreon, I also mean comments and feedback. While it'd be nice to get some patreon supporters, I'm making the game for people to play. As long as I know people are playing it, I'll put more effort into making it.

On to the update! I've done a bit of bug fixing, and have one more scene done for the "It's A Secret" costume. Been mainly trying to help the game flow a bit smoother.

[kvier]

I've been playing! I don't have anything particularly useful to say.

The big problem I have right now is that stats are really grindy right now, and there's little transparency on what's worth doing.

Also, (forgive me for looking under the hood) I found a bug where it tested how much love she had for you with == instead of >=

[Exer]

I've been playing! I don't have anything particularly useful to say.

The big problem I have right now is that stats are really grindy right now, and there's little transparency on what's worth doing.

Also, (forgive me for looking under the hood) I found a bug where it tested how much love she had for you with == instead of >=

I can understand that. It's something I'm definitely working on balancing out. Here's a little more info about the stats for now though. Hopefully it helps.
The personal stats are just for making money and finding new shops. I tried to make it a little more vague, but with pretty solid hints about exactly which stat to increase at least, because I thought just saying what's needed outright would make the game a little too boring. If people don't like it, and would rather know the exact values, by all means, every please let me know!
I will say that each job needs different amounts to get to the higher paying ones, but there's only one stat linked to each one. You can technically just stick with one stat and do that one job, like doing STR to get promotions in the construction job. However, the jobs cap at different amounts, and I tried my best to make it fairly proportional to the amount of work needed. With Construction being the easiest to get the best job with the lowest money cap, and the office work being the hardest to get the best job but has the highest money cap. However, you'll need other stats in order to access different stores.
And when it comes to stores, the most important one is CFD. Almost all of the stores need just a high level of CFD, but some of them do require other stats.

The overall idea is to make all of the stats needed to invest in, so that it doesn't turn into a lot of those older dating sims where you literally just mash one stat and then break the game.

No worries. Actually, thanks! Can you tell me which part it is where it's == instead of >=? I'll see if I can find it, but it will be much easier than just looking through the whole thing and hoping to find it. x_x

Edit: I took a look, and couldn't find anything that's == instead of >=. There are certain things that have to be exact to trigger correctly, otherwise it's a mess.

[kvier]

If people don't like it, and would rather know the exact values, by all means, every please let me know!

I don't think knowing the exact values would make it better, but it would be nice to have a little more transparency about whether any given threshold is nearer (do it a few times, supposed to happen next) or further (you "should" do other things first).

Maybe the actual complaint I have is it's something like "Oh, my CFD is too low? Ok, go talk to the too-drunk-to-stand woman repeatedly until we're better", and that's ... boring? There's no variation in text or click pattern and not even any difficulty. I'm not certain how to fix this; gating things to make it not just a slideshow is clearly necessary to have it actually be game-like ...

No worries. Actually, thanks! Can you tell me which part it is where it's == instead of >=? I'll see if I can find it, but it will be much easier than just looking through the whole thing and hoping to find it. x_x

Edit: I took a look, and couldn't find anything that's == instead of >=. There are certain things that have to be exact to trigger correctly, otherwise it's a mess.

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

AngelaApartment.ks:260:[jump storage="AngelaApartment.ks" target="*GoOnDate" cond="f.Love==50" ]

I only have the public release 0.2, so you may have fixed it since.

[Exer]

If people don't like it, and would rather know the exact values, by all means, every please let me know!

I don't think knowing the exact values would make it better, but it would be nice to have a little more transparency about whether any given threshold is nearer (do it a few times, supposed to happen next) or further (you "should" do other things first).

Maybe the actual complaint I have is it's something like "Oh, my CFD is too low? Ok, go talk to the too-drunk-to-stand woman repeatedly until we're better", and that's ... boring? There's no variation in text or click pattern and not even any difficulty. I'm not certain how to fix this; gating things to make it not just a slideshow is clearly necessary to have it actually be game-like ...

No worries. Actually, thanks! Can you tell me which part it is where it's == instead of >=? I'll see if I can find it, but it will be much easier than just looking through the whole thing and hoping to find it. x_x

Edit: I took a look, and couldn't find anything that's == instead of >=. There are certain things that have to be exact to trigger correctly, otherwise it's a mess.

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

AngelaApartment.ks:260:[jump storage="AngelaApartment.ks" target="*GoOnDate" cond="f.Love==50" ]

I only have the public release 0.2, so you may have fixed it since.

That makes sense. There are plans to add a little more depth to the stat progression. I wanted to add in some more scenes first though. I didn't want to have people play a game, and then get nothing for it. I wanted to put in a decent amount of scenes and costumes before going back and fleshing things out a bit. With this style of game, it's generally just, "click, hold skip, click, repeat" to increase stats anyway, so I put improving it pretty low on the list, as I didn't think most people would even notice if the dialogue was different.
I was planning on adding in different dialogue options to each stat building area, and I can definitely put in different variations based on specific values, so I can definitely give a different dialogue to show you're getting closer to a threshold. I'm still really limited on my programming knowledge though, which is why I'm using Tyrano Builder. If I knew how, I'd make it a randomized pool of dialogue options. I just haven't figured out how yet.

Anyway, originally the list of priorities was make all of Angela's scenes/story, put in 15 total costumes with all 5 scenes, then improve stats. I'll definitely be making improving the stat gaining areas a much higher priority now though. I'll at least put in dialogues that show you're close to the threshold for the work area and stat gaining areas in the next version.

Oh wow, I definitely didn't notice that. x_x
I will fix it and upload the fixed version tomorrow as 0.3.1.

Thanks a ton for the feedback! I really appreciate it, and thanks a ton for pointing out that bug!

[Exer]

After a lot of thought, and a lot of fighting with Tyrano Builder, I've decided to stop working on A Perfect Ten. The most notable reason being that I can't get Tyrano Builder to do what I want it to do. To do a lot of things I want (like randomized dialogue, stat gains, and characters), I have to code it in the old fashioned way, and I simply don't know how, and don't have the time to learn an entire programming language. That's why I was using Tyrano Builder in the first place.

The other big reason is because my ideas don't seem to be meshing well with what people want. I don't want to make a stereotypical dating sim style game, but none of the ideas I tried out in this game haven't been well received. And when I went back and played the game, I realized that the complaints I've been getting are very valid. It's very grindy, there's no direction telling you what you're supposed to be doing or why, and not knowing what stats to upgrade or what they need to be at to unlock something is kind of frustrating.

In addition to these two big things, there hasn't been very much interest in the game, I don't like the way a lot of the art is turning out, and there's already a game based on the DCAU style that's significantly better than this.

I thought about starting over in a new engine, but that wouldn't solve all of these issues. So, I decided that it would be best to scrap the game, and move on to a different project.

Instead, I'm going to be doing what I feel I'm good at, making an RPG, and doing 3DCG instead of 2D. The last game I made with RPG Maker was pretty popular, and with things like XPS and SFM, it's pretty quick and easy to make 3DCG. Using an engine I know how to use, making a game type I'm familiar with, and using 3DCG will really help ease of development and make for a much funner game. I've already got most of the pre-planning done and am going to be starting actual development soon. I'm going to hold off on releasing it until there's a good chunk of content in the game though. I want to include the first dungeon and a good chunk of scenes before release. I'm going for at least 1-2 hours of gameplay in the initial version. So, it may be a while.

Thanks to everyone who voted in the polls, and tried out the game! Now it's on to (hopefully) better things!

[kvier]

Sorry to hear that, but best of luck to you in your future plans!